Piles of dead year-old chinook salmon, numbering at least in the hundreds, were found along the Elwha River’s lower banks and mouth after hatchery smolts were released last week. State Fish and Wildlife Department officials will consider alternatives for future releases of fish, said Mike Gross, Fish and Wildlife fish biologist for Clallam County and West Jefferson County, who called the release “a mistake.” Sediment from the river clogged the gills of most he examined, said Mike McHenry, a fish biologist and habitat manager for the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe, who saw the dead fish at the river’s mouth and on sandbars Monday and Tuesday. Jeremy Schwartz reports.
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