Return of the Inverts

Fishmyster

Well-Known Member
Id love to hear some views about why Salmon returns are down in places where there arent any FFs on route.

Im nowhere near as "learned" about the subject as a few here, but it seems like quite a hole in the theory.

Hey floater. The science of water chemistry and how it effects ecology beautifully explains and is the most probable "smoking gun" effect causing fish populations to diminish. Unfortunately it has been getting no scientific attention since the early 1990's. So I don't repeat myself you could probably go to my profile to find past posts that might be of interest to you.

Some areas with stock assessment and no farms would be Rivers and Smith inlet streams. Google search them and you will see that they have similar depressed stocks that start to decline at the same general time as south coast streams. I have visited some of these streams many times since early 1990's to fish. I can attest to there being an equally depressed population of salmonids as anywhere else in this province.

It is a shame that so much credit and attention has been given to FF's and seals in our salmon crisis but nobody is studying salmon and the supporting ecology as a whole or the water chemistry necessary for success. I guess it's just too complicated so why bother!
 
Some of the larger Oweekeno Lake tribs (eg. Machmell, Sheemahant, etc.) that are more glacial-fed have had substantial logging operations in the late 70s/ early 80s - while other groundwater fed tribs (eg. Dooze, Ashlam) - Not. Likely a mish-mash of impacts.

Also, keep in mind these tribs empty into a very large lake with it's own water chemistry, potential buffering, dilution volume, retention and turn-over - as well.

So whatever historic pH spikes that may or may not have happened in the tribs; Oweekeno sockeye stocks have been found with ISAv - European ISAv.
 
Last edited:
I took a floatplane to Owikeeno in late April 2014. I did not see a fish or invertebrate in five streams. I even chummed with roe at the stream mouths to attract fry or anything but nothing showed. I couldn't even find fry with the headlamp which is unusual. I was assuming the water was just too cold still but it all did seem quite dead. We then flew to the Nekite river for a couple days. There we caught about 8 steelhead in two days. In the early 1990's we used to catch 30 per day in that same river only fishing half of the stream. We would see many fish in the stream while leaving in the boat but would never bother to cast because our arms were tired. Nekite river was logged in the 1960's. The fishing was hot there till 2000 even though now the forest has long grown back. Even all the big trout are gone.
Another stream heavily logged up there is the Nootum river. Interestingly the Nootum has retained decent steelhead and resident trout populations even though it has far less available habitat than the Nekite. Something going on in the water!
 
It is a shame that so much credit and attention has been given to FF's and seals in our salmon crisis but nobody is studying salmon and the supporting ecology as a whole or the water chemistry necessary for success. I guess it's just too complicated so why bother!

ocean/fresh water acidification has been discussed at length and the major contributor is climate change. AS GLG has pointed out many times the problem is ocean survival again the problem is climate change But how do you debate what to do abotu climate change?

Read Bob Hooton's Blog

http://steelheadvoices.com/


And as @Whitebuck would say stop the netting
 
I took a floatplane to Owikeeno in late April 2014. I did not see a fish or invertebrate in five streams. I even chummed with roe at the stream mouths to attract fry or anything but nothing showed. I couldn't even find fry with the headlamp which is unusual. I was assuming the water was just too cold still but it all did seem quite dead.
ya - April is even before the snowmelt. Not a time of year I would expect an invert bloom. Also, fry would be in deeper pools, beaver dams and the edges of the lake - but deeper maybe. So - not unexpected - nor necessarily signs of lack of feed items in the lake for sockeye fry, neither.
 
ocean/fresh water acidification has been discussed at length and the major contributor is climate change. AS GLG has pointed out many times the problem is ocean survival again the problem is climate change But how do you debate what to do abotu climate change?

Read Bob Hooton's Blog

http://steelheadvoices.com/


And as @Whitebuck would say stop the netting

Climate change is a very broad. Chemistry is an important part of the environment and has been changing a lot! It could also be considered as part of the climate.

To blame the demise of any component in a food chain on upper level constituents, [seals and nets] without first assuring the lower forms necessary are present is not IMO being very scientific. It also doesn't match my observations in the field.

Bob's blog is the farthest thing from science you could ever use to reference.
 
ya - April is even before the snowmelt. Not a time of year I would expect an invert bloom. Also, fry would be in deeper pools, beaver dams and the edges of the lake. So - not unexpected - nor necessarily signs of lack of feed items in the lake for sockeye fry, neither.

I
ya - April is even before the snowmelt. Not a time of year I would expect an invert bloom. Also, fry would be in deeper pools, beaver dams and the edges of the lake. So - not unexpected - nor necessarily signs of lack of feed items in the lake for sockeye fry, neither.

Invertes don't bloom, they rear in the aquatic environment all winter and have terrestrial phases when involved in reproduction typically during the warmer time of year. Winter and spring is the best time of year to sample for invertes other than the cold water.

Late April was not before the snowmelt. I was there during a second freshet. I used a flashlight and scoured the edge of the lake around lots of structure looking for fry. This method works well in other areas in the middle of winter.

