Pacific sockeye salmon return in record numbers

[depakid]

VANCOUVER, Canada — After years of scarcity, the rivers of the US and Canadian Pacific Northwest are running red, literally, with a vast swarm of a salmon species considered to be in crisis.

Sockeye salmon, whose stocks ran perilously low last year, are gushing in record numbers from the Pacific Ocean toward their spawning grounds far inland.
Since mid-August, in a torrent expected to last through early October, sockeye have plunged and leapt up Alaskan streams, massed through the mouth of the mighty Fraser River in Vancouver, and filled Oregon and Washington waterways.

"We don't know why for certain," said Barry Rosenberger, a manager with Canada's federal fisheries department.

All experts agree that conditions have been near-perfect for this year's sockeye, a strikingly red species with a dramatic four-year life cycle.

Since they hatched inland in 2006, then migrated from freshwater to the ocean in 2008, the fish enjoyed such plentiful food of krill and plankton, preferred cold ocean temperatures, and a dearth of predators, that massive numbers have matured to return to their birthplaces to spawn and die. "Salmon have had us on a roller coaster," said marine biologist John Reynolds of Simon Fraser University. "Last year we had the lowest return in at least 50 years, and this year it looks like it will be the highest in nearly a century."

The bounty follows years of intense scarcity that closed or restricted many fishing areas, mostly in Canada where the 2009 near-demise of sockeye in the Fraser River prompted Canada to appoint a commission to investigate.
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The numbers this year affect Japan and Russia as well as North America, and are shocking: in the United States, an estimated 40 million sockeye entering six Alaskan river systems through Bristol Bay broke all records, Rosenberger told AFP.

The Columbia River in Oregon has seen "the largest sockeye return since 1938," he said, while Japan and Russia are enjoying "phenomenal returns."

But the biggest news is in Vancouver, where the largest sockeye return in nearly a century is entering the mouth of the Fraser River- arguably the world's single largest historic salmon migration route.

More: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hwk8c-ePB09j5SDRMkLCZUflCrvQ

[Botany]

1. Good news

I wonder if removal of some dams have helped.

[OnlinePoker]

2. No...no dams have been removed on the Fraser river run and last year's run was a disaster. n/t

[Botany]

4. The salmon run was in washington and oregon that has removed some dams

Anyway this is really good news.

[OnlinePoker]

5. This is a mass return along the whole Pacific coast of North America

Dam removal may have some effect, but this is something right in the ocean that spurred survival and growth of the salmon.

[hatrack]

3. Well that's a refreshing change!

Thanks for the post!

[HCE SuiGeneris]

6. Awesome news.

Recommended.