THE OSPREYThe International Journal of Salmon and Steelhead Conservation

Issue No. 91 September 2018

Replacing Hatchery Driven SalmonManagement with a Place-Based Focus

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:ON THE FRONT LINES OF CLIMATE CHANGE • ATLANTIC

SALMON FARMS UNDER FIRE • RECOVERING CHUM SALMONGREAT LAKES STEELHEAD ADAPTATIONS

Climate Change and the New Reality for Wild Salmonand Steelhead

By Greg Knox

There is Nothing Right About Atlantic Salmon Farms

By Alexandra Morton

Recovering Chum Salmon in the Lower ColumbiaRiver Basin

By Kristen Homel

Great Lakes Steelhead Win the Adaptation Lottery

By Avril M. Harder and Janna R. Willoughby

The Efficacy and Role of Hatcheries in Securing theFuture of Pacific Rim Wild Salmon

By Jack Stanford and Rick Williams

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Columns & News

Features

From the Perch — Editor’s Message

Fish Watch: Wild Fish News, Issues and Initiatives

2 The Osprey

Contents

Editorial CommitteePete Soverel • Ryan Smith Greg Knox • Ralf Kroning

Bruce McNae • Rich Simms

Scientific AdvisorsRick Williams • Jack Stanford

Jim Lichatowich • Bill McMillanBill Bakke • Michael Price

Design & LayoutJim Yuskavitch

THE OSPREYChair

Pete Soverel

EditorJim Yuskavitch

Letters To The EditorThe Osprey welcomes letters to the

editor. Article submissions are welcomebut queries in advance are preferred.

The Osprey69278 Lariat

Sisters, OR 97759jyusk@bendcable.com(541) 549-8914

The Osprey © 2018ISSN 2334-4075

The Osprey is a joint publication of not-for-profit or-ganizations concerned with the conservation and sus-tainable management of wild Pacific salmon andsteelhead and their habitat throughout their nativeand introduced ranges. This unique partnership in-cludes The Conservation Angler, Fly Fishers Interna-tional, Steelhead Society of British Columbia,Skeena Wild, World Salmon Forum, Trout Unlim-ited and Wild Steelhead Coalition. Financial supportis provided by partner organizations, individuals, clubsand corporations. The Osprey is published three timesa year in January, May and September. All materialsare copyrighted and require permission prior toreprinting or other use.

Cover Photo Courtesy NASAInset Photo By Ernest Alfred

Steelhead Society of British Columbia

FROM THE PERCH — A MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR

September 2018 • Issue No. 91 3

The Osprey Flies to New Heightsby Pete Soverel

As long-time readers know, The Osprey has beencontinuously published by the Steelhead Com-mittee of the Federation of Fly Fishers since1987. Over the intervening 30 plus years, it hasestablished itself as THE

definitive salmon/steelhead conserva-tion journal. This issue marks the begin-ning of a new era for The Osprey whichwill now be published by a consortiumof like-minded conservation organiza-tions: Fly Fishers International, TheConservation Angler, World SalmonForum, Skeena Wild, Steelhead Societyof British Columbia, and Wild SteelheadCoalition, with additional support fromTrout Unlimited and The Fly Shop (Red-ding, California). We intend this newpartnership to dramatically increasethe reach (from a 1,500 or so readers toperhaps 75,000) and impact of The Os-prey influencing salmon/steelhead man-agement, conservation/recovery andpublic accountability of federal,state/provincial, and local agencies. Over the thirty-plus years of publica-

tion, wild salmon and steelhead popula-tions up and down the West Coast ofNorth America have continue to declinesharply. With few exceptions, wildsalmon/steelhead populations are either already extinct ortrending sharply towards extirpation. Current managementpractices, especially hatchery and harvest regimes, have notbeen effective in sustaining these Northwest icons. Clearly,reversing these alarming trends will not be accomplishedeasily or without dramatic, wholesale changes in currentpractices. In coming issues, The Osprey will address the

causes for declines, management regimes that have failed toaddress effectively these causes and outline alternativestrategies to begin the process of returning our wild salmonand steelhead to abundance on long-term sustainability sup-

