Salmon Populations Crashing in Alaska

[Barbender]

Maybe Alexandra Morton can find a reason for this collapse. She said in her presentation that salmon populations in Alaska where at all time highs.

Lack of Yukon king salmon declared disaster
ALASKA: Officials praise Commerce secretary for paving way for relief funds.

By KYLE HOPKINS
khopkins@adn.com

Published: January 16th, 2010 12:37 AM
Last Modified: January 16th, 2010 08:28 PM

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke declared a commercial fishing disaster for Yukon River king salmon Friday following two years of poor runs, fishing restrictions and bans.

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tool nameclose tool goes here "Communities in Alaska along the Yukon River depend heavily on chinook salmon for commercial fishing, jobs and food," Locke said in a statement from the Commerce Department. "Alaska fishermen and their families are struggling with a substantial loss in income and revenues."

The declaration -- requested by Gov. Sean Parnell and others -- does not automatically send money to communities hammered by the loss of chinook salmon to eat and sell.

But in the past, such declarations have meant federal money for research, infrastructure or payments to fishermen. Parnell's office said it could also fund training programs and other regional projects.

"The possibilities are as many as there are salmon out there," said Tim Andrew, director of natural resources for the Bethel-based Association of Village Council Presidents. AVCP has been asking for disaster relief in the region for two years, he said.

Friday's federal declaration is key to persuading Congress to send emergency relief money to the region, said U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, who joined Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Don Young in calling for the declaration last spring.

All three praised Locke's announcement Friday. It's too early to say how much money might be requested, Begich said.

Chinook salmon sell for roughly $4 to $5 a pound and are the most valuable commercial fish in the region, said John Hilsinger, head of the state's Commercial Fisheries Division.

About 870 fishermen hold commercial king permits along the river, Hilsinger said. Most live in the cash-poor Lower Yukon, a region where villages reported a food-versus-fuel crisis last year.

Fishermen made roughly $2.25 million on Yukon River chinook in 2007, catching about 35,000 fish, Hilsinger said.

Those numbers plummeted over the next two years.

Poor returns led regulators to restrict commercial fishing in 2008, with the harvest 89 percent below the recent five-year average, according to the Commerce Department. In 2009, there was no commercial season and limited subsistence fishing -- the fish residents catch to feed their families and villages.

Regulators expect another poor season in 2010, Hilsinger said.

Some village and regional leaders blame the massive Bering Sea pollock fleet for the decline, saying some of the tens of thousands of king salmon caught by trawlers each year would otherwise return to the Yukon.

In a statement announcing the disaster declaration, the Commerce Department said the cause of the disappearing salmon isn't fully understood but that scientists believe it's primarily natural events: changing ocean and river conditions and changing temperatures and food sources.

The kings caught by the pollock fleet don't account for the magnitude of missing kings on the river, Hilsinger said. But given how few fish are returning to the Yukon overall, the salmon lost to bycatch could still determine how much commercial fishing, if any, is allowed on the river, he said.

The last federal fishery disaster declarations in Alaska came in 2000, after the collapse of the Bering Sea snow crab population and a salmon fishery failure in Norton Sound and the Kuskokwim and Yukon rivers, said Sheela McLean, spokeswoman for NOAA Fisheries in Alaska.

Those declarations were followed by combined federal appropriations of $25 million, she said.

The state has not declared an economic disaster of its own over the low king salmon returns. State officials have said they can't legally declare a disaster because the Yukon River losses don't meet strict state requirements.

 

[Dave H]

"Maybe Alexandra Morton can find a reason for this collapse. She said in her presentation that salmon populations in Alaska where (sic) at all time highs."

And maybe you could give us a reason why you are comparing ONE run of Chinook with the millions of Pink and Sockeye that have returned in record numbers the past few years as a result of their ranching technique.

Or would that take away from your perceived opportunity to bash Alexandra Morton??

Pathetic.


Take care.

 

[Kisinana]

Barbender

I am surprised that you would post without doing research. Alaska has had a problem with bycatch as it mentions in the article with certain runs.
It also says
"the cause of the disappearing salmon isn't fully understood but that scientists believe it's primarily natural events: changing ocean and river conditions and changing temperatures and food sources."
Note "primarily natural events."

No mention of fish farms or sea lice they cause,our major problem.

Many of the other runs in the state are at all time highs.

If you think taking cheap shots at Alexandra Morton will take the heat off fish farms in BC, you've been eating your own product.

 

[chris73]

I don't think even Marine Harvest would want to be associated with such low level of intelligence as this statement shows:

quote:Maybe Alexandra Morton can find a reason for this collapse.

