March 1, 2018 — They used to tip the scales at 80 pounds: June Hogs they were called. The kings of the Columbia River.
But the big chinook that used to lumber up and down the Columbia and cruise the northeastern Pacific from California to western Alaska have dwindled away over the past 40 years, researchers have learned.
Published in the journal Fish and Fisheries, researchers have documented a trend in decreasing body size in chinook over the past 40 years. The trend was remarkably widespread, affecting both wild and hatchery fish in the northern Pacific from California to western Alaska.
“It is a quite grand phenomenon, not just observations here and there, it is the signature we see along the coast,” said Jan Ohlberger of the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, lead author on the paper.
Chinook are the biggest and most prized species of salmon in North America — and the most sought-after, whether by killer whales, eagles or bears. And certainly by every fisherman, whether commercial, recreational or ceremonial.
But big isn’t what it used to be.
Both wild and hatchery chinook are smaller and younger today, researchers have found, examining 85 chinook populations along the West Coast of North America.
The big chinook that stay out in the ocean four and five years before returning home to spawn have decreased both in numbers and in size — as much as 10 percent in length, and substantially more in weight.
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