Is Gillnet Ban Plan
The Right Move?
Plus: Looming Sturgeon Boondoggle and Cutbacks, Upriver Springer Forecast Shines, Sell The Smelt Net, Oregon Goes Weed Free, Pelicans Up Smolts Down, Mini Jacks Maxi Problems, Selective Commercial Kill Shows Promise and………..
By Terry W. Sheely
A hard push by a righteous conservation group to ban gillnets from the Columbia and all Oregon waters is the biggest news making waves on the river this month, but it’s far from the only critical issue facing Big C anglers.
We’re also looking at cutbacks in the approaching sturgeon seasons, accusations that the states are protecting gillnetters at the expense of fish and fishermen, a once-popular smelt fishery that has smacked rock bottom and may be taking sturgeon with them, an explosion of ‘mini jack’ salmon that swamped the Big C last year is being traced to hatchery policy, and the brown pelican recovery that birders are celebrating could take an even bigger bite out of steelhead and salmon smolt losses.
On the upside—springer forecasts for the above Bonneville fishery are absolutely glowing, upriver tribes are successfully boosting salmon and steelhead numbers and the just-ended summer steelhead season was one of the best ever.
The big February news, though, is the Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) push to get a gillnet ban on the Oregon ballot, to eliminate wasteful non-selective industrial steelhead, salmon and sturgeon harvests through public mandate which would sidestep an effective pro-net lobby and state legislators who have been loathe to get gillnets out of the Columbia despite the heavy toll on non-targeted fish.
At first blush the grassroots push to banish gillnets from Oregon appears to be a bold and long overdue initiative that all sport fishing groups can unite behind, especially conservation-conscious Columbia River anglers struggling to stop the outrageously high mortality of non-targeted and often endangered fish and wildlife annually trapped, killed and wasted in the non-selective net mesh.
The initiative, which will require more than 82,800 signatures to get on the November ballot, is the national organization’s first statewide run at ending gillnetting in the Northwest. Pushed by the Northwest chapter of CCA the initiative would ban gill and tangle nets but still allow commercial harvesting with selective harvest options—primarily seines and traps, both of which are showing promise in separate experiments.
One thing is certain. The initiative is fighting uphill.
The Portland Oregonian, Oregon’s major newspaper, immediately editorialized against the move, but then again the Oregonian has a long history of supporting gillnetters and giving lip service to sport fishermen and the resource. Commercial fishing supporters from around the country are fermenting no votes and mounting anti-CCA campaigns--largely based on half-truths--on the World Wide Blogosphere, and reaction in the local sport fishing community is at best guarded.
There’s outright skepticism on the north side of the Big C where Washington activists are still smarting over losing similar challenges in recent years, others complain that tribal netting rights aren’t affected, and still others believe the proposed ban doesn’t go far enough to rid the Big C of industrial fishing.
Where Does
NSIA Stand
The Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association (NSIA) a long-time, home-grown advocate at demanding selective fishing on the Columbia is, at least for now, staying at arm’s length from the CCA ban bid.
“We have a number of questions,” NSIA spokesman Trey Carskadon told me, adding, “We’re waiting for clarification from CCA before taking an official position. NSIA is still trying to get a sense on where do we go with this thing. What the end result of the initiative will be.”
In an interview with TRN, Carskadon said the CCA Christmas Eve ballot announcement surprised his group. “We were caught off balance on this, and we’re scrambling now,” he said. According to Carskadon, CCA launched the petition effort singularly without bringing long-time NSIA proponents of selective fishing into pre-petition planning sessions. The slight rankles some members.
“We’re both working for the same goal, more fish and more fishing, and we both have sport-fishing interests at heart,” Carskadon said. But, he also pointed out that NSIA included CCA in the organizational process of its ongoing Save Our Salmon campaign to push commercial fishermen into defined commercial netting zones away from mainstem salmon migrations. In off-river sites the nets could selectively target only hatchery fish that have been raised and imprinted specifically for commercial kills. He said he was surprised that CCA did not reciprocate and include NSIA in its ballot initiative planning.
