Fisheries Newswire .....
THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING STEELHEAD:
Fish biologists have been counting their PIT tags for weeks now to add up
the damage from this year's paltry precipitation. First with an official
account is the Fish Passage Center, which found that spring chinook
survival from Lower Granite to McNary Dam was down from about 70 percent
in a normal year to 57 percent this time around. Steelhead survival,
according to PIT tag detections, was much worse. Normally on about a par
with spring chinook estimates, it came in at a miserable 17 percent to
McNary. But there is a caveat to all this: the fish could be playing a
fast one on fish managers, hanging back in the river and waiting until
next year to finish their migration. The phenomenon is called
"residualism" and it's a trait that steelhead are famous for.
http://www.newsdata.com/enernet/fish...hltr129.html#2
-----------
This concept of 'residualism' may be very common indeed. I hope that is what happened to the poor return of Wilson R. summer steelhead, for example (due to low warm water early on) - and that many have been swimming around in the bay and tidewater back and forth awaiting a river rise. Well, we just got a good river rise. Will there be some fresh summers in the lower half of the Wilson as it recedes. I bet a definite yes! - RT
Missing Steelhead or \'Residualism\'?
Linear Mode
