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[flatlander]

With Fraser river pinks arriving every odd year I was wondering.  Was there a environmental catastrophy that destroyed the even year run?  Why hasn't Fisheries and Oceans reintroduced a even year pink run to the Fraser?

[Sam Salmon]

With Fraser river pinks arriving every odd year I was wondering.  Was there a environmental catastrophe that destroyed the even year run?  Why hasn't Fisheries and Oceans reintroduced a even year pink run to the Fraser?

It's a question that's puzzled fisheries scientists for years and since Pinks never were/never will be of any importance to the  commercial fishery little money was thrown @ the question.

All I've heard is mumbling about natural cycles-ditto Sockeye and their 4 year cycle.

[Every Day]

Last year and the even year before that I have landed some pinks. Last year (2006) I landed a male and a female both in the same day. In 2004 I also landed a big male humpy... eveyone around me was completely shocked. I saw a few caught the 2006 year (not including mine) but not very many.... Im wondering is a few spawners are starting to sneak in and rebuild a run. I've always heard that a rock slide whiped out the even year pink cycle, but I've always heard it was further up the river towards Hope so why would it effect the Vedder run  .... Im sure with a little help a new run could be established but no one seems to like the pinks so no one wants to waste time in helping them out   

[umpo4]

In Alaska there are river systems that are only odd years or even years, and still not both. S.E. Alaska has streams all odd or all even. Many commercial boats fish them every year , by knowing which sysrems to work have runs odd or even..............COOL...EH

[younggun]

i like it the way it is, i think it would suck to have pinks flood the rivers every year

[bbronswyk2000]

i like it the way it is, i think it would suck to have pinks flood the rivers every year

Why? They are a great sports fish and a great smoking fish. One day when all the salmon stocks are so low and their is no fishing for any of them you will be wishing their were pinks to fish for. The last great pink return was 2003. 2005 their were less than 2007 even less. Its not just all the great sockeye that are disappearing.

[leadbelly]

lots of pink fry in the allouette this year too

[David_R]

Big environmental catastrophe == hell's gate rockslides
They messed up the even year runs pretty bad by creating a physical barrier that was very difficult for salmon to get up and accross.  A loss of that run is/was a big deal and even if you don't value them as a fishery they were important parts of the ecosystem providing nutrients to the flora and fauna in the area.

[Rodney]

Big environmental catastrophe == hell's gate rockslides
They messed up the even year runs pretty bad by creating a physical barrier that was very difficult for salmon to get up and accross.

That's actually not true. The low abundance of even year pink salmon runs is not only found on the Fraser River, but most tributaries in Southern BC and Washington State. It is a mysterious part of pink salmon's life history that still baffles those who study it.

http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/publications/techmemos/tm25/tm25.html

In addition to their small size, extreme sexual dimorphism, and lack of extended residence in fresh water as juveniles, pink salmon differ from other species of Pacific salmon in another important respect. Because essentially all pink salmon mature at 2 years of age (Gilbert 1914, Anas 1959, Bilton and Ricker 1965, Turner and Bilton 1968), this species lacks variable age structure. Two broodlines result from generations spawning in alternate years. Throughout much of the range of this species, many rivers that support pink salmon populations produce both even- and odd-year broodlines which may have arisen independently and have presumably been genetically isolated for hundreds or thousands of generations (Aspinwall 1974, Gharrett and Smoker 1991, Heard 1991). Although 1- and 3-year-old adults have been recorded (Anas 1959, Foster et al. 1981, Alexandersdottir and Mathisen 1983), almost all pink salmon are 2 years of age at maturity (Gilbert 1914, Bilton and Ricker 1965, Turner and Bilton 1968). Fish in the broodline that matures in even-numbered years are referred to as even-year pink salmon; fish in the other broodline, which matures in alternate, odd-numbered years, are referred to as odd-year pink salmon (Aspinwall 1974, Johnson 1979, McGregor 1982, Beacham et al. 1985). Even distinct broodlines in the same river differ for a variety of life history as well as genetic characteristics (Heard 1991).

