Salmon

Tag: Salmon

Governor’s renewed salmon strategy faces decisive period in the current Legislature

State legislation designed to enhance salmon habitat by requiring protective buffers along streams has been set aside pending further discussions over the coming year. Meanwhile, several other salmon-protection measures proposed by the governor could move forward with decisive funding from the Legislature.

Washington Capitol, Olympia

The buffer bill (HB 1838), named the Lorraine Loomis Act, would prohibit degradation of streamside habitat while encouraging restoration within prescribed “riparian management zones” on both public and private lands. Such requirements would apply to farmland, areas destined for development and even properties undergoing redevelopment. The bill is part of Gov. Jay Inslee’s wide-ranging “Salmon Strategy Update” (PDF 1.4 mb), which was proposed with a price tag of $187 million for the first year, according to a policy brief (PDF 1.4 mb) on the topic.
Maintaining vegetation — including tall trees — along streams helps to shade the water and avoid temperatures that can be debilitating or lethal to fish. (See my story in the Encyclopedia of Puget Sound.) Vegetated buffers also can filter out pollution from upstream areas, provide food and shelter for fish and wildlife, and help to mitigate high and low streamflows.
During recent hearings, numerous farmers and representatives of agricultural groups complained that they had not been consulted before the buffer bill was dropped on them. They said the stream-buffer requirements could take a severe financial toll on their operations, even if they were provided with some compensation for production losses and grants for restoration, as proposed in the bill.
Faced with this powerful opposition, the bill never came up for a vote in the only committee where a hearing was held: the House Rural Development, Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee. (Videos available via TVW.)
On the Senate side, the handwriting was already on the wall. On Feb. 3, the Senate Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources and Parks Committee held a work session on the governor’s salmon strategy. Sen. Kevin Van De Wege, the committee’s chairman, asked the governor’s staffers if they had done any public polling to measure support for the buffers bill.
“I think, to be honest with you, the way the bill was introduced, I don’t think it has passed the court of public opinion,” Van De Wege said. “I would be worried about doing a heavy lift like that to have it simply overturned by referendum — which I think would be likely the way the bill was introduced.”
Jennifer Hennessey, the governor’s policy adviser on environment, water and ocean health, said she was unaware of any polls on the issue. The legislation resulted from discussions about the needs of salmon with Washington’s native tribes, she noted.
“We certainly recognize that there is more work that needs to be done to talk about the needs of riparian habitat with a variety of stakeholders and the way we get to the end goal of improving habitat for salmon,” Hennessey said.
Other provisions
While legal mandates for buffers are off the table for the current legislative session, other aspects of the bill could be accomplished with funding in the supplemental budget, a draft of which should soon be made public.

Under consideration for funding is a process to facilitate a “diverse stakeholder group” that would discuss buffers as part of a legislative package for the next session, according to Sen. Christine Rolfes, D-Bainbridge Island, who chairs the Senate Ways and Means Committee.
Other programs described within the bill could be started or enhanced with dedicated funding, she said. They could include high-tech mapping to locate important streamside habitat, an analysis to identify high-priority areas for restoration, and a program to build up a nursery stock of trees for extensive planting efforts. Appropriations for these efforts would be directed to the state departments of Ecology and Fish and Wildlife.
Protecting salmon streams with vegetated buffers is an urgent need in the effort to restore salmon populations, as climate change increases its impact, said Dave Herrera, fisheries and wildlife policy director for the Skokomish Tribe and vice chairman of the Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Council.
“The tribes have been talking about the need for adequate riparian buffers for a long time, not just on agricultural land but for all lands with salmon streams,” he said. In 2019, during the annual Centennial Accord discussions, Gov. Inslee made a commitment to the tribes to establish statewide buffer standards. (See the June 4, 2020, column by the late tribal leader Lorraine Loomis, for whom the legislation is named.)
Representatives of the Washington Department of Agriculture and Washington Conservation Commission were involved in meetings about the buffer standards, Herrera said. “I was surprised to hear that the communities served by those agencies were not aware.”
Herrera said he is now getting a lesson about the pace of the legislative process and remains optimistic that people will come to understand the needs of salmon in time to save them. Failure of the Lorraine Loomis Act during this legislative session is a setback, he said, but things are at least moving forward.
“To his credit, the governor stepped up and developed a bill that got introduced, and it is setting up a conversation that we have been needing for a long time,” he said. “People need to understand the urgency. It is getting to the point where we have to ask ourselves if we really want to recover salmon or if it is just too hard for us to do.”
Buffers defined
As proposed, salmon streams would be mapped with riparian management zones to identify the width of required buffers. That width relates to the area’s 200-year “site potential tree height” — the height that an average tree would reach in 200 years in a given location. Thus the buffer can range from 100 to 240 feet from the edge of a stream, depending on soils, rainfall, topography and other factors. These are the standards recommended in a report called “Riparian Ecosystems, Volume 2, Management Recommendations” by the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Under proposed legislation, now on hold, salmon habitat would be protected by creating a buffer zone beyond the immediate stream channel, as recommended in “Riparian Ecosystems, Volume 2.” (Click on image to download document.)

Using tree height to establish the buffer width is partially based on the idea that trees falling into a stream add critical structure, helping to create pools and riffles needed for safe salmon migration and spawning. The idea grew out of findings from a 1993 report by the multi-agency federal Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment Team (PDF 68.5 mb), or FEMAT.
Some people testifying against the proposed buffers bill say the tree-height approach lacks an adequate scientific foundation to become a requirement in state law. No doubt this will be a major topic of discussion during the anticipated stakeholders meetings, which are likely to include representatives of farmers, developers, local governments, businesses, environmental interests and more. By the way, forestland that is subject to the Washington Forest Protection Act must comply with separate buffer regulations, which undergo changes based on emerging science.
As written into the proposed legislation, the required buffers on private land could be reduced if the protected area takes up more than half the parcel.
Voluntary stewardship
Several people who testified on the buffers bill worried that it would supplant a voluntary stewardship program in which farmers work with local government experts to establish reasonable buffers protective of salmon habitat without overly affecting their livelihood.
“Voluntary programs do work when they are sufficiently funded, but the state has not provided enough funding,” said Tom Salzer, executive director of the Washington Association of Conservation Districts, which represents 45 local districts.
Over the last three biennia, the Washington Conservation Commission requested nearly $20 million for the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, Salzer testified during the first hearing on the bill. That program provides $3 in federal funds for every $1 in state funding for habitat protection and improvement. The Legislature provided less than half the requested amount, losing out on nearly $30 million in habitat restoration money, he said.
“We believe that if sufficient funding had been provided for voluntary conservation, today there would be no perceived need for this legislation, he added.
The Voluntary Stewardship Program, created in 2011, enlisted 27 of the 49 counties before a cutoff deadline in 2012. A new bill in this year’s Legislature (HB 1856) would allow any other county to join by July 1, 2023. The main concern expressed during hearings on the bill was that each local program would receive even less money if the Legislature failed to increase overall funding. The bill is now up for a vote on the House floor.
Budget decisions
Beyond the proposed buffer requirements now on hold along with a proposal for $100 million in grants for affected property owners, the governor’s revised salmon strategy includes the following elements:

