End of salmon fishing eventually???

[bassquatch]

I copied this from today's Seattle Times, not sure if it will load properly? I get a little on edge everytime a story like this surfaces...especially since this State would sacrifice everyone's first born to save a salmon! If you can't read it, it was on the cover of today's paper:

JEANNE HYDE

Tucker has been trained to smell orca poop from as far as a mile away. Tucker never goes into the water, he just leans over the bow in the direction the boat should travel.
 
Lack of food — not noise from whale-watching boats — is most stressful to Puget Sound's endangered killer whales, researchers have learned.

Levels of certain stress hormones decreased in samples of orca scat gathered during the time of highest vessel traffic, instead of increasing, researchers found. They surmise this is because at the same time, the whales' favorite food, chinook salmon, was most abundant.

Interestingly, the orcas' stress-hormone levels only increased when vessel noise was higher if there also were lower levels of food available at that time.

"I like to call it my buffet-in-a-bar example," said Katherine Ayres, lead author of a paper on the study published in PLoS ONE, released Wednesday. Patrons in a noisy bar won't mind the racket if all their favorite foods are piled high on the buffet. "But you go there and they are only serving rice and potatoes, and it's super noisy and crowded, then it's, 'I am not getting a good meal and these boats are driving me crazy.' "

Sam Wasser, director of University of Washington's Department of Biology Center for Conservation Biology, said the study points to the importance of putting fish first as managers look for the priority management steps, amid reducing toxins and pollution, vessel noise and improving food supply, for orca recovery.

"If you are a manager, you really want to know what are the relative importance of those, and how do they interact, and our study did that; it found that fish are the most important," Wasser said.

Efforts to build up Puget Sound chinook have been under way since before they were listed as threatened more than 10 years ago.

Yet despite the knowledge that habitat is key to chinook survival, a review of the implementation of the recovery plan for chinook for NOAA Fisheries last year showed the region has continued to lose habitat since the listing.

From 2001 to 2006, the amount of developed land in Puget Sound increased about 3 percent, with nearly two-thirds of that converted from forests or agricultural land to pavement. That translates to a loss of about 10,700 more acres of forest cover and 4,300 acres of agricultural land over that period.

Western Washington Treaty Tribes reported in a 2011 White Paper that salmon returns have continued to dwindle to the point that tribes are catching fewer salmon today than before the 1974 Boldt decision, which secured their right to half the salmon catch.

To some it's no surprise that food supply and habitat that will support healthy salmon runs would be seen as key to orca recovery. Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research said he remembered seeing far more orcas back when he also used to see far more fishing boats off the west coast of the San Juan Islands. The whales never seemed to mind the boats — back when there were lots of fish.

"This is what I have been saying all along," Balcomb said.

[JohnVH]

when the indians string nets all the way across a river, how will the salmon keep its numbers up? duh

[Button Nubbs]

Natives are just a part of the problem. Habitat destruction is another part. There are many factors to this. The entire puget sound system has been struggling to get fish returns for quite sometime, even the systems that receive little to no netting pressure.

[JohnVH]

even the systems that receive little to no netting pressure.

Is there such an area?

[Button Nubbs]

Snohomish system.

[bowelkaholic]

well  if the state would not have let them kill them when they try and get them whales for Marine zoos they mite not have a problem now leave *censored* alone PS that was if Penn cove years ago o look on you tube that killer whale looks like hes having fun  this is BS.

[h20hunter]

I'm sorry what?

[KopperBuck]

well  if the state would not have let them kill them when they try and get them whales for Marine zoos they mite not have a problem now leave *censored* alone PS that was if Penn cove years ago o look on you tube that killer whale looks like hes having fun  this is BS.

Ya. What he said

[wildmanoutdoors]

They Native nets across or rivers are only part of the problem. It starts in AK and goes South. Wash, Or and Calif. fish get intercepted the whole way by commercial and sport. US and Canada. As well Foreign country commercial boats.

And like Button said, habitat.

Add all that up and you get ZERO eventually...

[FC]

Snohomish system.

What planet is this that the Snohomish system doesn't have nets in it come salmon season? Have you not also seen the nets all over Possession sound? Refresh my memory again on what happened to the chum run in the Sykomish

That river system gets netted hard...

People have been spewing that crap about habitat and it being somebody else's fault etc etc but amazingly enough the pinks are the most prolific salmon in the state without outside assistance! Now that they are being netted too I am sure that they will be decimated as well.

No matter what spin people put on this, nets are a dominant part of the problem.

[JimmyHoffa]

I personally think it is the big fishing fleets in the Northern Pacific.  There are plenty of other countries fishing off of AK too.  There is so much habitat in Washington, Canada and Alaska that hasn't been developed to destruction and those areas are also declining in salmon.  I read on some county websites for Washington that they continually note habitat, because with sea-run fish the only factor the county can have any control over is habitat.  And they get all kinds of grant money by making projects focusing on habitat.  Oh, and I agree that stringing 4-6 nets bank to bank at the mouth of a river surely doesn't help.

[huntnphool]

No matter what spin people put on this, nets are a dominant part of the problem.

  Makes you wonder where the activists are, why don't the anti's scream about nets in the rivers.

[Fishnclifff]

I keep telling people.
One day the Indians will realize that half of zero is zero.
They keep clogging all the rivers with nets and wasting the fish, every year.

[singleshot12]

"End of salmon fishing eventually???"  for the sportsman maybe?  we're the ones that usually loose first while the natives continue to net. I wish this state could learn fron Canada on how to manage our salmon.

[Moose22]

They Native nets across or rivers are only part of the problem. It starts in AK and goes South. Wash, Or and Calif. fish get intercepted the whole way by commercial and sport. US and Canada. As well Foreign country commercial boats.

And like Button said, habitat.

Add all that up and you get ZERO eventually...

Totally agree with you wildman. My fishing grounds for over thirty years has not had nets in the river and I have seen the runs decimated. Every couple of years the sportsmen are cut back due to the lack of fish. No humpy season since '77 still no fish, no chum season for a tleast 10 years no fish, coho runs of over 12000 down to 500. Stealhead nearly non existant. Also no dams, a free flow river.