The geographical distributions of these two broodlines are not random. At the southern extent of the pink salmon range in North America, odd-year pink salmon are most abundant (Atkinson et al. 1967, WDF et al. 1993). Pink salmon in southern British Columbia, including the Fraser River, are dominated by odd-year fish (Aro and Shepard 1967). British Columbia populations north of the Fraser River support both odd- and even-year populations, as do those in southeastern Alaska (Heard 1991). Even-year pink salmon dominate runs in the Queen Charlotte Islands and become more abundant than odd-year pink salmon in western Alaska (Neave 1952, Aro and Shepard 1967, Ricker and Manzer 1974). In Asia, even-year pink salmon generally become more abundant than odd-year pink salmon as latitude increases (Heard 1991). The reasons for this variation in broodline dominance remain a major unsolved problem in pink salmon biology (Ricker 1962, Heard 1991).

The relative abundance of these broodlines can fluctuate dramatically over time, even within the same system (Neave 1952, Ricker 1962). In recent decades, pink salmon south of central British Columbia have been dominated by odd-year fish (Aro and Shepard 1967, Beacham et al. 1985), and even-year fish are almost completely absent from Washington (Atkinson et al. 1967, WDF et al. 1993). Even-year pink salmon in Washington are known only from the Snohomish River on Puget Sound, where spawning escapements have ranged from a few hundred to over 2,000 fish over the last decade (WDF et al. 1993).

With the exception of those in the Fraser River, the sizes of even- and odd-year pink salmon populations in British Columbia generally increase with latitude. In odd-numbered years, large populations (100,000 spawners or more) also occur in some rivers on the east side of Strait of Georgia and Johnstone Strait (Stefanson et al. 1993); in even-numbered years, however, the largest populations occur primarily along Johnstone Strait and farther north (Aro and Shepard 1967; Gould et al. 1988; Stefanson et al. 1989, 1991). Several small populations (less than a few hundred to a few thousand spawners) of pink salmon occur in southern British Columbia, including southern Vancouver Island. On the east coast of Vancouver Island south of the Puntledge and Tsolum Rivers, populations spawning in odd-numbered years are relatively small and probably only rarely exceed a few thousand fish. On the west coast of the island, populations spawning in odd-numbered years probably rarely exceed this size south of Nootka Sound. However, escapement estimates for these populations are probably not very reliable (L. Hop Wo, W. Luedke).

Several small populations of pink salmon in southern British Columbia are not well characterized. The even-year pink salmon populations nearest to the Snohomish River appear to spawn in Vancouver Island rivers at least 130-150 km away (and perhaps considerably further), possibly in the lower Fraser River (T. Beacham), along Stuart Channel in the western Strait of Georgia, or between Sooke Inlet and Port San Juan on southwestern Vancouver Island (Aro and Shepard 1967). These areas also support the odd-year populations that appear to be nearest to Washington pink salmon populations (Aro and Shepard 1967).

[newsman]

Big environmental catastrophe == hell's gate rockslides
They messed up the even year runs pretty bad by creating a physical barrier that was very difficult for salmon to get up and across.  A loss of that run is/was a big deal and even if you don't value them as a fishery they were important parts of the ecosystem providing nutrients to the flora and fauna in the area.

I have heard that too. The rock slides at Hell's Gate caused by our two National railroads did devastate our Salmon fishery and it is disgusting that it took 40 years before the fish-way was built, but that does not explain the phenomena in our lower mainland rivers.

[Easywater]

This reminded me of a story my Dad told me a few months ago.

He worked for the Fisheries in the 60s and 70s and he told me about a plan to reintroduce Pinks in the even years.

They put a bunch of Pink smolts into Jones creek to start an even year spawn.

2 years later, they were running a fish wheel above Hope counting and tagging salmon.
When checking the fish in the fish wheel, they found some of the Pinks that were put into Jones creek.
(I guess they tagged or marked them somehow).

So it looks like the Pinks over-shot their spawning creek by a fair amount but most likely made it back to Jones creek (or maybe not since there is no even-year Pinks!)