Have you done any invertebrate sampling before? If so where, when and what did you find? I am curious!
 
To blame the demise of any component in a food chain on upper level constituents, [seals and nets] without first assuring the lower forms necessary are present is not IMO being very scientific. It also doesn't match my observations in the field.


analize away
 
N

analize away

There sure is a wicked abundance of lower level food chain critters in those waters!!! Very productive! I assure you that there is nothing like that going on in V.I. salmon rearring lakes as I look all the time. If there was we would not be complaining about all the losses in salmon productivity.
 
Invertes don't bloom, they rear in the aquatic environment all winter and have terrestrial phases when involved in reproduction typically during the warmer time of year. Winter and spring is the best time of year to sample for inverts other than the cold water.

Late April was not before the snowmelt. I was there during a second freshet. I used a flashlight and scoured the edge of the lake around lots of structure looking for fry. This method works well in other areas in the middle of winter.

Have you done any invertebrate sampling before? If so where, when and what did you find? I am curious!
I know, FM. I was being flippant. I should have instead said "recruitment".

Algae, however - can bloom - esp. in the lake and ocean - esp. in May-June-ish. Many FW inverts are benthic and detritivores - but it is a very different source of food for sockeye fry in lakes. Yes - they could and likely do eat some inverts that get flushed out of the tribs - but the lake has it's own non-benthic lentic verses lotic food source for sockeye fry.

Snowmelt is normally from mid-May to mid-June. Yes - you could have had a lower elevation melt - or freshet esp. if combined with a rain on snow event.

Anyways, my point was that it is cold and freshets happen in the late spring to early summer. Usually, that is a time of instability and low allochthonous leaf litter into the creeks. I wouldn't expect a recruitment event at that time - and during the freshets - some of the few benthic inverts to be flushed out. Correct me if I am wrong and I would appreciate any new information on that point.

yes - some years ago - I was involved in some FW invert sampling - thanks for asking.
 
Last edited:
I pulled stones out of the rivers to look for stream invertebrates as they are non migratory and are well known to be a good indicator for water quality. There were none! I examined the lake at night with my light that usually attracts plankton. Even though the water was cold there was not ice like in the above video. There was nothing remotely like the abundance of plankton in the above video which is of a very productive lake.

It would blow me away if anyone could prove a biomass similar to the above video has indeed been present in the Thompson/Shuswap for the brood year of 2017 returns. If you could I would eat crow and probably start to believe in anti FF propaganda.
 
You must have long arms if you can reach 25-45m into the lake, FM! (that's where the thermocline is)....

Apologies - being flippant, again. Ya - anyways, one would need to know the depths of primary production in the upper layers - and the hopefully associated feed organisms - likely to be in the 1-6m range. My understanding of these types of organisms is that they are slightly negatively phototaxic - or need to find a certain low light level to feel comfortable against predation. So lake turbidity/tannins/colour plays a factor here wrt depth preferences. They go deeper during the day and come closer to the surface at nite.

Not sure if this link will work for you, or not: https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiPtrqcnb3YAhUC4WMKHaM5Dd84ChAWCCYwAA&url=http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.505.1422&rep=rep1&type=pdf&usg=AOvVaw0dWAlczgroD-KYTrka2Nll

yes - I agree - in WMYs video above - appears to be a very productive lake wrt planktonic inverts.
 
Last edited:
I had an augment once about fertilizing sockeye lakes and another forum members response was

“ Some lakes have been or were fertilzed to boost the size of young sockeye- Great Central Lake and Long Lake near Rivers Inlet are 2 but never heard of Harrison. It is so large and the inflow of the Lillooet Rover causes so much flushing it would be difficult to make it work. “RalphH

With big salmon systems with high inflows and out flows does it not flush the food away?
 
Big lakes would mean tons of fertilizer and Millions of $ in doing that. Slow release fertilizer has been tried in a few rivers - I think with some positive effect. We might be going all over the place here - though - past the FF thread. We could start another one, though.
 
Lets talk about the video wildmanyeah's presented. How do you think Cultas lake compares WRT plankton and what is present in the video?
 
One thing for certain some leading scientists agree pacific salmon that spend the least amount of time in the fresh water pinks and chum,are generally out performing those who spend more time in the fresh water.
 
Lets talk about the video wildmanyeah's presented. How do you think Cultas lake compares WRT plankton and what is present in the video?
I have sampled plankton from lakes throughout the Fraser watershed, and although Cultus is relatively productive compared to most coastal lakes irt zooplankton and water chemistry, it is nothing compared to that video.
I would bet that video was shot at an interior lake.
 

Ya thxs Brian, not sure why AA didnt start his own thread originally? Instead of taking over another members posting. It a good tactic, bury the point behind post after post of just gibber that's been said here before.
With your warnings (stay on topic) one would have thought you where trying to clean up this forum and allow debate. But when members full derail topics I guess not.....
 
Back
Top