porting vibrant commercial, recre-ational and tribal fisheries for futuregenerations.Editorial content will be guided by TheOsprey management committee repre-senting the partners and our team of dis-tinguished scientific advisors: RickWilliams, Jack Stanford, Jim Licha-towich, Bill McMillan, and MichaelPrice. We know where the bodies areburied; we going to tell you; and encour-age change.We ask for your support, financial as

well personal. The Conservation Angleris the fiscal agent for the Osprey. TCAis an IRS approved 501[c][3] charity.Please turn to the donation form on page23 or to www.theconservationangler.organd subscribe/donate whatever you areable to help us continue to advocate forwild salmon and steelhead. All donationsare tax deductible charitable donations.Donated funds are maintained in an Os-prey account which is completely sepa-rate from other TCA funds. All

donations will be used exclusively for supporting The Os-prey. Please donate to our crusade to save and restore wildsalmon and steelhead for present and future generations.

Pete Soverel is Chair of The Osprey Management Committee,and President and Founder of The Conservation Angler.

The first issue of The Osprey was pub-lished in January 1987.

How The Osprey Helps Wild FishThe Osprey has been bringing the lat-est science, policy, opinion and newsstories to its readers supporting wildPacific salmon and steelhead conserva-tion and management for 31 years. Butwe are much more than a publicationthat you subscribe to because of yourown interest in wild fish conservation.The funds we receive from our sub-scribers allows us send The Osprey towild fish conservation decision-makersand influencers including scientists,fisheries managers, politicians and wild

fish advocates. So when you subscribe/donate to TheOsprey, you not only receive a subscrip-tion yourself, but you also help us putThe Osprey into the hands of the peoplewe need bring to our side to save ourwild fish.Please go to the subscription/donationform on page 23 and donate whateveryou are able. Thank you.

Jim YuskavitchEditor, The Osprey

Sending The Osprey todecision makers is key to our wild fish

conservation advocacy.Your support makes

that possible.

4 The Osprey

Propagation of salmon (in-cluding steelhead) in artifi-cial hatcheries and release ofhatchery progeny into wildsalmon habitat is not justi-

fied in ecologic, economic or socialterms, if the management goal is to re-cover and sustain wild salmon popula-tions. Indeed, the massive productionof hatchery fish from thousands of ar-tificial cultural operations around thePacific Rim now exceeds 6 billionsmolts artificially thrust into the oceanannually, costing millions of dollarswith an overall return on investment ofless than 0.1%. Moreover, recent stud-ies cited herein (among many others)strongly implicate hatchery operationsas a significant contributing cause ofthe massive decline of localized wildsalmon and steelhead runs around thePacific Rim, particularly Chinooksalmon, with reduced fitness (produc-tivity) of wild fish caused by inter-breeding with hatchery fish. Hatcheryfish also compete with wild fish forfood and habitat in freshwater, estuar-ies and the ocean, and their presenceoften leads to overharvest of wild fishby subsidizing mixed-stock, ocean fish-eries that kill far too many wild fishthrough bycatch. Of course, habitatdegradation, pollution, disease (espe-cially via escaped fish from commer-cial rearing in estuarine net pens) andclimate change also are problematic.But, the major problem for far toomany local populations of the remain-ing wild fish in the intense hatcheryzone of the US West Coast (excludingmost of Alaska) is willful and mis-guided dependence on hatcheries byfisheries managers. We say that ifhatcheries cannot be justified on eco-logic, economic and social terms, theyshould be closed and the savings in-vested in wild fish management andconservation to overcome harvest,habitat, climate change, pollution andother addressable issues. Moreover,hardcore conservation of remaining to-tally wild salmon populations that re-main in northern British Columbia,

most of Alaska and the Russian FarEast must be fostered internationally.A future without wild salmon simply isuntenable because of their keystonerole in ecosystems including a primaryfood source for people. But, with chari-table place-based conservation andmanagement of wild populations, espe-cially by forgoing hatcheries and non-sustainable harvests, the future forwild salmon will be secure because theyare adaptable, highly reproductivebeasts. We offer herein the stepsneeded to achieve this vitally importantoutcome.

