Barriers

[Moose Master]

https://www.courthousenews.com/for-salmon-an-ancient-journey-turned-deadly/

Came across this thought the number is high so a little helping hand.  I know here in Washington lots of grief about money being spent on these projects.  So some feedback would help me with thoughts for my grandsons

[Humptulips]

I can only say in this last round of fish barrier culvert replacements on US 101 many of them never were suitable for salmon. Several are dry except during high water, extremely short suitable stream above the culvert and in one case a waterfall below the new fish culvert that no fish has ever been able to get over.
In an earlier round yes there is good habitat above the road but I have trapped every one of these streams and saw plenty of salmon above the road when the old bad culverts were in place.
The trouble is the streams below the "barriers" are now hurting for spawners. There is so much good spawning habitat going begging for fish yet we spend money to expand habitat.
It looks like from here the barrier replacements are a way to spend money.

There is one huge barrier that cuts off many miles of excellent habitat, Quinault National Fish Hatchery dam on Cook Creek. Run by the USFWS.

[Bullkllr]

 

I'll add that the cost overruns have been rampant, making the whole program appear more a way to suck up funds rather than an effective plan to put more migratory fish on actual habitat.

https://jimwalsh.houserepublicans.wa.gov/2024/01/09/washington-states-costly-culvert-catastrophe/#:~:text=In%202013%2C%20a%20federal%20court,steelhead%2C%20to%20reach%20spawning%20grounds.

I found the intro to that article quite funny, btw. There's no way a 36" chinook is close to 50 pounds. And does the author anthropomorphize much?

[HntnFsh]

Last I heard it was costing us a MILLION dollars a day for this fiasco! Probably significantly more now. Take a drive from Quilcene to Sequim and look at all of the dollars being spent and see what they are trying to improve and tell me it will create more fish habitat on many of those projects!

[Alan K]

I wonder where the blame will shift next when they're all completed but the populations continue downward.

[JimmyHoffa]

I wonder where the blame will shift next when they're all completed but the populations continue downward.

Yeah, they've definitely put a few dents in the causes they repeat as being the main hindrance.  Culverts, dams, logging, hatcheries, roads, non commercial fishing, net pens, storm water run off, septic improvements and water use that I'm aware of.  If one was the silver bullet, I'd think we would at least see a positive feedback in that affected area, if a combination of those things then a positive feedback for all areas.
Keep going down the list.

[Alan K]

There is no doubt all of those things impact to some degree, but I always find it odd that the one that doesn't get much traction is direct take. Seals, mergansers, nets, single barbless hooks. The things that could be easily controlled. 

Unfortunately I'm skeptical of the motivations behind a lot of the 'solutions' to fish problems because the ones that are quickest and easiest to implement are bypassed for the ambiguous expensive options where it's difficult to assign a value (in terms of recovery) if Project X is done.

Conversely, if a seal consumes 300 salmon a year, a seal removed is worth 300 salmon (no idea if that number is even remotley close to actual). The same relatively easy math can be done for mergansers, nets, barbles hook fishermen etc.

I suspect if we cut seal numbers in half, merganser numbers in half, and refrained from nets/barbless hooks over 5 years we would see more response than habitat related projects.  There is all kinds of habitat open and ready for fish right now.  Tackling habitat projects first when the existing habitat isn't already at carrying capacity seems backwards.

[HntnFsh]

Your correct. No money in the predator side of the equation.

[ASHQUACK]

Remove the dollar signs off the fish and put the dollar signs on pinipeds and fish gorging birds and the fish will recover.

[GWP]

I wonder where the blame will shift next when they're all completed but the populations continue downward.

Firearms. They will need to take them all away. No clear or proven reason why or what the connection is.
They all need to be gathered up and destroyed.
If you are against that you are a fish hater.