 

[Barbender]

Pinks collapsed in Prince William Sound last year where 95% of the run never showed up how come that was never mentioned. Salmon runs were down across the state with only Bristol Bay holding up. You can look it up easily enough. Funny how when you say that maybe some more research needs to be donw on salmon survival rates in the ocean how defensive some of you get. Just pointing out that maybe there are other causes.

 

[Barbender]

Notice how salmon farms are not mentioned once. Just food for thought.


Big, fat king salmon swarmed into the Columbia River last year, producing the largest run of fish observed since 1938 and climaxing a four-year surge in returning fish. An Oregon newspaper trumpeted rising catches.

"They called it the Year of the Chinook," oceanographer Hal Batchelder told a gathering of about 500 people Monday during the first day of a marine science conference in Anchorage.

But over the same period, Alaska salmon runs have dropped and economic disasters have been declared. The 2002 statewide catch of about 130 million fish was the lowest since the late 1980s, the state Department of Fish and Game reported.

The two regions are connected, Batchelder said, through a complex seesaw relationship that reaches across 1,000 miles of ocean. It hinges on vast cycles in currents, temperatures, winds, storms, melting snow, river runoff and the saltiness of the sea.

The quick explanation sounds simple: The ocean may have cooled in the Northeast Pacific in the late 1990s, possibly triggering a regime shift in which animals will thrive and which won't, Batchelder said. A warming trend in the late 1970s had the opposite effect: Alaska salmon runs shot up and Pacific Northwest returns crashed. The nature of marine life throughout the region changed.

But figuring out what triggered the shift, possibly part of a 100-year cycle, is more difficult.

"In order to understand these long-term, large-scale changes, we need to decipher the nature of these ecosystem shifts," said Batchelder, a key scientist in an investigation into how climate variability affects sea life.

Over the next four days at the Hotel Captain Cook, biologists will present 160 technical talks and participate in workshops about Steller sea lions, climate change and oceanography, fisheries, plankton and biochemistry. Results from about 100 scientific studies have been posted on the walls.

On Monday, a series of speakers took a big-picture approach, explaining studies that try to understand the vast climactic engines that drive the ocean and its marine life. The details are complex, but speakers kept emphasizing how the Gulf of Alaska, with its location and huge inflow of fresh water, is especially sensitive to climate shifts.

University of Alaska Fairbanks scientist Thomas Weingartner talked about how the spinning of the Aleutian-low storm system helps create upwelling of cold, salty water. That nutrient-rich water is necessary to trigger the annual blooms of plankton and tiny sea life during spring's sunny days.

Biologist Suzanne Strom of Western Washington University described how that plankton bloom occurs only when the right conditions converge -- just the right mixing of the ocean's layers, just the right amount of sunlight. Those tiny animals and plants then form the basis of a complex food web that feeds juvenile fish like pink salmon.

Ted Cooney, a University of Alaska Fairbanks researcher who studied the ecosystem of Prince William Sound, explained how researchers gradually came to a more sophisticated understanding of the relationship between pink salmon and those little critters over the past 25 years. Predators play a big role.

They once believed that salmon thrived when they found enough food. But pollock and herring, trying to eat the same food, can turn on the young salmon and eat them up. In the end, no simple mechanism controlled salmon survival in the Sound.

"We learned that Mother Nature is sophisticated and robust," Cooney said. "We also saw that asking for a silver bullet was, in the words of the Borg, futile."

The conference runs through Friday. It has been organized by the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustees Council staff with sponsorship from the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the National Marine Fisheries Service, the North Pacific Research Board, North Pacific Marine Research Institute and Pollock Conservation Cooperative Studies.

 

[Barbender]

http://www.adn.com/2009/06/20/838015/gulf-of-alaskas-salmon-become.html

 

[SerengetiGuide]

Agreed it's just one run, so little evidence there. HOWEVER, with that being said, if one run disappeared here you know damn rights all of you would be screaming hell and high water that it was due to fish farms...

I'm just stating fact here...everyone has different colored glasses on and it taints the way they see things.

www.serengetifishingcharters.com

 

[profisher]

Always seems fishy when they say they aren't sure of why. Just so similar to how they weren't sure Agent Orange caused medical issues later in ones life. All in an effort to stall having to admit a problem and cough up some doe to fix it. Once all the vets died off the payout is smaller, once all the salmon are gone, so is the problem.

 

[highlights]

quote:Originally posted by Barbender

Pinks collapsed in Prince William Sound last year where 95% of the run never showed up how come that was never mentioned. Salmon runs were down across the state with only Bristol Bay holding up. You can look it up easily enough. Funny how when you say that maybe some more research needs to be donw on salmon survival rates in the ocean how defensive some of you get. Just pointing out that maybe there are other causes.

....Your kidding right?