  • Riparian protection mapping: Buffer widths and existing conditions could be identified for streams throughout the state. WDFW, $4.7 million.
  • Plant propagation: Public and private nurseries could be funded to grow trees and plants available for buffer restoration. State Conservation Commission, $1.3 million.
  • Toxic tires: The search continues to identify solutions to a deadly chemical associated with tires that washes into stormwater, gets into streams and kills coho salmon, with impairment to other species. Ideas include filtering stormwater and identifying alternative chemicals. Department of Ecology, $2.7 million.
  • Stormwater: Grants are proposed for increasing local stormwater capacity, $4 million, and encouraging public-private stormwater partnerships, $1 million, both through the Department of Ecology.
  • Streamflow restoration: “Green infrastructure” projects can capture and store excess water during heavy rainfall events and then release the water when streamflows drop to critically low levels during dry periods. Benefits include reduced pollution and cooler water in streams. Ecology, $5.5 million.
  • Fish passage programs: Efforts to remove or replace culverts and other barriers to salmon migration could be increased by prioritizing the needs and drafting new state rules to address the problem. WDFW, $654,000.
  • Harvest monitoring and enforcement: WDFW could increase its ability to protect salmon during commercial and sport fisheries with increased enforcement, $1.2 million; environmental prosecution, $852,000; and fisheries planning, $842,000. A license buy-back program could reduce gillnets on the Columbia River, $16.7 million.
  • Hatchery programs: An evaluation of hatchery programs in Puget Sound by WDFW could help to improve survival rates of hatchery fish and reduce impacts on wild salmon, $4.3 million. Also proposed is a new hatchery on the Deschutes River in South Puget Sound, $2.2 million.
  • Hydropower: State officials could increase their collaborative work on the Columbia and Snake River dam issues during federal relicensing to ensure state interests are met in protecting salmon and water quality, $1.1 million. A Snake River mitigation study will help determine if the removal of four dams is a feasible and reasonable solution, $375,000.
  • Skagit River protection: The Department of Commerce will seek to protect the upper Skagit from future development, $4.5 million.
  • Science and monitoring: WDFW could increase monitoring of adult and juvenile salmon migration to evaluate habitat function and salmon productivity, $2.4 million. Other studies could focus on forage fish populations, which are important to salmon and many other species, $721,000.
  • Salmon recovery plans: Puget Sound Partnership could coordinate the update to salmon recovery plans in the Puget Sound region, including support to local governments that must implement some aspects of the plan, $2.6 million.

Behind-the-scenes budget negotiations over salmon funding have been ongoing this week, with decisions to affect funding for these proposed projects that could be started this year.

Understanding the cold-water needs of salmon and helping them to survive

Salmon need cold water. This general statement is something I’ve been hearing since I first began reporting on these amazing migrating fish years ago. Cold water is a fact of life for salmon, known for their long travels up and down streams, out to saltwater and back. But colder is not always better.
Questions about why salmon need cold water and how their habitat might grow too warm or too cold led me into an in-depth reporting project. I ended up talking to some of the leading experts on the subject of stream temperature. Thanks to their fascinating research, I learned that temperature and food supply go hand-in-hand to dictate salmon metabolism, growth and survival. You can read my report, “Taking the Temperature of Salmon,” in the Encyclopedia of Puget Sound.

Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River, near Mount Si trailhead
Photo: Christopher Dunagan

Later in this blog post, I will touch on some new developments regarding temperature and stream conditions — including Gov. Jay Inslee’s latest initiative to help salmon by proposing new laws and regulations along with $187 million in next year’s budget request.
In the Northwest, we almost never need to worry that salmon streams will get too cold. Logging, farming and development have removed large amounts of streamside vegetation, allowing the sun to warm the waters, often to excessive degrees. While sunlight can increase the growth of tiny organisms and boost the food web, higher temperatures also accelerate metabolic rates, increase stress hormones and alter behavioral responses, as I described in my story.
When a section of a stream grows too warm, fish will seek out cooler water, often by swimming upstream to areas cooled by springs or snowmelt. As a change in temperature alters metabolism and behavior, the result can be problems with finding food and with increased threats of predation.
“Anybody who does stream work soon learns that fish are amazing,” Jonny Armstrong, a University of Oregon researcher, told me. “They don’t just accept the habitat they are given; they do all kinds of things to game the system.”
Jonny’s work in Alaska documented how a run of coho salmon moved into cool water to feed on sockeye salmon eggs. After getting their fill, the fish returned to warmer water to digest the food and grow faster.
I’m especially indebted to Aimee Fullerton, who helped me understand a multitude of biological processes related to temperature, as I searched for ways to explain the complex findings. Aimee is a research fishery biologist with NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center. She has been working in the Snoqualmie River, where temperatures grow warm enough at times to impair the growth and development of salmon and sometimes kill them if they cannot escape into cooler waters.
The prospects of climate change raise concerns about even higher temperatures in the future. Careful temperature measurements, combined with computer modeling, have helped researchers predict future temperature changes. Other experts are developing new strategies for maintaining cooler temperatures to protect salmon, as I outlined in the story.
Just last week, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced a new initiative that he will take to the Legislature next year. He hopes to boost salmon populations by improving stream habitat, replacing culverts and other impediments, and cleaning up polluted waters. Inslee also intends to address harvest, hatcheries and hydropower along with critical issues of predation and food availability.
[iframe align=”right” width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/j92VkN3TZvg”%5D
“There is no time to waste,” the governor said in a news release. “We have a choice between a future with salmon or a future without them. Salmon need immediate and urgent action to ensure their survival. That’s why, for the 2022 legislative session, salmon recovery is a top priority and have both policy and funding to help protect them.”
One of the key ideas that the governor mentioned during his news conference on Tuesday is to build and/or protect streamside corridors based on the height of trees, which provide shade to cool streams. (See video, embedded on this page, at 11:03-14:30.) The riparian corridor is also important in reducing toxic pollutants, bacteria and fine sediments that enter a stream.
The so-called Governor’s Salmon Strategy Update (PDF 1.4 mb) includes provisions for riparian buffers on agricultural lands, which has been a concern of Indian tribes throughout the region. Details have yet to be proposed, but a combination of regulations and financial support are likely.
The latest initiative grew out of the 2019 Centennial Accord meeting between state agencies and tribal salmon experts led by the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.
“This is the first time we have seen legislation that would require landowners to protect riparian habitat,” said Dave Herrera, NWIFC commissioner and Skokomish Tribe policy representative who was quoted in a news release. “It is also groundbreaking because it includes incentives for landowners to create and maintain riparian zones, as well as regulatory backstops when compliance isn’t voluntary.”

