The secret lives of Salmon.

I think this video was posted earlier. Maybe this is a newer version?

I would be nice if these scientists were putting the same effort into why there is collapsed food webs in major salmon streams of B.C.. If effort would be done to understand the bacterial change that has stopped salmon carcasses from decomposing in freshwater then we have a chance of better enhancing or coming up with a recovery strategy.
 
Maybe now we will get real answers to the questions about salmon stocks at sea. I've always felt it's hard to manage a resource we know so little about.
 
More to the series!!!

https://vancouversun.com/news/local...-theres-more-than-one-kind-of-fish-in-the-sea

Scientists aboard the Russian research vessel Kaganovsky didn’t really know what to expect when they dropped their net in the Gulf of Alaska, but the ocean delivered a smorgasbord.

Two test sets in coastal waters yielded three species of squid and assorted fin fish but no salmon, according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) researcher Chrys Neville.

“It felt like a party where everyone was congregated in the kitchen, except instead of holding drinks, we had forceps, measuring boards, data sheets, sampling bags and vials in our hands,” said Laurie Weitkamp, a biologist at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center.

“The conversation was just as loud and the excitement as high as if we were having a really lively party.”

Weitkamp and Neville and 19 other scientists from around the Pacific Rim are aboard the Kaganovsky for a five-week grid search of the Gulf, where they hope to learn about the secret lives of the five Pacific salmon species during their years in the open ocean.

Neville is sending written updates and video interviews with the scientists when conditions allow it.

The 62-metre ship plowed through strong winds to the first study grid, where the first salmon were obtained, one coho and one pink, along with more squid and some lantern fish.

A second set of the 40-metre net produced nine pinks, which are the most numerous of the Pacific salmon species.

“We also caught one spiny dogfish that is the largest I have seen in 25 years of fishing,” said Neville.

The researchers — who hail from Canada, the United States, Russia, South Korea and Japan — have now settled into a routine of 12-hour shifts, fishing and taking samples. The ship will drop its net for an hour at a time, every eight hours around the clock for the next several weeks.

Insatiably curious, everyone is still turning out to see what every catch brings in, said Neville.

The salmon that are harvested will be assessed for health, fat content and parasite loads among other things. Genetic tests will reveal where fish from specific rivers and streams spend their adult lives and provide vital information to inform management of troubled stocks such as sockeye and chinook.
 
Man this has got to be one of the best salmon studies every

https://theprovince.com/news/local-...-sea/wcm/a46b3b24-58d3-4d86-b0e3-15f39fc03099

Fin clippings take about two days to process using the new technique, but the payoff is substantial for fisheries science, said Dick Beamish, organizer of an international salmon research expedition.

The science team aboard the Russian research vessel Kaganovsky has employed genetic analysis of West Coast salmon while at sea for the first time.

Biologist Christoph Deeg has linked salmon caught in a scientific test fishery to salmon stocks in the Stikine and Skeena river systems, and Puget Sound.

Fin clippings take about two days to process using the new technique, but the payoff is substantial for fisheries science, said Dick Beamish, organizer of an international salmon research expedition.....

The testing system is capable of an initial genetic analysis on coho and chinook salmon.

“Some of the questions the genetic data should answer are where each salmon came from, and whether the coho we’ve caught so far represent mixtures of stocks or largely come from a single population,” they wrote.

More detailed genetic tests will be conducted on hundreds if not thousands of salmon captured in about 50 one-hour test fisheries being conducted on a grid pattern across the open ocean.

Early sets haven’t been as productive as anticipated, but the ship is now moving into waters that should produce bigger catches and more data.

But a recent set of the ship’s 40-metre trawl net produced six sockeye, six chum, two coho and one chinook, according to Neville.

“The chinook was large over four kilos,” wrote Neville in an email. “Laurie is wagering it is a Columbia River fish.”

“The sockeye were definitely (in their) first winter at sea, small, but not skinny like some of the fish we saw early on,” she wrote “A couple even had noticeable fat under their skin.”

The science team is taking samples of flesh and internal organs to detect the presence of disease, viruses and parasites, including nematodes and sea lice.

The stomach contents of the salmon will reveal the amount of prey the fish are able to consume during the lean winter months, and what the fish eat during their years in the open ocean, said retired fisheries scientist Dick Beamish.

Beamish conceived and organized the mission, including the charter of the vessel from the Russian government with $1.3 million he raised from government, B.C. salmon farmers and conservation organizations.

@Bugs

“Chinook and coho should be feeding on fish and they are finding lampfish in the stomachs of chinook, which means they are likely feeding in deep water,” said Beamish.

Pinks are known to feed on plankton, but they could be supplementing that with squid in the winter.

“Whatever we find in their stomachs, it will be new to us,” he said. “We really don’t know what they eat in the winter so that makes it incredibly interesting scientifically.”
 