CCA’s decision to go it alone on this issue won’t make the campaign any easier. Omitting the politically active NSIA organization from the process early on is viewed by many insiders as a deliberate slight or at best a political faux paux that in Carskadon’s words, “strained relations,” between the two advocacy groups.
Despite the slight at the gate, Carskadon assured TRN that, NSIA has asked for a sit down with CCA to discuss the issue. “At first blush,” he told me, “it looks like the initiative, if successful, will get the non-selective gillnets out of the river but will replace them with other harvests. We don’t know how this will affect catch-balancing with the tribes which could be a fairly steep shoulder to climb.”
Tribes who have netting rights to the Columbia, at this writing, have not weighed in on the ballot push.
“If the initiative passes then I guess we’ll see where that goes, but if it fails it could set getting selective fisheries back eight to 10 years,” warned the NSIA spokesman.
Carskadon pointed out that the Oregon legislature has a history of raining on anti-gillnetting campaigns but said that inroads have been made recently by pro-fish, pro-sportfishing forces seeking selective fishing mandates.
The explanation offered in a CCA position paper, is that “Oregon has not been able to move past a practice (gillnetting) that continues to deplete an imperiled resource. And, we are out of time. As our salmon runs continue to collapse and move closer to extinction, we cannot spare a few more years for a task force to discuss the issue while maintaining the status quo.”
That is precisely one of the consequences that worry NSIA leaders. Carskadon says, that if CCA’s anti-gillnet measure is defeated at the ballot, it will give pro-gillnet legislators the evidence they need to take selective fishing off the table. “They’ll say, ‘the people have spoken—Oregonians support gillnetting.’ If that happens,” Carskadon warned, “selective harvests will be taken off the table for eight to 10 years until a new crop of legislators can be put into place.”
For now, “We’re (NSIA) waiting for clarification from CCA before taking a position on the effort,” Carskadon said, adding, “the initiative seems to make sense in terms of general direction but the devil is in the details.”
Politically savvy observers point out that every previous effort to rid the Northwest of the indiscriminate killing and wastes inherent in drift nets, gill nets if you will, was beaten because the effort was outspent and overwhelmed by powerful commercial lobby campaigns that were not matched by organized sport fishing groups.
The big difference has always been that the commercial industry unites to defeat any attack on industrial fishing, while the sport fishing community remains divided, territorial, and toxic with rivalries. Organized pro-fish groups have largely if not selfishly often refused to support any political effort that does not specifically benefit its agenda.
To succeed, CCA will need to sell the bigger picture—saving Oregon and Columbia River fish from wanton waste, by uniting our historically divided agendas and pitting all of the combined resources of the fishing community into squashing the handful of non-selective industrial wastrels for the greater good of the public resources.
Hopefully, this initiative will become the rallying cry that at last rids the river of the last of the buffalo hunters.
Sturgeon Anglers
Facing Tough Year
The gift that sturgeon anglers can expect for Valentine’s Day are river-wide cutbacks, season restrictions, and another fish and wildlife department management boondoggle favoring downriver gillnetters.
Four days after Cupid throws rose petals on our troubled river, sturgeon managers from Oregon and Washington will announce 2010 sturgeon regulations that will take the bloom off of our fishing future.
Sturgeon are highly migratory, move in and out of the river at will and are tough to count accurately. Pegging sturgeon populations is a lot like counting black cats in a dark room with an open door—but what we may lack in accuracy our instincts and catch counts tell us—sturgeon numbers are dropping steadily in the Columbia and Willamette rivers.
It’s not a precipitous drop, but it’s steady, worse every year and it’s alarming.
