Unlimited Salmon / Steelhead News Update...

Started by Woolly Bugger, December 25, 2011, 10:12:11 AM

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Woolly Bugger

'Off the charts': Copper River salmon is already nearing $1,000 per fish -- and that's just for pre-orders

Alaska-headquartered harvester, processor and supplier Copper River Seafoods has nearly sold out of its pre-orders for its 8-ounce sockeye salmon .

Inflation doesn't seem to be taking the wind out of Copper River salmon's first-catch appeal. 'We had so many pre-orders already, tomorrow will be hell,' one seller told IntraFish.

https://www.intrafish.com/markets/off-the-charts-copper-river-salmon-is-already-nearing-1-000-per-fish-and-thats-just-for-pre-orders/2-1-1220069
ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Woolly Bugger

Wildlife officials truck Chinook salmon to cooler waters in emergency move to help them spawn

>>>>In a stopgap measure to help struggling spring- and winter-run Chinook salmon spawn in the face of rising water temperatures and lower water levels due to climate change, state and federal wildlife officials in Northern California have begun trucking adult fish to cooler waters.

The spring- and winter-run salmon are genetically different, with the seasonal labels marking when adult fish travel from the Pacific Ocean back to the Sacramento River to spawn.

The spring-run Chinook, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, are being moved from traps at the base of Keswick Dam to Clear Creek in the Sacramento River.

About 300 specimens of the winter-run salmon, listed as endangered since 1994, are being moved from a government-run hatchery to waters above the Eagle Canyon Dam on the North Fork of Battle Creek, east of Redding. The relocation, which began with a single fish, marks the first time in more than 110 years that the winter-run salmon have occupied those waters.

"It's just beautiful, cool, shady habitat for them," said Peter Tira, a spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. "While they can't physically access it because of the barriers, their offspring will be able to just kind of ride the waterfalls down and will be able to make their migration to the ocean."

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-19/northern-california-chinook-salmon-trucked-to-cooler-waters
ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Woolly Bugger

The US has spent more than $2B on a plan to save salmon. The fish are vanishing anyway.
The U.S. government promised Native tribes in the Pacific Northwest that they could keep fishing as they'd always done. But instead of preserving wild salmon, it propped up a failing system of hatcheries. Now, that system is falling apart.

>>>Today, there are hundreds of hatcheries in the Northwest run by federal, state and tribal governments, employing thousands and welcoming the community with visitor centers and gift shops. The fish they send to the Pacific Ocean have allowed restaurants and grocery seafood counters to offer "wild-caught" Chinook salmon even as the fish became endangered.

The hatcheries were supposed to stop the decline of salmon. They haven't. The numbers of each of the six salmon species native to the Columbia basin have dropped to a fraction of what they once were, and 13 distinct populations are now considered threatened or endangered. Nearly 250 million young salmon, most of them from hatcheries, head to the ocean each year — roughly three times as many as before any dams were built. But the return rate today is less than one-fifth of what it was decades ago. Out of the million salmon eggs fertilized at Carson, only a few thousand will survive their journey to the ocean and return upriver as adults, where they can provide food and income for fishermen or give birth to a new generation.

Federal officials have propped up aging hatcheries despite their known failures, pouring more than $2.2 billion over the past 20 years into keeping them going instead of investing in new hatcheries and habitat restorations that could sustain salmon for the long term. At the largest cluster of federally subsidized hatcheries on the Columbia, the government spends between $250 and $650 for every salmon that returns to the river. So few fish survive that the network of hatcheries responsible for 80% of all the salmon in the Columbia River is at risk of collapse, unable to keep producing fish at meaningful levels, an investigation by Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica has found.

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https://www.opb.org/article/2022/05/24/pacific-northwest-federal-salmon-hatcheries-declining-returns/
ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Woolly Bugger

Copper River closed again amid low counts

This year's Copper River sockeye run is starting out a lot like last year's, which is bad news for most everyone, except for maybe the fish that are showing up.

Alaska Department of Fish and Game managers closed the famed early season drift gillnet fishery for a second consecutive opener May 31 due to poor sockeye counts at the department's Miles Lake sonar upriver from the fishery.

Just 54,154 sockeye had been counted at Miles Lake through May 31, compared to the approximately 132,000 fish needed by that date to meet the department's in-river goal based on historical run data, according to a June 1 ADFG advisory.

https://www.alaskajournal.com/2021-06-01/copper-river-closed-again-amid-low-counts
ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Woolly Bugger

EPA to protect Alaska's Bristol Bay, blocking major gold mine
The Biden administration's move to invoke its Clean Water Act authority marks a major blow for the project, which is near the world's largest sockeye salmon run



The Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday that it would restore protections for Alaska's Bristol Bay, blocking the construction of a massive and controversial gold mine near the world's largest sockeye salmon run.

The policy shift, indicated in a court filing Thursday in response to a lawsuit filed by the mine's opponents, deals a serious blow to a project that has been in the works for more than a decade and would have transformed southwest Alaska's landscape.

Pebble Limited Partnership, the U.S. subsidiary of Canada's Northern Dynasty Minerals, argued that its proposed mine had the potential to be one of the most important metal-producing projects of the 21st century.

