More than 500 sockeye make return trip to Idaho

More than 500 endangered sockeye salmon have arrived at a central Idaho fish hatchery, the most in more than two decades.

As of this week, 507 had arrived at fish traps near the Sawtooth Fish Hatchery near Stanley, having traveled about 900 river miles and passed eight dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers, state fish biologists said. The returning fish are from 180,000 smolts released in the valley's lakes in 2006.

As many as 35,000 sockeye once returned naturally to spawn in Redfish, Pettit and other lakes around the Sawtooth Mountains, but the numbers have dwindled severely, a trend groups blame mostly on four dams along the lower Snake River.

Between 1991 and 1998, only 16 wild sockeye returned to central Idaho.