But apparently, it’s not alarming enough to persuade WDFW to take steps that would prevent gillnetters from catching most of their historic sturgeon allocation incidentally while netting salmon, and then catching the balance—plus incidental overages--during the set sturgeon gillnet seasons.
Critics are defining the ‘incidental’ sturgeon gillnetting catch as “gill-and-release” a policy that is sure to kill more sturgeon than the industrials are entitled to, made even worse by the downslide in sturgeon numbers.
That the industrials will be allowed to net sturgeon in a gill-and-release season is infuriating southwest Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) members. Accusing WDFW of setting sturgeon seasons with an, “underestimated and concealed gillnet mortality factor.”
In a position letter delivered to the joint panels, CCA said, “We feel proper
stewardship demands that the Department set a separate mortality rate for gillnets to distinguish this controllable human impact from natural mortality. Underestimating gillnet damage and blending it with natural causes creates a bias in the exploitation rate that leads to overharvest.”
Strong words—but apparently justified because the states’ allowed the gillnetters to drop mesh for sturgeon while the sturgeon managers were still trying to figure out how badly off sturgeon really are.
According to one irate southwest CCA member, “the Game Department (Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife) says the sturgeon situation on the Columbia is critical, and so they have delayed a decision on exactly what they should do for two months. They all admit that sturgeon numbers are way down and sport fishing will have to be reduced dramatically.
But, “Oh, by the way, while they are waiting to see how to save the sturgeon, they (WDFW & ODFW) have decided to give the commercial gillnet fleet five 24 hour sturgeon gillnet sessions over the next two months.”
With his tongue firmly planted in cheek, the angler sardonically admitted, “This Game Dept. decision will help solve the problem because it will definitely tell us how many, "less" sturgeon we now have. WDFW should be applauded for such positive thinking on the side of conservation.”
During the spring chinook gillnetting season, the incidental sturgeon kill is 5626 fish. Add another 1,786 that are gillnetted during the set sturgeon season and the counted commercial toll climbs to 7,412. The uncounted bycatch is---well, uncounted.
Here’s where we’re at now:
Skimpy Sturgeon
Seasons Nearly Final
Until mid-February when ODFW and WDFW set the new and probably tighter sturgeon seasons, we’ll continue to fish under the old regs.
The two states are negotiating an agreement on 2010 harvest that when finalized is expected to lead to a reduction in the sport-fishing sturgeon harvest to protect falling sturgeon numbers in the Columbia and Willamette rivers.
The fish managers plan to finalize the sturgeon regulations at their next joint state hearing, which is scheduled for Feb. 18. Until the states modify the sturgeon rules, we’ll be allowed to fish under last year’s regulations which allow retention of sturgeon with a fork length of 38-54 inches three days a week – Thursday, Friday and Saturday – on the Columbia from Bonneville Dam downstream 105 miles to the Wauna power lines.
These rules also apply on the Willamette River and Multnomah Channel. After Jan. l,
Below Wauna anglers are allowed to keep sturgeon with 38-54-inch fork length seven days a week. Above Bonneville, retention is also allowed seven days a week
Sport fisherman may retain one legal-sized sturgeon a day and up to five sturgeon for the year.
Sturgeon Advisors Hit
The Panic Button
At a Columbia River Recreational Advisory meeting in 2008
WDFW staff provided the following concise summary of the situation
with Lower Columbia River sturgeon in a report titled, “Harvest Policy & The Decline Of Columbia River White Sturgeon. These findings and points of concern were introduced by CCA as testimony to the Washington commission on December 4, 2009.
* The legal (sturgeon) catch was the lowest since 1990.
* The legal CPUE (catch per angler) was the lowest since 1991
* The sub legal CPUE and the total sub legal handle were the lowest on
record
* The number of legal sturgeon on record was the lowest ever
* The oversize handle and CPUE were the highest on record
* The average size of kept sturgeon was the highest on record
“In spite of all these warning signs, no changes were made to the
40,000 catch guideline for another year. This lack of effective corrective
action has made the choices available to us now more stark.