Introduction: the hatchery problem

Artificial production of salmon andsteelhead in hatcheries is now a domi-nant, if not the dominant, force in theecology and management of salmonidfishes (sea run salmon and trout, here-after referred to collectively assalmon) worldwide because it is widelyheld that cultured stocks greatly en-hance commercial, subsistence andrecreational fisheries. However, wild,naturally persisting salmon in their na-tive habitats are increasingly threat-ened by genetic introgression anddisease caused by interbreeding andother interactions with escaped or re-leased fish from hatcheries and marinefarms. Moreover, many wild salmonpopulations are chronically overhar-vested because vulnerability of wild

fish to harvest impacts is substantiallyenhanced by intermixing with hugenumbers of hatchery fish. In fact, theseimpacts may trump worries about cli-mate change in considering the futureof wild salmon.In any case, the current science is

clear that overharvest and fitness re-ductions from genetic interactions withcultured stocks can substantiallyweaken wild populations, eventuallycausing extirpation, even if freshwaterand marine habitat is abundant and ofhigh quality. Nonetheless, over 6 billionhatchery salmon are released into thewild annually from nearly 1,000 hatch-eries around the Pacific Rim, eventhough survival of hatchery fish typi-cally is less than 1/10th of 1 percent ofthose released. Wild fish, on the otherhand, are much better survivors owingto pre-existing local and natural adap-tation to environmental variation; typi-cally 10–15% of fish hatched in the wildreturn to natal rivers as robust adults,ready to keep the life cycle going natu-rally while also providing healthfulfood source for human and animal con-sumers1. In the very few cases where hatcheryoperations have been evaluated eco-nomically, the return on investment isappallingly low. Hatchery steelheadthat return as adults to the ColumbiaRiver system each cost $1000 or moreto produce for delivery to anglers, al-though these numbers have not beenthoroughly vetted. Moreover, no analy-ses that we are aware of include ac-counting of nonmarket or intrinsiccosts related to negative impacts onwild stocks, such as those listed as ESAendangered. This begs the questionwhether the multimillion dollar recov-ery programs for ESA listed popula-tions may be ill-conceived owing tonegative socio-ecological interactionswith populations of hatchery origin.Rather than focusing on reducing neg-ative influence of hatchery fish, a sur-prising number of recovery programsfoster hatcheries and undocumented

The Efficacy and Role of Hatcheries in Securingthe Future of Pacific Rim Wild Salmon

By Jack Stanford and Rick Williams

Wild salmon in theirnative habitats are threatened by geneticintrogression and

disease by fish fromhatcheries and marine farms.

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September 2018 • Issue No. 91 5

“restoration” of freshwater habitat thatmay actually be simply understockedwith wild fish. No other conservationissue is more convoluted and in greaterneed of accountability analysis than theuse of hatcheries to support recovery ofESA-listed Pacific Northwest salmonand steelhead populations. Indeed, it seems that the majority of

fisheries managers view hatcheries assuccessful mitigation of habitat lost todams and water abstraction; and thathatcheries are the only way to maintainviable commercial, subsistence andsport harvest of salmon. This view alsoassumes that the ocean is a benevolentrearing environment, in spite of docu-mented strong influences of naturalvariation in ocean temperatures and up-welling on growth and survival ofsalmon. Recent studies by Greg Rug-gerone and others show there are moresockeye, chum and pink salmon in theNorth Pacific Ocean today than in thepre-dam era owing in part to massivehatchery production coupled with twodecades of great ocean conditions forfar northern populations of wild sock-eye (e.g., Bristol Bay) and pink (e.g.,Kamtchatka) salmon; however, half ofthe chum salmon in the ocean are ofhatchery origin2. Evidence that densitydependent interactions in the ocean areleading to reduced individual size atmaturity and, hence, fitness (reproduc-tive capacity) of wild populations is in-creasing. Number and individual sizeof wild Chinook and steelhead in partic-ular are abysmal across the entire Pa-cific Rim relative to historic data, inspite of massive hatchery operations onthe US West Coast. Moreover, the per-centage of hatchery smolts that surviveto harvestable size is well below 1%, sothe wild fish really take a beating asfishers go after surviving hatcheryfish3. Nonetheless, in spite of the scien-tific evidence to the contrary, mostmanagement agencies and, indeed, toomany conservation NGOs, view hatch-eries as so politically entrenched as tobe untouchable. We believe this pervasive view is un-

