Record Sockeye Run in B.C.
by Ken Schlichte
Sockeye Returns Best in Nearly a Century
By Tracy Sherlock, Vancouver Sun, August 25 2010 [here]
B.C. is now reaping the biggest sockeye salmon return in nearly a century, just a year after one of the smallest returns on record. Fishery officials estimated Tuesday that more than 25 million sockeye salmon will return to the Fraser River this year, the largest number since 1913. Last year’s return was 1.7 million.
The estimate could yet go higher, Barry Rosenberger, area director for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, said as Tuesday’s test catch was the largest all year. The department has approved another set of openings for commercial fishing and expanded the fishery based on the record returns.
The huge bounty is causing challenges for supplier and retailer 7 Seas, where they’re turning fishermen away due to a surplus of sockeye.
People have fish going rotten in their boats; it’s really bad,” said 7 Seas president George Heras. “The fish is overwhelming everyone right now because there is way more than anyone expected.” …
The huge salmon run, ironically, comes during the $15-million Cohen commission of inquiry into the disappearance of Fraser sockeye.
The federal commission is going through a transformation of its own. It initially created a scientific advisory panel composed of six fisheries scientists, but this panel has now been scrapped in favour of a model that focuses on peer review. An Aug. 17 press release announced the change along with the establishment of 12 research projects “to study aspects of the decline of Fraser River sockeye salmon, as well as the cumulative effects of the decline.” …
The recent dismissal of the panel follows the July resignation from the panel of Brian Riddell, a 30-year scientist with the federal fisheries department who is now chief executive officer of the Pacific Salmon Foundation. Riddell quit over concerns the commission wasn’t keeping politics and science separate.
Eidsvik said the fact that this year’s run is so large, but last year’s run was drastically small, means many possible causes for the salmon fishery’s decline can be discounted, including global warming. …
Last year’s drastically small Fraser River sockeye salmon run contrasts with last year’s Columbia River Bonneville Dam sockeye salmon run, illustrated [here], which was larger than the Ten Year Average (2000-2009) sockeye salmon run. We have seen the information indicating that last year’s above average Columbia River sockeye salmon run and this year’s huge Columbia River sockeye salmon run occurred because of the favorable offshore ocean habitat conditions created by the Cool Regime of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Those conditions should also have favored Fraser River sockeye salmon runs. It appears that 2009’s drastically small Fraser River sockeye salmon run was due to poor management of that fishery.
Record Salmon Return Explained
This year’s record salmon returns are a mystery to some folks, such as wildlife agency functionaries, but not to us.
Sockeye Count Easily Surpasses 1947
Record Run; ‘Unexpected And Hard To Explain’
The Columbia Basin Bulletin, July 09, 2010 [here]
Sockeye salmon continue to zoom up and over the lower Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam where they are now setting records daily.
The 2010 sockeye count at Bonneville’s fish ladders through Thursday had climbed to 364,019. Before this year, the record sockeye return to the Columbia, which includes fish caught in non-Indian commercial fisheries in the 146 river miles below Bonneville and the dam count, was 335,300 fish in 1947.
Note: as of July 25th the Bonneville sockeye count was 386,071.
The 2010 Bonneville count passed that 1947 mark on Independence Day.
Gill netters harvested 164,200 sockeye (574,000 pounds) in 1947 and 171,139 were counted passing Bonneville, according to data compiled by the Oregon and Washington departments of fish and wildlife. The two agencies co-manage mainstem fisheries on the mainstem Columbia.
The Technical Advisory Committee updated its 2010 sockeye run-size forecast last week to 375,000 fish. The preseason forecast was for a return of 125,000 sockeye to the mouth of the Columbia, but skyrocketing daily counts at Bonneville pushed the forecast to 250,000 and then to 375,000.
This year’s count also exceeds the record Bonneville count, which was 237,700 fish in 1955. Counts have been under way since 1938.
Virtually all Columbia River sockeye are wild-origin fish, originating predominantly from Osoyoos Lake in Canada, with a smaller proportion from Lake Wenatchee. In the Snake River, only a small number of sockeye have returned each year over the past two decades. But their number spiked in 2008 and 2009 when 909 and 1,219 were counted passing the lower Snake River’s Lower Granite Dam, the eighth hydro project the sockeye pass on their way to central Idaho’s Stanley Basin.
Already this year (through Thursday) 938 sockeye have been counted at Lower Granite. The daily counts there rose steadily to a peak of 162 Tuesday. That count was followed by a tally of 143 on Wednesday and 104 on Thursday. Most of the returning Snake River sockeye are the product of a captive broodstock program.
Note: as of July 25th the Lower Granite sockeye count was 1,925.
The Bonneville sockeye counts peaked from June 20-25 when more than 160,000 climbed over the fish ladders. The counts during that period ranged from 25,011 on June 20 to 30,690 on June 24. The latter count is the highest ever, breaking a record set the previous day (30,374).
The record run is “unexpected and hard to explain,” said the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Kathryn Kostow, who also chairs TAC. The committee is made up of federal, state and tribal officials. TAC typically would investigate such “odd events” at season’s end. …
Hard for some people to explain. But the abundantly obvious and evident reason for record salmon runs is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation shift that occurred in 2008, when cool waters replaced warmer waters in the eastern Pacific. Upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water feeds plankton and subsequently the entire food chain, including salmon.
Ken Schlichte predicted the record salmon runs here at NFTSF [here, here], and so did I [here]. No offense to Ken, but it didn’t take a genius to recognize the obvious, especially after record salmon runs in 2009.
The PDO shift was also predicted at W.I.S.E. in 2008 [here].
Maybe the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife ought to read this site. They could learn a lot here, and dispel some of their confusion and misapprehension.
Huge Coho Salmon Run Swamps Oregon Fish Hatcheries
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife announced last week that, “This year’s coho run is on track to be one of the largest salmon returns in the Columbia Basin over the past decade.”
As of October 23rd, an estimated 703,000 coho were forecast to enter the Columbia River at Astoria. Last year’s run size was 472,000 coho.
ODFW noted in their news release: “This year’s run was large enough that fishery managers increased the bag limit to three fish a day and extended the season in many areas. Despite these measures, several ODFW hatcheries have been inundated with fish.”
The news release (below) is interesting for a couple of other reasons. First, ODFW makes no conjecture or supposition as to why this year’s run is double the ten-year average. In their 2007 Oregon Coast Coho Conservation Plan For the State of Oregon [here], ODFW asserts:
Several limiting factors are identified for individual independent coho populations in this ESU (Table 4), including stream complexity (high quality habitat), water quality, water quantity, hatchery impacts, spawning gravel and exotic species. Stream complexity is the predominant limiting factor for populations in the Oregon Coast coho ESU.
Did “stream complexity” change radically in the last five years? No, no significant changes have occurred, at least according to ODFW which needs ever more tax dollars to spend on grinding their teeth about stream habitat.
So what happened? Why has the coho run doubled?
