New insights about the islands’ marine food webs and “forage fish” will be shared at Kwiáht’s fifth annual SalmonAtion celebration on Jan. 18 at Lopez Center, beginning at 5:30 p.m.  Admission is free.

In addition to savory snacks from Vita’s and wines from Lopez Island Vineyards, the event will include Chicken Biscuit’s premiere of a salmon song by Gretchen Wing, and an installation of seashore paintings by Mike Rust.

Kwiáht’s local volunteers were able to measure and lavage more than 500 juvenile Chinook with a survival rate of over 99 percent. Salmon were also screened for respiratory distress, a sign of ichthyophoniasis, an emerging fungal disease of fish, and for viral hemorrhagic septicemia. Special attention was paid to Pacific Sandlance, the skinny silvery gold fish that make up 80 percent of the diet of juvenile salmon and diving seabirds.