Radical proposal for restoring wild fish

[Larry S]

The latest Frank Amato magazines - "Flyfishing & Tying Journal" et.al. contain an
editorial by Amato entitled "A Manifesto for restoring wild steelhead and salmon runs,
including a radical proposal:." He suggests feeding smolts-to-be by placing "pellitized
fish food at strategic feeding locations" in over a thousand West Coast streams. Before you
poo-pah the idea, please read the piece. He might be on to something here. There are
many causes for the decreasing runs of returning steelhead and salmon. Maybe this is a way to help reverse this trend. Thoughts?
Larry S

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Dams, logging, developments, pollution and de-watering seem to be the obvious culprits.

Complete lose of habitat is the main reason they are mostly gone now.

I think if we rebuild the habitat in some rivers where it is possible nature will do there rest.

We need a couple of rehabbed rivers with no fishing and no hatcheries and then there will be natural wild fish to repopulate other streams as they come back online.

We will have to read that article.

[Darrin.Deel]

unfortunately I think the worst thing for juvenile anadromous fish is stripers. I am not anti striper, but they eat how much salmon smolt? I am interested to see what the runs are going to be like this year..

[Darian]

From everything I've read, adequacy of in-stream food supplies is not a concern for Survival of Salmon/Steelhead juveniles. Whatever happened to the Vibert Box for rearing Salmonid eggs in rivers/streams :question:

A couple of problems with this proposal is that to make pellets, there would probably have to be an expansion of catch rates of baitfishes to grind up as grist for the mill. Also, placing the pellets on the bottom requires a set location. It might make smolts congregate and become targeted for predation.

Not all of the food placed as proposed would be eaten and might be seen as a contaminant, contributing to increased algae growth. :confused: Isn't that what environmentalists say is what's wrong with aquaculture (food and waste contamination of the bottom) :question:

I agree with Bill. Improve the habitat and in-stream environment first. Stop water mis-management and populations will increase. :cool:

[Larry S]

Here's what seems to be a supportive argument from a scientist. The point Amato was making seems to be with fewer returning salmon (and decaying) the smolts-to-be have less food.

http://www.epa.gov/wed/pages/staff/lackey/pubs/NUTRIENT-ADDITION-COHERENT-POLICY-FISHERIES-REPRINT-2003.pdf


Larry S

[Darian]

I've heard a recent discussion on this by a person who calls himself a scientist. His point was similar to Amato's. In-stream nutrients from fewer Salmon spawning and decaying are lacking. His suggestion; take Salmon carcasses from hatchery spawning facilities, grind/process them into pellets and return them to the streams. The use of Salmon carcasses would seem to keep the process in some semblance of balance. Why not take all of the Salmon carcasses from a hatchery and just dump them into the river :?: :?: That's what happens in nature. :confused: At least in this case, there's no additional pressure on bait fisheries for this purpose.

Lakey's article is very interesting. I like that he poses some questions for policy makers to consider. Problems with laws that protect the environmental may make this a show stopper. He hasn't pronounced that it's gonna be a success, now go out and justify the process.... :thumbsup:

From Amato's article, he's jumped ahead of everybody to proclaim that each of us must take action on our own.... He's promoting this so hard/fast it makes me wonder what his agenda is.... :-s

[Dustin Revel]

I've heard a recent discussion on this by a person who calls himself a scientist. His point was similar to Amato's. In-stream nutrients from fewer Salmon spawning and decaying are lacking. His suggestion; take Salmon carcasses from hatchery spawning facilities, grind/process them into pellets and return them to the streams. The use of Salmon carcasses would seem to keep the process in some semblance of balance. Why not take all of the Salmon carcasses from a hatchery and just dump them into the river :?: :?: That's what happens in nature. :confused: At least in this case, there's no additional pressure on bait fisheries for this purpose.

Lakey's article is very interesting. I like that he poses some questions for policy makers to consider. Problems with laws that protect the environmental may make this a show stopper. He hasn't pronounced that it's gonna be a success, now go out and justify the process.... :thumbsup:

From Amato's article, he's jumped ahead of everybody to proclaim that each of us must take action on our own.... He's promoting this so hard/fast it makes me wonder what his agenda is.... :-s

A fisheries biology grad student just did a presentation on the idea of "feeding" juvenile salmonoids... to sum up his argument; he claimed throwing carcasses into a wood chipper and spraying it into a stream does very litle for the health of the juveniles.

He claimed repairing riparian zones by reintroducing native plant species especially those that are nitrogen fixers such as Alnus Rubra (red alder) does far more for aquatic plant/insect life than than carcass introduction.

He stated two main reasons why the riparian zone approach is more succesful.
1) created shade thus reducing water temperature during low flows
2) introdues nitrogen and allows for healthier aquatic plant life which results in more aquatic insect life.

