Salmon / Trees

[Chris Sessions]

Here is a summary of a recent article in Science describing the importance
of salmon migration to tree health. I thought some of you would find this
interesting/useful.

ECOLOGY/EVOLUTION: Hidden Benefits of Spawning Salmon
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew M. Sugden

Salmon return from the sea to the freshwater breeding grounds of their
birth to spawn and die. In doing so, they import ocean-derived mineral
nutrients that fertilize the riparian ecosystem. The effect of this mineral
import has been quantified by Helfield and Naiman for a site in southeast
Alaska. Using isotopic analysis, which can identify marine-derived
elements, they find that at least one-fifth of the nitrogen (N) in the
needles of Sitka spruce trees and other plants near spawning sites comes
from the ocean via Pacific salmon carcasses. Growth rates of trees near
spawning sites were significantly higher than in reference sites. These
marine subsidies to inland ecosystems are likely to decline as Pacific
salmon become increasingly rare. - AMS

[FallRiverGuy]

Good post.

I guess that is why some call it the web of life.

[happybrew]

I remember reading an article a long time ago about a similar study, and the fact that since the demise of the chinook runs in the Owyhee River, and Jordan Creek, that used to get all the way into Nevada, that the level of nutrients in the surrounding soil has dropped dramatically, as well as the overall health of the ecosystem. Fewer chinook meant fewer fish, period, because the salmon would contribute huge amounts of nutrients derived from the ocean.

happybrew

[Pilar]

Good point Happybrew. If you look on the map of that area you'll find names that involve rotting fish. Stinking water creek and so on.

I'm guessing they don't have that problem anymore

[Pete]

This sounds like the theme of an excellent book I read years ago, Mountain in the Clouds: A Search for the Wild Salmon by Bruce Brown, published in 1982. Brown details the "web of life" and interdependence of big, old forests, salmon, elk and bears and details 100 years of "development" and greed which have all impacted the systems which sustain wild salmon. The focus is on the Olympic Penninsula, but it covers the entire Pacific Northwest. It's still an excellent book 20 years after it was written and I'd highly recommend it to anyone concerned with the condition of PNW salmon.

[garyk]

Another facet of the web relationship (I believe this is fully explored in the book Pete references) is that the salmon not only contributed nutrients directly via their decaying carcasses, but that all the critters that feed on them - bears, coyotes, various birds and so forth - then distribute the nutrients beyond the immediate river area through their excrement.

In effect, salmon runs provide (or did historically) millions of tons of fertilizer annually to the regions rivers and forests.

This points out today's folly of having hatcheries selling excess carcasses for pennies a pound for cat food – forever removing the store of nutrients from the system that created them. The carcasses that are being planted in-stream, while a move in the right direction, are a tiny fraction of the returning hatchery fish.

In nature there is no waste.

[sinker]

I've noticed that people talk of the really HUGE runs of 30 years ago. This is due to the fact that thats as far back as they can remember.
Look how huge the runs were around the turn of the century and the late 1800's. Mainly the late 1800's.
Those runs were huge until they started to commercially fish for them and all the little towns sprung up around the mouth of the Columbia.
I think the first major damage to the runs were done then and not what we've done in the last 30 years. What we've done in the last 30 years was nothing compared to what was done then.

[Fishbulb]

Sinker,

Historical records do not support this theory. The transition from native american harvest to commercial gillnet/seine/wheels at the turn of the century yielded a very limitted net increase in total harvest of our salmon resources. There are many well documented books that report this. If you are interested in reading about this a search on any booksellers internet site will reveal a plethora on this material. The difference lies in what accompanied this natural resource control transition. While maintaining a similar harvest regime of salmon resources we began to do things to the places salmon need to spawn and rear that native americans seldom or never did. Harvest of timber resources on a scale that can not be logically compared to harvest before the 1800's, pressure strip mining of spawning streams, stream channelization, wetland drainage, heavy metal pollutants, introduction of domestic livestock into lower stream reaches, splash dam construction and utilization and hydropower. The list goes on. Blaming only commercial fishing for current week stocks is rediculous. Why then did the salmon stocks not rebound immediately in the late eighties and early nineties when commercial and sport fishing were curtailed so strongly. I strongly encourage all who have this one size fits all mentality to dig deeper. Look at the facts and numbers and historiacal coorelations. It is incredibly more complex than this simple conclusion reveals.

[sinker]

So you're saying the "whitey" harvest levels were the same as the Native American Levels??