tenable. We propose that the real eco-logical, economic and social costs andimpacts of salmon aquaculture opera-tions must be thoroughly and independ-ently evaluated and publicized becausethe future of wild stocks and the her-itage of wild salmon rivers is at seriousrisk4. On the other hand, if society de-mands continuation of fish culture, themassive production of industrial

salmon (sensuLichatowich) atthe expense ofwild stocks,salmon conser-vation law andpractice willhave to bechanged com-pletely becauserecovering andsustaining wildsalmon cur-rently is man-dated byfederal Endan-gered SpeciesAct and otherstatutes. Eventhe fine print ofthe infamousMitchell Actsays that if lossof Columbia River salmon associatedwith mainstem dam construction can-not be mitigated by hatcheries, thedams should come out.

Key terms and issues

A wild salmon is the progeny of nativeparents that spawned in their natalfresh waters without significant humaninterference in their life cycle. We arereferring to all species and populations(stocks) of sea-run (anadromous) Pa-cific salmon in the genus Oncorhynchus(6 species), anadromous Salmo salar(Atlantic salmon) and anadromoustrout, specifically rainbow/steelhead(O. mykiss) and sea trout (Salmotrutta). Our focus is on Pacific salmon(sockeye, Chinook, coho, chum, pinkand masu) and steelhead. These sea-runfishes have extreme fidelity for natalstreams, lakes and rivers; usually al-most all mature adults return from theocean to the sites where they werespawned by their parents. The term natural salmon is used by

some fisheries managers to denote asalmon that is the progeny of a naturalspawning event, regardless of whetherone or both of the parents were origi-nally of hatchery origin (if both parentsare native wild salmon, then the prog-eny are wild salmon). The term naturalsalmon is problematic, because in thepublic’s eye, natural salmon can be con-fused as synonymous or equivalent towild salmon. They are not — becauseone or both parents are of hatchery ori-gin, and even though they spawned inthe wild, the progeny will exhibit lowerfitness, survival, and reproductive per-

formance than the progeny of wildsalmon. A hatchery salmon is the progeny of

either wild or human-cultured parents,including genetically engineered par-ents, hatched and reared in artificiallycontrolled facilities. Typically, hatcheryjuveniles are released into the ocean(usually via a tributary of a large riverthat flows into the ocean) where theymay grow to maturity and usually re-turn to their natal hatcheries. Insalmon farming operations, juvenilesfrom hatcheries are reared to maturityin net pens suspended in the ocean, al-though many of these adults may es-cape or are purposefully released intothe wild. Hatchery salmon may be har-vested by commercial or sport fishersor they may be taken by hatchery man-agers to provide eggs and sperm for thenext generation of artificially enhancedsalmon. Unfortunately, many hatcheryfish avoid harvest or fail to return tothe hatchery, instead straying into habi-tats occupied by wild salmon wherethey interbreed and thus dilute and de-grade the wild gene pool. Salmon thatescape from net pens also spread dis-eases to wild fish.The term hatchery refers to the full

range of facilities and activities neededto collect and hatch salmon eggs andrear the resulting juvenile fish to thesmolt (ocean-going) stage after whichthey are released into the ocean withthe intent of increasing the numbers ofadult salmon for potential harvest. Thismanagement strategy views the oceanas a benevolent environment that willproduce adult salmon for harvest from

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Hatchery production is the dominant fisheries management para-digm in the Pacific Northwest, ignoring the place-based nature ofsalmon and steelhead. Photo by Jim Yuskavitch

6 The Osprey

the human-subsidized stocking ofhatchery juveniles. The hatchery strat-egy assumes that hatchery fish are notmaladapted to life in the wild and thathatchery fish pose no problem for sus-

tainability of wild salmon or nativeriver and ocean food webs. This as-sumption has repeatedly been provenfalse by a host of ecological and geneticstudies that we have summarized in theNews and Reports section of The Con-servation Angler website(www.theconservationangler.com). In-deed, only a single generation in captiv-ity can result in selection for traits thatare beneficial in captivity but severelymaladaptive in the wild5. Nonetheless,today the number of hatchery fish re-leased into the North Pacific Ocean isapproaching 7 billion per year, costingsociety millions of dollars.