CCA urged the commission, “Looking ahead to 2010 and beyond, we must adopt a harvest rate for sturgeon that will not merely stop the decline, but will recover the
population of legal-sized fish. Instead of chasing declining populations with incremental harvest reductions, we recommend adopting buffers and assumptions that favor conservation.
Our first recommendation is to discontinue the use of population
point estimates as if they are discrete population numbers. The current
population point estimate for legal-sized sturgeon is 97,000. Due to the
sampling regime, this estimate carries considerable uncertainty. What we
know is that, at the 95 percent confidence level, the actual population is
somewhere above 71,700.”
They urged the state to reduce harvest allocations from the standard 40,000 to further protect broodstock and to take steps to control mortality from sea lions.
Last year “sea lions are estimated to have killed over 1,600 sturgeon
in the area immediately below the (Bonneville) dam. But sea lion predation occurs all
the way downstream to the estuary. Kills of sturgeon from every age class
are documented throughout the river. We support the Department’s efforts
to reduce this predation, but these impacts are significant and should be
considered when setting harvest rates,” warned CCA.
Now, we wait to see what surprises WDFW and ODFW pack into our Valentine card.
Super Bonneville Pool
Springer Forecasts
If, and it’s a monster-sized IF, the super-sized run of 470,000 spring chinook hits Bonneville Dam as predicted by a panel of Big C fish managers then fishermen above the dam will be in for the slam of a lifetime.
We’ll find out for sure on February 18 when ODFW and WDFW announce spring chinook seasons and regulations for the Columbia and Willamette rivers based on super-charged springer forecasts for fisheries both above and below Bonneville Dam.
According to the latest forecasts by the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), Wind River anglers will be celebrating the biggest salmon run in seven years, Drano Lake will be packed with almost 30,000 springers which would be the largest run in 30 years and the Klickitat River will be swamped with the second largest run of spring chinook since 1977.
WDFW’s Region 5 office in Vancouver, believes the Wind River will offer 14,000 adult springers—300 percent more than the five year average and in the stratosphere compared to last springer’s return of 4,650. Drano will have 28,900 adult springers which is almost three times the 10,700 that came back last spring, and the Klickitat River—a Yakama Tribal project—will have 4500 adult springers. That would be the second highest return since 1977 and the highest number of Klickitat springers since 1989. Last season only 1500 springers returned to the Klickitat.
The high number of chinook predicted to surge above Bonneville is, at least partially attributed to a management adjustment intended to push 20 to 30 percent more salmon into the upriver tribal net zones to make up for shortfalls that the tribes—and upriver sport fishermen—suffered for the last two years when the fish managers grossly overestimated the number of springers returning to the Big C.
Last year, for example, ODFW and WDFW expected almost 300,000 springers in the lower river and allowed downriver anglers and gillnetters to kill allocations based on that number. By the time the states realized that the pre-season prediction was 40 percent too high, sports and gillnetters had already taken their share, leaving few fish to dribble upriver for anglers and tribes.
For the next two years, at least, sport fishermen can expect to see reductions in the below Bonneville fishery to get more fish upriver and ‘rebalance’ the allocations—to make up for the two years of shortfall.
The sticker, though, is that to a large degree the super-optimistic prediction that the Big C will get nearly half a million springers next March-May, is based on a jack return that literally blew the doors off. Jack returns historically are a scientifically accepted reliable indicator of the size of next year’s adult return. Last year the jack run hit 81,000 fish—four times beyond the biggest return in history. If that return is truly an accurate predictor of salmon to come and not just a weird anomaly—we’ll have a slamming salmon season to remember.
If it doesn’t—well, let’s don’t go there yet.
Just bear in mind that this year’s super-sized forecast isn’t carved in stone or based on unquestionable data.
It’s an average.