Next year’s salmon-recovery legislation will be called the Lorraine Loomis Act, named for the late chairwoman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission who promoted cooperative efforts to save salmon. Budget details are included in a policy brief (PDF 1.4 mb) released by the Governor’s Office.
“We know the status quo isn’t working when it comes to salmon recovery,” Lorraine wrote in a column last year. “We know what the science says needs to be done, and we know that we must move forward together.”
On the regulatory front, the federal Clean Water Act calls for standards that protect aquatic life, such as salmon. Where temperatures are not maintained within an approved range, the waters are considered “impaired” — just as they are when bacteria become too numerous or oxygen levels drop too low for the aquatic species of concern.
Although I did not address regulatory issues in my story about temperature, it is worth noting that numerous federal and state clean-water regulations are undergoing changes. Some changes are the result of lawsuits; some follow statutory requirements; and some stem from the coming and going of the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce environmental rules.
For example, the Environmental Protection Agency recently withdrew its approval (PDF 402 kb) for how the Washington Department of Ecology handles high temperatures in certain stream segments that grow naturally warm. The basic idea is that regulatory agencies need not seek out mitigation measures to cool such waters — even in areas too warm for salmon — if it can be shown that high temperatures represent the natural condition of the streams and that humans are not to blame.
The group Northwest Environmental Advocates first brought a lawsuit over such “natural conditions criteria” in Oregon, where NWEA contended that the state was allowing streams to remain dangerously hot by discounting the effects of humans. In this way, the group argued, Oregon was establishing new and higher temperature standards than allowed by existing regulations without going through a public review process. The higher temperatures should be subject to public review and federal oversight, including effects on endangered species, the group said. Federal courts agreed with that reasoning.
Although the Washington Department of Ecology rarely invokes natural conditions criteria for temperature, it must now review its practices and undergo federal oversight where experts believe that the natural condition of a water body would exceed established water-quality standards. Besides temperature, the review will cover criteria for dissolved oxygen. In some areas of Puget Sound, Ecology has determined that numerical water-quality standards would not be met even if no humans were around.
The methods of determining what the water temperature or oxygen level would be in the absence of human activity can become an elaborate exercise involving computer modeling. But Nina Bell, executive director of NWEA, argues that the process is important and should be open to public scrutiny. After all, she said, the outcome can determine whether unhealthy temperatures or oxygen levels persist or are reduced through mitigation efforts.
Other ongoing water-quality matters:

A young southern resident killer whale calf (J56) carrying a dead fish between her teeth while swimming next to her mother (J31) in the Salish Sea. Credit: A.W. Trites/University of British Columbia

Salmon study sparks controversy

Occasionally, this space includes reports and essays from guest writers on the subject of Puget Sound ecosystem recovery. Biologist and author Eric Wagner has this look at the controversy surrounding a recent study of salmon numbers in the Salish Sea. 
By Eric Wagner
A couple of weeks ago, the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences published a research article from the Marine Mammal Research Unit at the University of British Columbia (UBC). The article, first-authored by a hydroacoustician named Mei Sato, looked at the abundance of Chinook salmon during two summers at two straits in the Salish Sea region that populations of resident killer whales frequent. In short summary, the researchers found that the Strait of Juan de Fuca (seasonal home to the southern residents) had four to six times as many Chinook salmon as Johnstone Strait (home to the northern residents).
As is now the convention when a university lab publishes a paper, the UBC news office put out a press release to tout it. “No apparent shortage of prey for southern resident killer whales in the Salish Sea during summer,” the release’s headline read.
On the surface, this whole process had been fairly straightforward and routine: conduct a study, publish the study, announce the study to the world, maybe talk about it to a local media outlet or two. But that would turn out not to be the case where Sato’s article was concerned, because when it comes to the southern resident killer whales, it’s what is going on under the surface that counts. Now, to the critical questions of how Chinook salmon abundance affects the southern residents and what to do about it, Sato and her co-authors have added a couple of more: What is more important—what an article says, or what an article about an article says?
An unexpected result
As of September 20, 2021, the southern resident population sits at 73 individuals, a number that has stayed stubbornly low despite the whales being listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in the United States. (In Canada, the southern residents have been protected under Species At Risk Act since 2003.)
Why the southern residents are doing so poorly is thought to be due to a suite of causes, among them pollution, vessel noise, and so on. But the main cause researchers have focused on for years is a shortage of food, especially in the late spring and summer months, when the southern residents historically come to the Salish Sea. Obligate eaters of fishes, the southern residents are known to prefer Chinook salmon, hunting them almost exclusively at times. As Chinook runs have declined throughout the region, many scientists believe the southern residents have declined with them, to the point that they are spending less and less time in the area.

