King Salmon Hatchery

A look at King Salmon’s hatchery in Pupu Springs – Golden Bay.

As an industry, salmon farming is relatively young to these shores. It’s only 30 odd years since fish farms were first seen in NZ – although salmon was introduced here over 100 years ago as a sport fish.

New Zealand’s first salmon seafarm is said to be at Stewart Island. It was started in 1983, followed by others in the Marlborough Sounds.

King salmon or Chinook salmon is the only salmon species seafarmed in New Zealand, with New Zealand King Salmon the world’s major supplier of this species.

King Salmon has 4 farms in the Marlborough Sounds The product is sold around the globe but specifically into the Asian and US markets, with more recent markets opening up in Europe and Scandinavia.

The salmon are brought out to the finishing farms from the two hatcheries operated by King Salmon as 12 month old fry.

They stay on the sea farm for anything from 12 – 18 months and are harvested at around 4 kg.

The Golden Bay Hatchery is right next door to Pupu Springs (or Waikoropupu to give it its proper name). The hatchery is the first commercially licensed salmon farm in the country.

The springs are an ideal location – with clean, pure water at a constant temperature of just under 12 degrees C.

The hatchery dates back to 1970s – when electrician Clive Barker became captivated by the idea of salmon farming and approached a local landowner with the idea.

Clive had read about salmon farming in Norway and thought Pupu Springs was an ideal location. But government departments were not famous in the ‘70s for encouraging private enterprise – and placed restrictions on the scheme.

Pacific King Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), sometimes known as Chinook, are adapted to life in both fresh and salt water. They are a type of fish described as anadromous, meaning that they run up rivers from the sea to breed.

In the wild, eggs hatch in the late winter or spring and the young salmon, termed alevin, remain hidden in their gravel nests for a few weeks, living off the yolk sac which is still attached to them. When this source of food is used up, they emerge from the gravel and over the summer the young fry can be found in streams and rivers. After three or four months they start their journey downstream to the sea.

By this stage in their development they are known as smolt. The salmon spend the next few years at sea, growing to maturity and finally returning to their original rivers to spawn. In late summer and autumn they make their way up to the headwaters. Where the water is shallow and swift-flowing, the female wriggles her body in the gravel to create a hollow, and in these hollows she lays between 3000 and 7000 eggs, which are then fertilised by the male. During their journey from the sea, the adult fish are no longer feeding and their condition deteriorates. Spawning is their final act before they die.

At the hatcheries, eggs are collected and fertilised under the control of a very sophisticated broodstock tracking and family selection programme. After hatching as alevin and developing into fry, the fish are transferred to rearing races where they grow into smolt. Several months later they are counted and graded to size, then over the next few months, at a time when they would normally be migrating to the ocean, they are transferred to the seafarms in the Marlborough Sounds.

Since 1974 a total of two trillion litres of water has passed through the farm, 75 million eggs have been spawned and 30 million smolts either reared at Takaka or transferred to seafarms. As the company continues its measured expansion, the Takaka hatchery will continue to play a key role in meeting that growing demand.

The NZ fur seal was nearly hunted to extinction in the 18th and 19th century. They’ve been staging a comeback and there are several rookeries in the sounds. Given half a chance they can munch through a goodly lot of salmon sushi. The seals are protected, so shooting them is not an option. At Te Pungu – in the outer Queen Charlotte Sound – there’s a regular assortment of young adult seals – who hang out at the farm. And the fresh water hatchery at Takaka – 5 kms inland from Golden Bay – is not immune to the seals either.

They’ve had a seal as a regular visitor as recently as 2005. He was released out on the West Coast and made a 60km swim back to Golden Bay and then back up the river and into the hatchery grounds. But to make sure no seals can get into the hatchery the staff put up predator nets of their own around the farm – along with a grill near the water exit.

Jon Bailey, Freshwater Manager, says they’ve had no issues in recent years. The seals came up, hung around the fence and finally took off.