Salmon forecast dismal
April 17, 2008
Sockeye salmon on their way back to the Fraser River are expected to arrive in very low numbers this summer.
The current estimate is for 2.9 million Fraser sockeye to return, according to Pacific Salmon Commission chief biologist Mike Lapointe.
That’s a far cry from the good years when 10 to 20 million sockeye came back and it may lead managers to ban all commercial and recreational sockeye fishing this season.
“It’s going to be pretty slim pickings,” Lapointe said, adding a single very limited opening is likely the best the commercial fleet can expect – if anything at all.
A bad fishery this year is no surprise.
Sockeye run on a four-year cycle and this is the low year of the cycle. In the past that would have meant a lower return on the order of four to five million fish.
But in addition, the salmon now returning are the product of the disastrous 2004 season when the disappearance of 1.3 million sockeye sparked a firestorm of controversy and finger-pointing.
Barely 500,000 fish made it back to their birth streams that year, a dangerously low level to spawn and maintain stocks.
“We’re not expecting much,” Lapointe said.
If enough salmon do come back now to help rebuild the run, he said, it will demonstrate their resiliency.
Last year 6.4 million Fraser sockeye were expected but barely a third that number showed up.
Sockeye runs over the past two years are thought to have been hammered by hot ocean temperatures that left them underfed and vulnerable to predators.
So far biologists say this year’s sockeye run likely faced more moderate ocean temperatures.
High river temperatures are also deadly to salmon and are thought to be a major cause of 2004’s missing salmon, along with overfishing, poaching and poor estimates.