WHY DO THEY DIE?
Neil Cameron, Courier-Islander
Published: Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Our knowledge of the Pacific salmon runs seems to be based on two numbers - what goes out and what comes back. That is understandable, given that both numbers are somewhat easy to calculate. And they are fairly consistent; of what goes out, a percentage returns, usually from one to 10 per cent; some more, some less, but basically that seems the equation.
This then leaves around about 90 per cent of the run unaccounted for. When you consider that an out-migrating/returning run of fish can run into the millions and that about 90 per cent of them die while migrating out and returning, there appears to be somewhat of a large gap in our knowledge, calculations and understanding of Pacific salmon. Where does that about 90 per cent go? Why do so many of them die? Sport and commercial fisheries account for some, but there's still a vast amount of salmon that simply don't show in fisheries equations.
In the Strait of Georgia over millennia this 'inland sea' has been the recipient of salmon from countless rivers and streams. Virtually billions upon billions of young salmon entered the waters each spring. They were joined by billions more, from Pacific Coast streams in Washington, Oregon and California. They left their natal waters and most went far afield to rich feeding grounds to the north. Yet some of them also stayed within the confines of the Georgia Basin. And a large percentage of them failed to return to their stream to spawn. They died - somehow, some way.
Courier Islander file photo
Given the sheer mass of their numbers it would be reasonable to say that this immense biomass put them in the top three or four of aquatic species contributing to the food chain of the Strait - or at least in the top five. And since so many of them died, we could conclude that this biomass became an intrinsic part of the food web within the Strait.
Think of the rock cod, ling cod, snapper and halibut that used to be caught regularly in the Strait of Georgia. Most of them are under severe management regimes. Why? Because their numbers dropped off to a level of concern. Was it over fishing? Perhaps. But more likely their feed sources dropped off. And why? Most anglers fish for them with baited-up and scented-up hook sets. But their real feed was not a big gulp for the most part, it was smaller gulps of more abundant feed, feed that in past years was in abundance especially during the migration of salmon runs.
Those salmon that spawned and died were accounted for. In fact their deaths have been attributed to the health and well-being of not only their natal streams, but of the plant growth and trees in the surrounding ecosystem. Their remains, rich in nitrogen, dragged by bears and racoons and even the odd deer, filtered through spawning tributaries, carried in the feces of wild birds and animals, played a key role in the rich, luxurious growth of the rain coast's forest.
The unaccounted for, 'untabulated' salmon, however, also fed other wildlife - birds, seals, whales and other fish, ling cod, rock cod, halibut etc. And they fed other salmon. Their deaths also undoubtedly contributed protein to crustaceans and lower organisms, the foundations of the food chain. They contributed these incredible energy resources to a biomass from the top of the food chain to the bottom. This massive infusion of energy into the food web was undoubtedly responsible for a large percentage of its richness. And it would be like a slow-spreading fertilizer, strong and rich at the outset in spring, summer and fall, then dissipating - but contributing to the food chain throughout the year before a new cycle of contribution came from the streams and rivers in spring.
If the salmon can be so important in its nutrient contribution to a tree, miles from its natal stream, then how important was (is) it to the health and well-being of the body of water into which it poured the greater percentage of its biomass?
Resident coho, cutthroat trout and steelhead have virtually disappeared from the west side of Georgia Strait. However, those numbers seem to be better on the coastal eastern side, where streams there haven't been as adversely impacted by logging and development as have the East Coast of Vancouver Island streams. The runs of Pacific salmon on the east coast side of Georgia Strait, while not near historic levels, are, in most part, still in much better shape than their counterparts across the way. And their runs therefore contribute more to the local food chain. And that local food chain is vital to residential salmonid life.
That is why if you want to catch a cutthroat trout or dolly varden of any meaningful size, you take a boat over to the eastern shores of Georgia Strait. The cutthroat trout is like the proverbial canary. Find a stream that produces a good run of salmonids and you will find the cutthroat. Cutthroat have virtually disappeared from East Coast Vancouver Island streams.
The conclusion? Pacific salmon numbers are down in the Strait of George because, well, Pacific salmon numbers are down. Fewer fish back on the spawning bed means fewer fish going out and running nature's and made-made gauntlets and even fewer coming back. But we must take it to the next level and understand that the specific number of fish going out or coming back to spawn may not be as important as the number of fish that disappear in between. What oceanic forests are those fish enriching?
