Low runs prompting considerable research
This summer’s run of Yukon River chinook salmon is again well below average, just like it’s been in the last two years.
This summer’s run of Yukon River chinook salmon is again well below average, just like it’s been in the last two years.
The number of chinook counted at the Eagle, Alaska sonar as of Monday was at 31,631. That’s well below the minimum goal of having at least 42,500 make it to the spawning beds in the Yukon.
The Eagle sonar is just below the Canada-U.S. border.
Sonar counts are showing the annual return of fall chum salmon is also coming in well below average.
Jesse Trerice of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) said this morning the reason behind the continuing low returns is a question everybody is trying to solve.
“A lot of the indications, a lot of it, is part of the marine environment,” she said in an interview from her Whitehorse office.
The fisheries manager for the Yukon River said with ocean temperatures rising, there are impacts to marine life, including impacts to the prey species the chinook depend on.
With the Yukon River chinook fishery closed on both sides of the border this summer, the poor return is not linked to the harvest levels, she said.
Trerice said there is a lot of research going into the chinook salmon and the low returns. It is not just one factor, she said.
The fisheries manager noted there are a number of chinook and chum populations across the northwest that are experiencing the same type of declines.
DFO has developed the Pacific Salmon Strategy Initiative that was only released in June, she said.
Trerice said the strategy has four main pillars, including conservation and stewardship and enhanced hatchery production.
“It’s a response to this decline, a sustained decline, that is being observed all across the northwest,” she said.
As it would be expected, sonar counts in the Yukon on the Big Salmon, Pelly, Klondike, and the Takhini rivers are all showing returns that are below average or well below average.
The estimated return at the Whitehorse Rapids Dam, for instance, was at 257 chinook as of late last week, or well below the annual average of 1,135 to that point.
The Pilot Station sonar located upriver from the mouth has recorded a total count this summer of 124,874 chinook, compared to the annual average of 145,943.
The run of fall chum salmon is also coming in well below average.
As of late last week, the sonar at Pilot Station had counted 138,356 fall chum, compared to the annual average of 720,856 to that point.
Comments (3)
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Groucho d'North on Sep 9, 2021 at 10:09 am
Its a bit late in the game to start thinking about how to correct this situation. Diligence should have been applied when there was still something left to save. For the past twenty years reports have indicated salmon populations were falling dramatically and little was done to reduce consumption of the fish returning to spawn. If you keep reducing the spawners you are eliminating the future generations. So now they are pointing at climate change as the culprit.
It's over fishing in both the Pacific and on the natal rivers, but none of the management agencies have the courage to halt the licensed harvest in order to protect the future fish populations. Votes appear to be more important than saving these species. Shut the fishery down completely in both Alaska and Yukon/BC for five years for all salmon fishing to let the stocks rebuild- if they can. Zero salmon harvest gets my vote. Didn't we learn anything from the cod disaster on the east coast?
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iBrian on Sep 8, 2021 at 5:05 am
Maybe take a look at Commercial Fishing in the ocean. I see a dog food company advertising they have “Sustainably caught salmon food”.
How many tens of thousands of salmon are going to the dogs.
Plus in Tanana there's about 10 dog mushers who put 1500 plus fish a year each in their drying house for their dog teams. They have their fish wheels going every year.
The Yukon Salmon Sub-Committee, or should have gotten in a boat years ago and gone down stream to ensure that the Americans were holding their side of the deal up.
To little too late.
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Nathan Living on Sep 7, 2021 at 5:10 pm
With all the research and assessment programs and an international treaty we deserve an answer sooner rather than later.
Is the Pilot Station sonar overestimating the Chinook run, or are fish dying as they migrate in the river or are fishers still fishing during closures.
Poor runs of both fall and summer chum salmon the same year, that has to be a first.