There are healthy numbers of king salmon returning in new runs on the American and Olds rivers this summer, but don’t expect an extension on the sport fishery past its Sunday closing date.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game plans to halt sport fishing on these two rivers to collect female salmon for the Kodiak King Salmon Enhancement Program.

The program needs more egg-bearing salmon to replace fish lost July 11 when a Monashka Creek holding pen was broken into by vandals, said Donn Tracy, a sport fish biologist for Fish and Game.

“I was poised to issue an emergency order to open the fisheries past Aug.1 (Sunday),” he said. “But now with the fact that we might need to collect eggs for the brood stock, I’m not going to issue it.”

Tracy now estimates 20 of the 70 fish in the brood stock were lost when the vandals disabled an electric fence and took apart a pen holding them in Monashka Creek.

About half these fish have since been recovered, but several have died in the last few days, presumably from overhandling.

Meanwhile, there are no suspects in the July 11 vandalism and the prospects don’t look promising

“Unless there is evidence, there’s not anything we can investigate,” said Megan Peters, spokeswoman for the Alaska State Troopers.

The Troopers responded to the case, but did not have any evidence to collect because Tracy cleaned up the pen the afternoon he discovered it had been vandalized. In retrospect, he wishes he had taken a photo, he said.

To complicate the condition of the king salmon enhancement project brood this year, most of the remaining fish are males.

The project is down to about 20 female salmon. It needs at least 30 females to maintain current stocking levels and 50 females to grow the program or be secure against problems that can arise during the fry and smolt stages of a salmon’s life.

The Kodiak King Salmon Enhancement Program has stocked king salmon smolt in Monashka Creek since 2000. This year additional smolt released in the American and Olds rivers produced the first runs in both rivers.

There are no weirs to measure the exact returns on the American and Olds rivers, but based on angler surveys and data from the Kodiak King Salmon Sportfishing Derby, it is estimated that a few hundred kings returned up each river this summer, Tracy said.

Mirror writer Sam Friedman can be reached via e-mail at sfriedman@kodiakdailymirror.com.