Dr. Sato and a summer undergraduate student, Taryn Scarff, aboard ship surveying important foraging habitats for resident killer whales. Credit: A.W. Trites/University of British Columbia
Dr. Mei Sato and a summer undergraduate student, Taryn Scarff during a study of killer whale foraging habits. Credit: A.W. Trites/University of British Columbia

It was with that view in mind that Sato, Andrew Trites, the director of the Marine Mammal Research Unit, and Stéphane Gauthier, a research scientist with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, undertook their work. “In Canada,” says Sato, now an assistant scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, “you always hear of the relationship between the drop of the southern residents and their prey shortage. But nobody had tested this hypothesis before.”
Chinook salmon returns are usually determined when they enter rivers on their way to spawning streams; less is known about their abundance and distribution in the larger, more open waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Sato wanted to see the prey densities the southern residents face in the strait. To measure them she used multifrequency echosounders, which are akin to the fish-finders fishers mount on their vessel bottoms. Timing her surveys to when Chinook migration was at its predicted peak, she sailed out in July and August in 2018 and 2019, surveying pinch points where the salmon were likely to be funneled. So she could compare whatever she found in the Strait of Juan de Fuca with other orca waters, Sato also did surveys in the Johnstone Strait.
The northern resident killer whales that spend the summers in Johnstone Strait number about three hundred animals. The population is generally understood to be much healthier than the southern residents. Sato thus thought she would see a bounty of salmon in Johnstone Strait and peanuts in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Instead, she saw the opposite: while Chinook salmon were patchily distributed and of similar size in both straits, the patches in the Strait of Juan de Fuca had four to six times as many Chinook as those in Johnstone Strait.
“We didn’t expect this result at all,” Sato says. “We came in believing the food hypothesis too.” But the numbers were the numbers. As she and her co-authors wrote at the close of their paper, “This suggests that other factors such as spatial and temporal mismatches between killer whales and prey presence, shortages of prey outside of the Salish Sea, reduced energy content of individual Chinook salmon, and reduced prey accessibility due to vessel traffic may be more consequential to southern resident killer whales than previously considered.”
To say that the results were controversial is an understatement. Two days after the paper’s release, a consortium of scientists who study the southern residents, headed by Monika Wieland Shields of the Orca Behavior Institute, released a strong critique. “The new paper by Sato et al. describes a new methodology for surveying for Chinook salmon in the oceanic environment,” the scientists wrote, “but includes too many unknowns and is too small of a data set to come to such a broad-sweeping conclusion.”
Photograph of a group of Southern Resident killer whales chasing a salmon, collected during health research with a drone flying non-invasively at >100ft. Credit: Holly Fearnbach from SeaLife Response, Rehabilitation and Research (SR3), John Durban, formerly with NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center, and Lance Barrett-Lennard from the Ocean Wise Research Institute. Research authorized by NMFS permit #19091.
Photograph of a group of Southern Resident killer whales chasing a salmon. Photo courtesy of NOAA. Research authorized by NMFS permit #19091.

Whale researchers responding in the press were even more critical. “They are making a lot of assumptions and my concern is that once you stitch all those assumptions together, you can end up with an answer that is incorrect,” Brad Hanson, a biologist at NOAA, told the Seattle Times. Others were even less inclined to be polite. Ken Balcolm of the Center for Whale Research called the paper “a nice little fish thing,” while Deborah Giles, a biologist at the University of Washington and research director for Wild Orca, told the Times, “To say the southern residents are getting four to six times as much salmon as the northern residents is just silly. And here we are, trying to find a nice way to say that.”
Parsing the reactions
Here, though, it becomes necessary to parse whether the killer whale research community was reacting to the paper or to the press release about the paper. The release says the UBC researchers “debunked” the hypothesis that southern residents are facing a food shortage. Sato and Trites say they make no such claim; they don’t dispute that the southern residents are showing up thin, or that Chinook populations are in general decreasing. “Just because we found that there are more salmon in the Strait of Juan de Fuca doesn’t mean the killer whales necessarily have access to those salmon,” Trites says. “We didn’t look at interference from vessels, or underwater noise, or things like that.”
When asked about the science the paper itself describes, Shields, the author of the critique, is more measured. “It was a novel application of technology for how we survey salmon in the ocean,” she says. “I thought that was fascinating and super cool.” Her concern was more with the way the science became embellished during promotion. “As advocacy groups and marine educators we work very hard to get correct information to the public. One of the messages the research community has supported is that this is a prey-limited species. For the headline to be Prey’s not a problem here anymore! deflects from a really big issue that we need to focus on.”
Hanson echoed this when he told the Times he was worried the findings could be “weaponized” by parties with an interest in promoting more fishing, or aquaculture practices blamed for playing a part in declining salmon returns. At least one online publication has used the findings to attack other research on Chinook declines. “Anti-salmon farm activists have long been trying to link the apparent lack of Chinook salmon prey for British Columbia’s resident killer whales to the region’s marine aquaculture operations,” pronounced SeaWest News, a publication run by a self-described media agency with clients from British Columbia’s seafood industry. “But that theory, like many others trotted out by the activists, has been debunked by a new study led by scientists at the University of British Columbia,” the article said.
Trites approved the press release before it went out, “but in retrospect I shouldn’t have, given how muddled things have gotten.” Some of the vitriol and derision in the responses took him aback. “People should focus on the science,” he says, “rather than try to infer motive.” Although he expected the paper to make waves because it questions an orthodoxy, he shares the concern that the results could be misinterpreted or, worse, misapplied. “I can tell you one thing,” he says. “When we get a result we don’t expect, we dig really hard, we look under every little rock.” He feels the paper’s message is getting lost a little in the fuss over the press release, which has become a sort of object-lesson in how, in trying to amplify a scientific result, the result is instead obscured, and commenting on it becomes a professional game of Telephone.
“To me, the take-home isn’t about whether or not there’s a food shortage, it’s about where the food shortage is occurring,” Trites says. “Everyone is focused on the Salish Sea, but the southern residents are only here part of the time, and they need food every day of the year. What we want this paper to do is get people to ask whether there are sufficient prey to support southern resident killer whales during winter and spring when they are south of here. The conversation needs to go beyond the Salish Sea if we are going to save the southern resident killer whales from extinction.”
Eric Wagner writes about science and the environment from his home in Seattle, where he lives with his wife and daughter. His writing has appeared in Smithsonian, Orion, The Atlantic and High Country News, among other places. He is the author of “Penguins in the Desert” and co-author of “Once and Future River: Reclaiming the Duwamish.” His most recent book is “After the Blast: The Ecological recovery of Mount St. Helens,” published in 2020 by University of Washington Press. He holds a PhD in Biology from the University of Washington.