If you read your historical books about the lower Columbia you will learn that all those pilings you see down there at one time had a cannery sitting on them. The amount of fish that "whitey" pulled out of the river was incredible. Many,many shiploads of fish went to San Francisco and beyond.
I've got the numbers around here in a book somewhere.
That lower river was so packed with commercial fisherman, that they even had a cannery in the middle of the river on a sandbar. They used horses to pull the nets in and at high tide and they would move the horses up to the 2nd story so they wouldn't get wet.
I think someone else needs to read their books a little more.
I've read many books on that area as I had family in that area during that period as well as fishing up the coast in Westport.

Oh yeah, if you think I'm being racist with the term "whitey", I'm as white as they come an donly use racist names when referring to myself.
[img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[ 10-21-2001: Message edited by: sinker ]

[Fishful Thinkin']

Hey you two, If you are going to through numbers around back them up with references. Give us the opertunity to look at what facts you are using and how they were derived. I don't mean to say that either of you has a hidden agenda that might bring your "facts" under suspicion but how about letting us make up own minds.

[Fishbulb]

Sure, for starters check out "Making Salmon, An Environmental History of the Northwest Fisheries Crisis", Joseph E. Taylor, 1999 University of Washington Press. Chapter 1/ Dependence, Respect and Modernization (in particular pages 22-26 which characterize both native and "whitey" harvest regimes in both terms of poundage and straight numbers). That is just for the basic question brought up here. The rest of the book further characterizes the differences and similarities between the "whiteys" and the natives harvest regimes and their level of exploitation of the regions natural resources. There is an abundance of other literature out there that supports this paradigm. Indeed, Making Salmon is a painstakingly well referenced/documented text. The book is jam packed with footnotes of reference material to keep you busy for months.

Its out there if one is open to different possibilities.

[SSPey]

this is a little known tidbit about salmon history, but my readings also suggest that the Native Ams. harvested lots lots lots of salmon in numbers that were not that much smaller than European whiteys. the point about largescale timber harvesting is a good one. It doesn't take many returning fish to provide the eggs to sustain and fortify a run, unless of course the watershed is trashed. [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

[Fishbulb]

Sinker,

Yes, the total harvest regime that "whitey" implemented was only slightly larger than the Native American regime. The descrepencies we see in run sizes thereafter and to date can not be logically attributed to the change in harvest control and harvest regime. I know very well what the pillings are from and the "whitey" methods employed to harvest fish but the fact that I can see them and look at historical pictures of commercial fishing opperations in the area does not allow one to make assumptions about the total yearly number of fish harvested and compare the two harvest regimes. Where and who ultimately consumed the fish have even less to nothing to do with harvest numbers and the current status of various stocks. Native Americans operated a huge harvest regime from the mouth of the Columbia all the way up the river and in the Snake. The spread out nature of this harvest may lend itself to a view that Native Americans harvested relatively few of the returning fish. The opposite is true. The "whitey" operations were essentially based at the mouth of the Columbia with limited commercial fishing up river towards the falls. This fact lends itself to the false view that "whitey" simply must have taken more fish. I would actually like to know the title of the book you refer to that puts the blame on "whitey" harvest regime as compared to Native American harvest regime and neglects discussion of other contributing factors. I would like to read it.

Thanks [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Point-of-Sale Clerk]

http://www.djc.com/news/enviro/11003918.html


Fishbulb

Although I always agree with anyone who makes the point that the NW salmon debate is comprised of many overlapping issues, I would tend to disagree with your attempt to minimize the historical impacts placed upon native indigenous salmon runs by commercial over-harvest. If stream channelization, wetland drainage, heavy metal pollutants, introduction of domestic livestock into lower stream reaches, splash dam construction and hydropower all reduce native salmon runs( and I believe they do) why haven’t hatcheries improved runs by bypassing the stage of life that is so affected by these issues?

Is commercial harvest still too high? Is maximum sustainable yield to blame?

Is it that hatcheries just plain do not work? Or do hatcheries make it worse?

Dammed if you do or dammed if you don’t, huh?

http://www.cqs.washington.edu/papers...ia.doc.anc.gif

[Chris Sessions]

Good points *** Clerk,
What the graph doesn't show is the peak harvest in the late 1800's were primarily spring salmon and harvesters targeted the less desirable and more plentiful fall salmon when the springers rapidly declined presumably from....over-harvest.
Chris

[BUGLEMAN]

Fishbulb you are incorrect, during the latter 1800's whitty stretched nets accross the mouth of the Sandy and Clackamas and took almost every springer decimating the run. It was so bad that for years it didn't even pay to net it until they built a hatchery. I forget the web site where I found this info but, Jack Glass will support this. These rivers are still suffering from the overfishing of the Sandy. In the 1800's before netting salmon returned year round. The runs were spread out and diverse. Not just in one month.

