Saving Seafood

Study: Chinook salmon are key to Northwest orcas all year

March 4, 2021 — For more than a decade, Brad Hanson and other researchers have tailed the Pacific Northwest’s endangered killer whales in a hard-sided inflatable boat, leaning over the edge with a standard pool skimmer to collect clues to their diet: bits of orca poop floating on the water, or fish scales sparkling just below the surface.

Their work established years ago that the whales depend heavily on depleted runs of Chinook, the largest and fattiest of Pacific salmon species, when they forage in the summer in the inland waters between Washington state and British Columbia.

But a new paper from Hanson and others at the NOAA Fisheries Northwest Fisheries Science Center provides the first real look at what the whales eat the rest of the year, when they cruise the outer Pacific Coast — data that reaffirms the central importance of Chinook to the whales and the importance of recovering Chinook populations to save the beloved mammals.

By analyzing the DNA of orca feces as well as salmon scales and other remains after the whales have devoured the fish, the researchers demonstrated that the while the whales sometimes eat other species, including halibut, lingcod and steelhead, they depend most on Chinook. And they consumed the big salmon from a wide range of sources — from those that spawn in California’s Sacramento River all the way to the Taku River in northern British Columbia.

Read the full story at OPB

Salmon Conservation Key to Saving Killer Whales

March 4, 2021 — The endangered Southern Resident killer whales in the waters near Washington and British Columbia have stalled in their population recovery, and, according to new research, a major factor limiting their growth is their preference for preying on Chinook salmon.

In a study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One, researchers present new data on environmental stressors facing the orcas and propose investment in the conservation of Chinook salmon to aid in the recovery of the population.

Killer whales are some of the most recognizable mammals in our seas with their distinct black and white markings. While they can be found in every ocean, they have broken off into small populations, creating different sub-species known as transient, offshore, and resident. The three groups are unique to one another, with different physical attributes as well as social structures and behavioral habits.

There are multiple populations of resident killer whales, but the authors of this study looked specifically at Southern Resident killer whales. These orcas mostly inhabit the waters around Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, and make up the smallest of the resident populations.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

As most Alaska salmon fishing regions face another season of mediocre runs, Russia hikes competitive pressure

February 24, 2021 — Alaskans are preparing for another salmon season of poor to average runs in most regions.

The big exception once again is at Bristol Bay, where another massive return of more than 51 million sockeyes is expected. Managers predict that surge will produce a harvest of over 36 million reds to fishermen.

Bristol Bay is home to the largest wild sockeye salmon run in the world and typically accounts for 42% of the world’s sockeye harvest. Those fish and all wild salmon compete in a tough worldwide commodities market, where Alaska salmon claims 13% of the global supply.

Farmed salmon production, which outnumbers wild harvests by nearly 3 to 1, is Alaska’s biggest competitor; the other is Russia.

According to global seafood trading company Tradex, Pacific salmon catches from Russia are projected to top 1 billion pounds in 2021. As a comparison, Alaska’s 2020 catch of nearly 117 million salmon weighed in at just over 500 million pounds.

The Russian catch breaks down to more than 700 million pounds of pinks, nearly 206 million pounds of chum salmon, 70.6 million pounds of sockeyes, over 24 million pounds of coho salmon and 8.8 million pounds of Chinook.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Warming seas could wipe out Snake River chinook by 2060, scientists predict

February 19, 2021 — Snake River spring-summer chinook could be nearly extinct by 2060 and interventions are “desperately needed” to boost survival in every stage of their lives, scientists warn.

The findings, published Thursday in the journal Communications Biology, modeled survival of eight populations of wild Snake River Basin spring-summer chinook during the ocean phase of their life, under various climate-warming scenarios.

Salmon hatch in rivers, but mature for years at sea before they return to the waters of their birth. It is a perilous life cycle that could become all but impossible for some already fragile salmon populations that make one of the most arduous of all journeys, all the way to Idaho. They travel more than 1,800 miles round trip, climb more than a mile in elevation, and tackle eight dams, each way: four on the main stem Columbia, then four more on the Lower Snake River.

Add just a little ocean warming, and it’s curtains. Populations declined in all eight basin chinook populations for which the scientists ran predictions. Just a little more than 1 degree Celsius temperature increase in sea-surface temperature produced dire effects — with mortality as high as 90% in warmer seas.

Read the full story at The Seattle Times

Northwest’s Salmon Population May Be Running Out of Time

January 21, 2021 — A Washington State report put it bluntly: Because of the devastating effects of climate change and deteriorating habitats, several species of salmon in the Pacific Northwest are “on the brink of extinction.”

Of the 14 species of salmon and steelhead trout in Washington State that have been deemed endangered and are protected under the Endangered Species Act, 10 are lagging recovery goals and five of those are considered “in crisis,” according to the 2020 State of Salmon in Watersheds report, which was released last week.

“Time is running out,” said the report, which is produced every other year by the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office. “The climate is changing, rivers are warming, habitat is diminishing, and the natural systems that support salmon in the Pacific Northwest need help now more than ever.”

Researchers say recovery efforts — involving state and federal agencies, Native American tribes, local conservation groups and others — have helped slow the decline of some salmon populations. The report found that two species — the Hood Canal summer chum and Snake River fall chinook — were approaching their recovery goals. It also noted that no new salmon species had been added to the endangered list since 2007.

Read the full story at The New York Times

PFMC Adopts Salmon Measures to Help Southern Resident Killer Whales

November 25, 2020 — The Pacific Fishery Management Council unanimously adopted new ocean salmon fishing regulations last week to help save critically endangered Southern Resident killer whales from extinction. While the birth of two calves this year was welcome news, Southern Residents face an uncertain future with only 74 individuals left and a diet almost entirely comprised of declining salmon populations, especially Chinook salmon, Oceana said in a press release.