New video focuses on salmon lifestyles in an ongoing series called “Tales of the Sound”

For newcomers to the Puget Sound region — or anyone who wishes to learn about salmon — check out the new video by my friend and former colleague Josh Farley of the Kitsap Sun.
Like many print journalists who have expanded into multimedia, Josh became recognized for his quick-hit news reports. Especially popular was his weekly video “Bremerton Beat Blast,” in which he counted down the top stories of the week in Kitsap County. Now, with a goal of going much deeper into regional topics, he has launched a new series he is calling “Tales of the Sound.”
[iframe align=”right” width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://uw-media.kitsapsun.com/embed/video/4033687001?placement=snow-embed”%5D
His video “Secrets of the Salmon” (first on this page) features some of the important salmon locations in Puget Sound, including the Big Beef Creek Research Station, a so-called “index stream” used for estimating the number of chum and coho salmon returning to all of Hood Canal. Along the way, he interviews some of the interesting people involved in habitat restoration projects.
“Secrets of the Salmon” is actually the second video in “Tales of the Sound,” a partnership between Josh, the writer and moderator, and producer Jon Kozak, who shared the filming and did all the editing. The goal, Josh says, is to create a series of videos that will remain relevant and informative over time.
The first video provides a geological lesson featuring the worn-down and rounded-over peaks of Green and Gold Mountains near my own home. These state-owned lands are great for short hikes, as Josh explains in a story that accompanies the first video. He actually went out and found the so-called “tin mine” that I have heard about for many years but never realized that the mine was more like an unrealized fantasy.
Josh and Jon have drawn upon revealing aerial footage from Kitsap Sky View LLC to help tell these stories. The amount of work that goes into these productions is fairly remarkable for a full-time newspaper reporter plus a part-time videographer.
[iframe align=”right” width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://uw-media.kitsapsun.com/embed/video/5828862002?placement=snow-embed”%5D
“As you know, we work under crazy deadlines,” Josh noted, “but it is nice to be able to do something like this on the side.”
I was pleasantly surprised and happy to hear that my stories and blog posts provided some direction for Josh when it came to figuring out which experts hold the secrets to the salmon and should be included in his video.
Josh is nothing if not enthusiastic, and that’s one thing I love about him. Future videos, he said, may focus on the Suquamish Tribe, its past and present, and the historical mosquito fleet ferry system.
He is especially looking forward to telling the story of the Navy’s ballistic missile submarines. If you drive past the Bangor installation — part of Naval Base Kitsap and home to the Trident nuclear submarines — you will be in vicinity of the largest deployment of nuclear weapons in the U.S., Josh told me. I would tell you more about his video concept, but I’d better not steal his thunder.
Josh says he is open to other ideas, especially if he can find a Kitsap connection. Feel free to write him at josh.farley@kitsapsun.com.

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

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 from killer whales?
Southern resident orcas are considered endangered. Puget Sound Chinook and steelhead are threatened. Harbor seals seem to be everywhere, hardly struggling to find food, at least as far as anyone can tell. So is it time to bring the powerful influence of humans into the equation by forcefully reducing the harbor seal population in Puget Sound?

Harbor seal skulls helped to reveal something about seal diets years ago.
Photo: Megan Feddern

It’s a question that people have been pondering for years, but I’m not sure we’re much closer to an answer. A new report, which I will discuss, offers some options for the Salish Sea.
Meanwhile, a recent permit will allow more than 700 salmon-eating sea lions to be killed on the Columbia River, but that has nothing to do with Puget Sound. Before addressing the problem of seals in the inland waterway, some key questions need to be answered, as discussed in a story I wrote last month for the Encyclopedia of Puget Sound.
Some of the most important questions surround how much salmon the seals are actually eating and how they fit into the complex food web that involves all kinds of fish and marine mammals. We can’t forget, for example, that transient killer whales eat a fair number of harbor seals, so it’s not a one-way street.
A recent study examined the bones from harbor seals that died years ago to determine if today’s seals are eating higher or lower on the food web. It’s a fascinating study involving stable isotopes from amino acids found in the bones. I believe I was able to explain simply enough the basic techniques. See Encyclopedia of Puget Sound, Sept. 8, 2020.
On the experimental front, a new acoustic device is being tested as a deterrence for harbor seals and California sea lions that have been feasting on threatened salmon and steelhead coming through the Ballard Locks on their way into Lake Washington.
Researcher Laura Bogaard of Oceans Initiative installs speakers used in a new experiment on harbor seals at the Ballard Locks. Photo: Laura Bogaard

The device mimics the sound of a killer whale slapping the water with its tail. The idea is to startle the fish-eating pinnipeds and move them away from the fish ladder, where they often pick off fish trying to make it over the dam. For details, listen to the story by KUOW reporter Eilis O’Neill, or check out the news release from Long Live the Kings, one of several organizations partnering in the project.
A new report released in September offers a list of actions that could be taken to reduce seal and sea lion predation in the Salish Sea. The technical report (PDF 4.4 mb) summarizes the discussions from a November workshop attended by 75 U.S. and Canadian experts.
Author M. Kurtis Trzcinski of the University of British Columbia divides the suggestions into four categories:
Vary hatchery production:
Salmon and steelhead hatcheries should experiment with releasing young fish all at once or over longer periods of time to see what is most effective at reducing seal predation. Larger releases might “flood the predator field” so that more of the fish get away. Fewer fish coming out of a hatchery at any one time might attract less attention and increase survival.
One could also change the release location to see if there are places where the hatchery fish have a better chance of surviving. One could also hold the fish for longer or shorter times in the hatchery to see whether larger fish survive better or worse than smaller ones.
Another idea related to hatcheries is to produce forage fish, such as herring, with the idea that an abundance of forage fish might provide an alternate prey for seals and sea lions, thus reducing predation on salmon.
A harbor seal catches a salmon at the Ballard Locks.
Photo: Laura Bogaard, Oceans Initiative

Enhance fish survival
Leaving aside seals and sea lions, these ideas relate to habitat efforts to increase survival of salmon and steelhead in the streams and estuaries. Improving stream flow and assuring proper temperatures could be critical factors, along with enhancing habitat for better food and protection for the growing fish.
Enhancing habitat to increase survival of other species, such as forage fish, could help with salmon and steelhead survival.
Non-lethal removal
Discouraging seals and sea lions from eating salmon and steelhead could take the form of harassment, removing or relocating haul-out areas, or requiring marinas to build structures to keep pinnipeds off docks and floats.
Harassment with noise or physical disruption could be scheduled at key times, such as during salmon out-migration or return to the streams. But workshop participants gave the idea a low chance of success.
Preventing seals from hauling out, especially near salmon migration routes, might work in one area, but it probably would move the animals to another location with uncertain effects.
Another idea was to inject the animals with a contraception to control the population, although a project involving the handling of thousands of seals and sea lions would be immense.
Lethal removal
Killing seals and sea lions could be accomplished through hunting, which would require the hunters to use the animal for food or other purposes, or culling, which means killing the animal for the sole purpose of reducing the population.
Some experts proposed running an experiment by reducing the population through culling and then measure the effects on fish populations. Others suggested removing all the seals in one area and comparing the effects to a similar area where seals were not removed.
Preliminary estimates say it would take the lethal removal of 50 percent of the harbor seals — or about 20,000 animals in the Salish Sea — to push Chinook and coho salmon toward recovery. In addition, about 3,000 animals would need to be killed every year to maintain a stable population.
Uncertainty of such actions is high. Some say that other predators might need to be removed as well to keep them from simply eating the fish saved by eliminating seals. Birds, otters, raccoons and large fish are among the predators that could become a concern.
Officials in both the U.S. and Canada are considering their next steps, including an action plan that would probably include research to improve our understanding of the food web.
Related articles from the Encyclopedia of Puget Sound:

