Talk:Salmon conservation

Puget Sound
There is a lot of information salmon recovery in the article Environmental issues in Puget Sound, so much so that it is of balance. I am going to move it here and provide a wiki link between the two. -- Lani'mae (talk) 16:11, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

put the info in talk page first, as it needs some clean up and update: The declining salmon population in Puget Sound is "a telling indicator of the ecological health" of the area and "billions of dollars have been spent to reverse the declining salmon runs". It can be attributed to several factors, including what is referred too as the 4 H's: habitat, hydropower, harvesting and hatcheries —and "the Fifth H"— history. Salmon have ecological requirements such as logjams, wood and gravel in the rivers, high oxygen content, correct ocean and fresh water temperature, and proper sunlight. Pacific Salmon have disappeared from 40 percent of their historic range outside Alaska. For every 50 salmon the Columbia River basin supported 150 years ago, today it is estimated to support seven.The state of Washington continually tried to place the blame for this decline on Native American fishing, even as commercial fisheries took more than a sustainable amount of fish each year. State courts continually curtailed tribal fishing rights by limiting the sites and times of year that they could fish. When brought to the federal courts, however, these cases have been repeatedly overturned, as in the landmark Boldt Decision of 1974. In this decision, Judge Boldt consulted the original treaties made with numerous tribes in the 1850s to determine what rights the tribes had regarding fishing. The treaties all stated that the tribes had the right to fish at "all usual and accustomed places" and that this right was "secured to said Indians in common with all citizens of the territory". Judge Boldt interpreted the phrase "in common" to mean that the tribes and other citizens were each entitled to half of the fish harvest. This was a groundbreaking decision whose repercussions are still being felt today, especially by fishermen who complain that the tribes take nowhere near the half allotted to them.

There has been a struggle on salmon returning to their Pacific Northwest rivers and streams because of the struggling Northwest's economy. This provides a much-needed economic influx from increased recreational and commercial salmon fishing. Three percent of wild salmon runs in the Columbia Basin are below historic numbers. Recent studies also show that the ocean's temperature may be warming again and that the Northwest is suffering its sixth straight year of below-average waters. Another reason for salmon population decline is the use of increasingly sophisticated fishing technology. Some of the first Native American fishermen depended only on canoes, nets made from nettle or cedar fiber, and their personal skill to catch fish (Pacific Coast 2005). Today’s fishermen use trackers to locate the fish they want to catch, whether salmon or otherwise, and then use technology like powerboats, winches, and nets made of almost unbreakable substances to catch the desired species. Advances in technology have their disadvantages, however. Advances in fishing technology have enabled fishermen to catch more and more fish of all sizes and species. For an extended period of time now, fishermen have been catching not only the larger, mature fish, but also the smaller, immature fish that have not had the chance to reproduce. This practice is detrimental to salmon populations because it does not leave any fish to propagate the salmon species.

In addition to technological advancements in fishing, invasive species and natural predators threaten the remaining salmon population. These include, but are not limited to, harbor seals, sea lions, killer whales and various sea birds. While these species are natural predators of salmon, juvenile salmon also have competition to deal with when gathering food. One major source of competition are jelly fish that feed on the same organisms as juvenile salmon. The proliferation of jelly fish and decrease of salmon could potentially lead to the "infestation" of jelly fish in local waters.

Habitat
The Puget Sound boasts an impressive habitat for salmon, as well as other flora and fauna necessary for the species’ survival. Healthy eelgrass and kelp beds foster juvenile salmon as they make the change from small rivers and streams to a new ocean habitat in the Puget Sound before they travel on to the Pacific Ocean. Prey for salmon at different stages of their lives also thrives in healthy Puget Sound habitat, including sand lances and rockfish. As it applies to habitat, the human population along the Puget Sound shoreline has made these pristine environments harder and harder to come by. Shorelines have been bulk-headed and armored, estuaries have been filled to make agricultural land and naturally occurring logjams have been removed to make navigation in the sound easier. Habitat degradation is cited by the WDFW as one of the major contributors in reducing the Salmon stock’s resilience (Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, 2001). An additional loss of salmon habitat along the Puget Sound has been that of salt marsh habitats along shorelines. These habitats provide salmon with important grounds for shelter as well as food. Nearly all salt marshes in and around the major Puget Sound region urban areas have been destroyed. In fact, there has been a 73% loss of salt marsh habitat in and around the Puget Sound over the last 125 years. -- Lani'mae (talk) 16:11, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Hydroelectric dams
Hydroelectric dams contribute to the decrease in salmon populations as well. They prevent adult salmon from entering upstream to spawn. The fluctuation in water flow puts tremendous amounts of stress on salmon and reduces their ability to survive. Some dams have fish ladders that allow salmon to pass through the dam. This system helps salmon reach their spawning sites; however, the juveniles often get killed on the way downstream by the turbines in the dam. Continued use of hydroelectric dams has been the subject of local controversy. Discontinuing the dams' use would leave the region with insufficient energy supplies, since about 55% of the local energy supply is provided by hydroelectric dams. On the other hand, environmentalists are in favor of stopping hydroelectric dam operations.