Of course there are numerous reasons as to why a given run collapses.

Alexandra Morton is dealing with one item as this is where she is versed. Why would we deny that fish farms contribute? Lets start with it then move on to the next issue. Got to start somewhere and she is doing a fantastic job to rally the masses. Once that issue is dealt with then DFO might start to think we all do really care. The fish farm thing is going mainstream. This is what we need. We need public awareness. Unfortunately we have seen that a bunch of fisherman do not mount to anything really. We need all the neighbours too!

 

[Charlie]

quote:Originally posted by Barbender

Barbender?
You always seem to amaze me… “Salmon Populations Crashing in Alaska”?
At least “if” you are going to post something of that nature, could you at least post “NEW” information? [B)]

That particular stock has been in trouble for years, along with the Kuskokwim River and many others… how about these numbers? Deshka River, dropped from the range of 30,000 to 60,000 fish per year to less than 8,000 in 2008. The Anchor River, from 12,000 to less than 6,000. Karluk River less than 800 fish, a fraction of the 4,000 to 6,000 that had been coming back there for years.

Or throw in these statements? “The downward trends have only grown worse this year. The king fishing season should at this moment be in full swing across the region, but faltering returns have forced closures of major Kodiak, Kenai, Susitna, and Copper River waters. And where streams aren't closed, there are still worries.” “There have been 7,668 landed, the lowest king salmon harvest through the middle of June since at least 1969.” Yea, check the date… not to “NEW”?
http://www.adn.com/2009/06/20/838015/gulf-of-alaskas-salmon-become.html

I certainly hope you know more about “your” Atlantic salmon, then “our” Chinook salmon, or you and your company are in real trouble… as you apparently know nothing of “our” Chinook salmon! Your are kidding with this statement, right?

quote: Maybe Alexandra Morton can find a reason for this collapse. She said in her presentation that salmon populations in Alaska where at all time highs.

The “Yukon River”… you “really” need to do some more research! The Yukon River is 3185 km long (of which 1149 km lie in Canada) - how in the world can you even think of comparing, or even reference the “Yukon River” with anything to do with fish farms or Alexander Morton? Absurd... You might as well blame “DFO”, along with it as over one-third of that river is in Canada. And, since there happens to be a U.S. Canada treaty, just for it – you might as well throw in NOAA!

Do you ever read the news? They just had a huge ice breakup, which caused major Yukon River flooding. The flooding comes in the aftermath of a week of record-high temperatures in the mid 70s - Yea I can see, “scientists believe it's primarily natural events: changing ocean and river conditions and changing temperatures and food sources.” What do you think? That alone probably devastated this year’s out migrating smolts? Now look up how many times that river has flooded over the last ten years!

Then how about this? Our Chinook migrate to Alaska… do you know where Alaska Chinook migrate? Do you even have an idea of the amount of “salmon by catch” of the “Bering Sea Pollock” fleet? I’ll let you find that one yourself, but they have done several studies on the effects of that by catch and the “Alaska Chinook”… it is huge impact on their local fish! Those fish migrate directly in the path of the Bering Sea Pollock fleet according to the U. S. Bering-Aleutian Salmon International Surveys (BASIS). Think about all those “juvenile” Chinook caught in those nets and yes… most are Alaskan Chinook!
ftp://ftp.afsc.noaa.gov/posters/pJMurphy02_juvenile-chinook.pdf

Now in case you haven’t got it figured out yet and still don’t understand, Alaskan Chinook migrate differently than ours! Ours migrate to Alaska – theirs migrate, yep… to the Bering Sea. Have you ever heard of El Niño, La Niña, and the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO)? If you have… then you know all salmon are affected by that? And, if you do, do some more research, you will find… Normally “our” good survival years are “Alaska’s” bad survival years! Can you say… "Bering Sea Pollock fleet by catch","river conditions", “ocean conditions” and “ocean currents” - in one sentence?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_decadal_oscillation

And then this? [:0][B)]

quoteinks collapsed in Prince William Sound last year where 95% of the run never showed up how come that was never mentioned. Salmon runs were down across the state with only Bristol Bay holding up. You can look it up easily enough. Funny how when you say that maybe some more research needs to be donw on salmon survival rates in the ocean how defensive some of you get. Just pointing out that maybe there are other causes.

Barbender, I would love to get your reference for that “95%” “Pink” “collapsed””never showed up” comments? You might want to do a “little” “more” research there, also? You are correct in Alaska numbers are very easy to obtain… they publish them! I would love to have their type of a “collapse” in Prince William Sound! Here are some of Prince William Sound numbers on “Pinks”:
2009 = 18,400,000 “million”
2008 = 42,354,000 “million”
2007 = 63,470,000 “million”
2006 = 21,722,000 “million”
2005 = 59,945,000 “million”
2004 = 23,531,000 “million”

Just to note their Pink number were about the same in the following years:
2002 = 18,951,000 “million”?
1995 = 16,070,000 “million”?