[Point-of-Sale Clerk]

Kevin, you are very correct regarding the Sandy and Clackamas. They are good examples of “European influence” and over-harvesting.

*** Clerk

[Fishbulb]

***,

It is a well believed contention that hatchery practices from the 1880's to the early 1980's were deplorable. A refinned method has emerged in the last 15 or so years that has been increasing overall run sizes. Mass marking hasn't been around very long anyway. Coded wire tags didn't start until the 70's. How would anyone prove hatcheries have made no contribution to run sizes.

I don't know what the posted graph is. Is it the Columbia the Puget Sound area? What the graph fails to show and therefore easily misleads the easily misled is harvest of Native Americans. Folks on this board must think their harvest was zero/lbs/year. Based on population and dietary needs of the natives a pre-1883 harvest of 41,754,800 lbs/year for the Oregon country is fully comparable to the commercial industry that only surpassed 41 million pounds 9 times from 1883 to 1919. This is from text I referenced above and WDFW and ODFW data. Incedently, all harvests of this era are below maximum sustained yield.

As for the Sandy and Clack the Native Americans operated harvest regimes in a very similiar fashion. Their use of weirs and traps was incredibly effective and were placed in similiar locations. They know the difference between fall and spring chinook and they like spingers too. This arguement still fails to account for the Columbia rivers/Oregon country run declines as a whole.

That is my point. The arguement cannot be made that industrial fishing is the one and only real reason for observed stock declines. If the states, at the time, had realized that they would have to have a harvest design similair to the Native Americans and not exploit all the other natural resources of the area to sustain run sizes then we would have 11-16 million salmon entering the mouth every year. Or, on the other hand, if they would have went with a serverly restricted fishery 1883-1919 and exploited all the other avenues offered by the land the runs might be in better shape. But the people of the time did not realize the intrinsic connections and went wide open on eploiting everything to the maximum they had the potential to. It is not the individual fault of industrial fishing, industrial mining, industrial forestry, industrial agriculture, hydropower,ect. It is direct result of all of them at once operating wide open that has brought us to this point.

I know it is an enticing proposition to be able to boil it down to one user group and blame them but I hope the readers of this board have it in themselves to look beyond what is written on most of these threads and see the connections of all user groups.

[happybrew]

Good post fishbulb

happybrew

[hack2ee]

remeber fishwheels? horse teams on the bank of the lower columbia? c'mon..... there probably wouldn't be an ifish today if we hadn't changed. as many issues as i have with native american fishing "rites", i dont think they ever came close to fishwheels and horse teams and tin cans shipped to everywhere..... not to mention mining and pollution and timber harvest... remeber flooding the coastal streams to send logs downstream? wow!

[sinker]

Hack2ee, good points, those little cans of salmon went all over the place. Not just feeding the locals.
The only reason things changed was that the fish disappeared. If the fish runs were still strong you'd still see it like that.

[Fishbulb]

Fishwheels, seines, gillnets, weirs, traps, sport caught, hooked mortality, dam mortality as juvinile or adult, inability to spawn because of habitat alteration, what does it matter. A dead salmon is a dead salmon. How fish are intercepted doesn't alter the facts about what was caught. What was caught by the native americans and industrial fishing after can not be attributed as the only reason for stock trends that were observed after the early 1900's.

Native Americans did harvest a number of salmon comparable to the industrial operations. The reasons many think they could not have is that their operations were basin wide. From the mouth all the way into Canada and up the Snake into Idaho. It was spread out over a huge distance and thus the appearance of insignificance. They did it, no doubt about it.

What is the point of talking about all the tin cans going here and there and everywhere. Maybe they should have recycled?

[sinker]

Even if the natives harvested as many fish as the white man (which I don't think they came close) don't you think it would make a difference that they were spread out along the length of the river.
Let's say the Yakama's harvested a whole bunch of fish. They're aren't effecting runs that went up the Lewis, Cowlitz, and the wind amongst many other rivers.
Now if you take this same harvest and move it right to the mouth, you're going to end up with totally different results.