Mother Nature is pure science. It doesn't study things, it doesn't calculate, it peer reviews itself in the most ultimate form. So why would about 90 per cent of a salmon run be destined to die before coming back to spawn? Billions of them. Well there's a reason. They are destined to die because in doing so they fulfill the purest form of science. Those salmon die for a reason. And reason would dictate that they die to provide for a food chain that they themselves rely upon. And the other fishes, birds, crustaceans and the mammals - the biomass cycle, as it were.
But this important part of the food chain in the Georgia Basin has been decimated. In Bright Waters, Bright Fish Roderick Haig-Brown estimated that by 1975 runs of Pacific salmon were about half of their historic levels. It hasn't gotten better since, in fact the numbers have dwindled to conservation concern. Which means this integral part of the food chain has been diminished to a percentile of its original input.
No wonder the blue backs are gone, or at least in search of an ecosystem that can sustain them at that ravenous stage of their life. No wonder the resident chinook are not anywhere near their historic numbers. No wonder herring numbers have plummeted. No wonder the euphasid shrimp hatches are so few and far between. No wonder, no wonder, no wonder.
We have taken out and caused to be taken out a vast and integral amount of the food chain of the Strait and we continue to do so. It's a downward spiral that will end as a pathetic remnant of what once was. Which it already is. Unless we change our thinking.
Very senior fisheries managers today take over fisheries and manage to the levels of last year's or the last cycle's returns. If they achieve that, they are happy. Yet they don't realize that they failed. Their scientists will warn them about genetic integrity, that supplemental programs will degenerate the stocks and cause irrevocable harm and extinction. Yet the reality is, if we follow these scientists and biologists, the stocks will, eventually and, as has happened already and continues to happen, be gone anyway.
Where does that leave us? It doesn't have to leave us. It should lead us to a realization that because we invested money in a run of a million fish and only two per cent came back, all was not lost. We have to learn and re-learn the value of that portion of the run that the ultimate scientist dictated had to die. We have to have confidence in knowing that about 90 per cent of the salmon run didn't go to waste - that they do have value, perhaps more so than the fish that return.
This all doesn't take into account global warming and El Nino events, but that seems more and more like a crutch we lean on in our inactive approach to salmon recovery. We can't control it, so we won't, well just use it as an excuse.
In Alaska they are recording increased numbers of salmon returns. They have a program that's called ocean ranching. It sends out billions of salmon into the rich waters there and their returns have defied what any other jurisdictions are experiencing. They have improved their salmonid returns from 39 million in the late 1970s to an estimated return of 170 million this year. In some years they have to limit the number of deliveries because the canneries are over capacity with too many fish. Detractors from the program say that turning that many hatchery-raised fish into the wild deprives the wild stock of salmon of food, that the program starves wild stocks, that they adversely affect the food chain.
The opposite, I think, is true. The Alaskans are mimicking the ultimate scientist. They have a program that, by sheer percentages, contributes more to the food chain that it takes away. It has worked for them for roughly 30 years. The blueprint is there for the taking, yet our provincial and federal governments refuse to consider it.
In Campbell River we have the centre for Aquatic Health Sciences studying plankton blooms to better time the release of hatchery fish, specifically coho. It is hoped that timing it well will increase the survival rate of the coho - something to snack on before heading out to the wild seas. Did the ultimate scientist also do that or did the ultimate scientist design it so that whenever the salmon left their natal streams a rich and vibrant ecosystem awaited them, whenever they went out to live, or die and thereby contributing to the vital circle of life?
And how absurd is it that DFO, on one hand, acknowledges severe problems with Georgia Strait chinook and coho survival and on the other allows 500 tons of krill to be harvested out of Georgia Strait every year? How many young coho and chinook could one million pounds of krill feed? Ironically, two weeks ago the states of California, Oregon and Washington banned the harvest of krill off their shores, because they realize the importance of that part of the good chain to the survival of young slamonids and the marine ecosytem in general.
Worse than DFO's blind eye to reality, is the fact that most of the krill harvested is used to feed farmed salmon, because the krill's pigmentation turns the farmed salmon flesh to a more palatable thus more saleable pink and red color.