Dams affect almost all the major rivers in the Pacific Northwest, particularly near the Puget Sound. Some important river systems for salmon affected by hydroelectric dams include the Baker River, Nisqually River and Green River systems. Dams impede the natural lifecycle of salmon by creating physical barriers to their spawning grounds with detrimental consequences. Reduced water velocity from these barriers significantly increases the time needed for young salmon to travel down the river to start the ocean phase of their lifecycle. This augmentation in migration time for salmon and alteration in "timing" possibly leads to disorientation and an increased susceptibility to predation. Another adverse effect known as "supersaturation" can occur for fish encountering dams that is similar in nature to "the bends", which can kill humans. Dams also play a major role in "taming" once "wild" rivers, the latter much more beneficial to sustaining wild salmon populations, thus negatively altering the natural environmental dynamics of ecosystems suitable for salmon. -- Lani'mae (talk) 16:11, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Overfishing
Overfishing is another major historic factor in the depletion of salmon. Salmon became popular because it was considered very cheap compared to the growing costs of meat. As fishing became more popular, so did canneries. In 1877, the first Puget Sound cannery was built in Mukilteo, and by 1900, Puget Sound had expanded its operating canneries to 19. The effectiveness of the cannery fish traps was so great that biologists began to argue that a guaranteed number of fishes needed to be allowed to escape the nets to reach their spawning grounds, in order to prevent the total extermination of salmon.

The production of canned salmon grew slowly until about 1890 when it started to rapidly increase. During the World Wars of the 1900s canneries started to decline progressively. This was mainly due to voters supporting salmon protection initiatives because their traps were banned in Washington as voters passed Initiative 77 in 1934; however, because of this Oregon fishing boats began increasing their catch since Washington banned their traps. Through this, there was no increase in the number of salmon reaching their spawning grounds 18 years after the initiative passed. The ban in Washington eventually led to technological advances in salmon fishing. Vessels for open-ocean salmon fishing started developing in the 1930s through advances in marine technology. This allowed huge floating canneries to harvest and package salmon in the open ocean far from where runs were originally located. Thus, through the development of marine technology, countries with no salmon or depleted runs could harvest fish in other countries' open water, which in turn began to negatively affect salmon conservation and recovery efforts.

Today, Alaska currently hosts most of the American salmon fisheries because it is able to maintain relatively healthy habitats and salmon runs. Alaskan and Canadian fisheries do have impacts on Puget Sound salmon stocks, however.

Currently, fisheries are managed to minimize impacts on weak and endangered stocks of fish. Nearshore and freshwater fisheries are regulated by the WDFW and the treaty Native American tribes. Ocean fisheries off the Washington coast are managed by the Pacific Fishery Management Council and Pacific Salmon Commission. Fisheries impacting endangered species are required to have permits under the ESA. Other findings include:


 * 1) Juvenile chinook were found for extended periods of time in the nearshore and often used the shallow shoreline areas of Puget Sound.
 * 2) Juvenile chinook stocks are broadly distributed and intermix in central Puget Sound.
 * 3) Hatchery chinook are more abundant than wild chinook in the nearshore environment.
 * 4) Juvenile chinook have diverse diets that are a product of the diverse habitats which make up the nearshore ecosystem.
 * 5) Chinook appear to feed opportunistically on whatever prey are seasonally available, and change their diet from insects, marine plankton, and epibenthic organisms to a diet of fish at approximately 130-150 mm in size.
 * 6) Hatchery and wild chinook significantly overlap in space, time and diet in the marine nearshore.

