Endangered Idaho Sockeye Flee Flooding

Some 4,000 endangered sockeye salmon have been loaded into trucks and transported to Eastern Idaho because of flooding issues at the Eagle fish hatchery.

The south channel of the Boise river, where the Eagle facility is located near Eagle Island State park, is at flood stage and the Idaho Fish and Game Department has placed sandbags around buildings and more specifically electrical pumps that supply water to the hatchery.

The concern is a loss of electrical power could put the hatchery's sockeye in danger. The sockeye held in the Eagle hatchery are destined for Red Fish and Pettit Lakes from which they'll eventually migrate to the ocean.

However for these young sockeye the migration has begun with a truck ride to the Springfield hatchery in Eastern Idaho. Springfield is a new hatchery completed in 2013 and is dedicated to rearing sockeye where they hope to have a million sockeye smolts ready for release by 2018.

Last year 567 sockeye returned to the Sawtooth Valley, slightly below average but a far cry from 1992 when only one fish, named Lonesome Larry returned to Red Fish Lake. He and a dozen other sockeye were used to help jump start the recovery program.