Sound familiar - Lake Washington sockeye salmon go

janstett · 07-08-2005, 08:25 AM

Does this sound familiar? Much like us they are not hitting the salmon targets, not even close. Sounds like the Columbia.

7/8/2005, 7:11 a.m. PT
The Associated Press
Lake Washington sockeye salmon go
Last year, about 200,000 thousand Lake Washington sockeye salmon, about half the run, vanished between the Ballard Locks and their spawning grounds.

This year it's even worse. Scientists say they'll be lucky if 100,000 sockeye make it to the locks from a run previously estimated at 398,000 fish.

"We should be getting 10,000, 20,000 fish a day, and we're getting 1,000 to 2,000," said Mike Mahovlich, a fish biologist. "We've lost 90 percent of our fish in the marine area."
A return of 100,000 fish would be the lowest ocean survival rate ever recorded for Lake Washington sockeye, said Jim Ames, sockeye program manager for the state Fish and Wildlife Department.

Cohodependent · 07-08-2005, 08:58 AM

Scary!

I wonder what is going on?

MrOlearhy · 07-08-2005, 04:22 PM

I wonder if it has anything to do with what happened during this last yrs crab season. Family and friends from Illwace said the crabbing was so bad this last winter because the Californian crabber came up, loaded up and went home. Seeing as we didn't have any rain to speak of from Nov. to Mar. I was wondering if the fish stacked up and then were slaughtered? Just a thought.

MrOlearhy · 07-08-2005, 04:40 PM

I wonder if it has anything to do with what happened during this last yrs crab season. Family and friends from Illwace said the crabbing was so bad this last winter because the Californian crabber came up, loaded up and went home. Seeing as we didn't have any rain to speak of from Nov. to Mar. I was wondering if the fish stacked up and then were slaughtered? Just a thought.