An average of the seven most likely forecast models out of the more than a dozen return scenarios that were reviewed as possible that fish managers evaluated. If the TAC panel of biologists, scientists and fish managers had picked the most optimistic return in those dozen possibilities studied we’d be looking at a mind-blowing 810,000 springers this year, but if they had picked the worst scenario the run would only be 264,000.
Four hundred and seventy thousand spring chinook is a best guess estimate.
But if it’s accurate, or even close, we’re going to be looking at a spring chinook season that will have fishermen, the sport fishing industry, motels, guides, mini-marts and campground operators grinning, high-fiving and back-slapping up and down the river.
Smelt Hit
Bottom
Sell the dip net.
It’s official—smelt have hit rock bottom.
Because of a continued plunge in low smelt returns, fishery managers lowered the daily bag on the Columbia and Cowlitz rivers to 10 pounds, down from 25 pounds.
Here’s the skinny: Mainstem Columbia from the mouth to Bonneville Dam open through March 31, 7-days a week, 24-hours a day.
Cowlitz River only opens Saturdays through Feb. 27 from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. All other Big C tributaries in Washington are closed.
Is Oregon Weed Fee
Anti-Washington ?
A skeptic might deduce that Oregon doesn’t want Washington anglers banging at spring chinook, sturgeon shad, perch or smallmouth bass in downtown Portland’s Willamette Channel.
That cross-river backhand by the Beaver State is one explanation for the new fee schedule that will see Southwest Washington anglers ponying up as much as $154.75 to drag sardine wraps through the Willamette River.
Hardest hit will be Southwest anglers who share Big C tributaries with Oregon boaters. Here’s how it adds up: put Oregon’s new invasive species control permit at $22 for non-residents on top of the $106.26 non-resident fishing license fee and $26.50 angling harvest tag and you get a total of $154.75 for Washington anglers who boat into Oregon in powerboats. For Oregon residents the new weed fee is $5.
For non-residents using paddle-power (drift boats) the $22 invasive control fee drops to $7 and can be transferred from boat to boat. The anti-weed fee isn’t required in the main Big C but is in Oregon tributaries.
And so how much will Oregon boaters pay for the same weed fee to fish the Cowlitz, Lewis, and Kalama etal in Washington?
Nothing. Zero. Nada.
Washington resident power boaters are being charged two bucks for an aquatic invasive species prevent fee and a $1 freshwater aquatic algae control fee when they renew their registration annually. There is no fee for Oregon boats beyond the appropriate NR fishing licenses.
Seems a bit one sided, or as Troutdale guide Jack Glass said on a Portland radio show: Oregon’s not particularly putting out the welcome sign to Washington anglers.
I’d like to know why these two states don’t talk to each other on mutual management issues to avoid one-sided backhands like this—before doing something like this that makes them look like jerks.
Why Are Hatcheries
Breeding Mini-Jacks
Hatchery salmon are getting smaller and smaller and Big C fish managers are trying to find out why.
That hatchery salmon are evolving as smaller, lighter, adults is no longer a theory—it’s documented fact, and researchers are looking for ways to fix what they call "an unforeseen byproduct" of hatchery supplemented salmon populations.
What fishermen are seeing is an unnaturally high occurrence of so-called mini-jacks, male fish with a precocious maturation and urge to spawn. A research team led by Don Larsen of the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, has shown that the hatchery environment is causing early maturation more often than found in wild populations.
Several factors are suspect, ranging from evolutionary genetics to less than wonderful fish food, and hatchery feeding schedules that don’t work like Ma Nature.
Having more mini-jacks in the population can have negative genetic and ecological consequences on wild populations because they are not as capable spawners as older fish. That higher rates of early maturation mean fewer male salmon migrating to the ocean, the loss of adults available for harvest or brood stock, and a skewed sex ratio in favor of more females in a population.
Are Mini-Jacks
Stay-At-Homers?