[Point-of-Sale Clerk]

Fishbulb…

I appreciate the fact you understand that the salmon issue is complex and has many factors that do not lend themselves to easy explanations or understanding. However, stating that hatchery reforms have lead to improved run size in the last 15 years is not only naive but also a willful misinterpretation of available data. The 1995 sport salmon harvest for the entire state of Oregon was initially measured at 55,000 fish retained (later raised somewhat). 1995 was the lowest sport harvest ever measured in the state of Oregon to my knowledge. The past two years have shown increases in the number of returning salmon of which I believe can be traced to a PDO shift as well as new treaties placed on Canadian and Alaskan commercial harvesters.(aren’t those CWT’s great) I like to compare the 55,000 number for the whole state to the number of salmon harvested by the two canneries at the mouth of the Siuslaw river system for years 1900 and 1901. During each of those years the combined harvest was 3,000,000 fish a year on the Siuslaw. The runs are nowhere near what they used to be. The 95 season was 6 years ago so the 15 year improvement is not accurate. The runs we have now stink by comparison to historical data. The ratcheting down of our indigenous salmon runs can more than likely be blamed on many factors, but the biggest bite more than likely came from over harvest and hatcheries, the two factors that tie in together, each causing the other.

You are correct that the argument cannot be scientifically made that commercial harvest is the leading factor in the demise of the Northwest’s salmon runs. There are far to many factors that influence salmon runs besides the 4 H’s (Harvest, Habitat, Hydro, and Hatcheries) But, it is possible to look at other commercial fisheries that do not have multiple influencing factors to see the effect commercial over harvest can have. The example I like to sight is the commercial ocean “Rock Fishery”. When the salmon runs tanked in the mid 90’s, many harvesters in Oregon switched from salmon to the rock fishery. Harvest levels were very high because prices were less and required more to make this fishing profitable. But starting in 2000 I believe, the feds began reducing harvest when many populations began showing signs of trouble. Now, the harvest is only 10 percent of earlier amounts because the Commercial harvesters Caught Too Much… And in this case you cannot blame the farmers, the loggers, the cities, the sports fishermen, or the dams, there are none of those in the middle of the ocean.
The only people the commercial guys can blame are themselves.

The graph in question was from the following report:
http://www.cqs.washington.edu/papers...ia.html#832969

Salmonshark was very correct about the harvest changing from spring to fall Chinook when the spring run diminished.

As to the pre European native harvest I believe that constituted what chemists call a “dynamic equilibrium” and it would have been virtually impossible for native fishermen to over harvest salmon that was very much their main food supply. Nice try though

*** Clerk

[ 11-04-2001: Message edited by: *** Clerk ]</p>

[Fishbulb]

Sinker,

Thats a great point. The industrial fishery at the mouth operated on heavily mixed stocks and little distinction between fish could be made to select for healthy runs. This is a dilema we still face today. Native Americans did, however, fish many mixed stocks as well. Celilo and Willamette Falls were a congregation of multiple stocks and other mainstem river systems had similar fisheries. My point is that they did it too with incredibly effective methods. Mixed stock fisheries are not unique to the industrial fishery alone.

***,

Don't forget about factors in the early 90's that were out of hatchery control. Low flows for outward migration, low ocean productivity and so on. I think we are on the threshold of an explosive time for hatchery production and if some groups get policies to swing their way the native/hatchery debate may become moot. We have had net pen innovations, release size changes, new understandings of nutritional requirements, experiments with underwater feeding for predator avoidance skills, release timing manipulations, captive broodstock experiments. I was not saying that if you look back 15 years you see huge dividend returns but if you look back over the last five or six you are seeing something happening. Don't forget its a big ship. Things take time.

It is now a widely held view that Native Americans were the cause of many north american species extictions. They absolutely could have had dramatic impacts on salmonid stocks as they relied on them for dietary requirements.

I have no insight into the rock fishery and I think you are most likely correct. These species also lack a similar life history that salmon have and don't have the level of sensitivity to what is going on in, for example, Lewiston, ID that salmon do have.

I just get tired of user groups passing the buck. I am not saying that the commercial fishing industry has no part in current stock status, but northwest fisheries have been historically plagued by the gillneters v.s the fishwheelers, the damers v.s. the sporties, everyone v.s the indians, the foresters v.s. whoever. All the while it is evident that the groups core intent is to swindle the others allocation. Salmon stocks are low this year so lets put something on the ballot so we can get what those other guys normally get. Our user group is more noble than that group.

A dead fish is a dead fish. Yeah, I know, its more complicated than that.