Unlimited Salmon/Steelhead News Update...

[Woolly Bugger]

Eat jellyfish instead of fish and chips to save endangered species, scientists say

Conservationists revealed that close to a hundred endangered species, caught in oceans around the world, have ended up on diner's plates


Scientists have found jellyfish to be rich in vitamin B12, magnesium, iron, and low in calories.


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/21/eat-jellyfish-instead-fish-chips-save-endangered-species-scientists/

[Woolly Bugger]

Plans laid for dam removal in Whychus Creek

Barrier removals open up 38 miles of stream for fish

>>>For Chinook salmon heading upstream in Whychus Creek in search of prime spawning grounds, the journey is about to become much easier.

Work is underway to remove the Plainview Dam, a barrier that for decades prevented fish from migrating to the farthest reaches of Whychus Creek.

Work to remove the dam started earlier this month and was planned for completion by late October. The recent fires and smoke impacting Oregon temporarily halted the project, but organizers remain hopeful the work to remove the dam can resume this fall, according to Kris Knight, executive director of the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council, which is leading and managing the project.

https://www.bendbulletin.com/localstate/environment/plans-laid-for-dam-removal-in-whychus-creek/article_31374fa4-f940-11ea-8d7d-53c029ff3bd3.html

[Woolly Bugger]

Plan to use fish killer rotenone in N.B. lake, river delayed by environmental assessment

>>Salmon conservation groups are now watching the clock as invasive smallmouth bass, already known to have arrived in the Miramichi River, approach spawning age.

A plan to eradicate the invasive fish this month by spraying the water with the fish-killing pesticide rotenone on a 15–kilometre section of the river and to Miramichi Lake is now on hold after New Brunswick's Minister of Environment, Jeff Carr determined the project must first undergo an environmental impact assessment.

The fish were first spotted in August 2019 in the McKiel Brook pool of the river's southwest branch.

More than 100 smallmouth bass have since been captured in an attempt to limit their spread in the river or in Lake Brook, the avenue they are believed to have used to migrate from nearby Miramichi Lake.

All were between 19 and 28 centimetres long. Female smallmouth are believed to be large enough to spawn sometime after reaching 28 centimetres, or between four and five years of age.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/invasive-species-smallmouth-bass-rotenone-fish-pesticide-lake-river-treatment-poison-1.5732853

[Woolly Bugger]

>>> In the Pacific Northwest, Native Americans paint images of salmon on to stones. They say that if you rub those stones you will acquire the fish's two great qualities: determination and energy. Not so long ago these communities' diets consisted of more than 80 per cent salmon, and they believed it to be a wondrous thing that the migratory fish returned on the same week every year. They also believed they 'owed the salmon respect and gratitude' — and if they failed in this they might stop coming back.

In the 19th and 20th centuries their fears were realised. But it wasn't Native Americans who were disrespectful to the once abundant salmon; it was those who came from Europe, with a wish to get rich and tame the wild. Mark Kurlansky's book is an epic, environmental tragedy, with the salmon at its centre as the abused hero, and a long list of supporting characters, from Scottish fly fishermen to Japan's indigenous Ainu people.



https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/born-to-be-wild-the-plight-of-salmon-worldwide

[Aka]

A couple scenes in this are from the river I grew up on. At 0:56, I used to camp back in the woods there in high school. We'd fish during the day and drink beer around the camp at night. At 2:05 is the flood plain on the lower section of the river where the mouth of the river meets Cook Inlet. As sobering as this is it's still neat to see images of the river I grew up fishing.

[Woolly Bugger]

The governors of the four Pacific Northwest states pledged Friday to work together, and with Native PNW govs. to work together on restoring fish runs
Agreement between Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Montana leaders says tribes, stakeholders will also be involved in plansAmerican tribes and regional stakeholders, to restore Columbia River salmon and steelhead stocks.

>>>The executives signed a letter of agreement that outlines their commitment to develop a collaborative process aimed at finding actions that will help the region meet robust goals set by the Columbia River Partnership Task Force, a group sanctioned by federal fisheries officials that met over the past three years. The group's goals far exceed delisting criteria for wild salmon and steelhead runs protected under the Endangered Species Act.

https://lmtribune.com/northwest/pnw-govs-to-work-together-on-restoring-fish-runs/article_9931caaa-e0cc-5c80-8424-1a75cbe662be.html

[Woolly Bugger]

Study will investigate the genetic impact of escaped farmed salmon

>>>One of the most comprehensive studies of wild Atlantic salmon genetics, which aims to gauge the impact of any interbreeding between wild and escaped farm-raised salmon, has been launched today

The study has been launched in response to a recent escape of farm-raised salmon and will be managed by the wild-fish conservation body Fisheries Management Scotland, supported by scientists from Marine Scotland Science, and funded by Mowi Scotland.

The multi-year study of 115 sites aims to confirm wild salmon's current genetic profile and to track for the potential of genetic changes should interbreeding of farmed and wild salmon occur.

In late August, Mowi Scotland confirmed that 48,834 farm-raised salmon escaped from its Carradale farm in the Firth of Clyde after it became detached from its seabed anchors during a combination of strong weather events.

https://thefishsite.com/articles/study-will-investigate-the-genetic-impact-of-escaped-farmed-salmon

[Woolly Bugger]

The Salmon SuperHWY: Reconnecting Fish To 940 Square Miles Of Their Natural Habitat

>>>Oregon's Tillamook and Nestucca watersheds were historically some of the most productive waters for salmon, steelhead, and trout in the Pacific Northwest. Over the past century, however, much of the habitat here became fragmented due to road construction and flood control development, although otherwise much of these stream systems remain pristine.