Gillnet Selectivity Effects
I am a student at University of Washington Bothell looking for somewhere to share information I've gathered on the effects of gillnet selectivity on Pacific salmon. I believe it is unbiased. Maybe here would be okay, or a new page? (Akhusky07 (talk) 20:00, 11 February 2011 (UTC))

The needs of salmonid species for survival
Salmon are the primary nearshore species most think of in Puget Sound. In order for salmon to revive in the Puget Sound, their basic needs must be met, including cool, unpolluted water. Under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA), the Puget Sound has been designated a recovery domain for purposes of helping threatened and endangered salmon to survive. Within this domain, three Evolutionarily Significant Units (ESUs) of salmon species have been designated: Lake Ozette sockeye, Hood Canal summer chum and Puget Sound chinook. Bull trout has also recently been listed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Two populations are found in Washington, and one is located in Puget Sound.

In general, most salmon require clean gravel streambeds to lay their eggs, a flood regime in tune with their life cycle, accessible habitat that provides food and cover from predators, and functionally diverse stream beds. These biological requirements are increasingly impacted inside and outside of Puget Sound. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) lists the primary factors influencing the survival of salmon as being:


 * 1) Water storage, withdrawal, conveyance and diversion
 * 2) Natural resource use and extraction leading to habitat modification
 * 3) Loss of connectivity and complexity between and within watersheds
 * 4) Impacts of recreational, commercial and illegal fishing
 * 5) Introduction of non-native species and modification of habitat resulting in increased predator populations
 * 6) Natural environmental conditions (drought)
 * 7) Hatcheries

Woody debris, such as logjams in Puget Sound rivers and streams, provide important wintering habitat for juvenile salmon. Logjams protect the salmon from predators and tumultuous waters. In 1880, the United States Army Corps of Engineers began a process of "desnagging" Northwest rivers, one of the first actions by settlers harmful to salmon populations. There is currently a movement among environmentalists to create engineered logjams (ELJs) to restore salmon habitat in the Puget Sound area.

The salmon are an icon of the Puget Sound, and ensuring their survival has become important to many agencies, groups and interested citizens. These stakeholders consider salmon a fundamental icon of residency in Puget Sound. "Besides humans, no other creature penetrates the Northwest so completely. The salmon is to the entire Northwest what the spotted owl was to old-growth forests—a telling indicator of ecological health".

The abundance of salmon is something that can be seen, touched, and even tasted. Many take extreme pride in working towards the recovery of salmonids, and although they see it as a huge task to be fulfilled, they consider their duty to an icon of Washington. All the pride in the Puget Sound will make it so worthwhile. -- Lani'mae (talk) 16:11, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

The role of hatcheries and salmon recovery
Hatcheries have produced Pacific salmon for nearly 130 years. The first hatchery was located on the Baker River, built in 1896. During this time, hatcheries have provided valuable data on salmon ecology and behavior by providing capture and release rates—the number of salmon that were captured returning as adults to spawn, compared to those that were originally released as smolts. The way salmon adapt to changing freshwater and marine conditions can be extrapolated from this; along with alteration in habitat; as well as natural disasters, such as wildfire and drought.

More than 100 hatcheries are operated in Puget Sound and coastal Washington by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), Puget Sound and coastal Native American tribes, and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Most were built to produce fish for harvest in response to declines in naturally spawning salmon populations.

Hatcheries now provide 70 percent of the salmon caught in Puget Sound and are the linchpin of an $854 million annual recreational fishing economy in Washington (ranked eighth in the nation). Hatcheries also play an important role in meeting tribal treaty harvest obligations. As better scientific information has become available, however, hatcheries have been identified as one of the factors responsible for the decline of naturally spawning populations. It has been difficult to conclusively prove negative impacts on naturally spawning salmon by hatchery fish and this is a subject of debate among fisheries scientists.

One set of data that helped determine how the management of hatchery salmon impact wild salmon came directly from the federal government. A caucus of nine federal agencies convened to study on a basin-wide scale the salmon decline in Washington. In 2000, the Federal Caucus published a report concluding that (1) the decline of salmon was well documented, and (2) there were four human activities linked to this decline: changes in habitat, the use of hydropower, harvesting, and hatcheries. These actitivies became known as the "4 H's". Modern hatchery practices seek to minimize any chance of adverse impact to naturally spawning fish. Some hatchery programs are specifically designed to assist in the restoration of weak and endangered populations.

