Too many salmon in the ocean?

[Derby]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140331-salmon-seabirds-pacific-fish-animals-science/

 

[chris73]

I would quickly flip this argument and say there is not enough food in the ocean. I doubt there are more salmon now than 150 years ago. But there is undoubtably less food due to herring, sardine and krill extractions.

 

[Gunsmith]

Which correlates with the increase in pinks as there is more feed for them. With herring numbers down the springs and other salmon that feed on them will be down in numbers.
The headline is quite deceiving as it is only pinks that are high in numbers.

I would quickly flip this argument and say there is not enough food in the ocean. I doubt there are more salmon now than 150 years ago. But there is undoubtably less food due to herring, sardine and krill extractions.

 

[Dogbreath]

Think of all the Salmon that were in the ocean before the mighty Columbia was choked off by dams.

 

[tincan]

Other than spring-run Chinook, Pinks are first out of the rivers and first to the available food in the ocean. There is definitely some concern that because pinks get first crack at all that delicious food, other species of salmon are disadvantaged. The fact that Pink are historically not high on the commerical/rec priority list doesn't help the potential problem either.