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Fisheries Technicians at Work René is a fisheries technician who works for Fisheries and Oceans Canada. His job is to gather information about the salmon as the come and go into the Stellako River system during their life cycle.
Its an interesting job and we are always learning new things, says René. For example, people used to think that the salmon always came back to the rivers at four years of age. This year we saw more 3 year olds than usual. We call the young ones Jacks and Jills. The Jacks are the boys of course, and the girls are the Jills.
Click on each of the three fish below to see a video clip of salmon spawning.  Video Clip 1 Video Clip 2 Video Clip 3 
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René and
his co-workers count the frye (the baby salmon) in the river in the spring, and
try to estimate how many leave the spawning beds each year. They also count the
spawning adults as they return to the river each fall. They catch a few fish
(scientists call this sampling the population) measure their size and weight,
check their health, their age and other characteristics. They can tell their
age by the size and shape of a little bone called the otolith, inside the
fish's ear. Scale samples are also taken. Scale samples are like fingerprints.
When the salmon are caught in the ocean, scientists can tell what river system
they came from (what stock they are). 
Scientists use the information that René and
others gather, to help them unravel the mysteries of the salmon. 
We saw a
lot of five year olds too, way more than usual. This was happening in all the
river systems around the province. We don't really know why this is happening
or what it means, but it shows that we still have a lot to learn about salmon
and their life cycle. 