Unlimited Salmon / Steelhead News Update...

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

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Woolly Bugger

REGON FIELD GUIDE
The story of salmon's 'hero's journey' that I'm saving for my son


>>>Filming salmon has been a big part of my job as an "Oregon Field Guide" photographer. I've taken assignments up to high-mountain salmon-bearing streams and out on ocean-going research vessels. Along with the numerous interviews I've recorded with scientists, my work has given me a deep appreciation for the remarkable lives of these fish and the epic journey they undertake.

To me, the story of salmon in the Northwest is right up there with Homer's Odyssey in ancient literature.

Salmon are a big part of what makes nature so captivating. And now that I'm a dad, I want my son to develop an appreciation of his own for our natural world.

I was hoping to begin my 3-year-old boy on that journey of discovery this September when I took him to witness the annual return of fall chinook salmon to their spawning grounds in a stream that flows from the Cascade Mountains. But instead of sharing my awe at the returning fish, he did what any toddler would do. He scrambled as close as I'd let him get to the water's edge and hunted for sticks to splash and rocks to toss in the stream.


Watch a cool short video

https://www.opb.org/article/2020/12/12/chinook-salmon-pacific-northwest-cascade-mountains/
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

Nisqually River stretch protected by land trust's $1.2 million purchase

>>>A wild, salmon-producing shoreline on the Nisqually River will now be protected after a local land trust acquired the area.

The Nisqually Land Trust, a non-profit conservancy organization, announced the $1.2 million purchase last week. It covers 174 acres of floodplain and upland forest, including habitat for five species of native Pacific salmon, in the river's Wilcox Reach along the Pierce County side of the river, according to a news release.

"This property is the river's crown jewel," said the trust's lands committee chair George Walter in the release. "In terms of salmon recovery, there's nothing else quite like it."

https://www.thenewstribune.com/outdoors/article247871690.html

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The Nisqually Land Trust, a non-profit conservancy organization, announced a $1.2 million property purchase of this stretch of the river Dec. 15. It covers 174 acres of floodplain and upland forest, including habitat for five species of native Pacific salmon, in the river's Wilcox Reach along the Pierce County side of the river above Yelm. TOM LEESON COURTESY OF WESTERN RIVERS CONSERVANCY
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

Congress Coronavirus/Appropriations Bill Gives $65 Million to Conserve Fish in Western U.S.

>>>The legislation Congress is poised to pass that combines relief for the coronavirus with federal appropriations for 2021 includes a long list of funding for pet projects around the country, including western states and tribal communities, which will get $65 million to conserve Pacific salmon and steelhead populations.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/12/21/ccongress-coronavirus-appropriations-bill-gives-65-million-to-conserve-fish-in-western-u-s/
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

Nez Perce Tribe reclaims ancestral village site in eastern Oregon

>>>OSEPH — The Nez Perce Tribe is reclaiming an ancestral village site in eastern Oregon more than a century after being pushed out of the area.

This month, the tribe purchased 148 acres of an area known as "the place of boulders," or Am'sáaxpa, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.

Chief Joseph once held council on the ridge above, before a sweeping view of the Wallowa Mountains. Tribal members would camp there and catch sockeye salmon along the Wallowa River.

https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2020/12/nez-perce-tribe-reclaims-ancestral-village-site-in-eastern-oregon.html


NPR Article and and interesting podcast

https://www.opb.org/article/2020/12/25/nez-perce-tribe-eastern-oregon-reclaims-ancestral-land/
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


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>>>The Maine Department of Marine Resources has reduced its estimate of Atlantic salmon returns to the Penobscot River by nearly 200 fish, but the final estimate for 2020 — 1,440 salmon — is still the highest annual return since 2011. In November, state fisheries scientists announced an estimated 1,603 Atlantic salmon had returned to the Penobscot River.


https://bangordailynews.com/2021/01/07/outdoors/final-penobscot-salmon-estimate-reduced-but-the-total-is-still-the-highest-since-2011/
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

FISHING: Olympic National Park to shut down fishing on West End rivers

>>>According to an Olympic National Park press release, park officials are particularly concerned over the forecasted low return of Queets River wild steelhead. The 2020-21 forecast for Queets wild steelhead is expected to be well below the escapement goal of 4,200 fish. Queets wild steelhead have failed to meet that escapement goal in each of the last four years, and returns in recent years were among the lowest on record.

https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/sports/fishing-olympic-national-park-to-shut-down-fishing-on-west-end-rivers/
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

#336
Scientists draft letter calling on governors to tear down the lower Snake River dams
For salmon and steelhead to survive, the dams must go

