Michel Comte Yahoo News 13 Aug 09;
OTTAWA (AFP) – Millions of sockeye salmon expected to reach the Fraser River on Canada's Pacific Coast this month have vanished, devastating the local fishery, officials said Thursday.
According to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, between six to 10 million sockeye were projected to return to the river this month.
But the official count is now just 600,000 for the "summer run" -- by far the largest of four salmon groupings that return to area lakes and rivers each year from June to late August.
Where the other fish went remains a mystery.
The daily Globe and Mail cited fishermen who said the situation was "shocking," a "catastrophe" and a "crisis," while public broadcaster CBC said this could end up being the worst year ever for the Pacific salmon fishery.
A record number of smolts were born in the Fraser watershed in 2005 and migrated to the ocean, and were expected this month to return en masse to spawn.
"It's a bit of a mystery," Watershed Watch Salmon Society fish biologist Stan Proboszcz told AFP.
Officials and ecologists speculated they could have been affected by warmer ocean temperatures, fewer food sources, or more prey.
Others suggested juvenile salmon may have contracted sea lice or other infections from some 30 fish farms in the Straight of Georgia as they migrated out to sea.
Fisheries officials may have also erred in their complex forecasting calculations, or the fish could just be late arriving, although the latter is very unlikely, said Proboszcz.
"Honestly, we don't know what happens to them when they go out into the ocean," he said. "There's a myriad of factors that could explain what's going on."
Regardless, this outcome is "quite shocking," he said.
Department of Fisheries and Oceans spokeswoman Lara Sloan said the Fraser River commercial sockeye fishery has not opened as a result of the drop in fish stocks, and a parallel aboriginal fishery scaled back its catch this season to just five percent of its usual take.
Moreover, no recreational fishing has been allowed allowed.
Sloan also declined to try to pinpoint the specific reason for the collapse in sockeye salmon stocks.
"There are a lot of variations in the ocean," she said. "They're all interconnected, so it's impossible to point to one reason for this happening."
"So far, they're not coming back in the numbers we expected, but we will continue to look for them," she said.
Meanwhile, pink and Chum salmon are still due to arrive around the end of August through October. So far there is no indication they have been affected.
Chinook salmon are also returning to spawn in the region, but they have been a "conservation concern" for several years, and their numbers remain low.
Millions of salmon disappear from Canadian river
Rod Nickel, Reuters 13 Aug 09;
WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - Millions of sockeye salmon have disappeared mysteriously from a river on Canada's Pacific Coast that was once known as the world's most fertile spawning ground for sockeye.
Up to 10.6 million bright-red sockeye salmon were expected to return to spawn this summer on the Fraser River, which empties into the Pacific ocean near Vancouver, British Columbia. The latest estimates say fewer than 1 million have returned.
The Canadian government has closed the river to commercial and recreational sockeye fishing for the third straight year, hitting the livelihood of nearby Indian reserves.
"It's quite the shocking drop," said Stan Proboszcz, fisheries biologist at the Watershed Watch Salmon Society. "No one's exactly sure what happened to these fish."
Salmon are born in fresh water before migrating to oceans to feed. They return as adults to the same rivers to spawn.
Several theories have been put forward to try to explain the sockeye's disappearance:
* Climate change may have reduced food supply for salmon in the ocean.
* The commercial fish farms that the young Fraser River salmon pass en route to the ocean may have infected them with sea lice, a marine parasite.
* The rising temperature of the river may have weakened the fish.
The Canadian government doesn't know what's killing the fish, but believes the sockeye are dying off in the ocean, not in fresh water, based on healthy out-migrations, said Jeff Grout, regional resource manager of salmon for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
It's too soon to know yet how widespread salmon losses are in the Pacific salmon fishery, but British Columbia's northern Skeena River has also seen lower-than-expected returns this year, Grout said.
Signs are more positive for other salmon species such as chinook, pink and coho, he said.
The reduced salmon return affects the environment around the Fraser River, Proboszcz said. After spawning, adult salmon die, creating a food source for bears and eagles and adding nutrients for plants.
Food companies that rely on the Fraser for some of their salmon supply will have to look to other areas of British Columbia or Alaska, Grout said.
(Editing by Peter Galloway)
Millions of salmon disappear from Canadian river
Rod Nickel, Reuters 13 Aug 09;
WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - Millions of sockeye salmon have disappeared mysteriously from a river on Canada's Pacific Coast that was once known as the world's most fertile spawning ground for sockeye.
Up to 10.6 million bright-red sockeye salmon were expected to return to spawn this summer on the Fraser River, which empties into the Pacific ocean near Vancouver, British Columbia. The latest estimates say fewer than 1 million have returned.
The Canadian government has closed the river to commercial and recreational sockeye fishing for the third straight year, hitting the livelihood of nearby Indian reserves.
"It's quite the shocking drop," said Stan Proboszcz, fisheries biologist at the Watershed Watch Salmon Society. "No one's exactly sure what happened to these fish."
Salmon are born in fresh water before migrating to oceans to feed. They return as adults to the same rivers to spawn.
Several theories have been put forward to try to explain the sockeye's disappearance:
* Climate change may have reduced food supply for salmon in the ocean.
* The commercial fish farms that the young Fraser River salmon pass en route to the ocean may have infected them with sea lice, a marine parasite.
* The rising temperature of the river may have weakened the fish.
The Canadian government doesn't know what's killing the fish, but believes the sockeye are dying off in the ocean, not in fresh water, based on healthy out-migrations, said Jeff Grout, regional resource manager of salmon for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
It's too soon to know yet how widespread salmon losses are in the Pacific salmon fishery, but British Columbia's northern Skeena River has also seen lower-than-expected returns this year, Grout said.
Signs are more positive for other salmon species such as chinook, pink and coho, he said.
The reduced salmon return affects the environment around the Fraser River, Proboszcz said. After spawning, adult salmon die, creating a food source for bears and eagles and adding nutrients for plants.
Food companies that rely on the Fraser for some of their salmon supply will have to look to other areas of British Columbia or Alaska, Grout said.
(Editing by Peter Galloway)
