For a business that isn’t part of the food-service industry, a local operation has helped put some tasty fish fillets on hungry people’s plates.
Smith-Root is in the electrofishing technology business. Columbian reporter Dameon Pesanti profiled the Salmon Creek company for our Feb. 7 Business section.
He explained the nonlethal technology involved in sedating fish through electroshock for ecology studies and fisheries management projects. After the fish are temporarily stunned, biologists can do their research on the native fish and scoop the invasive species out of the water.
Actually, someone else had already checked in with a different take on the topic — the University of Nevada, Reno. During a three-year program at Lake Tahoe, UNR scientists used an electroshock boat to rid a section of Lake Tahoe of invasive fish.
In an interesting bit of timing, the school’s electroshock boat made a recent return to Smith-Root’s Vancouver facility.
“In the winter, people send equipment back to us for routine maintenance,” said Carl Burger, senior scientist at Smith-Root.
According to a release from the school’s news bureau, UNR scientists removed about 50,000 fish from the lake. Most of the non-natives were largemouth bass and bluegill. Not all the fish were worth filleting. (The smaller fish went to a wildlife shelter.) But the catch did result in about 255 pounds of fish for St. Vincent’s Food Pantry in Reno.
“We’re absolutely thrilled to get the fish,” the marketing director for the regional Catholic charity network said in the news release. “It’s a great change to offer healthier, fresh food.”
They weren’t the only ones who have benefited. The Carson National Fish Hatchery uses Smith-Root technology when sorting its surplus salmon for human consumption. Some goes to the Yakama Tribe. The rest of the surplus salmon goes to a regional food bank, said Larry Zeigenfuss, manager of the Columbia River Gorge hatchery.
When fish is headed for the dinner table, Zeigenfuss said, it’s nice to use technology instead of chemicals.
With one chemical, “You must hold fish for 21 days before you release them into areas where they can be caught by the public,” Burger said. “And people use clove oil, but there are some questions about it, and you get a clove flavor” to the fish.
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