Salmon: Running The Gauntlet

[Quillback]

Tonight at 7 PM CT on PBS, Nature will profile salmon issues in the Columbia and Snake river basins.

[Tim Smith]

Tonight at 7 PM CT on PBS, Nature will profile salmon issues in the Columbia and Snake river basins.

That should be a terrific show but I'm going to have to miss it. Could someone post the content and their impressions afterward?

[jdmidwest]

Salmon swim upstream, spawn, then they die. I have seen it before, in the wild. All of the dead salmon seems like a waste, but nature has a purpose for them.

[Quillback]

They did make some other points.

The dams have completely altered the river ecosystem, to compensate we flood the river with hatchery smolts, these smolts require human intervention to reach the sea. Predators such as Caspian terns, cormorants, and pikeminnows are thriving in this new environment, the smolts are easy pickings for them. Basically we're spending hunreds of million dollars each and every year on salmon restoration efforts, but as long as the dams are in place we'll never be successful. Mention was made of the definition of insanity.

Some great photography BTW.

[Tim Smith]

They did make some other points.

The dams have completely altered the river ecosystem, to compensate we flood the river with hatchery smolts, these smolts require human intervention to reach the sea. Predators such as Caspian terns, cormorants, and pikeminnows are thriving in this new environment, the smolts are easy pickings for them. Basically we're spending hunreds of million dollars each and every year on salmon restoration efforts, but as long as the dams are in place we'll never be successful. Mention was made of the definition of insanity.

Some great photography BTW.

Will definitely have to check that one out when it comes around again.

Pike minnow (formerly squawfish) and birds are hardly the brunt of the problem though. About 10% are lost to smallmouth bass and even more than that disappear down walleye gullets.

Classic case of a native fishery suffering at the hands of an introduced one.

[Quillback]

Yep you're right, lots of new predators in the Columbia system. The whole thing is a complex mess, there's no way to explore everything in an hour. I'm on an internet forum that is made up of Northwesterners (steelheader.net), one person is complaining that human harvest issues were barely touched on at all.

[Kayser]

Well, when appx 90% of hatchery fish are picked off by seals below a certain dam, there seems to be a bit of a problem. At least that's what I remember hearing on the subject.

[flytyer57]

The biggest threat to the survival of the salmon has always been the dams.

Then we hear about the Pebble Mine fiasco in Alaska.

[Quillback]

Hey kayser, it depends on the run size but it's probably less than 5% of returning salmon that get eaten by sealions (not seals). If they are hatchery origin fish it's not a huge deal, but when they get wild fish it can be a problem, as some tributaries get relatively few wild fish returns. Sealions also have begun recently to target mature sturgeon below the dams, they seem to have learned that they are easy pickings. Here's a link to a WDFW fact sheet in case you are interested.

http://wdfw.wa.gov/conservation/sealions/questions.html

[Tim Smith]

Well, when appx 90% of hatchery fish are picked off by seals below a certain dam, there seems to be a bit of a problem. At least that's what I remember hearing on the subject.

Quill's right, that 90% number is exaggerated although when I was serving as a salmon steward in Olympia, it was indeed harbor seals (not sea lions in this case) that were taking the chinook. You could clearly see when they took one as they'd all gather around and try to tear off bits. The take was usually 2 or so each morning...a tiny percentage of the total run of over 10,000-19,000 fish.

http://brooksmith.blogspot.com/search?q=salmon

The number varies, but that low percentage of take is typical.

The problem, of course, is that people SEE them taking the salmon and they assume that's the major problem. It's not.

FT is right. It's the dams and the habitat and problems they create.