Ominous drop in chinook count

January 31, 2008

Triplicate Staff and Associated Press

The Sacramento River 's fall chinook salmon population fell by two-thirds in just one year and is headed for collapse, according to data from the federal government.

The data has ominous implications for the North Coast as well.

The fall chinook run in the Central Valley had been seen as a success for conservation. The population drop-off now threatens the upcoming commercial and recreational fishing season.

Populations in the Sacramento River and its tributaries stayed above 200,000 for 15 years. But the number of spawners fell to 90,000 last fall, according to the Pacific Fishery Management Council. That is the second-lowest total since 1973.

The population was at 277,000 in 2006 and 804,000 five years ago.

This region's ocean fishery will be impacted by low Central Valley chinook returns. Usually close to 70 percent of fish caught off the local coast are from the Sacramento River system, said Jim Waldvogel, marine advisor for University of California Sea Grant Extension .

Initial counts on the Klamath River and its tributaries show about 18,000 naturally spawning chinook in the Klamath River this fall and about 39,000 in the Trinity River , said Sara Borok, fisheries biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game.

Final numbers for the Klamath system won't be tabulated until next week when all groups that count fish share data collected from this fall's salmon run, Borok said.

But the initial counts exceed 35,000, which was set as the lowest acceptable number of returning adult natural spawners on the Klamath system for last fall's chinook run.

Recent years have seen salmon populations steadily dwindle in the Sacramento and many other Western rivers, and scientists are trying to understand why.

Some believe it's related to changes in the ocean linked to global warming. Others blame the troubles in California on increased pumping of fresh water from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta.

More worrisome is that only about 2,000 2-year-old juvenile chinooks returned to the Central Valley last year, by far the lowest number ever counted. On average, about 40,000 juveniles or "jacks" return each year.

The number of jacks returning to the Klamath system this fall was also very low, fisheries biologists said.

The low number of juvenile salmon means this year's runs are likely to be even smaller.

Experts said it looks like a bad year for salmon elsewhere in the West, though official counts haven't yet been released.

Ron Boyce, a salmon program manager for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the Rogue River barely hit its goal of 20,000 fall chinook in 2006 and 2007.

"This a large-scale phenomenon affecting chinook stocks and other species coastwide," Boyce said.

It is difficult to point to a cause, but the fact that both hatchery and wild fish are showing low returns points to the ocean and estuaries, where salmon spend most of their lives, said Curt Melcher, deputy director of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Last year saw very unusual conditions in the ocean, Boyce said. Southwesterly winds blew all summer, driving warm waters near shore and disrupting the marine food chain.

Some fishermen and environmentalists believe the sharp decline in Central Valley chinook is related to increased water exports from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta, which supplies drinking water to millions of people in drought-stricken Southern California , as well as irrigation for America 's most fertile farming region.

Salmon that spawn in Central Valley rivers form the backbone of the West Coast's commercial and recreational salmon fishery and are caught by fisherman from Southern California to British Columbia . More than 90 percent of the wild salmon harvested in California originate in the Sacramento River system, officials say.

" Sacramento fish are really what the fishery depends on," said Chuck Tracy, the council's salmon management officer. "When Central Valley fish are low, it gets really hard to catch fish even if you're given the opportunity."

The Pacific Fishery Management Council plans to meet in Sacramento in March to discuss possible restrictions, including a complete closure of the salmon season that is scheduled to begin in May. Final decisions will be made at its meeting in Seattle in April.

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Source:  http://www.triplicate.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=7466