The problem really came home last year when the number of jacks mixed into the spring chinook run hit 81,000 fish, four times the highest count ever logged.
Springers spend from 1 to 5 years in the ocean before returning to their home rivers to spawn. Jacks return to a year or two earlier. Some males, now called mini-jacks, actually skip the ocean trip, remaining near their natal waters in freshwater before heading back upstream a few months later to attempt reproduction at age 2.
Larsen and his team sampled more than 1,000 juvenile spring chinook in March just prior to their release from acclimation ponds high up in the Yakima River basin. In a hatchery and research facility is operated by the Yakama Nation.
The research team found over the 11 year course of the ongoing study that migrating mini-jacks are occurring at rates 10-20 times higher than observed in wild populations. An average of 40 percent of the male hatchery fish never migrate to the ocean, but rather mature early as mini-jacks.
Cheap Food
Grows Mini-Fish
Larsen is pointing an accusing finger at cheap fish food. Most hatcheries, he said, use fish food that is high in lipids, which includes fats.
"It's cheaper than making fish food with protein, made of fish," he points out. The lipid-fueled diet promotes growth and provides the energy needed to start the physiological shift toward maturation.
"It seems to be that those conditions are conducive to having high rates of precocious maturation," Larsen added. Tests have shown that lipid levels in wild fish are typically 1 or 2 percent while hatchery fish tend to have lipid content of about 9 percent.
"The lipid content of native aquatic bugs, a staple for wild fish, is very low," he points out.
Researchers tried to manipulate smolt growth by cutting back rations of half of the Cle Elum spring chinook production in midwinter when the fish are about a year old, and at a time when wild fish barely feed.
The winter-fasting is in contrast to the long-standing hatchery feeding pattern which feeds year-round and promotes "high growth when you ought not," Larsen said.
By feeding hatchery fish high-protein food rich in fish meal, and adhering to the schedule of wild salmon, Larsen was able, in a three-year experiment to reduce precocious maturation by about 50 percent.
The studies are continuing---while our hatchery fish continue to shrink.
Selective Gear Shows
Commercial Promise
Seines, traps and other selective alternatives to non-selective gillnets are showing promise.
But—surprise, surprise—some gillnetters are not exactly jumping for joy.
A pilot study this year showed enough promise for WDFW to expand its study and testing of "selective" commercial fishing gear on the mainstem, and with that promise came a pledge from Director Phil Anderson to push ahead.
"Status quo is not an option," Anderson said, in large part because of Endangered Species Act protections for an expansive number of Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead.
A big part of the push for non-lethal harvest equipment is the push to protect wild and non-targeted salmon, steelhead and sturgeon.
Gillnets targeting hatchery fish also gill-kill wild fish that are ESA-listed, and that’s upsetting NOAA Fisheries Service’s concerns with the state reviving imperiled salmon and steelhead stocks.
Anderson was careful to point out that he’s not advocating elimination of industrial fishing on the Big C, and optimistically told fish managers that changing to selective gear could boost the failing commercial industry while protecting non-targeted fish.
Approximately 30 percent of the steelhead and 30 percent of spring chinook die after being caught in standard mesh gill-nets and released. That mortality ratio drops to 14.7 percent for springers caught in smaller mesh tangle nets and to 18 percent for steelhead.
Gill and release mortality skyrockets in the fall when steelhead mortality hits 66 percent when gill-nets with 8-inch mesh are deployed and 59 percent with 9-inch mesh.
The shift to selective fishing gear could provide "more fish for market as well as make a contribution to conservation" of listed stock”, said Guy Norman, WDFW Region 5 director.
Three selective gear types are being tested; purse and beach seines and floating traps. All three corral live, free swimming fish that can be identified and kept or released with minimum handling.
The WDFW pilot study conducted in late summer-early fall targeted tule fall chinook and early-run coho. Overall, "the purse seine was certainly the most effective," reports WDFW’s Pat Frazier. The purse seine netted as many as 132 salmon and steelhead in a day. Next in effectiveness was the beach seine, followed by the floating trap.