New steelhead strategy would include increased fishing and more hatcheries

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 benefits to our communities and create a future in which the rich tradition of steelhead fishing is continued and passed on to future generations,” states a memo from the group (pdf 127 kb), consisting mostly of steelhead anglers.
Some of the major ideas include:

  • Maintaining the catch-and-release sport fishery on the Skagit River in North Puget Sound and adding C-and-R fisheries on the Samish River in North Puget Sound and the Elwha in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
  • Building broodstock hatcheries to boost populations of wild steelhead in the Nooksack River to the north and the Cedar River in Central Puget Sound, while maintaining the newly constructed steelhead hatchery on the North Fork of the Skokomish River.
  • Operating “segregated” hatcheries to boost independent winter steelhead populations, which can be harvested in catch-and-keep fisheries, on the Snohomish (north), Dungeness (Strait of Juan de Fuca) and Quilcene (Hood Canal).

Andy Marks, a member of the advisory group, said it might seem problematic that those who want to fish for steelhead are the ones leading the way to save them. But there is nobody more passionate about steelhead than a steelheader, he said. Furthermore, steelhead are not harvested commercially under state law, he noted.

A juvenile steelhead trout // Photo: John McMillan, NOAA

It is important, Andy said, that his children and grandchildren be able to fish for steelhead, or at least to know them. “My biggest fear,” he added, “is that one of my grandkids will climb up on my lap and ask me what a steelhead was. That is a very real possibility.”
In 2007, NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service listed Puget Sound’s population of steelhead trout — the official state fish of Washington — as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
“At one time, rivers, streams, and estuaries along the shores of Puget Sound teemed each year with steelhead returning from the Pacific Ocean to their natal spawning grounds,” states the “ESA Recovery Plan for Puget Sound Steelhead,” which was issued by NMFS in December. “These runs played an integral role in the lives of Indian tribes that lived in the region, as well as for many of the people who settled in the area.”
In recent years, the steelhead population has declined to about 6 percent of its historical size, and nothing done so far has reversed the downward trend toward extinction.
The causes of decline are identified as all manner of human activities: culverts under roads, dams, agricultural practices, development, timber management, water supplies (and altered streamflows), hatchery effects, over-harvest and climate change.
Strategies outlined in the federal recovery plan address each of the major problems outlined, yet hatchery production is not mentioned as a solution. On the other hand, the 2008 Statewide Steelhead Management Plan does incorporate hatchery operations as a recovery strategy — provided that hatcheries are operated from an “ecosystem perspective” with careful monitoring to measure the outcome.

Andy Marks said the committee covered all relevant issues, from scientific to regulatory. “I know more about steelhead genetics that I ever wanted to know in my life,” he said. Members believe that that their “QuickSilver Portfolio” does not conflict with the federal steelhead recovery plan nor any other official plan dealing with steelhead.
Essential to the effort is scientifically credible monitoring to ensure that the effort is helping and not hurting the steelhead population, he stressed. Volunteers can be expected to assist state biologists in the effort, and the work can get started with few changes to the budget for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, which manages steelhead.
Fish and Wildlife Commissioner Jim Anderson of Buckley in Pierce County observed that today’s presentation by the group included nothing about Puget Sound tribes, which are legally “co-managers” of the salmon and steelhead resource.
Marks responded that the strategies will be reviewed by the congressionally established Hatchery Scientific Review Group, of which the tribes are a part. Also, projects for specific streams must be approved by tribes in that area. Since the strategies are designed to be compliant with existing approved plans, he expects minimal conflict as each idea undergoes further scrutiny from scientists, policymakers, budget officials and the Legislature.
Commissioner David Graybill of Leavenworth said he would like to move forward on the proposal.
“We are looking for you, the creators of this document, to recommend a pathway forward,” he said. “I’m very eager to see some guidance on where we can start as a result of the hard work you have done.”
The Fish and Wildlife Commission agreed to further discussions about how to engage the broader public and other interests in the plan. Left hanging is the question of whether the steelhead proposal requires a motion of support from the commission, a change in policy by the department, or some other action.
Meanwhile, one member of the Puget Sound Steelhead Advisory Group does not agree with the concept as presented to the commission and is writing a “minority report” to argue against the plan. I will link to that report here when it becomes available.
Jamie Glasgow of Wild Fish Conservancy said the state needs to fulfill its earlier commitments of properly managing existing hatcheries before embarking on a new hatchery program. So far, a lack of funding has kept state biologists from collecting the data needed to show whether existing hatchery and fishery programs are complying with established objectives.
“Now is not the time to experiment with hatcheries to increase fishing pressure,” Jamie told me in an email. “The state’s ongoing shortcomings on understanding and managing hatchery impacts on wild fish recovery are also evident in the review of hatchery reform science (a document issued in January of this year).”
Jamie, whose organization has sued the state over steelhead hatchery operations, detailed his concerns in a letter to fellow members of the Puget Sound Steelhead Advisory Group before the report was completed. His letter concluded, “As an advisor, my advice is, let’s get it right with the steelhead hatcheries we’ve got before adding more… I believe that when more recreational fishers are reliant on the health of wild steelhead populations to provide the privilege of angling, WDFW will then be more motivated to find the will and the resources to more fully benefit wild steelhead recovery for sustainable fisheries.”
The text was changed from its previous version to recognize that segregated hatcheries allow anglers to take home their catch.

New steelhead strategy would include increased fishing and more hatcheries

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 benefits to our communities and create a future in which the rich tradition of steelhead fishing is continued and passed on to future generations,” states a memo from the group (pdf 127 kb), consisting mostly of steelhead anglers.
Some of the major ideas include:

  • Maintaining the catch-and-release sport fishery on the Skagit River in North Puget Sound and adding C-and-R fisheries on the Samish River in North Puget Sound and the Elwha in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
  • Building broodstock hatcheries to boost populations of wild steelhead in the Nooksack River to the north and the Cedar River in Central Puget Sound, while maintaining the newly constructed steelhead hatchery on the North Fork of the Skokomish River.
  • Operating “segregated” hatcheries to boost independent winter steelhead populations, which can be harvested in catch-and-keep fisheries, on the Snohomish (north), Dungeness (Strait of Juan de Fuca) and Quilcene (Hood Canal).

