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[Dave]

Well that will be the end of cultas sockeye.

cultus sockeye are already done.

[RalphH]

right now it looks like most of the sockeye runs in the Fraser are 'done'.

[wildmanyeah]

Chilliwack is gonna have over 20k return. Cultus will be lucky if 5 to 10 fish.

For conservation purposes I’ve read that returns of 500 pairs or 1k insures healthy genes.

So while not strong enough to fish for them many sockeye populations are not at risk of extinction.


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[RalphH]

I was thinking that this year's estimated return is under 300k whereas the brood year - 2016 was around 800k and that was the worst return on record. So the followup brood year return is about 30% of the worst return on record.

Since 2010 returns have gone down. Other than the 2010 cycle every other cycle has been the worst on record - repeatedly.

Are sockeye all but dropping off the extinction cliff? While sockeye have a cache population in the kokanee populations resident in so many lakes in the Fraser watershed, there's little reason to optimistic. Cultus and Sakinaw may be the model of how the anadromous form vanishes.

[CohoJake]

I was thinking that this year's estimated return is under 300k whereas the brood year - 2016 was around 800k and that was the worst return on record. So the followup brood year return is about 30% of the worst return on record.

Since 2010 returns have gone down. Other than the 2010 cycle every other cycle has been the worst on record - repeatedly.

Are sockeye all but dropping off the extinction cliff? While sockeye have a cache population in the kokanee populations resident in so many lakes in the Fraser watershed, there's little reason to optimistic. Cultus and Sakinaw may be the model of how the anadromous form vanishes.

Extinction cliff?  Not quite.  Ocean conditions are and have been poor, no doubt about it.  Other than Bristol Bay, Alaska sockeye runs are suffering as well.  The Baker Lake sockeye run turned out slightly better than forecast, but the peak was more than a week later than past years.  The Columbia (Osoyoos and Lake Wenatchee) runs also appeared to be late.  Last year's Baker Lake run was much lower than forecast.  The Baker Lake run is basically 100% hatchery production, and has been for 100 years, so it serves as a good gauge of ocean conditions.  At this point I am concerned about the 2022 Fraser run - if it follows the same patter, the return will be in the neighborhood of 5-6 million, but the forecast will be for 10 million, so it may end up being horribly overfished before it is too late.

The current forecast gives a 60% probability of a La Nina pattern developing in the next 6 months.  If that happens, we could see an improvement of ocean conditions for a few years, just as the 2022 fish hit the ocean. If ocean conditions don't improve even with a La Nina, then something really is messed up and Ralph you may be right about extinction being on the table.

[RalphH]

sorry I was specifically talking about Fraser sockeye.

Re: the "extinction cliff". Thirty or so years a go I remember reading a paper on negative factors on salmon abundance (climate change, ocean acidification, habitat loss etc)

Basically the predicted cycle was for year some periods of relative abundance vs others of scarcity. You could relate these to ocean cycles like El Nino vs La Nina. For each repetition of the cycle the relative levels of abundance would be less than previous cycles. As decades passed the lean cycles, like 2016, 2020, 2024 - which is I believe the least abundant Fraser cycle - numbers would drop to very low, close to nil and then nothing. Much like the pattern we've seen for Cultus and Sakinaw. I believe Sakinaw now has no sockeye returns in it's cycle years that were low abundance. Imagine the same thing starting to happen with runs in the Fraser. It's getting close with the early Stuart runs.