Man sentenced for pouring bleach on southern Oregon salmon hatchery

In this photo provided by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, juvenile Chinook salmon swim in a pool at the Iron Fish Gate Hatchery in Siskiyou County, California, before being relocated on July 7, 2021. Baby salmon are dying by the thousands in one river and an entire run of endangered salmon could be wiped out in another because of scorching heat waves and prolonged drought in the western United States. Recently, California Fish and Wildlife officials decided not to release more than 1 million hatchery-raised baby Chinook salmon into the wild, instead moving them to several hatcheries that could house them until conditions in the Klamath River improve. (Travis VanZant/CDFW via AP)

PORTLAND, Oregon (KOIN) – A man who broke into a Reedsport, Oregon, fish hatchery in April faces prison time after pouring bleach into a pond, killing thousands of chinook salmon.

According to court documents, Joshua Heckathorn, 20, broke into the Gardiner Reedsport Winchester Bay STEP salmon hatchery around April 21, took a bottle of bleach from a storage shed and poured it into a pond at the hatchery.

Bleach Poisoning killed nearly 18,000 chinook salmon smoltssaid the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

On April 23, a patrol officer claimed to have seen Heckathorn walking south along Highway 101 before seeing him again behind a locked gate at the hatchery that evening, according to court documents, noting that Heckathorn admitted to the officer that he had previously been on the property and had taken the bleach.

Heckathorn was arrested by the Douglas County Sheriff's Office on multiple charges including second-degree burglary, criminal trespass and criminal mischief.

On June 7, he pleaded guilty to second-degree burglary, first-degree criminal mischief, prohibiting toxic substances accessible to wildlife and three counts of taking, angling, hunting or trapping in violation of a wildlife law or regulation.

He was ultimately convicted on June 24 of burglary, criminal mischief and three counts of taking, angling, hunting or trapping.

Heckathorn was sentenced to 30 days in jail and three years of supervised probation. He was also ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution and his fishing license will be suspended for three years.

In a statement to KOIN 6 News, ODFW said, “Fish and wildlife crimes have real consequences, as demonstrated by the conviction and fines this individual is facing. We take poaching seriously here in Oregon. Our mission is to protect fish and wildlife for this and future generations.”

Deborah Yates, the hatchery program's chairwoman, previously said her team struggled to understand Heckathorn's actions after spending hundreds of hours raising the fish, which were due to be released with about 60,000 others in June.

“When nature does something, it’s devastating. But it’s nature, and it happens. But when someone comes along and does something like this, you can’t understand it,” she said. “We’ve spent so much time watching these fish, for someone to come along so cavalierly and kill them, it doesn’t make sense.”

A lawyer for Heckathorn could not be reached for comment.