Andy Marks, a member of the advisory group, said it might seem problematic that those who want to fish for steelhead are the ones leading the way to save them. But there is nobody more passionate about steelhead than a steelheader, he said. Furthermore, steelhead are not harvested commercially under state law, he noted.

A juvenile steelhead trout // Photo: John McMillan, NOAA

It is important, Andy said, that his children and grandchildren be able to fish for steelhead, or at least to know them. “My biggest fear,” he added, “is that one of my grandkids will climb up on my lap and ask me what a steelhead was. That is a very real possibility.”
In 2007, NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service listed Puget Sound’s population of steelhead trout — the official state fish of Washington — as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
“At one time, rivers, streams, and estuaries along the shores of Puget Sound teemed each year with steelhead returning from the Pacific Ocean to their natal spawning grounds,” states the “ESA Recovery Plan for Puget Sound Steelhead,” which was issued by NMFS in December. “These runs played an integral role in the lives of Indian tribes that lived in the region, as well as for many of the people who settled in the area.”
In recent years, the steelhead population has declined to about 6 percent of its historical size, and nothing done so far has reversed the downward trend toward extinction.
The causes of decline are identified as all manner of human activities: culverts under roads, dams, agricultural practices, development, timber management, water supplies (and altered streamflows), hatchery effects, over-harvest and climate change.
Strategies outlined in the federal recovery plan address each of the major problems outlined, yet hatchery production is not mentioned as a solution. On the other hand, the 2008 Statewide Steelhead Management Plan does incorporate hatchery operations as a recovery strategy — provided that hatcheries are operated from an “ecosystem perspective” with careful monitoring to measure the outcome.

Andy Marks said the committee covered all relevant issues, from scientific to regulatory. “I know more about steelhead genetics that I ever wanted to know in my life,” he said. Members believe that that their “QuickSilver Portfolio” does not conflict with the federal steelhead recovery plan nor any other official plan dealing with steelhead.
Essential to the effort is scientifically credible monitoring to ensure that the effort is helping and not hurting the steelhead population, he stressed. Volunteers can be expected to assist state biologists in the effort, and the work can get started with few changes to the budget for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, which manages steelhead.
Fish and Wildlife Commissioner Jim Anderson of Buckley in Pierce County observed that today’s presentation by the group included nothing about Puget Sound tribes, which are legally “co-managers” of the salmon and steelhead resource.
Marks responded that the strategies will be reviewed by the congressionally established Hatchery Scientific Review Group, of which the tribes are a part. Also, projects for specific streams must be approved by tribes in that area. Since the strategies are designed to be compliant with existing approved plans, he expects minimal conflict as each idea undergoes further scrutiny from scientists, policymakers, budget officials and the Legislature.
Commissioner David Graybill of Leavenworth said he would like to move forward on the proposal.
“We are looking for you, the creators of this document, to recommend a pathway forward,” he said. “I’m very eager to see some guidance on where we can start as a result of the hard work you have done.”
The Fish and Wildlife Commission agreed to further discussions about how to engage the broader public and other interests in the plan. Left hanging is the question of whether the steelhead proposal requires a motion of support from the commission, a change in policy by the department, or some other action.
Meanwhile, one member of the Puget Sound Steelhead Advisory Group does not agree with the concept as presented to the commission and is writing a “minority report” to argue against the plan. I will link to that report here when it becomes available.
Jamie Glasgow of Wild Fish Conservancy said the state needs to fulfill its earlier commitments of properly managing existing hatcheries before embarking on a new hatchery program. So far, a lack of funding has kept state biologists from collecting the data needed to show whether existing hatchery and fishery programs are complying with established objectives.
“Now is not the time to experiment with hatcheries to increase fishing pressure,” Jamie told me in an email. “The state’s ongoing shortcomings on understanding and managing hatchery impacts on wild fish recovery are also evident in the review of hatchery reform science (a document issued in January of this year).”
Jamie, whose organization has sued the state over steelhead hatchery operations, detailed his concerns in a letter to fellow members of the Puget Sound Steelhead Advisory Group before the report was completed. His letter concluded, “As an advisor, my advice is, let’s get it right with the steelhead hatcheries we’ve got before adding more… I believe that when more recreational fishers are reliant on the health of wild steelhead populations to provide the privilege of angling, WDFW will then be more motivated to find the will and the resources to more fully benefit wild steelhead recovery for sustainable fisheries.”
The text was changed from its previous version to recognize that segregated hatcheries allow anglers to take home their catch.

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

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 included ocean temperatures up to 7 degrees above average (Fahrenheit) during a two-year period beginning in 2014.

Current sea surface temperature anomalies (variations from average) for the Pacific Coast off North and South America. The temperature scale is different from the maps above.
Map: NOAA Coral Reef Watch, April 23, 2020

William Cheung, who led the new study, told me that previous estimates of declines in fish populations assumed that the waters would warm at a steady rate as a result of climate change. But the impacts are much greater, he said, when one considers the occasional shocks to the system caused by rapid warming. Climate-change models predict at least four additional “blobs” before the end of the century, although nobody can predict when exactly they will occur.
Cold-water fish subjected to warm water face a disruption in their normal body functions, reducing the size of the fish and increasing the risk of death. Warm water also can reduce the overall production in the food web, making it more difficult for fish to find suitable prey.
For the fishing industry, marine heat waves are not unlike a sudden pandemic such as COVID-19, William said. Fishing crews can adjust to normal fluctuations in fish populations, just as health-care providers adjust to flu seasons, but sudden and stronger disruptions can lead to more serious consequences.
“Last year, management agencies closed the Alaska Pacific cod fisheries (for 2020), because they had a suspicion that the blob was returning,” said Cheung, a professor at the UBC Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. “There was concern that the already low Pacific cod population could be hit by a heat wave that could drive the fish stocks to very low levels.”
The 2019 “return of the blob” was not as long-lasting as the 2014-16 event, but waters off the coast are still warmer than normal.
The new study, published online in the journal “Scientific Reports,” combined climate and fish models to estimate the impacts of future “blobs” from Alaska to the Gulf of California. Findings suggest that the total biomass of fish will decline, and fish will move around to establish new distribution patterns. That will decrease the amount of fish available for harvest as well as changing the location where the fish can be caught.
William Cheung

