West coast salmon recovery

[atlas]

I'm not so sure. They (PacifiCorp) removed the dam on the White Salmon, and haven't seen much improvement above the dam sight, though it did greatly improve the spawning habitat below (fresh bedload, the silt is purged pretty quick;<-- @Big Slick ). Then they removed the Elwha dams, without a ton of improvement above the upper dam (pretty noticeable increase between the dams). From what I've seen of salmon restoration work here in WA, it's not really driven by results-based science. I think the lower snake dams are done, even if the Klamath removal isn't that successful.

Salmon are just kinda #@)(*%* and we still don't know why.

Yes, it's hard to stay excited about these restoration projects when there isn't a big response by the fishery to what's been done.

On a short term note there's a big run of steelhead headed to the Clearwater. First trip this season is in a week. Caught the fish in my avatar in Oct last year . Then it's back to elk hunting.

 

[FI460]

Yes, it's hard to stay excited about these restoration projects when there isn't a big response by the fishery to what's been done.

On a short term note there's a big run of steelhead headed to the Clearwater. First trip this season is in a week. Caught the fish in my avatar in Oct last year . Then it's back to elk hunting.

And we'll have a bunch more river to float.

@Irrelevant no pulling permits required down here.

 

[Salmonchaser]

When ever a biologist offers the wild card in understanding salmon is Ocean conditions what he/she is saying is nets. American, Canadian, Chinese, Japanese, any Southeast Asia country you can think of and of course Russia. Hell there are European crews fishing in Bristol bay ever summer.

 

[R.K.]

I'm not so sure. They (PacifiCorp) removed the dam on the White Salmon, and haven't seen much improvement above the dam sight, though it did greatly improve the spawning habitat below (fresh bedload, the silt is purged pretty quick;<-- @Big Slick ). Then they removed the Elwha dams, without a ton of improvement above the upper dam (pretty noticeable increase between the dams). From what I've seen of salmon restoration work here in WA, it's not really driven by results-based science. I think the lower snake dams are done, even if the Klamath removal isn't that successful.

Salmon are just kinda #@)(*%* and we still don't know why.

It’s trawling. That’s the entire story of disappearing salmon. Fish that don’t spend time exposed to trawler fleets don’t end up as bycatch. It wrecked European fisheries and got banned. It wrecked the George’s bank and got banned. Now it’s Alaska’s turn.

And remember- one dead orca is a felony for you, but business as usual for them. One wasted chinook is a wanton waste ticket for you, but 20,000 is just normal to them.

 

[Irrelevant]

It’s trawling. That’s the entire story of disappearing salmon. Fish that don’t spend time exposed to trawler fleets don’t end up as bycatch. It wrecked European fisheries and got banned. It wrecked the George’s bank and got banned. Now it’s Alaska’s turn.

And remember- one dead orca is a felony for you, but business as usual for them. One wasted chinook is a wanton waste ticket for you, but 20,000 is just normal to them.

That certainly seems to be the main culprit, but I'm not willing to conceed "entire". We have smolts that test positive for cocaine and caffeine, we have tire particulates that are 99% lethal to coho, we likely have a plethora of pharma that are impacting both smolt and adult survival. But what I do know is that it ain't a lack of woody debris, it ain't freshwater habitat that's the limiting factor or places like the OR coast and the WA Olympic peninsula would still have great runs.

 

[TheTone]

Yes, it's hard to stay excited about these restoration projects when there isn't a big response by the fishery to what's been done.

On a short term note there's a big run of steelhead headed to the Clearwater. First trip this season is in a week. Caught the fish in my avatar in Oct last year . Then it's back to elk hunting.

It’s busy this year. Drove from Lewiston to orofino yesterday, lots of people on the water. River is super low also

 

[Irrelevant]

What happened to those king salmon caught as bycatch?

Northern Journal last week published a story on how Kodiak-based pollock trawlers unintentionally caught 2,000 king salmon — forcing the closure of a

www.ktoo.org

"Discarded"

 

[FI460]

Salmon return to Klamath Basin in Oregon after more than a century

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife spotted the fish on a tributary above the former J.C. Boyle Dam site, just north of the California border. Several more soon followed it.

www.opb.org

 

[atlas]

Really incredible they made it up that far so soon. I don't know if any of you guys are part of the crazy Klamath dam removal facebook group. The amount denial is nuts.

 

[atlas]

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/78zEKqwsaPbt22c4/

The comments on these posts are hilarious

 

[jryoung]

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/78zEKqwsaPbt22c4/

The comments on these posts are hilarious

CDFW's black ops trucks got a twofer......threw some salmon in the Klamath while trucking woofs into CA from Oregon.

 

[Goodfish]

Meanwhile in the other parallel universe NPMFC s proposing to triple the bycatch of snow crabs to 12 million! Follow the money.

Trawl bycatch tops Bering Sea crabbers' catches

The NPFMC proposes to triple the trawl bycatch of snow crab for next season to more than 12 million animals.

alaskafish.news

 

[Salmonchaser]

Meanwhile in the other parallel universe NPMFC s proposing to triple the bycatch of snow crabs to 12 million! Follow the money.

Trawl bycatch tops Bering Sea crabbers' catches

The NPFMC proposes to triple the trawl bycatch of snow crab for next season to more than 12 million animals.

alaskafish.news

Some day they will wake up in Alaska with no fish and blame ADFG for letting them fish.