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>>>Historically, the Snake River basin was the largest salmon producer in the Columbia River system, once home to salmon runs numbering in the millions. Today, all stocks of salmon and steelhead in the basin are gravely imperiled and some are at the precipice of extinction. Over the last 20 years, the federal government has invested nearly $17 billion into the recovery of Snake River Basin salmon and steelhead—with little to nothing to show in the way of results. The reason, scientists say, is the continued existence of the lower Snake River dams, which destroy habitat, create conditions averse to fish survival, and block passage to vital spawning habitat. This week, ten scientists signed an open letter to the governors of Washington, Oregon, Montana and Idaho calling on those states to remove the lower four dams on the Snake River, stating that "abundant, healthy and harvestable wild Snake River salmon and steelhead cannot be restored and sustained with the four lower Snake River dams in place."

https://www.hatchmag.com/articles/scientists-draft-letter-calling-governors-tear-down-lower/7715196


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

#337
ANGLERS REMOVE MORE THAN 100,000 PREDATORS FROM RIVER SYSTEM DURING THE PANDEMIC

Portland, Ore. – The Bonneville Power Administration and its partners report that in 2020, for the 23rd consecutive season, the Northern Pikeminnow Sport Reward Program met its annual goal to remove 10% to 20% of pikeminnow, 9 inches or longer, in the Columbia and Snake rivers that prey on juvenile salmon and steelhead.

    * Fish removed 103,114
    * Registered anglers 2,450
    * Average angler catch 6.5 fish/day
    * Total paid to anglers $839,461
    * Top angler
        * Fish removed 5,579
        * Total earnings $48,501

https://lcvalley.dailyfly.com/Home/ArtMID/1352/ArticleID/57819/ANGLERS-REMOVE-MORE-THAN-100000-PREDATORS-FROM-RIVER-SYSTEM-DURING-THE-PANDEMIC


dang, get paid $9 for every fish over 9" 



In 2014, the top twenty anglers caught an average of about 3,500 fish per angler and averaged reward payments of $28,609 each for the 5 month season. The highest paid angler earned $73,698.
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 plight of the wild Atlantic salmon
How climate change, ocean warming and fish farms are affecting the life cycle of this dangerously threatened species.

>>Sitting in the warmth of the desert's winter sun here in the Middle East, my mind turns to the contrast of the season at home, where the gales batter the west coast of the British Isles and the blizzards assault the moors. The cold waters of river and stream course through bleak and cold landscapes, as bare windswept trees frame leaden skies.

Yet on the riverbanks, there are also signs of the coming northern hemisphere spring, signs in which we can hold hope for the year ahead: the thrusting shoots of daffodils, the dainty heads of snowdrop flowers emerging against all the frozen, wintery odds.

>>>Many years ago, I stood mesmerised by the flowing waters of the River Ettrick in the Scottish town of Selkirk. The place was alive with leaping fish, an astonishing sight as salmon migrating from seas off Greenland and Iceland leapt upstream over the town weir in their dozens. The wild fish were coming back to their home waters to spawn, as they have done for millennia.

But year after year, the numbers of returning salmon have been decreasing. And in the last few years, the decline has been in freefall. In Scotland, it is estimated that less than 5 percent of salmon return to their rivers, compared with 20 percent 50 years ago. And it is a problem across the range of the Atlantic salmon, from the United States to Russia.

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https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/1/17/the-plight-of-the-wild-atlantic-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

State Report Says Salmon and Steelhead Are Near the Brink of Extinction

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>>>A new report from the Governor's Salmon Recovery Office shows a number of salmon and steelhead populations in Washington state are teetering on the brink of extinction, according to a Thursday press release by the state Recreation and Conservation Office.

The report, titled 'State of Salmon in Watersheds,' shows that 10 of the 14 populations of salmon and steelhead listed as threatened or endangered in Washington under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) are not making progress. Of the 10, five are in crisis.

"We have come a long way in addressing the factors killing salmon," said Erik Neatherlin, the executive coordinator of the Governor's Salmon Recovery Office. "Some salmon populations are strong and nearing recovery. Unfortunately, many challenges are outpacing restoration efforts, holding back recovery of the majority of salmon."

http://www.chronline.com/news/state-report-says-salmon-and-steelhead-are-near-the-brink-of-extinction/article_5085ef2c-59ea-11eb-bdfb-63562cfa03f9.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

Salmon returning to North Van creek in 'shocking' numbers




>>>After all but disappearing from Mosquito Creek, salmon populations are returning in record numbers thanks to a habitat improvement project led by the North Shore Streamkeepers.

