75,000 young salmon die in truck transit

Associated Press
May 21, 2008. REDDING – About 75,000 young chinook salmon died while being hauled in tanker trucks from a federal fish hatchery in Anderson to San Pablo Bay near Vallejo.

The hatchery's manager suspects a problem with the oxygen level killed about 40 percent of the 180,000 fish in the tankers.

Monday's delivery was the first of 18 planned in the next several weeks as part of an effort to revive the state's salmon population, which has suffered a severe decline in recent years.

Officials hope more salmon will survive by being trucked to the ocean instead of trying to navigate the Delta, where they must survive the state's water pumps.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Alexandra Pitts said scientists plan to perform necropsies on some of the chinook salmon smolts to determine the cause of death.