Last edited:
http://yearofthesalmon.org/gulf-of-alaska-expedition/

A bold winter expedition to study salmon on the high seas of the North Pacific Ocean

Look at thoes feeders!! so cool to see, who here can identify them??



Interesting....

While the survey participants will address many key research questions, Charlie and colleagues at NOAA are specifically interested in assessing the energetic status of salmon and estimating the overall carrying capacity of the Gulf of Alaska during this critical winter period. It is widely acknowledged that overwinter survival of salmon is influenced by summer growth rates and their ability to acquire sufficient lipid reserves prior to winter. Further, while interaction among salmon species and stocks occurs throughout their marine life history, winter is considered a period when competition for prey resources is highest. Additionally, recent high production of pink salmon (wild and hatchery-origin) in the North Pacific Ocean may be exerting top-down control on the food web that is impacting the growth and survival of other salmon species, as well as marine seabirds. Given the limited biomass of prey in winter and the potential for competition between salmon for this resource, his aim is to determine if energetic status of salmon and carrying capacity in the North Pacific Ocean is compromised during winter. He and NOAA colleague and shipmate Gerard Foley’s specific objectives are designed to address important questions regarding winter marine ecology of Pacific salmon in the Gulf of Alaska as follows: (1) determine the hatchery component of pink, chum, and sockeye salmon during winter in the Gulf of Alaska, (2) develop indices of winter fitness for Pacific Salmon in the Gulf of Alaska, including energetic status and the degree of niche overlap between pink, chum, and sockeye and (3) test key indices in models for winter carrying capacity of Pacific salmon in the Gulf of Alaska. They will achieve these objectives by collecting otoliths, dorsal muscle, liver, and gonad samples from immature sockeye, pink, and chum salmon captured from the survey. They will also collect zooplankton samples, including euphausiids and large and small copepods. These samples will be processed to determine energy density and lipid content, and a bioenergetics model for winter ecology of Pacific salmon will be constructed to understand winter fitness and carrying capacity.
 
Last edited:
They the government should have been doing this years ago.
 
Interesting to hear they are catching way more coho far far off shore then they ever expected, This show truly how little we down know what's going on in the deep sea. Also spotted 4 Killer Whales out there. Is that a hatch chinook she's holding???




upload_2019-3-5_18-50-35.png
upload_2019-3-5_18-51-13.png

upload_2019-3-5_18-53-13.png
upload_2019-3-5_18-54-31.png
 
https://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/news/features/russian_vessel/index.cfm

Life aboard the Russian research vessel Professor Kaganovskiy

Some Surprising Results
Chum salmon and, surprisingly, coho have been the dominant species in our catch so far. Coho are generally considered coastal, so we had expected them to be only a minor part of the catch. We are now all waiting with considerable anticipation for the results of the DNA analysis that has been conducted on board. Are they Alaskan, Canadian, or southern-U.S. fish? We will have to wait about another 12 hours to know, but it has resulted in a small wager on board among the science teams.

Another surprise in catch has been pink salmon. Because there are more pink than any other salmon species across the Pacific, many of us thought they would dominate our catches. Several of the team also thought we would only find them in the cooler-water regions of the study area. However, so far, the 16 pink salmon caught were all in the first four sets — and in the warmest waters of the survey area.

More New Discoveries Await
This expedition is far from over. Whether these trends will continue as we progress is still to be determined. Additionally, examining the distribution of salmon in relation to the ocean chemistry and plankton data that we are also collecting is going to be fun and exciting, and will provide even further insight into and information about the factors that may be regulating the distribution of these salmon species. I’ll share more when I can!
 
The Secret Lives of Salmon: Plastics, whales and a freezer on the open ocean


https://vancouversun.com/news/local...astics-whales-and-a-freezer-on-the-open-ocean

"The chum are relatively thin as the winter winds down, as are the first-year sockeye.

“In contrast, the second-year sockeye salmon we have caught are fat and healthy looking,” said Neville. “We can even easily see a layer of fat under their skin.”"
 
I only know by the caption of the photo, when I saw them I thought coho as a well, apparently they all are the same type. Not Coho or Chum tho, Also hard to tell beacuse they took lots of samples from the tail so they are all cut up.



upload_2019-3-14_11-33-3.pngupload_2019-3-14_11-33-52.png
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Aquaholic
Salmon survival rates linked to timing of release.
Replies
2
Views
426
Last_Call
Last_Call
SVIAC
IMPORTANT: Feb. 27 Fisheries Town Hall Mtg. in Langford
Replies
13
Views
2K
PEETZcanada
PEETZcanada
searun
New Pinniped Study - harbour seals consume 46−59% of juvenile Coho Salmon
Replies
9
Views
1K
trophywife
trophywife
W
Low water levels caused by drought preventing B.C. salmon from spawning
Replies
4
Views
686
Birdbrain
B
OldBlackDog
BCWF, Conservation Hatchery. Things to Contemplate by Bob Hooton.
Replies
7
Views
735
Derby
Derby
Back
Top