 

[atlas]

https://fb.watch/vocQwJSh_b

What looks like a pile of salmon up at JC Boyle on the Klamath

 

[44hunter45]

SIAP

Just weeks after Klamath River dam removals, salmon spotted in long-obstructed streams

For the first time since 1912, wildlife officials say salmon are returning to tributaries on the Oregon side of the Klamath Basin.

www.krem.com

 

[Bonasababy]

I will have a hard time accepting that habitat loss isn't part of the problem.

A goal of mine in retirement is to get back to OR where I spent 1/2 year working for BLM fisheries in my early college years. At that time timber clearcut harvesting along streams was high...not good on USFS land and even worse on BLM. Cutting right to the stream in places, then on top of that they'd burn after cutting (to help control fungal problems that impacted regenerating trees, if I recall correctly). On STEEP banks.

Lots of damage to high spawning habitat as a result. Which was created and shifted over time by the falling of large trees into the water which helped create pools. We spent a fair amount of time compensating for some of that loss by shoving large trees into the stream or placing rock filled gabions to create future spawning pools.

Good work but as green as I was then I could see our work was a drop in the bucket and the damage would last for decades.

 

[FI460]

I will have a hard time accepting that habitat loss isn't part of the problem.

A goal of mine in retirement is to get back to OR where I spent 1/2 year working for BLM fisheries in my early college years. At that time timber clearcut harvesting along streams was high...not good on USFS land and even worse on BLM. Cutting right to the stream in places, then on top of that they'd burn after cutting (to help control fungal problems that impacted regenerating trees, if I recall correctly). On STEEP banks.

Lots of damage to high spawning habitat as a result. Which was created and shifted over time by the falling of large trees into the water which helped create pools. We spent a fair amount of time compensating for some of that loss by shoving large trees into the stream or placing rock filled gabions to create future spawning pools.

Good work but as green as I was then I could see our work was a drop in the bucket and the damage would last for decades.

Oregon has a super weak stream protection buffer for timber harvest. The streams look terrible in the coast range, particularly on the private timber property. We also have a weaksauce stumpage tax and a defacto "independent" lobbying arm funded by state dollars which leads to some remarkable sloughing off of hillsides.

 

[Salmonchaser]

Certainly habitat degradation impacts fish. One of the first areas addressed, building full bench roads instead of side casting, stream buffers, not logging thru streams that kind of thing. I would guess the almost non existent timber harvest of National Forest ground has had a greater impact than any of the other items. Simply conjecture on my part. Private timber ground has to adhere to the Forrest Practices act but an awful lot of their ground looks like a moonscape when they are done logging. Pretty simple, mud covered gravel in streams, no salmon.

 

[Goodfish]

Certainly habitat degradation impacts fish. One of the first areas addressed, building full bench roads instead of side casting, stream buffers, not logging thru streams that kind of thing. I would guess the almost non existent timber harvest of National Forest ground has had a greater impact than any of the other items. Simply conjecture on my part. Private timber ground has to adhere to the Forrest Practices act but an awful lot of their ground looks like a moonscape when they are done logging. Pretty simple, mud covered gravel in streams, no salmon.

Habitat improvement is always going to be a good thing if you can get the fish back to the river to benefit from it. We have to be very specific about impacts to chinook on a regional basis. For Washington and Oregon and Idaho, there is increasing evidence that the SE Alaska and Canadian troll and sport fisheries are responsible for intercepting huge numbers of fish that were hatched in the lower 48 but happen to migrate through their waters. Add that into all the other stress like baitfish depletion from warm temps, too much ocean competition from hatchery pinks and chum in Alaska, too many predators, factory trawler bycatch, commercial interests , and too many sport fishers and it’s a wonder any make it back! It’s one hell of an equation to figure out!

In my opinion I think the anti hatchery folks in the lower 48 caused a lot of this. They thought that hatchery fish were out competing native fish so they started a campaign to demonize hatcheries. In reality large numbers of hatchery fish were providing the buffer of mass numbers of fish to reduce the effects of all of the other impacts listed above. By reducing the total volume of hatchery fish the effects of each of the other impacts are more intrusive to native fish as well as the total reduced number of salmon. The argument by some would be that improved habitat should allow larger production of native fish to allow more to return. Eventually that is true but the tribal and Canadian sockeye folks are proving hands down that hatcheries are part of the solution to get the fish back in the first place where they can colonize the improved habitat.

 

[gouch]

I don't know a lot about the anti-hatchery folks, but I think most of that was in opposition to commercial hatcheries along the coasts where salmon are reared to go immediately to the ocean then return to the hatchery to be processed for food. Farm fish competing with wild fish for the reduced resources you mentioned. Like cattle on buffalo range or wild horses on mule deer range. You can count me in with those folks.

They built the hatchery here on the Rogue River, to compensate for the lost spawning grounds when they built the Lost Creek Dam. Instead of starting with native Rogue River salmon though, they imported salmon from another hatchery. I suspect that is common practice for new hatcheries. But it incorrectly assumes that one salmon is a good as another in any given stream. I have never been a fan of trying to improve on Mother Nature, she has a couple of billion years to work out the bugs and get things right.