San Francisco --The Golden Gate Salmon Association renewed its call
on federal fish hatchery managers to avoid disaster by helping juvenile hatchery
salmon survive release into the drought-stricken upper Sacramento River.
Late-fall baby king salmon are scheduled to be released at the Coleman fish
hatchery on Battle Creek within two weeks. Battle Creek is a tributary of the
upper Sacramento River between Redding and Red Bluff. In 2007, a similar
low water year, thirty-seven percent of tagged juvenile salmon released at the
Coleman Hatchery were lost in the eight miles of Battle Creek between the
hatchery and the Sacramento River. More than 50 percent of tagged baby
Coleman salmon perished in the first 50 miles below the hatchery according
to a migration study released in 2010.
“Baby salmon become easy pickings for many bird species in low, clear,
drought-stricken waters like we have now,” said John McManus, Executive
Director of GGSA. “Predatory fish also have a field day on them so it’s
important to give the baby salmon half a chance by at least releasing them a
short distance downstream where the Sacramento River is deeper and wider to
give them refuge and hiding places.”
“As a scientist, I can tell you the chances of survival of these hatchery
fish are low and the adverse impacts on wild fish are high unless they are
released at least part way down the Sacramento River,” said salmon scientist
Dave Vogel.
Late-fall king salmon, although juvenile, are relatively large, having
been reared in captivity for nearly a year before release into the wild.
If released into the drought-stricken upper river, they will undoubtedly
attack recently emerging wild winter, spring and fall-run fry.
Because of drought, most wild juvenile salmon, including federally
protected winter and spring run, are still rearing in the upper river waiting
for rain runoff to aid their downstream migration. Releasing 750,000
large, hatchery late-fall-run Chinook into the heart of the rearing grounds
will result in predation and competition with the wild fish, including the
threatened and endangered species. Releasing the fish farther downstream
to the area of Hamilton City would alleviate those problems for the wild fish.
Coleman hatchery already moves and releases their juvenile steelhead downstream
to minimize those problems.
Even if it rains between now and mid-January, the first few storms are
unlikely to result in significant runoff, so the need to release the fish
downstream of the hatchery will likely remain.
The Sacramento River wild and hatchery-bred late-fall run salmon have
steadily declined in recent years, hitting a dangerous low of 5,716 fish in
2012. Without a turn around, these fish could be candidates for a listing
under the Endangered Species Act. A listing would create havoc in the
salmon industry and also in water deliveries to agriculture and population
centers.
Testing new release locations potentially offers substantial population
increases while greatly minimizing adult straying. The Mokelumne
and Feather River hatcheries have been very successful in implementing these
practices and now contribute over 80 percent of the Central Valley hatchery
salmon in the ocean.
In the US Fish and Wildlife Service press
release of January 3rd, the agency points to the dismal return
rates of Coleman salmon trucked to San Francisco Bay in 2007 and 2008 as a
reason not to change release locations. Use of experimental release
locations much closer to the hatchery should address this problem while greatly
improving survival.
Roger Thomas, chairman of the Golden Gate Salmon Association said, “For
decades the Coleman hatchery was the leader in supporting the salmon industry
by filling the ocean with fish. In the current rankings of hatchery
production it has now slipped to almost last. GGSA and the salmon
industry strongly support studies of better Coleman release locations to
increase production while minimizing straying. The future of our industry
is very much at stake in these considerations.”
Golden Gate Salmon Association (www.goldengatesalmonassociation.org) is a coalition of
salmon advocates that includes commercial and recreational salmon fisherman,
businesses, restaurants, an Indian tribe, environmentalists, elected officials,
families and communities that rely on salmon. GGSA’s mission is to protect and
restore California’s largest salmon producing habitat comprised of the Central
Valley river’s that feed the Bay-Delta ecosystem and the communities that rely
on salmon as a long-term, sustainable, commercial, recreational and cultural
resource.
Currently,
California’s salmon industry is valued at $1.4 billion in economic activity
annually and about half that much in economic activity and jobs again in
Oregon. The industry employs tens of thousands of people from Santa Barbara to
northern Oregon. This is a huge economic bloc made up of commercial fishermen,
recreational fishermen (fresh and salt water), fish processors, marinas,
coastal communities, equipment manufacturers, the hotel and food industry,
tribes, and the salmon fishing industry at large.
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