The Lake Ozette sockeye have been a species that are “going
out of business;” less and less spawn each year and it’s a scare to fish lovers.
This stock of sockeye has been listed as endangered for some time and a lot of
effort has gone into developing a recovery plan for this stock. The sockeye in
the Quillayute watershed remain strong and are not currently listed as
threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Adults of this
stock return to Ozette Lake in the late spring and early summer months
predominantly as four-year-old individuals. However, three- or five-year-old
adult fish are occasionally observed in the return. The most recent age
composition analyses revealed that 80 of 81 adult sockeye in 1994 were
four-year-olds (one was a five-year-old), and 71 of 71 (100%) in 1998 were
four-year-old fish.
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