In light of the recent posts about the need for hatcheries, why is it do you suppose that the pinks just seem to be coming on like gang busters, more so than the other species?

Pretty easy to figure this year, first they are coming off of a record return 2 years ago, we had no killer floods that year, and we had the best ocean conditions possible all this year. Plus a couple other things, ESA listing has really slowed down construction in listed waters and the Corps and ports have had to institute tighter timing on thier dredging projects, and high seas commercial fishing has been greatly curtailed. Finally, habitat for pinks is still pretty good, they only require fairly stable lower mainstem rivers to spawn in and they do not rear in freshwater at all, simply go straight to saltwater, and if they are protected from the effects of dredging and construction while they are in nearshore areas they have a pretty easy time of it. Our other fish that have a much more demanding and lengthy spawning migration and residence time in freshwater continue to be in trouble.

Pinks tend to spawn lower in the river and also don't stay in the river very long after they hatch.

Combine the above with the fact that they aren't considered a commercially viable harvest since they aren't the best table fare. at .07 per lb you can't even pay for the diesel on a seiner. Great for smoking, but that's my opinion.

all the above

Pinks and chums are similar in quality and are sought after about the same.

I beleive it is primarily the fact that pinks do not spend nearly as much time in the streams as do coho and chinook. This lets them avoid dams and much instream pollution, as well as many floods and low water problems.

TC, believe me, they're still fishing for them, at least in AK.

Check this out, and look at the catch totals for pinks compared to anything else. There's a wide range of prices and I'm guessing it's due to some guys tanking and providing refrigerated fish rather than the skanky dry hatch variety.

http://www.cf.adfg.state.ak.us/geninfo/finfish/salmon/catchval/history/1970-2001s.htm

In terms of fisheries management, it doesn't sound like there is much to be learned from how help the chinook and coho from the increased #'s of pinks....

spawnout,

one of the best, most knowledable, to the point posts that I have seen on this board.

I agree..good summation spawnout...

same reasons there's lots of chum...

I think maybe part of the reason is how agressive each species is. Pinks and chum will hit pretty regularly even in upper waters. "Survival of the fittest" The better you eat and school together, the better chance of survival. This combined with the reasons given above would help any species.

I have to believe it has mostly to do with their commercial worth......

Most commercials wont mess with them, and if the Tribes could get top dollar for them it would be a different story. After all, if subsistance is the main reason for treaty fisheries, why do they not take more Pinks than they do?
They smoke well, can even better (but who likes canned salmon that much?), and are very plentiful.
Of course the other scientific reasons have merit, but I still say it has mostly to do with how much they can bring in $$...... Not much, so they are plentiful....

MC

"Most commercials wont mess with them,"

With all due respect, that's simply not true. Look at the numbers. Pinks caught in AK far outnumber the other species' numbers every year.

If you're talking specifically trollers, well, yeah, who'd want to dress and belly ice a thousand pinks a day when you can make the same money with fifty coho.

Actually, the commercial argument is complicated. You may find this hard to believe, but world wide, pinks and chum are the largest part of the commercial salmon catch. Apparently they are much more popular in Asia and Russia than they are here (also, chums and pinks are about all they have left in Asia outside of Kamchatka).

Now that doesn't mean that our local pinks might not have been spared harvest pressures. Most of the pink catch is in Alaskan and Asian waters. I don't know, but it's possible that WA pink runs are not heavily impacted by those fisheries.

Historically, pinks have always been the most abundant of the Pacific salmon, by a long shot. So from a fishing standpoint, it would take longer to notice even a significant decline. They certainly have lost some of their native range. Pinks used to be found in rivers on both sides of the Pacific, as far south as the Sacramento River in North America. In North America, I think you're pretty hard pressed to find them south of Puget Sound anymore. (Interestingly, WA has the least abundant pink runs in N. America; central and SE Alaskan runs are almost ten times larger.)

But it is true that their simple life history makes them much more resilient to both habitat declines and overharvest. I don't want to come off as a one-trick pony, but we should also probably consider that at least in North America, pink salmon have by and large been spared the impacts of large-scale hatchery programs.

Ironically, pinks would be a good candidate for hatchery production (except that there's no need for it). Because of their simple life history, and the fact that they do not rear at all in fresh water, they are less susceptible to the domestication pressures and competition impacts that are at the root of the problems with chinook, coho, and steelhead hatchery programs. One very big caveat however, is that some studies looking at some very large pink hatcheries in Alaska suggest that survival of hatchery pink juveniles may be high enough to actually start taxing the habitat capacity of the north Pacific, which could lead to negative impacts on all marine stocks, not just salmon. That's a lot of hatchery fish.

Ramon Vanden Brulle
Washington Trout

There is a large Pink hatchery near Homer Alaska that pumps out thousands of those hungry guys. Don't they compete for the same food as the other species or do they supplement their diet with krill? I can see where a glut of those fish could put undue pressure on the ecosystem.

One other question comes to mind. In Asia where you were saying only pinks exist anymore were there hatcheries that destroyed the salmon runs or was it just overharvest as outlined in the PEW report. Most of the underdeveloped nations have exploited all their resources with abandon, completely devoid of environmental restrictions. Fair?

Yes, fair enough. Actually it's a combination of harvest and very longstanding habitat degradation. Remember we're talking mostly Japan and China here, where the landscapes have been very crowded and developed for thousands of years. And certainly Asian commercial fishing practices have been, and in many cases continue to be rather rapacious.

Ramon, there's a pretty large scale hatchery program for Pinks at Hoodsport. Their return mirrors the native return pretty well - when the ocean is good the return is good. These are also a bit unique, as they started with a very early returning Dungeness stock, and like all hatcheries everywhere, have been gradually moving the average date of return earlier due to selection of early returning fish - you never really know for sure what the ultimate run will be so the temptation is just too great to let most of the early returners into the brood ponds on the chance that the rest of the run won't show up and you will get caught short of brood stock. This is not normally a good thing if the goal is to replicate something that formerly existed, but this is a totally artificial situation in a part of Hood Canal that never had pinks anyway. What this has done is create a unique terminal fishery for pinks in July, wildly popular, and I'm pretty sure it's one of those things that doesn't hurt any other species or stocks. I mention all of this as an example of a WDFW hatchery practice that maybe isn't bad.