"Fishermen Say Chinook Salmon Are Smaller"

[GreenPartyVoter]

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) - Tanana fisherman Charlie Campbell doesn't need scientific studies or empirical data to prove Yukon River chinook salmon - the mighty king of the species - are getting smaller. All he has to do is walk into his smokehouse.

"I'm noticing I have a lot more headroom in the smokehouse than I remember," said Campbell, a subsistence fisherman who uses a fishwheel in The Rapids area of the Yukon between Tanana and Rampart.

"Long salmon strips hang in your face and you have to duck to get underneath them. I'm 6-2, so it's an issue for me. With these shorter fish, shorter strips."

Campbell hasn't been alone in his hypothesizing. Dozens of fishermen along the middle and upper reaches of the 2,300-mile Yukon have been claiming for years that smaller kings are returning from the ocean to spawn.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20060107/D8EVGJT8A.html

[McKenzie]

1. same thing is happening with cod in the North Sea

I fish for them off charter boats. The skippers feel that anything over 3-4 lbs is rare. The days of cod into double figures are long gone it seems.

The sad thing is the Scottish fleet owners are pressing the EU to relax their quota restrictions on economic grounds. If they succeeed it will be a phyrric vicory and a short-lived one at that. I hope the same does not happen in Alaska.

I also fish for salmon and sea trout in Scottish rivers. The average numbers of the catch returns are better than they were a few years ago. Whether the mean/median weight has changed I don't know for certain. What I do know is that the decline in catch numbers was almost certainly attributable to commercial salmon farming. The industry wiped out the sea trout runs on the west coasts of Scotland and Ireland; it's only recently that numbers started to increase.

There might be other factors at work but it is reasonable to infer that man's influence is part of the equation. I've scuba dived around salmon cages and the sea bed is literally barren around them.

What non-anglers don't always know is that rod-caught salmon and sea trout have an economic value that outstrips netted fish by an order of considerable magnitude - visiting anglers stay in hotels, use local shops, employ local gillies (Scots term for professional angling guides) and so on.

edited to read slightly better

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. We have similar troubles here in Maine. The fishermen want more money

so they can scrape by in hard times but in the end that would seriously damage the ecosystem even further. I suspect we will see more and more aquaculture as the wild supply of water living creatures continues to dwindle.

[whatelseisnew]

2. It's a fact on the Kuskokwim river as well

which runs roughly parallel and south of the Yukon.

[bahrbearian]

5. Did the Chum Salmon ever return to the Kuskokwim?

[whatelseisnew]

7. I believe so

but haven't fished them myself recently.

[sproutster]

9. Yes

And actually I hadn't heard about smaller salmon. But I haven't asked either.

(Lived in Bethel on and off for approx 15 years)

[bahrbearian]

10. The Bay is doing real well now, (But thats the Reds) ,

but the Kuskokim was shut down for a while, barely open for subsistence. I quess I could go to the Fish and Game Web. I was going to fish Port Moller this last summer decided not to take the chance, they had a great season , but I fear for the future.

[BlueEyedSon]

4. Swordfish too

According to a 1996 report from the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the total weight of swordfish caught off the East Coast in 1995 was little more than half what it was in 1988. Moreover, the average size of commercially caught North Atlantic swordfish dropped from more than 266 pounds in 1963 to just 90 pounds in 1995. What this new low weight means is that female swordfish are being caught before they've had a chance to reproduce. According to NMFS, more than half of the swordfish caught today are too young to breed. Clearly, the trend is a recipe for disaster.

http://www.nrdc.org/amicus/01win/field.asp

[mike_c]

6. selective harvest of large fish favors small fish phenotypes....

Conover and Munch, 2002. Sustaining fisheries yields over evolutionary time scales. Science 297: 94-96.

See also: http://www.conbio.org/cip/article63poi.cfm

[Lisa]

8. thanks for the ref! I've been trying to find that one.

I showed my resource management class some historical pics of cod and salmon from about 80 years ago -- they couldn't believe how big the fish were back then.