The report recommended two strategies with respect to hatcheries and the recovery of threatened and endangered salmon. First, reform was necessary for all production and mitigation hatcheries to reduce any harm to wild salmon. Second, supplemental and captive broodstock programs were recommended to act as "safety nets" while long-term recovery goals were worked towards. It was highly recommended that hatcheries produce fish genetically diversified for the local environment into which they were released, and naturally capable of interbreeding with wildstock without any harm. To meet this goal, the Federal Caucus suggested that salmon hatcheries develop a Hatchery and Genetics Management Program (HGMP). Hatcheries would also start using eggs collected from native, wild salmon, rather than non-native salmon, for captive broodstock.

At that time, state, tribal and federal managers of Washington's salmon and steelhead were working to find ways to ensure that their hatcheries did not present a risk to several Puget Sound and coastal stocks that were listed or proposed for listing as threatened under the ESA. In Washington, tribal and state hatchery managers wanted to go above and beyond complying with the baseline terms and conditions provided under the ESA. It had become apparent that a statewide hatchery system had to be developed that would recover and conserve wild populations, while supporting a sustainable fishery. The collaborative project of hatchery reform began. This effort allowed science to direct management and policy.

This effort was started by a non-profit group called Long Live the Kings, which had been working for some time in a collaborative manner with local, state, tribal and federal entities on hatchery reform. The result was the Puget Sound and Coastal Washington Hatchery Reform Project, approved by Congress in 2000. This project provided appropriated funds that would:


 * 1) Provide for an independent, scientific panel to oversee hatchery operations within the state of Washington;
 * 2) Provide a competitive grant program for projects that addressed hatchery-related impacts;
 * 3) Support state and tribal efforts to implement hatchery reform; and
 * 4) Provide for the facilitation of a reform strategy by an independent third party.

In April 2004, the Hatchery Scientific Review Group produced the first report on changes that were required within hatchery management in order to assist in the recovery of salmon in Washington.

While the Hatchery Reform Project was being developed at the state level, decisions about the management of hatchery and endangered wild salmon were being made at the federal level. In 2001, a district court ruled that the federal government's strategy of grouping hatchery and wild salmon for purposes of defining ESUs, but separating hatchery and wild salmon for purposes of defining threatened and endangered species was not legally valid. The government was ordered to find a different procedure. The resulting solution was to group hatchery and wild salmon for both purposes: defining ESUs and determining whether the species is threatened or endangered under the ESA.

This decision was controversial. A letter appeared in the peer-reviewed journal Science, signed by the Salmon Science Recovery Review Panel, a United States National Research Council-approved group of six ecologists that had been requested to provide recommendations on Pacific salmon recovery to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) ; however, NMFS declined to use the group's recommendations, stating that the group went outside the realm of science and into policy. The group chose to publish its recommendations in Science. The published article stated that hatchery fish should not be included with wild fish.

Soon afterward, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the parent agency of NMFS, had its Fisheries Division release a formal statement on its hatchery policy, expressing a desired commitment to ensure the survival and recovery of wild salmon, and recognizing that some hatcheries promote recovery and some hatcheries do not.

Since that time, a lawsuit led by the non-profit advocacy group Trout Unlimited was launched against the federal government, calling its decision "arbitrary and capricious", and citing the decision not to allow the Salmon Science Recovery Review Panel's recommendations—or the Panels' references and citations—as one reason. The lawsuit was allowed to proceed by a Seattle Federal District Court judge. The local, state and tribal-based hatchery reform effort proceeds forward, while federal efforts to address hatcheries and salmon recovery remain entangled in legal complexities. -- Lani'mae (talk) 17:22, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Solutions for Puget Sound salmon protection
Federal involvement is crucial to the long-term survival of salmon. The majority of the decline in salmon population is attributable to the effects of population growth within the region, such as damming of Puget Sound tributaries and pollution of Puget Sound; however, some proposed solutions have little to do with directly addressing the effects of population growth. Federally sponsored actions have been proposed in defense of salmon including marine mammal predation control activities for seals and sea lions (which are also federally protected species) in waterways (such as the Puget Sound) where the salmon runs are depleted and the seals and sea lions are threatening the survival of the salmon. -- Lani'mae (talk) 17:22, 7 May 2010 (UTC)