But a coalition of Alaska Natives, environmentalists, fishing operators and recreational anglers — including some prominent Republicans such as Donald Trump Jr. — countered that it was too risky to start a hard-rock mine at the headwaters of a fishery teeming with sockeye, coho, chum and pink salmon that has provided generations with a vital food source and lured fishing enthusiasts from around the globe.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/09/09/biden-bristol-bay-gold-mine/
ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Woolly Bugger

#470
Alewives Return to Maine Lake for the First Time Since Revolutionary War

>>>For the first time in over 200 years, a native species of sea-run fish have naturally made their way from the Atlantic Ocean to Maine's China Lake. Also known as river herring, alewives have been blocked from their native spawning grounds for centuries by a series of outdated dams.

The last time alewives successfully completed their roughly 70-mile migration from the sea to their spawning grounds, the United States was still in the midst of the Revolutionary War.

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© Maine Rivers via Facebook
An osprey snatches up an alewife from Maine's Kennebec River.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/alewives-return-to-maine-lake-for-the-first-time-since-revolutionary-war/ar-AAXIwGX?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=9fb9ea2b334c4db38212c9c32d55e102




Alewives return to China Lake for the first time since 1783

>>>No species restoration effort could ever happen without at least one person who's persistent and passionate. In this case, there are several people who've been working to return alewives to China Lake for the past seven years. The small gray fish are a keystone species eaten by many other predators, which makes them important to the health of Maine's ecosystem.

"Yeah, they're popping through. That group that was down there is coming," says Nate Gray, a scientist with the Maine Department of Marine Resources, standing on the edge of a newly constructed fishway at the Outlet Dam, watching alewives in the water below. "It's a thing of beauty, it truly is."

The dam is the final barrier before China Lake. And the fishway serves as a sort of ladder for migratory fish, a structure with water on the side of the dam that helps them do what their driving instincts tell them: navigate around the obstruction and get to the lake to spawn.

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Listen to the NPR story here
https://www.mainepublic.org/environment-and-outdoors/2022-05-20/alewives-return-to-china-lake-for-the-first-time-since-1783

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The fishway can be seen in the foreground of this shot. In the background is the Olde Mill, a woolen mill built in approximately 1850. At one point, it was the largest mill in New England, employing over 500 people.


ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Woolly Bugger

ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Woolly Bugger

More Atlantic salmon are returning to the Penobscot River this spring after a disappointing 2021

>>>Atlantic salmon, federally protected under the Endangered Species Act, are returning to the Penobscot River in larger numbers than usual this spring.

As of May 27, a total of 169 Atlantic salmon had been counted at Milford.

"We have only had two years [when] salmon numbers were higher in the month of May since 1978," said Jason Valliere, a marine resource scientist for the Maine Department of Marine Resources Division of Sea Run Fisheries and Habitat.


The most productive years during that time period came in 2010, when 250 salmon returned to the river, and in 2012, when 200 fish were counted.

More than 40 Atlantic salmon came through the fishway on May 22 alone.

https://bangordailynews.com/2022/06/02/outdoors/more-atlantic-salmon-returning-to-penobscot-joam40zk0w/
ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Woolly Bugger

Causeway removal meant big jump in juvenile salmon



>>>INDIAN ISLAND, Wash. (AP) — The return of young salmon to the eelgrass beds of the tidelands below Indian Island's sandstone-stacked bluffs has been swift following the removal of an earthen causeway that opened fish passage.

Even Bill Kalina, the island's longtime environmental program manager for the Navy, was taken aback by the jump in the number of juvenile salmon since the causeway was replaced with the bridge at the south end of Kilisut Harbor, Kitsap Sun reported.

"We weren't expecting these results so quickly," Kalina said. "It happened almost overnight."

For the past 75 years, the causeway's two small culverts were the only way saltwater — and the life traveling in it — traversed Oak Bay north to Kilisut. But in 2020, a $12.6 million state project replaced the causeway with a concrete girder bridge.

Only six juvenile salmon were found during seining in the five years before the bridge opened. During this year's seining, over two days in May, volunteers netted close to 1,000 juvenile salmon.

"The increase was really dramatic," Kalina said.

https://www.knkx.org/environment/2022-06-06/causeway-removal-meant-big-jump-in-juvenile-salmon
ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Woolly Bugger

How A $2 Billion U.S. Plan To Save Salmon In The Northwest Is Failing

Listen to Science Friday
ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Woolly Bugger

The Last-Ditch Effort to Save Wild Salmon
As climate change deals a blow to coastal habitats, coho salmon are disappearing from California's Russian River. Can conservation hatcheries save them?

>>>Elizabeth Ruiz parked the white pickup at the side of a winding road, climbed out of the cab, and looked around in disbelief at what was left of the narrow valley: How could any salmon have possibly survived? Once a redwood forest so lush that the land's contours were lost in it, every ridge and gulley was now exposed, eerily radiant under the Creamsicle-orange sky. Patches of ground still smoldered from the Walbridge Fire, which had blazed through the valley seven weeks earlier, in August 2020.

