Saving Seafood

University of Idaho study shows climate change is shrinking natural habitat for salmon

June 29, 2022 — A new study from the University of Idaho finds climate change is shrinking the natural habitat for salmon. The university’s study, published by the American Geophysical Union journal Geophysical Research Letters, confirmed that lower water volumes and warm temperatures are dramatically shrinking spawning beds and nurseries for the fish. 

U of I Eco hydraulics Professor Daniele Tonina and her colleagues examined Bear Valley Creek which is known for its population of Chinook salmon. According to a university press release, the stream’s wide valley, meandering main river and cozy side-streams made the site “representative of ideal salmon habitats in the Pacific Northwest.” 

The team mapped the river’s channels and floodplain, and used 60 years of historical stream-flow data, from 1957 to 2016, to calculate trends in the flow. The team then used the data to predict estimated changes to salmon habitat up to the year 2090.  

The study period illustrated that the stream flow volume dropped by 19%, and slowed by 17%. That means less overall area suitable for salmon nests and a loss of off-channel havens as side-streams get cut off from the main channel. The salmon lost 23% of their spawning habitat as well. 

Read the full story at KXLY

Paddlefish caviar, the next big thing?

June 3, 2018 — Everybody has a food thing, right? Everybody has that one item that you wouldn’t eat unless you were stranded on a deserted island or someone had a shotgun pressed securely to your lumbar region. Or both. And maybe not even then.

For us, it’s eggs. Oeuf, there it is.

No fried eggs. No omelets. No scrambles. No frittatas. Soft boiled, hard boiled, you can keep them. We’d rather stay dirty than submit to an egg wash. We can’t even watch other people eat eggs, especially when they start jamming their toast into the yokes and creating all sorts of Jackson Pollard-looking stuff on their plates. Our little phobia probably goes a long way toward explaining why we tend to be solitary breakfasters.

Needless to say, we’re not exactly down with caviar (thank God we’re poor). But we have to admit we were intrigued by a New York Times story out of Montana about a program to harvest the roe of giant freshwater paddlefish — which can run anywhere from 50 to 100 pounds — and sell it as caviar.

“It winds up on cruise ships, it winds up in restaurants, it winds up everywhere,” Dennis Scarnecchia, a fisheries professor at the University of Idaho, told the Times.

Scarnecchia (any relation to Pats line coach Dante, we wonder?) oversees paddlefish caviar programs in Montana, North Dakota and Oklahoma, from whence profits are funneled into research and monitoring of the massive fish.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times