Hatchery

The Puyallup Tribe’s restoration goal is to rebuild depressed Chinook and steelhead stocks and remove them from ESA listing by limiting harvest, using acclimation ponds, and making substantial gains in habitat restoration.

Diru Creek Salmon Hatchery

Diru Creek Hatchery is located on Diru Creek (Rainbow Springs), a tributary to Clarks Creek in Puyallup.

The Puyallup Tribe currently raises 2.3 million chum smolts for release into the lower Puyallup River. This program significantly augments a Tribal river fishery and All Citizen purse seine fishery in East and West Pass in Puget Sound.

In 2006, the Puyallup Tribe, in partnership with WDFW and the Muckleshoot Tribe, began artificially propagating White River winter steelhead. Steelhead brood-stock (approximately 10 males and 10 females) are collected from the White River USACE fish trap in Buckley and are held, spawned, incubated, and reared at the Puyallup Tribe’s Diru Creek hatchery for a year.

Clarks Creek Salmon Hatchery

Clarks Creek is an urban tributary flowing into the lower Puyallup River, entering the Puyallup at RM 5.8. In 2004, the Puyallup Tribal Fisheries Department began acclimating and releasing Fall Chinook from its Clarks Creek facility, thereby discontinuing all Chinook releases from the Diru Creek Hatchery. The incubation building at Clarks Creek Salmon Hatchery houses 32 incubator stack capable of holding up to 77,000 Chinook eggs, for a total capacity of approximately 2.5 million eggs. Additionally, we rear 100,000 Coho for the Lake Kapowsin Net-Pen Program.

Wilkeson Creek Salmon Hatchery

Wilkeson Creek Salmon Hatchery is a Puyallup Tribe of Indians facility located at RM 2 on Wilkeson Creek (10.0432), a tributary to South Prairie Creek. In its current operating state, the hatchery is utilized solely as a salmon rearing and acclimation site; however, future development may include the addition of spawning and egg incubation structures.

Acclimation Ponds

Acclimation ponds, juvenile in-stream plants and adult surplus fish plants are a proven method for increasing fish stocks, and are a key components to restoration goals.

The Puyallup Tribe operates several acclimation ponds in the Puyallup/White River Watershed. Two of the acclimation ponds (Cowskull & Rushing-water) are used for reestablishing Spring/Fall Chinook and Coho into a 30-mile reach in the Upper Puyallup River above Electron Dam. Each of two acclimation ponds on the Puyallup would receive as many as 100K+ hatchery origin Spring or Fall Chinook and/or Coho. The other acclimation ponds are located in the Upper White River drainage. These ponds are used for rearing 800,000 juveniles and reestablishing White River Spring Chinook back into their endemic range.

Puyallup Tribe’s Clarks Creek Salmon Hatchery

Diru Creek Salmon Hatchery