Hi all,
I was watching the morning news hour today, and they had a UVic prof on with a background in fisheries and water.
His theory on why the run was so large this year, was because all of those "missing" salmon from 2009 actually joined the 2010 run. and his reasoning was primarily environmental factors, stating that they have a much greater influence on salmon behavior than we realize.
At first I kind of shrugged off this hypothesis, but after letting is simmer for a bit, there might be something to it. It has been stated that we know that the 2009 salmon left the fraser and its tributaries in acceptable numbers, but what happened in the open ocean is largely unknown. Maybe the answer is that nothing out of the ordinary happened out there at all (an idea that hasn't been heard too much). Could the 2009 run have held off their spawning for a year?
I also happened to read an article in the latest edition of BC outdoors that supports the theory of exactly how much water conditions in the river affects salmon. It studied multiple sets of smolts that were released in the Chilko river. one set was released upstream and their progress downstream was measured and recorded electronically. they were measured at 200 meter, 3 km, 11 km, 39 km and 80 km. A second set of smolts was measured for escapement, but at their time of release, the water levels were very low and worm. It took this set 66 more hours to travel the same distance...
The 4 year life cycle of the salmon (2 for pink) is of course the golden rule, but we know Jacks come back a year yearly, and Steelhead have been known to survive the spawning cycle to spawn more than once, so like all rules, this one also has exceptions.
Is it so inconceivable, given that we really do not know very much at all about salmon hehavior in the open ocan, that in the spirit of self preservation, and more importantly, to give themselves the best chance of passing on their genetic code, the vast majority of the expected 11 million held off migrating upstream for another year, sensing that it would not give them the best (or a very poor chance) to reproduce?
If this is the case, and i am certainly not saying it is, it certyainly would account for a number we haven't seen in a century, let alone 4, 8 or 12 years ago. Hell, the math even comes close to adding up. I believe 11 million were expected last year, and 1.9 came back, leaving 9 million unaccounted for.
add that to the 20 million plus expected this year, andwe have the 30 million that was reported (until it eventualyl got bumped up to 34 million).
This is a very interesting thought to me, as if true, woudl challenge what we think we know about these incredible migratory fish. I am very interested what the many of you who are much more knowledgable than I am have to say about it. sorry for the long winded topic.
Cheers,
Andrew
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Topic: interesting theory for the big Sock run (Read 5144 times)