... but i do like the smell

[Darian]

Actually,.... Dr. Moyle has been attempting to convince those who build/maintain levees to allow for a wider riparian zone (set backs). His point was the same. I think that's really the best solution but runs counter to the mission of the Core of Engineers, BuRec and water distributors, etc. Capture, storage and efficient movement/transfer of water is paramount (IMHO) disguised under the banner of flood control.... :confused:

[inclinejj]

The only problem is there is no money for this now..the state is broke, the federal government..well they are busy doing the current bailout..

Not to beat the stripers smolts story around again, but the stripers and salmon have co-existed for a long time..

I was talking to a couple guys from the Army Core of Enginers and they where saying the rip rap banks also change the river around to the point they are seeing currents change so much that sand bars are showing up in odd places..

[Dabalone]

Certainly many factors at play, all bad for salmon. I remember just a few years ago the Feather was stuffed with salmon in the Fall, and then the runs fell off a cliff within a couple years. These fish already face tuff challenges because of water diversion, mismanagement, pollution, and predation while in the Delta and up into the river system. All these factors surely contribute to high mortality rates of juvenile salmon making there way back to the ocean.

A salmons cycle in the ocean is as important as its cycle in freshwater, what if ocean conditions went bad for the salmon (the posted link to article highlights this). Lack of food, ocean predation, like the fairly recent appearance of thousands of Humboldt squid a eating machine, and the continued commercial take on a already decimated crop of salmon. Maybe you have the perfect storm for taking out a seasons worth of fish. Whatever happened it was quick, look at the graph in the article, a spike upwards and then the bottom falls out. A combination of things that all came together?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/science/earth/17salmon.html

[Tony Buzolich]

Darrin, and all, there's no doubt that striped bass do eat smolt. They eat anything they can put their mouth around. But for the most part, they are only here in the rivers in mass during the spring to spawn.

I feel the real culprits are the squawfish and the suckers that are here year round and feed voraciously on everything. As most of us know squawfish (hardhead, pike minnow, etc.) whatever you want to call them, will take lures, flies, baits, etc. at will and are spread throughout ALL of the states river systems ALL of the year with no controls or regulations.

Suckers too will take flies, lures, and baits but they actually dig and root through spawning gravel sucking up countless amounts of salmon and steelhead eggs and fry. Again, they are spread throughout all of the states river systems.

Now, lets add to this problem with the warming water temperatures of the rivers and lakes. It simply aides in the production and incubation of more squawfish and suckers and at the same time works against the spawning of the desired species being the trout and salmon and steelhead.

Someone a few posts back also commented on how good the fishing was only a few years ago on the Feather. It was also about then that the government started cutting back on hatchery production. "Let's get back to native fish" was the war cry. "Let's take out all of the dams" so we can have things like they used to be. Guys, that's an ideal world but it's NOT REALITY. Any guess how many more people we have in California today than we had twenty years ago? Last year alone our state's population grew by 10 MILLION people. That's in ONE year. AND THEY ALL DRINK WATER.

If we want more fish in our rivers and lakes then hatcheries may be our only way. I'm not an advocate of saving dams and acting like some tree hugging eco-maniac but I am a realist and we can't reverse what time has changed. We HAD lots of salmon a few years ago. We also had lots of striped bass years ago too when we were pen raising them and stocking the rivers, lakes and bays with them.

Taking out and knocking down dams will simply allow more water to flow south without controls. Think about it. What's to hold the water back. It'll all just flow to the lowest point and end up in some farming conglomerate's field.

Wheeeeeew!, I've had enough talk like this for one day. I'm going to go tie some more flies.

[Darian]

Hmmmm,.... Does quietly tying flies make one more apt to wax eloquent about conservation.... :question: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Good points Tony. However, the lions share (85% :question:) of all water consumed in this state is by farmers in the San Joaquin Valley. Cotton is the crop we target for this. And, there's some valid reasoning for that. According to what I've been reading, there's a surplus of cotton on the worldwide market. Yet, the federal government pays a cash subsidy, annually, to growers not to fallow fields but to keep prices low so that our cotton products continue to sell better than their competitors from other countries. Many of which are threatening to retaliate for unfair trade policies on the part of the US. That's what our water resources are being used to perpetuate at the expense of the environment. So this issue (water use) goes far beyond conservation issues. :neutral:

Of course, cotton is not the only crop grown on the San Joaquin. Lots of fruits, nuts and row crops are grown there, as well. So, if we could make it less desirable to produce cotton (an intensively irrigated crop) and more desirable to produce food crops, maybe it would result in retirement of that acreage and a corresponding reduction in demand on water from the Delta, etc.... :cool:

Fortunately, population growth will continue to be the greatest along the coastline where the largest concentrations of people already are located. That lends itself to the feasibility of desalinization of ocean water. :cool:

[Larry S]

Pasting Terry T's post here-

http://kiene.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16501

Thanks Terry for the article.

Larry S