A fish weir in the Cedar River near Carco Theater is trapping some of the tens of thousands of returning sockeye salmon from which the state and City of Seattle hope to harvest about 18 million eggs.

The fish weir guides fish into a holding pen where sockeye are collected each morning for transport in a tanker truck to the fish hatchery at Landsburg.

The weir, in its third year, is a joint project of Seattle Public Utilities and the Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife to help restore Cedar sockeye runs.

It was installed last Friday. In the first three days of operations, 120 sockeye, male and female, were pulled from the river. The run is estimated at between 150,000 and 170,000 sockeye, with about 70 percent headed for the Cedar.

Officials ask that the public stay off the weir and not harass the fish in the river.