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Thank you to everyone who came out to support our chinook salmon release on Tuesday 5/21!

We had to overcome some pretty challenging conditions, but all 120,000 of the salmon were released to Monterey Bay. While some of these fish will succumb to predators, marine habitat conditions, and release stress, the release of 120,000 will help ensure a substantial improvement to the number of fish available to local fisheries. This program is all about the fish that do make it.

MBSTP will be actively working to better develop our release method from Santa Cruz harbor. We learned a lot on Wednesday, and look forward to improving in future years to provide the greatest possible benefit to local sport and commercial salmon fisheries.

Many thanks to the Santa Cruz Harbor District, Harbor Patrol, CA Commercial Salmon Stamp Fund, and California Dept. of Fish & Wildlife, as well as the active MBSTP membership and volunteers who all helped to make this release possible.

Not your average net pen– these releases are not like the net pens you may have heard about! Commercial aquaculture net pens are fundamentally different from our release method. Since our fish are held for only a very short (<24 hour) period before being released, they do not have the same negative impact on the environment as for-profit commercial aquaculture. Coastal salmon releases help increase the survival of these fish, and meaningfully contribute to harvest in local sport and commercial fisheries.