Public comment is being accepted through April 5 by the Oregon Hatchery Research Center (OHRC) on research projects designed to investigate effects from domestication, mate choice and olfactory imprinting on the fitness and behavior of hatchery salmon.
Comments may be sent via email to kerrie.j.tarkinton@state.or.us
The OHRC is a cooperative research project between the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Oregon State University. The board advises the OHRC director on activities and functions related to operation and maintenance of the OHRC.
Due to pandemic safety restrictions in the governor’s “Stay Home, Save Lives” order, the OHRC board met online and by teleconference on March 29, with no public comment taken.
The meeting agenda showed that reports to be delivered included an update on the hatchery domestication project by OSU integrative biology professor Michael Blouin, and an update on the mate choice project by OSU professor Michael Banks, whose focus is on methods for resolving hybridized, admixed or recently diverged populations and statistical methods to determine component estimates for mixtures of such populations.
A third project update on the meeting agenda was on olfactory imprinting, with presentations by Marc Johnson of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Andrew Dittman, who has studied the olfactory physiology and behavior of fish, particularly salmonids, for over 15 years. Fish have an acute sense of smell and almost every aspect of their lives is influenced by olfaction.
The next meeting of the OHRC is scheduled for June 8, but the agenda has not yet been posted.
Upcoming meetings of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife are posted online at https://www.dfw.state.or.us/news/2021/index.asp.