Elaborating the hatchery problem

Artificial production of hatcherysalmon that are released into the oceanprovides increased harvest opportuni-ties and usually increases the harvestrate of wild salmon as they often comin-

gle with hatchery fish in the fishingzones. This is especially problematicfor mixed stock fisheries, especiallyocean fisheries, compared to in-river(terminal) fisheries, because less abun-dant wild stocks (often called weakstocks) that are not the intended targetof the fishermen are unavoidablykilled. A notable example is the south-east Alaska troll fishery for Chinook.The fishery is enhanced by hatchery re-leases, but nearly 80% of the fish har-vested in the troll fishery actually arefrom a wide variety of generally weakBritish Columbia wild populations (e.g.,Taku, Stikine, Skeena, Fraser river wildpopulations) and ESA-listed PugetSound, Columbia River and other Wash-ington and Oregon wild salmon popula-tions. Moreover, the hatchery fishcaught in this fishery clearly are notwild salmon because they were not born

in the wild. And the wild fish taken maynot be Alaska salmon at all. Nonethe-less, they are all marketed as “WildAlaska Salmon.” In fact, Alaska mar-kets “Wild Alaska Salmon” or “Natu-rally Reared Alaska Salmon” no matterwhere the fish were caught, and with-

out regard to their natalorigin or their populationstatus or the impact of in-teractions with geneticallypure, wild populations.Therefore, these fisheriesinclude salmon of hatcheryorigin and wild salmon,without any considerationof population sustainabilityor even country of origin. With wild salmon advo-

cates, Jim Lichatowich (au-thor of the book SalmonWithout Rivers) and DavidMontgomery (King of Fish)and others, we have docu-mented that wild salmonare naturally “place based”(i.e., genetically distinctpopulations that have rigidfidelity to exact localitieswithin specific riverswhere they are locallyadapted for the environ-mental conditions thatoccur in these natal habi-tats); whereas, current har-vest and hatcherymanagement is “place-less,” requiring that thefundamental place-basednature of wild salmon bedisregarded. In our view,wild salmon populationscan only be recovered and

sustained in perpetuity by recognizingand honoring their inherent “place-ness.”6 The overall management goalshould be to document the origin ofsalmon in fisheries and markets usingstate-of-the-art genetic identificationtools and to holistically evaluate pro-duction costs and consequences on wildpopulations. If the wild salmon legacyis to be preserved globally, the manage-ment view has to shift from placelessmanagement to place-based manage-ment as shown recently by Gayeski,Lichatowich, and colleagues et al.

A real world alternative to thehatchery myth

Wild salmon are place-based. Salmonevolution and ecology is centered and

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Figure 1. Releases (in millions) of hatchery reared salmon (six species) and steelhead trout inthe North Pacific Basin. Dots show artificial production facility locations and pie charts showspecies composition of hatchery releases by geographic area.

September 2018 • Issue No. 91 7

depends upon locally adapted spawningpopulations that are “best-fit” to localconditions by having high homing fi-delity. Management of wild salmonpopulations, including sustainable har-vest and recovery of depressed, at-risk,populations, must therefore also beplace-based. That is, management mustbe centered on maintaining and restor-ing abundant and ecologically and ge-netically diverse spawning populationsacross all natural spatial scales (ecore-gions, large mainstem river basins,tributary rivers and streams). Hatchery management, whether to

support harvest or to attempt to assistwith conservation, has largely ignoredthe placed-based nature of salmon.Managers are focused on production oflarge numbers of hatchery fish lackinggenetic diversity representative of wildstocks. Hatchery salmon are adapted tothe conditions of hatchery culture, notnatural life in wild rivers. Hence, thefisheries management objective seemsto be enhancement of commercial,tribal and/or sports harvest, regardlessof impacts on wild salmon, rather thanon protecting and sustaining productionof well-adapted native wild salmon. Current hatchery and harvest man-

agement practices are inherently place-less. The majority of commercialsalmon harvest in open coastal watersof the Pacific Rim occurs in “mixedstock” fisheries that intercept numer-ous distinct wild populations locallyadapted to different watersheds—oftenfish from different countries or states.Targeting hatchery salmon, allowsmanagers to overharvest wild stocks,including depressed and ESA-listedstocks along the coastal and inland wa-ters (e.g., Puget Sound, the ColumbiaRiver)— most of them depressed to thepoint of extinction. Differential har-vest needs to be clarified by geneticidentification of populations—wild andhatchery—harvested from mixed stockfisheries. The return on investmentfrom commercial, tribal and sports har-vest of the majority of hatchery salmonlikely is extremely low and certainlynot cost-effective. In summary, hatch-ery operations require a huge economicsubsidy from public funds; however,neither the magnitude of this subsidynor its cost-effectiveness—or lackthereof—has ever been evaluated rigor-ously by an independent entity that isnot influenced by hatchery politics.

