Dozens of male sockeye salmon heading upriver to spawn had been captured in holding pens earlier in the day by staff at the Okanagan Nation Alliance's (ONA) kł cp̓əlk̓ stim̓ fish hatchery, where Marsel works. Grabbing a fish, he explained that each salmon could produce enough milt, or salmon sperm, to inseminate hundreds of eggs back at the hatchery in a successful effort to rebuild wild populations to levels capable of sustaining the Syilx Okanagan.