A large portion of salmon reared in Georgia Strait migrate to the same waters in which the Alaskan fish are enjoying such bounty. But there's a long way to go for Georgia Strait fish and their cousins from the south. It's through a marine environment devoid of even a small percentage of its historic richness. And it's at a vital time when they need the full enrichment of an ecosystem that used to provide it. When and if they reach those northern, rich environs, they are undoubtedly fewer in number and only fewer of the original run will have sufficient energy stores to garner the sufficient consumption needed to get back home. And through that perilous journey, many of them face sea lice problems associated with ocean ranching's biggest competitor - Atlantic salmon farms.
So what if somehow we could replace those local nutrients and thereby allow more salmon to stay local and supply the necessary energy boost to get them to the fishing grounds to the north?
We will never do that if we continue to solely calculate a salmon run's success by how many go out and how many come back. We have to realize we have been missing the importance of about 90 per cent of our investment, nature's investment into nature's bank. We must feed the sea so the sea can feed itself. We must replenish that part of the food chain that has been lost from our equations. We must be willing to spend money on that which we seem to assume is wasted in death.
We must remember that, in nature, the ultimate scientist, nothing is wasted and all is crucial. You cannot replace that nutrient mix with guarded estimates that take into account only the top and the bottom of a circle. Because that circle becomes smaller and a diminishing dynamic circle only gets smaller and smaller. This circle then breaks and becomes a square here, a square there, a geometrically-challenged feeding system that is as completely dysfunctional as it is bound for failure.
In Alaska the ocean ranching system contributes 35 per cent of the total salmon return. Thirty five per cent. But what is more interesting is that the wild salmon returns have increased exponentially. The ocean ranching system feeds off itself and is not only self-perpetuating but, because so many of them die somewhere, are consumed somewhere, contribute somehow to the overall abundance of the ocean, wild fish actually thrive.
In Alaska there's a vast ecosystem with virtually no borders. The Strait of Georgia, the Georgia Basin as it were, is an ecosystem in and of itself. It has borders, vital borders. It's vital to resident salmonids and those that traverse its waters on their northern migration and back home again, it is a vital feeding area that is extremely important to the existence of so many juvenile salmonids. And so important to so much ocean life that we can't begin, or have had yet made a real effort to calculate, just what level of importance.
Yet year over year, decade over decade, century over century the very food cycle of Georgia Strait has been decimated. Creeks that used to turn out thousands of salmon into the food chain, turn out less that a hundred or worse, rivers that used to turn out millions of salmon into the food chain, now turn out perhaps in the low thousands. The Strait is starving of feed because the Strait is starving of salmon.
In Alaska their ocean ranching program has alleviated that. It has been a proven method of bringing back salmon and a method that helps bring back the wild salmon. And it all comes down to the simple equation of food in, food out. They have replicated nature's contribution of the salmon body into the food chain. And they have been enormously successful in their results. For about three decades.
Even more absurd is that DFO realizes there is a serious problem with the chinook and coho stocks in the Strait of Georgia, but they don't have the money to fund studies to see what the problem is. Yet just recently, Federal Fisheries Minister Gail Shea came to Campbell River to announced $940,000 in grants for the salmon farming industry. And absolutely nothing for wild Pacific salmon.
All this as well while Pacific salmon hatcheries have faced severe funding restraints. The ministry will say they fund the Salmon Enhancement Programs on the west coast to the tune of about $24 million, but that has been the annual budget for years. Increases in wages, infrastructure costs - it goes on - means that a status quo on hatchery funding actually works out to a decrease in budget capacity.
So, on the West Coast, DFO gleefully throws money at salmon farms to raise Atlantic salmon while the wild Pacific salmon is basically left to fend for itself. The sport, commercial, First Nations and wild-life based industries on the west coast are worth over $2 billion dollars to the provincial economy. Atlantic salmon farming contributes about $750 million. Interesting math. And you don't have to have one without the other, both industries could co-exist.
In Alaska they don't have fish farms. They have ocean ranching. They have rural coastal communities that have been revitalized and sustained through their ocean ranching process. They have done it for over 30 years. The blueprints are there. The mistakes have been made and corrected. It would be a simple matter of incorporating their best practices. And Canada and British Columbia ignores it. A successful program that could be worth billions of dollars to the British Columbia economy is being ignored.
It is time we start with ocean ranching, a process that has shown benefits to wild salmon, the ocean's ecosystem, commercial, First Nations and sports fishing industries, rural coastal communities and the general economy of Alaska. The salmon industry in Alaska is one of the major economic generators in that state, behind only oil and forestry. Isn't that where we used to be? Isn't that where we want to be again?
© Courier-Islander (Campbell River) 2009
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