Coded Wire Tag Fact Sheet updated August 2010

Alaskan Releases

Since 1973, 21 agencies representing 62 different hatchery sites have used 8,087 unique codes and 58 miles of wire to tag 111 million salmon and steelhead released at 328 locations in Alaska.

Alaskan Sampling Information

Since 1976, 128 million salmon were sampled in commercial, cost recovery, and sport fisheries and spawning grounds at 216 locations throughout Alaska. To date 310,513 individual sampling events have been recorded on forms and entered on the computer.  1.17 million heads weighing 906.7 tons were removed from adipose clipped salmon and sent to the lab in Juneau for tag removal and decoding.

Database and Report Generation Statistics

Thirty five years of Alaskan catch statistics, sampling information and CWT tag recoveries, and 43 years of coast-wide release data are maintained in a dedicated database. Catch/sample statistics for 574 strata and fishery contribution estimates are updated daily. Access to CWT information is provided over the World Wide Web through a report generator which allows users to filter data on a wide variety of variables. Results of queries can be provided to requestors as web screens, email attachments, or FTP files.  They are suitable for further manipulating using tools like Excel and Access.  Also, customized reports can be set up by our data processing staff, run on schedule and the results made available. Contact us if you need assistance with customized data retrieval.

Field Sampling with hand held computers

In 2006 the Division of Commercial Fisheries of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game instituted an Electronic Sampling application named CWT Mobile for the purposes of reducing paper form data capture of Commercial Samples. When sampling commercial deliveries of salmon our personel now enter all information into a hand held computer. The data is transmitted over the internet to servers at the MTA Lab, validated and moved into the centralized database nightly. This approach, speeds up sampling, reduces errors, and provides managers with very accurate and current data. So far this effort has been extremely successful as shown here:

Year Sampled	Commercial Samples Submitted on Paper	Commerical Samples Submitted Electronically	Total Samples Received
2010	907	5,106	6,013
2009	1,034	5,066	6,100
2008	1,579	4,368	5,947
2007	1,776	3,942	5,718
2006	3,308	2,288	5,596

For more information here is a Power Point presentation of the Electronic Sampling application and process:
Electronic Sample Acquisition in Alaska

Related Web Sites

Northwest Marine Technology is the provider of most tags and specialized equipment used for tagging Pacific salmonids.   The Regional Mark Processing Center maintains the authoritative U.S. copy of the complete coastwide Coded Wire Tag database. They also coordinate salmon fin marking.   The North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission is primarily concerned with high seas salmon issues. It includes Japan, Russia, the U.S., and Canada. An extensive library of reports are available.    Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission maintains technical papers of Washington and Oregon salmon based on CWT analysis.   The Pacific Salmon Commission relies extensively on CWT studies to oversee treaty compliance.