Trout Unlimited is a founding partner in the groundbreaking program created to reconnect this productive fish habitat, at an almost unprecedented scale: the Salmon Superhwy.

The audacious goal of the Salmon Superhwy is to enable trout, salmon and steelhead to again migrate freely throughout 940 square miles of their historic habitat, while at the same time improving road conditions, transportation safety, and flood control.

https://loonoutdoors.com/blogs/journal/salmon-superhwy

[Woolly Bugger]

Barriers to renewal

Nearly 200 years later, New York officials are still trying to get salmon back into the Saranac River. The biggest obstacle: Dams.

>>>Jeff Snyder was in his happy place, fly fishing the Saranac River near the foot of Franklin Falls Dam on a lazy summer day.

He was at a loss to name anything wrong with the river. But something was missing.

The Saranac flows from headwaters around Upper Saranac Lake, in the heart of the Adirondacks, and winds some 81 miles to the northeast, dropping nearly 1,500 feet before spilling into Lake Champlain.

Snyder, who lives in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, has fished it for 35 years and keeps coming back. To him, the Saranac is ideal.

It's scenic and winding. Most important on this July day, though, it was alive with fallfish.

"They put up a good fight," Snyder said of the trout-size minnow. "They're fun to catch and they're easy to catch because they eat almost anything."

Even the fallfish's spunk can't match the tug of a fish that has been conspicuously and long absent from this river, though.

Salmon 

Atlantic salmon were once so numerous in the river that early settlers could haul them out by the cartload. Then, two centuries ago, they vanished.

https://www.adirondackexplorer.org/stories/salmon-saranac-river-dams

https://www.adirondackexplorer.org/stories/salmon-saranac-river-dams

[Woolly Bugger]

The Experimental Method That Might Just Save Maine's Salmon

>>>Unlike most New England rivers, the East Machias River never quite lost its salmon. Every fall, a small remnant population swam upstream, against waters that tumble and curl 36 miles from Crawford Lake to the coast, through balsam-scented boreal forest where moose splash and eastern coyotes sing. The Downeast Salmon Federation's weathered, cedar-shingled Peter Gray Hatchery sits along the bank, just below a narrow stretch of rapids that empties into the river's wide, flat tidal reaches.

The hatchery building was an abandoned power station — infested with rats, windows broken, officially designated by the town of East Machias as a "slum and blight site" — before the federation moved in. Now, instead of rats, the place is full of salmon in various stages of development, swimming around in a couple of dozen tanks through which unfiltered river water flows. The damp air always has a fishy scent.

Believing that other hatcheries produced inferior fish, Gray asserted that his method produced "little athletes."

https://downeast.com/land-wildlife/saving-atlantic-salmon/

[Aka]

Federal Court Declares Genetically Engineered Salmon Unlawful

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Today, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) violated core environmental laws in approving the genetically engineered (GE) salmon. The Court ruled that FDA ignored the serious environmental consequences of approving genetically engineered salmon and the full extent of plans to grow and commercialize the salmon in the U.S. and around the world, violating the National Environmental Policy Act.

https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2020/federal-court-declares-genetically-engineered-salmon-unlawful

[Woolly Bugger]

Local Action Leads to Salmon Comeback in Washington's Hood Canal



>>>Facing the deterioration of the rivers where they breed, salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest have been declining for decades. But in Washington State's Hood Canal, one species of salmon, summer chum (Oncorhynchus keta), is recovering to levels that could result in its removal from the endangered species list.

Summer chum salmon populations in Hood Canal, a fjord about 50 miles west of Seattle that opens into Puget Sound, have always relied on the ecosystems of glacier-fed rivers and coastal estuaries to reproduce. Overfishing, destruction of estuary habitats, and a warming climate caused the region's populations to crash, and the species was listed as threatened in 1999. But now, after years of efforts by local projects, the salmon runs are reaching de-listing levels, which indicates that their population levels are robust enough to ensure their prolonged survival.

https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2020/11/12/salmon-comeback-hood-canal/

[Aka]

A new study that found salmon size across all species are shrinking in Cook Inlet, AK a large salt water inlet that covers about 39,000 sq mi in south central Alaska. It is the watershed for many coastal streams including the Kenai river, home to the largest Chinook or king salmon in the world.

"In each species, fish maturing after 2010 were significantly smaller on average than fish that matured prior to 1990. Variation in the extent of body size change existed among species, with Chinook Salmon showing the greatest magnitude decline. Within species, the magnitude of decline also varied among regions and populations, but the overall pattern of body size decline was significant in all four species. Importantly, our study shows that changes in body size resulted primarily from changing age structure and to a much lesser extent from changing growth rates."


https://inletkeeper.org/2020/10/28/alaska-salmon-are-shrinking/?fbclid=IwAR3PYG11evqIOEBmpFh-25owWPYZqEPYF5lPifuJn51kf3ucVRuA60XjL3E

[Woolly Bugger]

Salmon return on Penobscot the highest since 2011

>>>The unofficial count — before Maine Department of Marine Resources staffers analyze data and make sure that recaptured fish are only counted once — is 1,603 salmon that have been counted in the Penobscot this year. That's up from 1,152 in 2019, and is the biggest run of salmon since 2011, when 3,125 salmon returned to the river. The average run for the eight years from 2012 to 2019 was just 708 salmon per year.

https://bangordailynews.com/2020/11/21/outdoors/salmon-return-on-penobscot-the-highest-since-2011/

[Woolly Bugger]

SACRAMENTO RIVER SALMON RESTORATION WILL CONTINUE WITH NEW $10M FEDERAL GRANT

https://www.actionnewsnow.com/content/news/Sacramento-River-salmon-restoration-will-continue-with-new-10M-federal-grant-573163231.html