All three successfully eliminated direct mortality of released fish—a major problem with the now used gillnets.
WDFW is trying to sell the value of ‘selective’ traps to gillnetters, arguing that, "The value of the fish may go up" as a result of the more benign selective methods, and would compete well with non-scarred farmed fish.
But some non-tribal gillnetters are less than enthusiastic.
Cost of switching to selective gear will be high. Purse seining would require specially equipped boats. Switching to beach seining or using floating traps would also require the purchase of new equipment. Gillnetters are also not happy that operating a purse seine will require a crew of up to four or five. Most gillnetters operate solo. Beach seines and floating traps also require more than one person to operate.
Adding payroll, complained gillnetter Marty Kuller, means increasing insurance costs as well.
Industrial netter Brian Tarabochia, who tested the floating trap, said commercial fishermen don't necessarily want to change tactics, but admitted that it might be necessary.
Not all gillnetters are supportive of selective harvests.
Hobe Kytr of Salmon For All said that many gill-netters remain wary of making the large investments in new gear without guarantees that they would indeed be able to harvest larger numbers of fish.
Frazier believes it will take at the very least 3 to 5 years of testing, and economic analysis, before selective commercial fisheries could be launched on the lower Big C.
Summer Steelhead
Exceeded Expectations
While state, federal and tribal forecasters blew last spring and summer’s chinook forecast they pretty much nailed the sockeye runs, overshot the coho return and were surprised when summer steelhead returns leaped high over predictions.
In final numbers released by WDFW, the big surprise was the summer steelhead run to the east side. Forecasters had expected a good run of 351,800 summer-runs but seriously undershot the magnitude of the run and were staggered when a whopping 601,600 hatchery steelhead headed upriver.
The boom steelhead run also included another 171,300 wild fish, when forecasters were expecting 89,900.
Those numbers, coupled with a long, snowless fall, explain why anglers on the Methow, Grande Ronde, Wells Dam, Okanogan, Snake, Walla Walla, etc were enjoying some of the best steelhead fishing in memory.
So what is it with those dismal Puget Sound rivers…………….?
Waterless Summer For
Salmon, Steelhead?
It’s bad news across the boards for salmon and steelhead smolts hoping for a big flush of cold water and a healthy ride into the ocean.
Not this year.
Hydro system and fish managers are praying for unpredicted dumps of rain and snow after hearing the season's initial forecast that the water supply gushing from mountain snowpacks this spring and summer will be much less than average across the Columbia-Snake river basin.
The forecast from the Northwest River Forecast Center “is, generally speaking, below normal across the board," according to Steve Barton of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Unfortunately, the survival of outbound smolts soars with high, cold water, but it’s mortality that soars when low, warm water rules,and that’s what we’re in for unless there’s a big dump of unexpected precip this El Niño year.
Pelican Recovery
Is Bad Smolt News
Birders are dancing in the streets of Astoria celebrating the recovery of brown pelican populations, but for endangered salmon, steelhead, sports, gillnetters and tribes—the recovery is just another layer of bad bird news.
But what’s good news for the Audubon Society-that brown pelican population are recovered to the point of being taken off the federal ESA list, is horrible news for Big C fish and fishermen.
Why?
Because there is now upwards of 17,000 brown pelicans, the largest roost on the Pacific Coast, camped out on Sand Island in the Big C estuary, joining thousands of Caspian terns and cormorants for breakfast, lunch and dinner helpings of steelhead and salmon smolts.
Tens of millions of finger-size anadromous smolts are believed to be eaten by the winged predators as the smolts stage, vulnerably, near the surface of the estuary to make the physical adjustments to salt water before plowing into the ocean for a couple of years.