Recommendations: Evaluation ofartificial production performance

Almost all of the hundreds of PacificRim hatcheries were built and are oper-ated with public (government) funds;however appropriate accountability ismissing or suspect. Indeed, the eco-nomic efficacy or return on investmentof the region’s 125-year experimentwith hatcheries to date has been evalu-ated simply on the basis of the numberof juveniles released, rather than on

cost for production from egg to har-vested adult. This fails to give a truepicture of the costs of managing salmonvia artificial production. We believe that the costs of mitigatingnegative effects of intermingling hatch-ery and wild stocks and diseases re-leased into the environment fromhatchery operations also must be quan-tified in order to truly understand totalcosts of hatchery operations. Morever,

significant non-market or environmen-tal costs likely are associated withhatchery operation, e.g., origin and costof feeds used in hatcheries (proteinsources range from ocean harvest offorage fishes, like anchovies, to stock-yard wastes and allegedly even straydogs and cats); costs of water diver-sions; losses of native fish passage byhatchery infrastructures to intercepttheir returning brood stocks; and, waterpollution resulting from discharge ofsalmon metabolic wastes and pharma-

ceuticals used to prevent or check dis-ease outbreaks in highly concentratedmasses of salmon. All of these valuesshould be included in balancing thehatchery checkbook. In order to properly and systemati-

cally evaluate the efficacy and role ofhatcheries in managing and recoveringdeclining Pacific salmon, we recom-mend the following steps:

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Shaded proportions of natural- and hatchery-origin adult (A) Sockeye Salmon,(B) Chum Salmon, (C) Pink Salmon from 1990 - 2015. Small pies indicate returnsto watersheds and large pies for the entire North Pacific Ocean. RUGGERONEAND IRVINE.

8 The Osprey

1. Organize and summarize the currentstate of scientific and economic infor-mation about hatcheries and hatcheryeffects using a data base platform thatcan be accessed by anyone at anytime.We envision a cloud-based dashboard tomanage and disseminate information ofall types via internet in user-friendlyformat. Every hatchery that releasessmolts into rivers and the ocean mustbe evaluated, with whatever is knownabout purpose, history of operation andrelation to legal mandates, such as theMitchell Act (that required hatcheriesas mitigation for lost habitat associatedwith damming the Columbia River).The data base must include genetic sig-natures and conditions (strong, weak,nearing extinction, ESA listed, etc.) ofsalmon species and populations (manyare not documented) around the PacificRim, but starting with North Americansalmon, and focused initially on Chi-nook salmon, because wild Chinook arein rapid decline throughout their nativerange in spite of, or more probably be-cause of, substantial hatchery subsidiesfrom California to Alaska. Most of therequired information should be publiclyavailable, but certainly is not assem-bled in a unified public data base. Weacknowledge that several reviewgroups have recommended ways to re-duce hatchery impacts on wild popula-tions and the efficacy of thoserecommendations and their putativeimplementation should be included in

the analysis and synthesis.

2. Determine the species and origin ofsalmon in a suite of large markets,starting with large chain food storesand including a suite of commercialoutlets including high-end restaurants

that advertise sale of wild salmon. Thissimply is sleuthing of basic truth (ornot) in labeling, but it also relates to theefficacy of certification by the MarineStewardship Council of salmon popula-tions as sustainably harvested, whichvery likely has not been clearly demon-strated in the context of wild salmonconservation. Gayeski and colleaguesrecommended a process for demon-strating sustainable salmon fisheries7.

3. Determine the economics of hatch-ery operations in the context of marketand nonmarket values (what is the rate

of return on investment?) for a suite ofhatcheries, selected either by reputa-tion of importance based on previousscientific reviews or by a stratifiedsampling design. Questions of impor-tance include the a) record of annualoperational costs in relation to numbersof smolts released and adults returnedto harvest (e.g., how much does it costto produce a steelhead for the sportfishery in the Columbia; how much isthe public subsidy to the Alaska trollfishery for Chinook); b) nonmarket val-ues of impacts on wild salmon associ-ated with by-catch and geneticintrogression; and c) operational invest-ments that are not included in annualmaintenance costs.

