Tag: Salmon

Do we know enough to do anything about all the seals and sea lions in Puget Sound?

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Scientists have known for years that Chinook salmon are important to southern resident orcas, but Chinook are not the only fish the whales eat. At the moment, chum salmon are returning to Puget Sound, and recent orca sightings suggest that the whales may now be feeding on chum. Harbor seals also eat Chinook salmon, but also chum, coho and other fish. They seem fond of smaller fish like herring and juvenile salmon. Oh, what a tangled food web we weave… Can we really say that seals are stealing the lunch […]

New steelhead strategy would include increased fishing and more hatcheries

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Strategies to keep steelhead fishing alive while restoring steelhead populations to rivers in Puget Sound are spelled out in the “Quicksilver Portfolio” (PDF 2.3 mb), a document unveiled today before the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission. After three years of study, the Puget Sound Steelhead Advisory Group announced that it was ready to solicit public and political support for an experimental approach that includes monitoring the effects of fishing and increased hatchery production as part of a steelhead-recovery effort. “Together, we can conserve wild steelhead, restore fishing opportunities, provide economic […]

Warm-water ‘blobs’ significantly diminish salmon, other fish populations, study says

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It’s no secret that salmon and other Northwest fish populations are expected to shrink as a result of a warming Pacific Ocean. But a new study suggests that the resulting decline in commercial fishing by 2050 could be twice as great as previously estimated by climate scientists. The higher estimates of population declines were calculated by researchers at the University of British Columbia, who took into account occasional “marine heat waves” that can play havoc with the ecosystem. A recent example is the warm-water event known as the “blob,” which […]

Warming ocean conditions fuel viruses among species in the Salish Sea

Salmon smolts. Photo courtesy of Governor's Salmon Recovery Office
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As officials struggle to track and contain the outbreak of the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19, ecologists say widespread impacts from viruses and other pathogens are also a growing threat to the species of the Salish Sea ecosystem. “We’re all especially impressed with how rapidly [COVID-19] emerged, the pace of its spread and how massively it has changed our world already,” said Dr. Drew Harvell of Cornell University at last month’s meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle. “Infectious outbreaks of ocean organisms are also […]

‘Early migration gene’ tied to unique population of Chinook

Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) swimming upstream. Photo: Ingrid Taylar (CC BY-NC 2.0)
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By Christopher Dunagan, Puget Sound Institute Recent studies have shown that Chinook salmon that spawn in the spring are genetically distinct from varieties that spawn during fall months. Experts are confronting the resulting ecological, social and legal implications of that finding. Each year, as the dark days of winter surrendered to the rebirth of spring, the Twana people earnestly waited for a unique type of salmon to return to the rushing rivers of Tuwa’duxq Si’dak, known today as Hood Canal. Throughout the Northwest, bands of native people followed their own […]

Kolodziej, Peter Featured in SIFF Documentary on Seattle’s Thornton Creek

A still from Engineering With Nature. Associate Professor Ed Kolodziej, at right, is interviewed by Katherine Lynch of Seattle Public Utilities.
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A new documentary featuring PSI collaborators Ed Kolodziej and Kathy Peter was selected to premiere at the 2019 Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) on Saturday, June 8. The 70-minute documentary, “Engineering with Nature – An Ode to Water, Wood, and Stone” was directed by environmental filmmaker Shelly Solomon and is distributed through Leaping Frog Films. It describes a four-year effort by Seattle Public Utilities to restore Thornton Creek, Seattle’s largest and most urbanized stream with 18 miles of waterway and a 12-square-mile watershed. The once-polluted and neglected creek is becoming […]

Salmon expedition reports unexpected findings

The research vessel Professor Kaganovsky. Photo courtesy of International Year of the Salmon.
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By Christopher Dunagan After five weeks at sea, a team of 21 scientists from five countries returned Monday with some surprising findings about the mysterious lives of salmon in the Pacific Ocean, according to Laurie Weitkamp, a salmon biologist with NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Newport, Ore. “It was quite an experience,” said Weitkamp, one of three chief scientists aboard the Russian research vessel Professor Kaganovsky. The groundbreaking studies of the past month became intertwined with the mixture of cultures from the international research team including the Russian captain […]

Scientists from five countries seek out the secrets of salmon

Spring Chinook Salmon. Photo courtesy Michael Humling, US Fish & Wildlife Service
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The international salmon expedition will try to find out why so many salmon go out into the Pacific Ocean and never return. By Christopher Dunagan An international team of 21 scientists will embark Sunday on a wintry expedition that could help untangle some of the greatest mysteries surrounding Pacific salmon: Where do these migrating fish go when they leave their local waters, and why are they dying in such large numbers? Biologists, oceanographers and other specialists from five countries will travel into the rough waters of the Pacific Ocean during […]

The lost tidal forests of Puget Sound

Tidal forest as viewed from an inner waterway of Otter Island in the Snohomish River estuary. Photo: Jeff Rice/PSI
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Hundreds of years ago, old-growth cedar and spruce loomed over estuaries and bottom lands throughout Puget Sound, creating what are known as tidal forests. These forests were the Pacific Northwest’s answer to the Everglades — giant spongy swamps with a touch of saltwater that made up some of the finest salmon habitat in the region. This week we travel to Otter Island, one of the last of these forests. It is a journey into Puget Sound’s past and maybe, scientists hope, its future. Read the full story in Salish Sea […]

Task force narrows list of ideas to save killer whales from extinction

Killer whale with calf. Photo courtesy of NOAA.
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By Christopher Dunagan The term “no silver bullet” has been heard again and again as dozens of experts from throughout the state examine ideas that might help avoid extinction for Puget Sound’s beloved orcas. The Southern Resident Killer Whale Task Force, created by the governor, is considering short-term actions — such as increasing hatchery production of Chinook salmon to help feed the whales. But it is becoming uncomfortably clear that there are no easy answers, no “silver bullet,” as the task force heads toward the finish line for drafting an […]

New studies on emerging threats to salmon

Chinook salmon leaping at the Ballard Locks in Seattle. Photo: Ingrid Taylar (CC BY 2.0) https://www.flickr.com/photos/taylar/29739921130
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Chemicals, disease and other stressors can increase a salmon’s chance of being eaten or reduce its ability to catch food. We wrap up our series on the Salish Sea Marine Survival Project with a look at some of the lesser-known, but still significant factors contributing to salmon declines in the Salish Sea. Read the story in Salish Sea Currents.

Could anchovies and other fish take pressure off salmon and steelhead?

A harbor seal hunting anchovies. From Howe Sound Ballet video by Bob Turner: https://youtu.be/Ycx1hvrPAqc
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A recent influx of anchovies into Puget Sound may have saved some steelhead from predators, but researchers seek more evidence to prove the connection. Our series on the Salish Sea Marine Survival Project continues with a look at these and other potential impacts from predators on the region’s salmon and steelhead. Read the story in Salish Sea Currents.