Pacific salmon, primarily Chinook salmon, are 99 percent of the diet of Southern Resident killer whales. A single adult Southern Resident typically needs to eat 12 to 20 Chinook salmon every day, and as many as 30 depending on the size and nutrition levels of the fish. Wild salmon populations have been in decline due to a combination of issues, including dams, habitat loss and fishing pressure, Oceana said.

Read the full story at Seafood News

NOAA Veterans Corps: Progress By The Numbers

November 12, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The NOAA Veterans Corps provides opportunities for military veterans to build their skills and work experience contributing to habitat and fisheries restoration projects.

Through strong partnerships, the year-long paid training program for veterans includes marine and freshwater restoration for native fish and other natural resources. Participants also conduct research and monitoring to track the progress of fish restoration projects and fish populations. These efforts are helping different threatened and endangered species recover, including:

Here are a few key metrics to help understand the NOAA Veterans Corps partnerships impact.

  • 8 years: Established in California in 2012, NOAA Veterans Corps partnerships have grown ever since.
  • 3 states: We now have veterans corps partnerships in California, Oregon and Washington. Each state has a unique experience for veterans, with different levels of field, research and community outreach opportunities to help prepare them for longer-term careers in resource management.
  • 22 partners: Throughout those states, we’re working with partners to help shape the unique veterans corps experiences.
  • 50+ veterans: In 2020, we have 14 veterans participating, and more than 50 have participated since the partnerships started in 2012. Many of these veterans furthered their education and gotten jobs in state and tribal natural resource agencies. A recent Washington participant even got hired to work at NOAA!

Read the full release here

Protecting the Critical Value of Nearshore Habitat

November 11, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

No habitat in Puget Sound is more valuable to threatened Chinook salmon than nearshore habitat. No habitat is more degraded, either.

Nearshore habitat is shorthand for tidal marsh, wetlands, and river estuaries where land and water combine to support life of all kinds, from shorebirds to juvenile salmon and steelhead. Juvenile Puget Sound Chinook salmon spend their first critical months in saltwater feeding and growing in the sheltered water of nearshore habitat.

Their growth in that pivotal window determines in large part whether they will make it back to rivers as adults to spawn. With nearshore habitat dwindling, most do not.

When reviewing projects, NOAA Fisheries is updating its efforts to avoid further losses of nearshore habitat.

“It is important for projects to have a path forward, while we also need to stem the losses of this habitat that we have already lost so much of,” said Kim Kratz, Assistant Regional Administrator in NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region.

More than 95 percent of the most valuable nearshore habitat in Puget Sound is gone and is especially scarce in the south Sound, according to an analysis by the Puget Sound Nearshore Ecosystem Restoration Project. Scientists described it as a “dramatic change in the historic occurrence [of] these once-prominent nearshore ecosystems.”

Fewer than one percent of Puget Sound Chinook salmon juveniles that migrate to the ocean each year survive to return as adults. That means that already imperiled populations continue to decline. There are also repercussions for other species such as en

Read the full release here

ALASKA: 2020 Salmon harvest in Southeast less than half of previous year’s

November 10, 2020 — Southeast Alaska’s salmon harvest was less than half of last year’s haul. That’s according to a preliminary report from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game released on Monday.

Commercial fishermen in Southeast harvested just over 14.3 million salmon across the five species this year — almost 5 million chum salmon, 8 million pinks and 1.1 million coho. For sockeye, the harvest was about 373,000 and 200,000 Chinook.

That’s a drop in harvest for every species except Chinook — also known as king salmon — which increased by a few thousand fish this year. In other words, Southeast’s total salmon harvest was 19 million fewer fish than last year.

The preliminary ex-vessel value of Southeast’s 2020 salmon fishery was just over $50 million dollars. That’s less than half of 2019’s estimated value, and the third consecutive year that Southeast’s value paid to fishermen has dropped.

Read the full story at KSTK

Salmon study sheds light on why fall-run fish are bigger than their spring-run cousins

October 30, 2020 — For the Yurok people, who have lived at the mouth of the Klamath River for generations, the spring run of Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) is a welcome—and nutritious—relief from winter. But as the fish have dwindled to just a fraction of their original numbers, Indigenous groups there are pushing to have them protected by the Endangered Species Act. New research, which suggests genes play only a small role in distinguishing the spring salmon from their fall-run cousins, may call into question the need for such a designation.

The rivers of the Pacific Northwest used to teem with two waves of Chinook: those that arrived in March or April, and those that came 6 months later, swimming from the sea to their upriver breeding grounds. Although technically the same species, the spring-run and fall-run fish have some “iconic differences,” says Eric Anderson, a molecular geneticist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center. Spring salmon are smaller, fattier, and less sexually mature than fall fish. They also swim further upriver to breed.

To tease out the genetic basis of those differences, Anderson and colleagues teamed up with Yurok fishers living at the mouth of the Klamath River in northern California. Together, they examined 500 fish as they started their upstream journeys in all four seasons. The researchers measured the size of each fish, assessed its fattiness and reproductive status, and took samples of its DNA. The researchers gathered similar data from other rivers.

Past studies have shown that a small region of the salmon chromosome 28 contains two genes, GREB1L and ROCK1, that vary between spring and fall salmon. Anderson and his colleagues did further genomic studies, sequencing the whole genomes of 160 fish in the hopes of linking the two genes to the spring and fall traits. The data set is “impressive” and the work unique says Sheela Phansalkar Turbek, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who was not involved with the work.

Read the full story at Science Magazine