Egg maintenance begins. Once the eggs reach the “eyed” stage (the eggs will have a (or pair of) distinct black dot, and the egg is at its least delicate stage), we remove them from the incubators and are “shocked”. This is the process of pouring water onto the eggs to bounce them around. The unfertilized eggs or dead eggs will typically be white and can be picked out one at a time. After shocking and picking, the eggs are returned to the incubators to continue maturing. We generally can achieve a 95% survivorship throughout this stage as opposed to the 3%-5% range in the wild.
The rearing ponds will have the previous year’s coho juveniles, and these can most easily be seen during feeding time (typically every other day).