Posts Tagged: salmon
Salmon returning in record numbers to the Russian River
California Sea Grant reported this week that a record number of coho salmon were counted in the downstream portions of the Russian River system in western Sonoma County, offering a glimmer of hope that recovery of the endangered silver salmon will be possible.
Adult coho also appear to be reproducing in some of their historical tributaries for the first time since biologists began visually counting, tagging and trapping fish in 2005. The fish appear to be occupying more tributaries of the river system, including some un-stocked creeks.
"There is still a long road to recovery of coho salmon, but the trend is certainly promising," the Sea Grant news release quoted Paul Olin, who oversees the monitoring component of the Russian River Coho Salmon Captive Broodstock Program.
The program is a broad coalition of government agencies, scientists and private landowners dedicated to bringing back productive salmon runs. UC Cooperative Extension is a member.
Wild coho salmon fry in Felta Creek, part of the Russian River watershed. (Photo: California Sea Grant)
Bleak future for spring-run Chinook salmon
Warming streams could spell the end of spring-run Chinook salmon in California by the end of the century, according to a study by scientists at UC Davis, the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
There are options for managing water resources to protect the salmon runs, although they would impact hydroelectric power generation, said UC Cooperative Extension associate specialist Lisa Thompson, director of the Center for Aquatic Biology and Aquaculture at UC Davis. A paper describing the study was published online recently in the Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management.
“There are things that we can do so that we have the water we need and also have something left for the fish,” Thompson said.
Working with Marisa Escobar and David Purkey at SEI's Davis office, Thompson and colleagues at UC Davis used a model of the Butte Creek watershed, taking into account the dams and hydropower installations along the river, combined with a model of the salmon population, to test the effect of different water management strategies on the fish. They fed in scenarios for climate change out to 2099 from models developed by David Yates at NCAR in Boulder, Colo.
In almost all scenarios, the fish died out because streams became too warm for adults to survive the summer to spawn in the fall.
The only option that preserved salmon populations, at least for a few decades, was to reduce diversions for hydropower generation at the warmest time of the year.
“If we leave the water in the stream at key times of the year, the stream stays cooler and fish can make it through to the fall,” Thompson said.
Summer, of course, is also peak season for energy demand in California. But Thompson noted that it might be possible to generate more power upstream while holding water for salmon at other locations.
Hydropower is often part of renewable energy portfolios designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Purkey said, but it can complicate efforts to adapt water management regimes to a warming world. Yet it need not be all-or-nothing, he said.
“The goal should be to identify regulatory regimes which meet ecosystem objectives with minimal impact on hydropower production,” he said. “The kind of work we did in Butte Creek is essential to seeking these outcomes.”
There are also other options that are yet to be fully tested, Thompson said, such as storing cold water upstream and dumping it into the river during a heat wave. That would both help fish and create a surge of hydropower.
Salmon are already under stress from multiple causes, including pollution, and introduced predators and competitors, Thompson said. Even if those problems were solved, temperature alone would finish off the salmon — but that problem can be fixed, she said.
“I swim with these fish, they're magnificent,” Thompson said. “We don't want to give up on them.”
Other co-authors of the paper are graduate student Christopher Mosser and Professor Peter Moyle, both in the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology at UC Davis. The study was funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Farm economy not as bad as reported
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein fanned a controversy earlier this month when she said she would propose legislation urging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to raise the valley's water deliveries. Her idea was hailed by West Side growers and farmworkers - who say they are suffering economically because of short water supplies - and criticized by environmentalists and many of her fellow democrats - who believe the water is needed to protect delta smelt and salmon.
Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times bolstered the environmentalists' position with an article that said agriculture's reported economic difficulties have been exaggerated.
Times reporter Bettina Boxall wrote that crop and labor statistics for 2009 contradict the image of a withering farm economy teetering on the edge of collapse.
"People make a lot of claims, but the data you see is showing growth. We're just not seeing the job loss," the story quoted Paul Wessen, an economist with the California Employment Development Department.
Boxall also spoke to UC Davis agricultural economist Richard Howitt, who in early 2009 predicted that water cutbacks could cost the valley 80,000 jobs and up to $2.2 billion in revenue. He later revised those numbers to 21,100 farm-related jobs and $703 million in agricultural revenue.
Howitt said farm advocates keep repeating the higher estimates and blame most of the delivery cuts on environmental protections, when they can be more accurately explained by the drought.
Furthermore, the projected economic losses, Howitt said, are "not big" compared to the state's $36 billion farm economy
"But the story is not the aggregate. It's the concentration," Howitt was quoted.
Howitt's report on water supply and demand is available on the UC Agricultural Issues Center Web site.
Delta farmland.
Fish out of water
Fall rains came in just the nick of time for salmon in the Shasta and Scott rivers, according to an article in today's Redding Record-Searchlight. Before the most recent storms, salmon attempting to swim upstream to spawn were trapped in shallow, isolated pools. Agricultural water usage was getting the blame."The irrigation withdrawals are very clearly what is causing the extremely low flows on both rivers," the article quoted Scott Harding, executive director of Klamath Riverkeeper, a nonprofit watchdog group aimed at restoring the river and its tributaries.
Reporter Dylan Darling turned to UC Cooperative Extension advisors Steve Orloff and Dan Drake for comment on agricultural production in the Shasta and Scott river valleys.
Orloff told the reporter that the high-elevation valleys' short growing season places farmers' focus on producing alfalfa, pasture and small grains. Drake said most of the crops are grown to feed cattle. In the two valleys, there are about 40,000 head of cattle combined.
Erica Terence, a spokeswoman for Klamath Riverkeeper, told the reporter she doesn't want to wait for a dramatic fish kill to prompt changes to water use in the valleys.
"I don't think that means the end of farming," Terence was quoted. "I think that means that farming will look different."
Jim Morris, president of the Siskiyou County Farm Bureau and a member of a family with a 200-year farming history in the area, acknowledged that the river goes dry in years of light rain and snowfall.
"It is a natural process and it just happens," Morris was quoted.
Local farmers and ranchers, he said, have taken steps to improve the efficiency of their irrigation systems - such as shifting from flood irrigation to sprinkler systems.
"We'd like to be around for another 200 years," Morris said.
Shasta River (USFWS photo).