4. Determine public perception ofhatcheries and hatchery salmon in rela-tion to wild salmon. This informationmust come from polling of stakehold-ers, including acquisition of traditionalecological knowledge from Native com-munities. We understand that the hatch-ery issue currently is substantiallypolarized; therefore, the presentation ofresults and implications are going tohave to be very carefully and accu-rately presented. Moreover, owing tothe huge investment that is currentlybeing generated by hatchery practition-ers with little public inquiry, we under-stand that the idea presented hereinthat hatcheries are counter-productiveto sustaining wild populations may beentirely wrong or decidedly rejected bya public majority. In either case, weneed to know if the stakeholders arefully informed about the impacts ofhatcheries on wild salmon, especiallyESA-listed species (and distinct popula-tions), or whether they are in fact sup-portive of the investment even if itmeans the demise of wild North Pacificsalmon in the not so distant future.

5. Publish the results of the analysis inprint and online media. A full array ofdata products and results visualizationson the electronic dashboard will be re-quired to articulate the results of thisanalysis, including publication in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

6. Widely publicize the results of theanalysis and work toward congres-sional hearings or litigation that may beclearly supported by the results.

7. Train graduate students as interven-ers to foster salmon conservation thatis focused on reducing or eliminating

WILD SALMON ECOSYSTEM VITAL SIGNS

The Wild Salmon Ecosystem Vital Signs are targets for performance measuresthat reflect a Place-based salmon management regime. The measures apply atthe population or population/portfolio level of organization as detailed by Licha-towich et al. 2017; updated 2018).• Sustained abundance (and size at maturity) of spawners to all spawning habi-tats in numbers that provide a biologically conservative state that takes into ac-count environmental variation.• Sustained habitat-specific density and growth of juveniles.• High habitat connectivity and productivity in freshwater, estuarine, and oceanhabitats.• Natural or normative seasonal flow patterns.• Natural or normative seasonal temperature patterns.• Productive and biodiverse food webs with strong riparian linkages and sus-tained inputs of marine-derived nutrients (i.e., salmon carcasses naturally de-posited after spawning).• High salmonid biodiversity (diverse life histories/portfolios).• Natural or normative water chemistry (minimal pollution).• No cultured stock escapements, introductions, or supplementations.NOTE: “Normative” refers to amounts or patterns that are reasonably close tonatural or historic attributes of salmon habitats (see Stanford et al. 1996); thisis an especially important consideration given the certainty of climate warmingin most salmon rivers.

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Hatchery managers,whether trying to

increase harvest or aidconservation, have

ignored the place-based nature

of salmon.

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September 2018 • Issue No. 91 9

counterproductive hatchery practices,reducing vulnerability of wild fish tooverharvest, habitat loss and disease,and fostering informed interactions be-tween stakeholders and science toachieve sustainability of wild salmonresources that are vital to theeconomies of the North Pacific Rim andbeyond.

8. Based on information and synthesisbegin implementation of much more ro-bust protection of wild salmon and theirhabitats per the alternative to thehatchery myth as proposed above.

We propose that governments divertenough hatchery monies to competi-tively fund such a synthesis project bysome independent entity or NGO to pro-vide this badly needed information anddisseminate it to the public at large inall of the salmon producing nations8.Actions must include revision and mo-bilization of the management entitieswith a revised mandate to refocus onwild, naturally functioning salmonecosystems as a first priority, and putto bed fish culture operations that arenon-viable in the context of wild salmonvital signs (see Box; from Lichatowichet al., 2018). We firmly believe that theprice tag for a wild salmon re-discoverymandate as envisioned herein fromstart to finish will not exceed 1% of thetotal public funds ($500 million, ourconservative estimate) currently beingspent annually on the operation of the365 hatchery programs in Washington,Idaho and Oregon. Moreover, this ap-proach has been proven to work.Salmon populations dramatically re-bounded on the Dee River in Scotland,when hatcheries were eliminated, andinvestments moved to solving habitatand harvest issues. Long term sus-tained steelhead and salmon popula-tions are functioning in many riversaround the North Pacific Rim, notablyBristol Bay sockeye, without hatcheryintervention but with careful harvestmanagement through maintenance ofspawner escapements that are charita-ble to the fish rather than fishers.