Keegan Casidy, the group's president, grew up fishing in North Vancouver. Life took him to the Cariboo for a time but when he returned to the North Shore in 2016, he saw his beloved creek almost devoid of fish.

The last time a pink salmon had been spotted there was the following year.

"I used to run down with a fishing rod, prior to cellphones and things like that, and have some fond memories of very large fish in the creek," he said. "I very quickly found out that the salmon population had declined to a point of almost extirpation."


https://www.nsnews.com/local-news/salmon-returning-to-north-van-creek-in-shocking-numbers-video-3272706

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

Letter to the Editor: Kennebec River best hope for Atlantic salmon


>>>I was involved in the Augusta's Edwards Dam removal for 25 years. It started out with a small group of conservationists who liked to fish and had a vision of a free-flowing river. With the help of many other groups and individuals, the first ever power generating dam was removed for environmental reasons.

The benefits of returning the Kennebec to free flowing to Waterville and beyond have been well documented, with alewife, shad and blue backs returning in record numbers, just to name a few. The fish lift owned by Brookfield at Lockwood hasn't passed shad or alewife in any numbers for 10 years.

The Kennebec River is the last hope for restoring wild Atlantic salmon in the United Stated. The amount of power lost at the lower dams on the Kennebec is minimal and the benefits of dam removal is well documented. The only fish passage that really work is a free flowing river.

Before we damned the Kennebec and made it an industrial river, Atlantic salmon ran wild in huge numbers and were harvested and sold all over the world. We were their demise and we have an obligation to restore them if we can!


https://www.pressherald.com/2021/01/18/letter-to-the-editor-kennebec-river-best-hope-for-atlantic-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

A River on the Rebound, "From the Mountains to the Sea"

>>>One of the greatest stories of ecological rebirth happened (and is happening) right here in Maine. It's a story of people and communities and organizations and businesses finding ways to cooperate and find paths to positive changes that benefit all. A richly illustrated new book, "From the Mountains to the Sea," published by Islandport Press, tells this uplifting tale: the amazing story of the historic restoration of the Penobscot River.

Beginning in the late 1700s and continuing through the 1800s and 1900s, dams were built on the Penobscot River despite continued objections by the Penobscot Nation, knowing that the dams would prevented fish from making their annual migrations from the sea to their spawning grounds upriver. Atlantic salmon, alewife, American shad, and American eel were among the dozen species of sea-run fish whose populations were decimated by the figurative slamming of the door to the river highway that led to the breeding grounds that they had used for thousands of years. Those fish populations had numbered in the millions, bringing essential sustenance to the people of the Penobscot Nation and to countless birds, mammals, and other creatures. Two hundred years later, the fish and the river were barely a shadow of what they had been.

https://www.boothbayregister.com/article/river-rebound-mountains-sea/142741


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

If you've got a lot of time on your hands you can watch for Atlantic Salmon on BBC's winter watch web cam on the River Ness.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/eqwz3d/live/cbmj3d

Note: the view rotates through several web cams... so stay tuned to view the river...



The male salmon of the River Ness
We've got some wonderful live wildlife cameras in the River Ness, in Scotland, following the fortunes of the Atlantic salmon that come there to spawn. And you can even get to know the individual characters with this handy guide from Chris Conroy, River Director & Clerk of the Ness District Salmon Fishery Board.

See if you can spot any of the regulars on the live camera!
A few weeks after returning from the sea and entering freshwater, Atlantic salmon lose their silvery colouration and start to change to their breeding dress. Individual Atlantic salmon may seem very similar, but each fish has unique natural markings. This includes dark pigment spots called 'melanophores'. Individual fish can be identified from their melanophore patterns (known as 'melanophore constellations'). Some fish also have distinctive scars caused by predator damage or the teeth of other fish.

We have captured images of some of the regular visitors to this part of the River Ness this year and highlighted their melanophore patterns (red circles) and any distinctive scars (red arrow). We have concentrated on the males as they tend to hang around longer than the females. Some of these fish have been in the area for over a month already.

See if you can spot any of the regulars on the live camera!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/m6PPgCSTg1fh1NHCpkn2Sp/the-male-salmon-of-the-river-ness


I just spied this guy...

You cannot view this attachment.
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



Helping the Atlantic salmon avoid extinction
The Atlantic salmon run used to be majestic. Today the species is on the brink of extinction. One hatchery in Maine is giving the species in the US hope

Watch the CNN short video about the Downeast Salmon Federation (Maine) which utilized the hatchery methods developed by Peter Gray on the River Tyne in the UK.





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!