Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

Several rivers near Haines, including the Chilkoot, an important subsistence area for Tlingit residents, saw abysmal eulachon runs last year, according to recently analyzed Chilkoot Indian Association (CIA) data.

But the fish didn’t disappear; instead many of them ran up the Chilkat River, environmental DNA (eDNA) samples show.

The results of CIA’s data analysis align with observations by local fishermen during the run last spring, when eulachon, also known as hooligan, were nonexistent on the Chilkoot but reported in larger-than-normal numbers on the Chilkat.

The eDNA data “definitely confirms that last year was a very low year on all the rivers except for the Chilkat,” said CIA field technician Meredith Pochardt. There weren’t enough fish on the Chilkoot to do a mark-and-recapture study that would have been the basis for estimates. The eDNA samples simply give a general sense of prevalence but can’t be used to formulate a precise estimate of last year’s run, Pochardt said.

“Regionwide, if you saw no return, I would be very concerned, but considering we did see a sizable return on the Chilkat, I feel confident that” a large proportion of the genetic population is still spawning, Pochardt said.

Eulachon are sensitive to environmental changes and are opportunistic, not tied to a specific river like salmon. They likely chose the high-volume Chilkat because water levels in the other rivers were low, Pochardt said, adding that a lot of factors, including human activity, influence where the fish run.

Lifelong subsistence fisherman Tim Ackerman said locals used to dipnet extensively along the Chilkat but that human activity, like construction of the airport, changed the river and pushed the eulachon run to the opposite bank, which is hard to access without a boat.

Ackerman said he usually harvests enough to fill two large ice chests that he drives up to the Yukon to share at potlatches, but due to the poor run on the Chilkoot last year he said he caught significantly fewer fish than usual.

“They just didn’t hit really hard,” he said, adding that the Chilkoot’s clear water and relatively low volume makes the fish easier to see and catch than in the Chilkat. “This spring should hopefully see a little bit deeper water in the Chilkoot,” he said.

Another lifelong eulachon fisherman, Sonny Williams, said he expects the run to be bigger this year. Last year was a run of six-year-old fish, while this year will be five-year-olds, which he said tend to swim in greater numbers.

He predicts the run also to be earlier than last year, starting in early April. It usually comes about two weeks after the herring run in Sitka, which is starting this week, he said.

The eulachon run lasts for a couple weeks. There’s also a winter run, which was in late January this year. Ackerman said he harvested a seal in February with a stomach full of winter hooligan.

The eulachon research project began in 2010 as a partnership between CIA and Takshanuk Watershed Council and was spurred by a decline in eulachon off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and California.

Last year’s run might have been the lowest on the Chilkoot River since 2010, but it’s hard to say with certainty since no estimates were made. CIA plans to take samples and make estimates of this year’s run.

The 2020 and 2019 Chilkoot River returns were some of the biggest on record.

Eulachon are significantly less researched than other anadromous fish, like salmon, but they play a major role in local Tlingit culture. Oil rendered from eulachon gave rise to the famous trade route from the Chilkat Valley to the Interior, called the “Grease Trail.”

“The eulachon are endowed with lots of light,” former CIA fisheries specialist Ted Hart told the CVN last May. “They’re the people of the light. When Raven released the light, people were fishing for eulachon and they got scared and took off but the hooligan were left there and all that light went into the hooligan. Light can be a lot of things: good energy, physical light.”