Steve Bloom/The Olympian
Washington's salmon fishing has boomed this summer, raising questions about threats to endagered fish and whether those fish are genuinely threatened.

Salmon boom called 'one-year bonanza'

Fish numbers can be confusing, but trouble for wild salmon still clear

N.S. NOKKENTVED, THE OLYMPIAN

Originally published August 10, 2001

OLYMPIA -- The ocean fishing is good, the boats are full and they're bringing back lots of good-sized salmon.

So, many people wonder, how can salmon be in trouble as a species.

But more common is the question: "Why are people fishing when there's endangered salmon out there," said Mark Cedergreen, executive director of the Westport Charter Boat Association.

The answer is that not all salmon are the same. Salmon are managed by run -- and some runs are in trouble, some are healthy, Cedergreen said.

There are five salmon species and each species has several sub-populations in various rivers.

Some fish are wild and some are hatchery raised. It's the wild fish that are in trouble. And Puget Sound salmon aren't caught by boats out of Westport, he said.

Some of the hatchery fish are clearly marked with a clipped adipose fin, and anglers release the wild ones. But that's not the case with chinook, some of which -- such as Snake River fall chinook -- are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Federal officials in charge of managing ocean fishing and salmon recovery, set a limit on the number of wild chinook that can be caught. That might end if they became endangered.

But if they do become endangered, it wouldn't be "because we catch a few down here," Cedergreen said. It would be because something happened up in the river -- like a hot dry year.

Wild Northwest salmon have been on a well-publicized downward spiral and are facing possible extinction in the long term. Yet the fabled fish are returning in numbers not seen in decades.

Columbia River fish are coming back in numbers not seen in 75 years, said Tony Floor, head of Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's Puget Sound Sport Fish Enhancement Program.

Despite the great return this summer, the number of young salmon migrating to the ocean this year is dismal, and that means salmon numbers will soon drop again.

"It's a one-year bonanza," Floor said.

The doomsayers, have been saying the salmon are gone, said veteran fisher Mark Byrne of Olympia. But for the first time in eight years, there's a sockeye fishery in Lake Wenatchee. The critics blame the dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers for the decline, and they may be responsible for part of the decline, but so are wasteful practices, he said.

"I enjoy salmon fishing," Byrne said. But sometimes it seems like management decisions are based on politics, not science. Sometimes when fishing is closed for a particular run, those are the only kind of fish he's run into when fishing, he said.

"It's wildlife management by vote," he said.

When the Columbia and Snake river dams were built between 1938 and 1975, numerous fish hatcheries were built to offset wild salmon runs lost when dams blocked their natural spawning streams.

It's the fish from those hatcheries that anglers are seeing in such numbers -- though the good conditions this year have helped wild fish as well.

This year, a series of natural coincidences has produced the abundant run of hatchery salmon.

It began several years ago, when a strong return of adults filled hatcheries with eggs. Then when those eggs hatched and grew into juvenile fish, they rode a big spring runoff to the ocean.

In the ocean, they ran smack into "the motherlode of groceries off the coast," Floor said.

Those fish now are returning. But this year is one of the lowest water years on record, meaning fewer young fish will make it to the ocean. Low water means warm, slow water which can be lethal to young fish adapting to saltwater, and it makes them more vulnerable to predators.

Low numbers out means low numbers back, Floor said.

"It's very elementary math," he said.

N.S. Nokkentved covers the outdoors for The Olympian. He can be reached at 754-5445.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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