The pelicans, now recovered from the decimation effects of DDT pesticide, are just the latest winged predator preying on endangered salmon and steelhead. The predation started with Caspian terns that grew into the largest nesting colony on the continent, and in recent years expanded to include huge numbers of cormorants.
And all three of the fish-eaters are afforded some sort of federal protection, and in fact the Audubon Society has been successful at getting the courts to order state wildlife officials to quit harassing the terns. That ESA listed salmon are being mugged by the birds apparently doesn’t matter.
That the bird gorge is killing millions of steelhead and salmon smolts, after they’ve been counted at upriver posts could explain a big part of why Big C fish managers have been so badly off in estimating how many adult salmon will return to Columbia and Snake river fisheries.
Pelican recovery is just making a bad problem worse.
The big pelicans have been a growing presence up and down the West Coast, especially in the Columbia River estuary. An estimated 16,850 "California" brown pelicans were counted July 22 roosting at East Sand Island, a huge increase from the 12,400 brown pelicans that came to the estuary in 2008.
Researchers are monitoring Sand Island in spring and summer to evaluate the impact of Caspian terns and double-crested cormorant colonies' predation on migrating juvenile salmon and steelhead.
According to the monitors the impact on downstream smolts is horrific and getting worse.
Last summer East Sand Island had 10,700 pairs of Caspian terns, the largest in the country, 11,000 nesting double crested cormorants and 14,000 western gulls. Add 17,000 smolt-gorging pelicans and the toll is huge and growing.
Unless you’re a birder.
Wires Discouraging
Caspian Terns
But there’s some good news on the bird front, too.
Covering up-river bird predation hot spots with wire arrays and intensifying hazing efforts appears to be discouraging Caspian terns and gulls from congregating below the mid-Columbia’s Priest Rapids and Wanapum dams to feed on migrating juvenile sockeye salmon, according data compiled last year by Grant County Public Utility District researchers.
The 2009 wire-hazing effort did double duty, helping achieve a 95 percent salmon survival standard for each dam while also allowing biologists to better evaluate the fish mortality resulting from passage through the dam.
Data collected from early May through July last year showed that steelhead survival at Priest Rapids Dam was 95.36 percent, a big improvement from the 91.55 percent rate in 2008. Sockeye survival jumped from 85.71 percent in 2008 to 95.16 percent last year.
The big difference between the two years at Priest Rapids was a wire array built in September 2008 that fanned out across the top-spill configuration to provide fish with a more surface-oriented route downstream. Hazing of feeding birds was started earlier in the season and continued later in 2009 as compared to past years. The number of hazing days and hazing hours per day was also increased.
So there is hope.
Tribal Coho Program
Is Paying Off
Mid-Columbia coho salmon that were decimated in the early 1900s are making a strong comeback, something that seemed impossible in the late 1980s when hatchery programs failed and recovery efforts were ended
The latest attempts, led by the Yakama Nation, however, appear to be not only succeeding, but are creating self-sustaining natural populations.
This past late summer and fall set a modern-day record for coho returns headed to the middle and upper Columbia River. Ten years ago, 12 adult coho made it past Rock Island Dam near Wenatchee. In 1996 the Yakama’s launched their coho restoration program and by 2000 a total of 1,624 coho were counted skyrocketing in 2001 to 10,465. Last year 19,805 coho passed the dam the most since 1977.
Rock Island is the seventh dam that coho climb on their return to the Wenatchee and Methow river basins where the tribal restoration plan is focused. The tribal program is funded by the Bonneville Power Administration, Chelan County Public Utility District, Grant County Public Utility District and NOAA-Fisheries.
Fish Bucks For
Upriver Tribes
Tribes working to improve upriver Big C salmon and steelhead runs have just been cleared to receive $28 million in federal money spread over 10 years.
The money is channeled through the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and will fund a drawer full of projects ranging from reconditioning downstream steelhead kelts to habitat projects on the Methow, Entiat and Wenatchee rivers.