So, I would have to say and agree “they” had a below average “Pink” year… but, it is far from a “collapse” or any “95% never showed up”? It would be more like about a 55% of an average return but well above the 1995 return of over 15 years ago! Infact, they are still getting fat on "OUR" fish! At least the ones that survive past those "fish farms"! [:0][:0]

And a far cry better than the Faser River Sockeye return migrating past "all" those "FISH FARMS"![:0][:0][B)]

http://www.cf.adfg.state.ak.us/region2/finfish/salmon/pws/pwspos09.pdf
http://www.cf.adfg.state.ak.us/geninfo/finfish/salmon/catchval/blusheet/08exvesl.php (Date Issued 1/12/2010)

Have a great day!

 

[cuttlefish]

For a 95% collapse, the forecast would have had to have been 368,000,000. (368,000,000 X 0.05 = 18,400,000) Was that the forecast for 2009 PWS pink returns? Based on the numbers Charlie posted, somebody at ADF&G likely missed a decimal place.

Furthermore, it is illogical to assume that since Alaska experienced declines in some salmon returns and they do not have any fish farms, therefore declines in some salmon returns in BC are not associated with the fish farms here. It is denial based on flawed logic.

Finally, the managers of the pollock fishery have taken measures to reduce impacts on juvenile Chinooks by moving the fishery out of some areas where high by-catch is reported. Perhaps DFO (now that they are in charge) could take similar actions here by moving the fish farms (fishery) out of some areas of BC where high sea lice prevalence on juvenile wild salmon is reported.

 

[Charlie]

Just found this, knew I had read it concerning the history of the Yukon River? I don't think, one could really use the term "Crashing" and indicate this as a "NEW" issue considering the first time it was closed for commercial fishery was from 1924-1931, for the entire Yukon Area! [:0]

quote: Rural residents in the Yukon area have depended upon fishery resources, including salmon, as a source of food for centuries. The first recorded commercial harvest of salmon in the U.S. portion of the Yukon River drainage occurred in 1903 (Pennoyer et al. 1965, Regnart 1975). However, it was not until 1918 that there was a commercial fishery for export in the lower 114 miles (182 km) of the river (Pennoyer et al. 1965, Carey 1985). Relatively large harvests of Chinook salmon (up to 105,000 fish) occurred from 1919 to 1921 using drift gillnets, set gillnets, and fish wheels. Due to concerns for the existing in-river subsistence fishery, fishing for export was prohibited inside the Yukon River in 1921, and from 1924-1931 the commercial fishery was closed in the entire Yukon Area, including coastal waters (Carey 1985). Commercial fishing was allowed again in 1931 and was managed by the federal government using various harvest quotas until statehood was granted in 1959. In 1934, the commercial harvest quota was increased to 100,000 Chinook salmon and in 1936, the quota was reduced to 50,000, of which not more than half could be harvested inside the mouth of the river. From 1954 to 1960, the subsistence fishery was closed on weekends, and a quota of 65,000 Chinook salmon was in effect for the Alaskan portion of the Yukon River (Vania et al. 2002).

In 1960, the State of Alaska assumed management of the fisheries, and ADF&G initiated regulation of the commercial and subsistence harvest of Yukon salmon stocks by imposing restrictions on gear, fishing areas, and fishing time, but did not restrict the amount available for subsistence harvest. In 1981, the Alaska Board of Fisheries implemented guideline harvest ranges for Yukon River Chinook salmon of 60,000-120,000 fish caught in Districts Y-1 and Y-2 (Vania et al. 2002). Between 1974 and 1984, the commercial fishery was managed with separate seasons for Chinook and summer chum salmon by allowing consecutive unrestricted mesh size gillnet periods early in the season followed by restricted or small-mesh gillnet (<6-inch stretch mesh) periods. Post 1984, unrestricted and restricted commercial periods were more intermittent. Concerns for possible over harvest of Chinook salmon runs resulted in some reduction in annual harvests starting in the late 1980s and continuing until the mid to late 1990s. Poor runs in the late 1990s and early 2000s resulted in a very restrictive management regime for Yukon River Chinook salmon commercial fisheries. In 2001, for the first time since 1931, commercial fishing in the Alaskan portion of the Yukon River drainage was closed completely.

THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA YUKON RIVER JOINT TECHNICAL COMMITTEE
http://www.cf.adfg.state.ak.us/region3/pubs/yukon/06bofjtcchin.pdf