Pink salmon in the news- again
The pink salmon fishery in Alaska has come in above the expected level- some 80 million fish had been caught by the middle of this month. In South East Alaska, however- just north of the border with British Columbia, the catches (in Areas 101 and 102) were down to just over half the annual average. Perhaps this was not surprising, as the brood year for these fish- the 2006 run- was only some 11 per cent of the annual average.
Meanwhile, down in the Broughton Archipelago, this year's return of pink salmon is also disappointingly low in most of the monitored watersheds. And to no one's surprise- while the Alaskans are blaming cooler water and weather "..we haven't had very good springs in Alaska for several years", said the deputy director of the state commercial fisheries division- in B.C. the blame is only put on the "..vast numbers of sea lice that infect migrating juvenile salmon..", according to a recent media release by the Watershed Watch Salmon Society- one of the members of the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform.
During this year's outmigration of juvenile pink salmon in the Broughton Archipelago, Fisheries Department scientists reported 0% prevalence of fish infected with the Salmon Louse (Lep. salmonis) during their sampling period March 26-April 03, 0.9% from April 23-30 and 3.8% between May 21 and 28. The corresponding intensity of infection (number of lice per fish) were 0, 1 and 1.2 respectively.
Down in the Campbell River and its tributary, the Quinsam, hatchery officials reported an unusually high return of pink salmon this summer compared to the 2006 brood year- this despite that those fish would have had to swim past many more salmon farms than those returning to the Broughton. "That means hatchery staff can take up to 15 million pink salmon eggs from this year's run, seven million for local enhancement efforts and another eight million for projects elsewhere", stated an article in the Campbell River Courier Islander.
