salmon decline

[Dabalone]

The salmon decline was a shock to most of us and it will be another salmonless year. Here is another article talking about the subject I found interesting. You can find many theories as to why salmon stocks collapsed and what needs to be done to restore them, something I have wondered is what were the reasons for the huge "increases" of returning salmon in years 01 thru 03, and the spike to record numbers in 02 (see graph). These numbers are substantially higher than the more or less average returns over many previous years. What were the conditions for those salmon during their life in the river and at sea which allowed them to return in such huge numbers? Surly something to be learned from those fish. Man, I miss my salmon, sniff.


http://inthesenewtimes.com/2009/05/15/where-have-all-the-salmon-gone/

[Tony Buzolich]

A few years back I posted a report of a guy that was sent out here from the Federal Govt. His job as he said was to (I got this second hand) to "fix the problem" of having too many "Hatchery" salmon in the system. He was starting at Oroville, and then Coleman, and then he'd be moving to Oregon and then to Washington.

Kind of sounds far fetched I know, but the person I talked with is very reputable and was renting a house to this guy. This landlord asked the guy several times what he meant by the word "Fix" when he was talking to him about the hatcheries and it always came back that we have too many "hatery fish" in the rivers.

So if this guy was for real, he did a good job of "fixing" the hatchery fish to the point now that we don't have ANY.

Things will never again be like they were a hundred years ago, and wildlife today will only suffer more unless we take a more scientific means of helping production.

"Native salmon spawning in clean river water without dams" is only a pipe dream in today's world. This is CALIFORNIA. We have over 36 MILLION people in California! And they all drink water. Know what the population of California was a hundred years ago?

The whole state only had one and a half million people in 1900.