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http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/environment/archives/161601.asp
"Alarming" declines in salmon survival detailed at Puget Sound/Georgia Basin conference
New research documents a "dramatic and alarming" decline in the survival of some salmon species in the waters of British Columbia, in the Georgia Strait, a leading Canadian researcher told scientists, activists and others at a conference in Seattle today.
Only a few salmon make it back to be caught or spawn
Paul Joseph Brown/P-I
Coho and chinook are in decline – but curiously, pink salmon survival appears to be increasing, Richard Beamish of the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans told participants in the biennial Puget Sound/Georgia Basin Ecosystem Conference.
The findings have implications for Puget Sound salmon as well, because recent research also shows that young salmon from south of the border make their way north into Canadian waters, Beamish said.
In fact, scientists at the conference advocated that people stop thinking of Puget Sound and Georgia Strait as two separate bodies of water, but rather consider it all the "Salish Sea." Native Americans in this area were known as the Salish or the Coast Salish.
Scientists have long known that only a small percentage of the juvenile salmon that leave freshwater rivers to live in the sea actually return to spawn at the end of their lives. But the new research shows that percentage has drastically decreased since 1980. In coho, it dropped from 10 percent to 0.5 percent, Beamish said. In chinook, it decreased from 1 percent to 0.1 percent.
One reason appears to be the early deaths of juvenile salmon. Measurements are imprecise, but Beamish's research shows that over the last 12 years, the survival of coho in Georgia Strait in their first four months dropped dramatically. About 15 percent of the fish disappear in those first four months, Beamish said:
The trend is real. A very high percentage are dying in the first four months.
Factors likely to play a role, he said, include an increase in temperature because of climate change; less food being available as the ecosystem in general declines; ocean conditions; and competition between hatchery- and wild-bred salmon. However, what's causing pink salmon to do better? That isn't known, Beamish said.
Gov. Chris Gregoire canceled her lunchtime speech at the conference because she was called to jury duty. Really. Her replacement was Bill Ruckelshaus, a Gregoire appointee who leads the Puget Sound Partnership. He who mused to the crowd, "Jury duty is right in there with the dog ate my homework."
Ruckelshaus' message: Spurring the public to embrace Puget Sound restoration is "likely to be built on a foundation of hope (rather) than on the timidity of despair." He offered that restoration planners have failed to see how the health of Puget Sound – er, the Salish Sea – is connected to decisions made about land use, transportation and other terrestrial matters:
That's not easy to do – that's why it hasn't been done in the Chesapeake (Bay) and the Everglades and the Great Lakes. … We need to show the world how it's done. That's our challenge.
Update 4:49 p.m.: Whoops! I forgot to link to Linda Mapes' http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008722914_tour09m.html piece in today's Seattle Times, which deals directly with how decisions made on land affect the waters around here.
Posted by Robert McClure at February 9, 2009 1:59 p.m.
Jim's Fishing Charters
www.JimsFishing.com
http://ca.youtube.com/user/Sushihunter250
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/environment/archives/161601.asp
"Alarming" declines in salmon survival detailed at Puget Sound/Georgia Basin conference
New research documents a "dramatic and alarming" decline in the survival of some salmon species in the waters of British Columbia, in the Georgia Strait, a leading Canadian researcher told scientists, activists and others at a conference in Seattle today.
Only a few salmon make it back to be caught or spawn
Paul Joseph Brown/P-I
Coho and chinook are in decline – but curiously, pink salmon survival appears to be increasing, Richard Beamish of the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans told participants in the biennial Puget Sound/Georgia Basin Ecosystem Conference.
The findings have implications for Puget Sound salmon as well, because recent research also shows that young salmon from south of the border make their way north into Canadian waters, Beamish said.
In fact, scientists at the conference advocated that people stop thinking of Puget Sound and Georgia Strait as two separate bodies of water, but rather consider it all the "Salish Sea." Native Americans in this area were known as the Salish or the Coast Salish.
Scientists have long known that only a small percentage of the juvenile salmon that leave freshwater rivers to live in the sea actually return to spawn at the end of their lives. But the new research shows that percentage has drastically decreased since 1980. In coho, it dropped from 10 percent to 0.5 percent, Beamish said. In chinook, it decreased from 1 percent to 0.1 percent.
One reason appears to be the early deaths of juvenile salmon. Measurements are imprecise, but Beamish's research shows that over the last 12 years, the survival of coho in Georgia Strait in their first four months dropped dramatically. About 15 percent of the fish disappear in those first four months, Beamish said:
The trend is real. A very high percentage are dying in the first four months.
Factors likely to play a role, he said, include an increase in temperature because of climate change; less food being available as the ecosystem in general declines; ocean conditions; and competition between hatchery- and wild-bred salmon. However, what's causing pink salmon to do better? That isn't known, Beamish said.
Gov. Chris Gregoire canceled her lunchtime speech at the conference because she was called to jury duty. Really. Her replacement was Bill Ruckelshaus, a Gregoire appointee who leads the Puget Sound Partnership. He who mused to the crowd, "Jury duty is right in there with the dog ate my homework."
Ruckelshaus' message: Spurring the public to embrace Puget Sound restoration is "likely to be built on a foundation of hope (rather) than on the timidity of despair." He offered that restoration planners have failed to see how the health of Puget Sound – er, the Salish Sea – is connected to decisions made about land use, transportation and other terrestrial matters:
That's not easy to do – that's why it hasn't been done in the Chesapeake (Bay) and the Everglades and the Great Lakes. … We need to show the world how it's done. That's our challenge.
Update 4:49 p.m.: Whoops! I forgot to link to Linda Mapes' http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008722914_tour09m.html piece in today's Seattle Times, which deals directly with how decisions made on land affect the waters around here.
Posted by Robert McClure at February 9, 2009 1:59 p.m.
Jim's Fishing Charters
www.JimsFishing.com
http://ca.youtube.com/user/Sushihunter250