Ruiz, a biologist with the science agency California Sea Grant, adjusted their N95 mask for protection from the haze. Dark hair tucked under a hard hat, wading boots kicking up ash, Ruiz clambered carefully down the steep bank to Mill Creek. They were accompanied by a four-person field crew, all dedicated to saving a population of coho, one of the most endangered runs of salmon on the West Coast of North America. Even bird calls rarely disturbed the quiet. Nearly all the wildlife had fled.

"It felt like we were at the end of the world," Ruiz says, recalling that mild October day.

https://www.wired.com/story/the-last-ditch-effort-to-save-wild-salmon/
ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Woolly Bugger

Fish and Game announces sport fishing closures for king salmon on the Kenai Peninsula


ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - The Alaska Department of Fish and Game closed king salmon sport fishing on the Kenai, Ninilchik and Kasilof Rivers through the end of July, as well as closing the Cook Inlet saltwater fishery for now.

"This year is off to a really slow start with most of our chinook salmon escapement monitoring here on the Kenai Peninsula depending on the stock or system," said Alaska Department of Fish and Game area biologist Mike Booz.

So far the early run king salmon count on the Kenai River is 1,030. The Department of Fish and Game considers an optimal early-season return to be in the 3,900 - 6,900 range.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fish-and-game-announces-sport-fishing-closures-for-king-salmon-on-the-kenai-peninsula/ar-AAYzeWx
ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Woolly Bugger

Endangered coho salmon, considered on the brink of extinction, make a major comeback at Bay Area creek

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>>>An endangered species of salmon, once considered to be on the brink of extinction in the Bay Area, is showing a promising return.


Researchers at the Marin Municipal Water District said that significant rainfall totals late last year mitigated drought conditions and may have aided in bolstering the coho salmon population at Lagunitas Creek, a 24-mile stream in Marin County where the fish spawn every winter.

Eric Ettlinger, an ecologist for the agency, told the Marin Independent Journal that the creek saw one of the largest salmon runs in a decade and that fish surveyors discovered 330 coho egg nests — the second-highest count recorded in that span of time. Three hundred and seventy nests were counted during the winter months of late 2018 and early 2019.

"For the public, it was an amazing year because [salmon] were all over the watershed," Ettlinger told the outlet. "People were seeing them in popular spots like Devil's Gulch and Leo T. Cronin Fish Viewing Area and spawning over an extended period of time. They said they had not seen so many salmon in years and that this year was the best viewing they had ever seen."


https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Endangered-coho-salmon-return-to-Bay-Area-17252203.php
ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Woolly Bugger

Woman's 24-hour salmon fishing marathon to help restore spawning waters

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>>>Karen Woolley, 66, of South Stoke Road, Woodcote, will fish for 24 hours next Friday in the upper reaches of the River Dee in
Scotland.

She says climate change is warming the river and juvenile salmon are dying in the treeless landscape.

Mrs Woolley will be part of a team of 30 anglers supporting a project by the River Dee Trust to plant millions of native trees along the banks to provide shade and lower the water temperature in these salmon nursery streams.

She aims to raise at least £3,000 to fund more than 1,000 trees along a barren stretch of the river. Any fish caught will be returned to the river. Mrs Woolley said: "Time is running out for the salmon as well as for other species that live in our rivers.

"North Atlantic salmon may disappear from our rivers within the next 20 years. Their numbers have declined by two-thirds in the last 40 years as they have suffered catastrophic losses at sea.

https://www.henleystandard.co.uk/news/environment/172983/womans-24-hour-salmon-fishing-marathon-to-help-restore-spawning-waters.html
ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Woolly Bugger

Sockeye salmon are returning to the Columbia River for the highest count in a decade

Sockeye salmon are returning to the Columbia River at numbers far higher than predicted by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, bringing expanded fishing opportunities this summer.

According to the WDFW, the committee that forecasts and monitors salmon and steelhead returns to the Columbia River initially predicted around 198,000 sockeye salmon ahead of the season.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/sockeye-salmon-are-returning-to-the-columbia-river-for-the-highest-count-in-a-decade/

Bristol Bay Sockeye Run Set to Shatter Records

From the pristine waters of Bristol Bay, the harvest of sockeye salmon, a legendary culinary experience, is set to break records. Consumers and chefs can't wait for July when the opportunity to enjoy this memorable fish comes once again.

The Alaska Department of Fish & Game is predicting that over 75 million sockeye will return to Bristol Bay this summer, topping the largest salmon run on record. Bristol Bay is a world-renowned, thriving, and vast ecosystem that is home to thousands of fishermen, six major river systems, and millions of salmon. Alaska is known for its commitment to sustainably managed salmon runs; the fish are a vital link to the state's past and a key to its future.

"Salmon is more than a delicious and nutritious source of protein," said Lilani Dunn, Marketing Director of Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon. "It is also part of the fabric of life, an essential livelihood, and the foundation of health for Bristol Bay fishermen. This abundant and record-setting harvest is the result of careful attention to sustainable fishing practices. And we are honored to share it with the world."


https://www.perishablenews.com/seafood/bristol-bay-sockeye-run-set-to-shatter-records/
ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!