Thank you Oncy T, I will. And I will post them here if I find them.

Hair, here are links to some of the abstracts:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/318/5847/100.abstract

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2006.00564.x/full

http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/5/5/621.abstract

A good paper from these authors plus Ford, Berejikian:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1752-4571.2008.00026.x/full

Thank you for the links Oncy T, very helpful. Looks like the jury's still out on what the variety of possible outcomes will be for long term supplementation. There's a lot of wiggle room between 40% and over 90% of WxW productivity.


I found this quote HERE


Interesting. Quite the percentage of loss to predators, or whatever. I'm struggling to see how a study focused on every single returning parent could get past an obstacle so influential on the numbers, like + 75% loss during out-migration.

"Interesting. Quite the percentage of loss to predators, or whatever. I'm struggling to see how a study focused on every single returning parent could get past an obstacle so influential on the numbers, like + 75% loss during out-migration."



Wow someone who gets it, everyone is so focused on selective fishing the real problem is just oblivious. Take a 100000 smolts 80/20 H/W and remove 95-98% of them non-selectively from predation, what the heck do you get back? Cutting hatchery releases won't fix it, total numbers will just keep dropping, plus the predators still need to eat so they turn to other species.

Meet how wild Chum got blasted in Willapa by the birds. Take H out of the pool all that is left is W and birds still eat.

Catch 22

Hood Canal is not alone on the High Mortality Rates on Steelhead Smolt. It is becoming apparent through our discussions on NWwildcountry with those who have a hand in Fisheries Management throughout Puget Sound, there is a huge, mostly misunderstood problem. The Acoustic Tagging Program, that we discussed in depth, paints a picture and is a component producing data that some have faith in and others are not so certain. The High Mortality in Hood Canal is right in line with Steelhead Smolt leaving the Puyallup, Nisqually and Green River basins as well. Some of the numbers I gathered from the Fisheries Managers in each of those systems, indicated as little as 6% to 10% survivability actually making it to the Straits, to migrate out. Some rivers have been shown to have numbers in the 60% to 75% outbound migrating Steelhead Smolt at the mouth, and as they migrate through the 150 miles of Puget Sound to make it to the Straits, it falls to that confusing 6% to 10%. The hardest thing to understand is that these smolt are on the move. So much so, they can make it from the Nisqually or Puyallup, to the Straits in 7 to 12 days, and yet the overall mortality is 75%.

FireFish...

Again, Hood Canal is on the Agenda to be discussed in Depth, in the NWwildcountry Studio, in the next few weeks. Saturdays show will focus on the Sauk and Skagit however some of that information carries throughout Puget Sound. Be sure to tune in.

FireFish...

I'm not sure that anyone's demonstrated that 90% mortality on outgoing smolts out of Puget Sound actually is a problem...it might be a perfectly normal number, it may have always been that way...but historically there hundreds of millions of wild smolts leaving Puget Sound, so if only ten percent of them survived, it would still have been millions and millions of smolts.

Fish on...

Todd

Have to agree with Todd. We now have some numbers for steelhead smolt. No idea what the mean in an historical context.

And, most of the discussion still seems to be guided by the idea that steelhead are salmon.

The really strong steelhead populations currently in existence (Situk, Kamchatka, Argentina) share one thing in commen; half or more of the returning adults are repeat spawners. Based on that, maybe a smolt-adult survival of 5% can work; if enough fish survive to repeat spawn. Remove them from the equation, and you get extinction.

It's a problem when 90% of the habitat is gone, sure there's some basins that have very good habitat and some that are almost completely destroyed like the upper Columbia. But once smolts hit the open water they all become just food.

You could end all harvest, remove virtually all the predators, stop planting clouds of hatchery fish, and steelhead leaving the Columbia River will still be in the $hitter...the dams remove 90% of them before they even get to the estuary, where they are then subject to the "normal" levels of mortality...

Fish on...

Todd

There are obviously many issues, Habitat, Over Harvest, Smolt Mortality, Water Quality, they all weigh in. There is the huge unkown of what truly is natural or natures history of outbound smolt mortality. However, in comparison, the Coastal Streams, all be it if we don't change some of the Management Practices etc. could be heading in the directionof Puget Sound, tend to have a much higher return. It would be interesting to all ready have the outbound smolt mortality of our Coastal Rivers to use as a comparision, if for nothing else other then to help understand what percentage is perhaps normal.

FireFish...

5 days a week M... Ya think we'll see that stop anytime soon....

FireFish...

On rivers like the Hoh, where the habitat is in the main pretty good, overharvest the number one issue for those fish.

Fish on...

Todd

Coastal vrs Puget Sound. I think form what they know thus far and are still figuring out, Over Harvest, in Puget Sound Rivers, is not todays problem. It helped set the table, form the 80's & 90's for where we are, however, there are other things going on that continue to produce such small returns in all rivers.
You think anyone will wake up and not let the Harvest Management Plans take the Coastal Rivers to the Brink, Much like what we are talking about here..

FireFish...

Couldn't agree More... The HoH and several others..

FireFish..

Your exactly right. Managing our Fisheries to ensure "Waisted Fish" don't make it to gravel. Every fish has a price tag on it's head. They know they only need X number to spawn to ensure the run will sustain and they manage it down to the very last fish.
It comes down to money, not conservation.....

When is the last time you heard an Fisheries Manager or Biologist make the Statement, "We have to change our way of managing our Fisheries, we have way to many fish hitting the gravel"...

FireFish...

I think the fish eating birds take far more fry think pepole realize. I used to shoot as many as I could as a kid growing up on the Cowlitz, when I squeeze the belly the fry would shoot out like a fountain. The cormerants have to just as bad or worse. Last fall I watched small flock feeding on a Mason county lake and about every 4 or 5 dives at least one of them would come up with a fish, between them and the mergansers that is going to take a big chunk of fry and smolts.

Actually, FF, I have heard managers more than once say we put too many fish on the spawning grounds.

And, to my mind, the harvest of salmon is exerting a huge detrimental effect on steelhead. Killing too many fish is still killing too many fish.

Your right, in that they look at to many fish on the gravel as lost opportunity or lost dollars and cents. The other side of that, as in harvesting to many salmon, depleats the needed nutriant base right out of the system. Hard for fry to grow after they hatch out when there is no food in the river for them to feed on...

FireFish...