While many studies have talked about fish stocks moving around in response to changing ocean temperatures, William said biomass decreases could be a more consistent indicator for assessing the impacts of marine heat waves on various species.
During a heat wave, the average biomass of sockeye salmon in the ocean off Alaska and British Columbia is expected to decline by more than 10 percent — in addition to a biomass decrease of 10 to 20 percent by 2050 under long-term climate projections.
Of 22 fisheries included in the study, only Alaskan Pollock in the Eastern Bering Sea is expected to increase significantly in biomass during marine heat waves. Pacific sardine and Japanese mackerel may show little change.
Because sardines do better in warmer waters, long-term models tend to project increases in sardine biomass along the West Coast over time, while anchovies, which prefer cooler waters, are projected to decrease. At the same time, such models predict that both species will expand their ranges northward, producing greater numbers in the Gulf of Alaska.
But the story is different when marine heat waves are added into the picture, according to the new study. Rapid warming can push temperatures to the limit for both sardines and anchovies, decreasing their total biomass in the Gulf of Alaska as well as along the West Coast.
The study found that the fish most impacted by a combination of long-term climate change and future “blobs” were pelagic (open water) species, followed by salmon and then bottom fish. Among the five species of Pacific salmon, the biomass of sockeye salmon is expected to decrease the most — 40 percent by 2100 throughout the study area. Coho are next on the list of affected salmon.
Pacific cod, sablefish and Pacific Ocean perch were the bottom fish projected to sustain the most losses throughout the area.
Worldwide, the frequency of marine heat waves has doubled since 1982, and climate models predict they will become more frequent and last longer in the coming years.
William noted that the study was based on a climate model that uses a high rate of greenhouse gas emissions (RCP 8.5). While recent temperatures seem to be following that high-emissions trend, emission reductions would have benefits for almost all fish populations. Still, any improvements in ocean-temperature trends will lag behind improvements in atmospheric conditions because of the heat-retention properties of water.
“Our results underscore the need for a reduction of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions – the fundamental driver of ocean
warming — to limit challenges from marine heat waves on fish stocks and fisheries,” William said.
The fact that marine heat waves can develop rapidly demands that scientists become better at short-term predictions, he said. Meanwhile, fisheries managers are challenged to develop plans that can respond quickly to changing conditions by reducing fishing seasons or moving fishing areas.
William plans further analysis of “blobs” across the globe, with a goal of developing projections of worldwide fishery impacts. That could lead to an economic analysis of future financial repercussions expected to result from sudden warming events in many locations.
NOAA stories for further reading:

Salmon smolts. Photo courtesy of Governor's Salmon Recovery Office

Warming ocean conditions fuel viruses among species in the Salish Sea

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 fast and impressive in scale but they are a lot harder to detect and track and see underneath the ocean.”

Harvell, who does much of her research at Friday Harbor Labs in Washington has studied the outbreaks of disease on ecologically important species such as starfish, corals and plants like seagrass. She is the author of the book “Ocean Outbreak” which looks at research on disease impacts in marine waters around the world, including the Salish Sea. She joined other scientists in a special session at the conference focusing on the impacts and responses to several diseases being studied in the region.
Harvell says that infectious disease outbreaks in the ocean are especially fueled by warmer water due to climate change. “Infectious agents are more virulent and grow faster at warmer temperatures,” she said.
Scientists are looking in particular at how these conditions might affect the region’s salmon populations. Dr. Kristina Miller of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada who also spoke at the conference has been studying the emergence of a relative of COVID-19 that has been found in species such as Chinook and coho. Known as the pacific salmon nidovirus, it only occurs in salmon and there are no cases of its transference to humans.
“There are no examples of a virus being able to jump from a cold blooded vertebrate such as a salmon to a warm blooded human,” Miller said. “So we don’t have a zoonotic risk in terms of that kind of transmission. Our temperature profiles are way too different, and viruses actually are, most of them, somewhat specific to their hosts.”
Despite these differences, Miller hypothesizes that the nidovirus may also cause respiratory stress similar to COVID-19 in its salmon hosts and may be one factor in salmon declines, especially if it affects fish at the vulnerable smolt stage when they transition from freshwater to marine environments.
“What we find is that as salmon move from freshwater to the marine environment, the condition of the fish that are leaving these habitats makes a large difference in how well they are going to survive,” Miller said. “So if you already have a fish coming out of the river that is already stressed —  maybe it’s by disease or other factors — if you can mitigate those stressors and put out the healthiest possible fish to go into that marine environment… they will survive better.”

The nidovirus is just one of over 60 potential pathogens in salmon Miller and her colleagues identified in a study of thousands of wild, hatchery and farmed salmon. The true impact of such pathogens on salmon declines are not yet known, Miller said, owing to the difficulty of counting deceased fish. “The mere presence of a pathogen does not mean that a fish is diseased,” she said. “Disease is hard to study in wildlife when mortality is unobservable. Salmon in the ocean simply drop off in the water column, largely in the mouths of predators.”

But while counting deceased fish may be difficult, Miller and her colleagues are developing ecological models to estimate the level of mortality. “We are now employing this technology to explore the complex synergies between stress and disease and to identify regions along the coast where salmon are the most compromised,” she said. The model will combine data from studies of infectious diseases in salmon with factors such as ocean temperatures, which Miller called “the most significant driver of infection.”

Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) swimming upstream. Photo: Ingrid Taylar (CC BY-NC 2.0)

‘Early migration gene’ tied to unique population of Chinook

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 ancient traditions, greeting the mysterious spring Chinook that would show up after the mountain snowpack began to melt.
Now, such arrivals are rare. More than half the spring Chinook runs in Puget Sound streams — including those in Hood Canal — have gone extinct since settlers first appeared in the 1800s. Essential habitat in the higher elevations, where the spring Chinook like to spawn, was cut off or damaged by logging, farming, dams and development. Although fall Chinook generally fared better, they too have experienced severe declines.
In 1999, federal authorities placed Puget Sound Chinook — spring and fall runs together — on the Endangered Species List.
Over the past few years, thanks to extraordinary advances in genetics, scientists are beginning to understand the unique nature of these fish as well as the genetic losses that occurred when spring runs disappeared. Experts are now confronting the resulting ecological, social and legal implications of these losses while trying to save the remaining spring populations and possibly restore historic runs to some streams.
Read the full story in Salish Sea Currents on the Encyclopedia of Puget Sound.