The Salmonid Association of Eastern Newfoundland is using new technology to bring salmon back to Rennie's River in St. John's.

Vice-president Scott Nightingale said volunteers have been busy along the river's banks, putting in 100,000 fish eggs.

Scott Nightingale, the vice-president of the Salmonid Association of Eastern Newfoundland, said he hopes Rennie's River will see an adult salmon population of about 700. (CBC)

"It was previously populated back when early settlement occurred in St. John's, but the stocks were quickly depleted," he said.

The association is using in-stream incubation, a process that has a 90 per cent success rate for hatching.

Once the eggs are fertilized and rinsed, they are placed one by one into separate compartments in the red incubation box.

The boxes offer protection from predators, sediment, and one of the main killers of wild salmon, fungus infections.

Incubators are being placed along the river, and will remain there until the spring.

"The eggs are quite sensitive," Nightingale said. "Even vibrations will kill them during the stage between now and, we'll say, February or March."

Nightingale said he hopes the river will see an adult salmon population of about 700.

"So that would be a yield in the Rennie's River of the adults that would be returning from the hatching of these eggs. That's a substantial number of fish for a small system like Rennie's," he said.

"The key to the project will be if those fish do return and find the niche environments to do their spawning and carry out all of the life cycles of salmon."