The Key Outcome: Place-based salmonmanagement

The alternative to the current placelesshatchery-driven salmon managementparadigm is focused, place-based man-agement and conservation of wildsalmon and steelhead and restoration of

depressed, wild populations by substan-tially easing constraints of hatcheries,including easing of ocean density de-pendence by vastly reducing hatcheryreleases, by reducing harvest and by-catch of wild populations through care-ful, escapement basedstock-recruitment relations, and re-moving economically non-viable damsand other instream structures that com-promise salmon habitat. Strict conser-

vation of the remaining, intact riversystems and their salmonid biodiver-sity is an absolute must through sanctu-ary river designations as implementedin some Russian rivers by the WildSalmon Center (Portland, Oregon), al-beit with enforcement. The idea ofsalmon national parks certainly shouldbe pursued even in systems with sub-stantial urban and agricultural infra-structure. The bottom line is placinghigh value on live, naturally-producingwild populations in their native habitatswith strict resolution of wild salmonvital signs (see Box) for each popula-tion through state-of-the-art inventoryand monitoring.

References

1. Lichatowich, J., R. Williams, B.Bakke, J Myron, D. Bella, B. McMillan,J. Stanford, D. Montgomery, K. Beard-slee and N. Gayeski. 2018; updatedfrom 2017 version. Wild Pacific Salmon:A Threatened Legacy. jalich@com-cast.net. Expanded July 2018 version,printed by Bemis Printing, St. Helens,OR.2. Ruggerone, G. and J. Irvine. 2018.Numbers and Biomass of Natural- andHatchery-Origin Pink Salmon, ChumSalmon, and Sockeye Salmon in theNorth Pacific Ocean, 1925–2015. Ma-rine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics,Management, and Ecosystem Science10:152–168, 2018. And Amoroso, R., M.Tillotson, and R. Hilborn. 2017. Measur-ing the net biological impact of fish-eries enhancement: Pink salmonhatcheries can increase yield, but withapparent costs to wild populations.Canadian Journal of Fisheries andAquatic Science 74: 1233-42. 3. Lichatowich, et al. 2018. Cited above4. Gayeski, N., J. Stanford, D. Mont-gomery, J. Lichatowich, R. Peterman,and R. Williams. 2018a. The failure ofsalmon management: Need for a place-based conceptual foundation. Fish-eries: March 2018:1-7. 5. Araki, H., B. A. Berejikian, M. J.Ford, and M. S. Blouin. 2008. Fitness ofhatchery-reared salmonids in the wild.Evolutionary Applications 1:342–355.And Araki H, Cooper B, and Blouin, MS.2007. Genetic effects of captive breed-ing cause a rapid, cumulative fitnessdecline in the wild. Science 318:100–106. Lichatowich et al. 2018, cited above;and Gayeski et al. 2018a, also citedabove7. Gayeski, N., M MacDuffee, and J.Stanford. 2018b. Criteria for a goodcatch: A conceptual framework toguide sourcing of sustainable salmonfisheries. Facets 3:300-314. 8. As a model example, see the 2016 in-dependent review of the possible roleof artificial production to enhance At-lantic salmon numbers on the RiverDee in Scotland: River Dee hatcheryAppraisal Final Report http://www.riverdee.org.uk/f/articles/2016-RFFT-River-Dee-hatchery-ap-praisal.-Final-Version.pdf

Jack Stanford is Emeritus Professor ofEcology at the Flathead Lake BiologicalStation of the University of Montana. Hehas worked on large river ecology andsalmon conservation for more than 45years. He lives in Twisp, Washington

Rick Williams is a Research Associatein the Department of Biology at the Col-lege of Idaho and has worked on Colum-bia River salmon recovery since the1980s. He serves as Senior ConservationAdvisor for Fly Fishers Internationaland lives in Eagle, Idaho.

Continued from previous page

Salmon numbers drastically rebounded

on the River Deewhen hatcheries were

eliminated and investments moved

to solving habitat andharvest issues.

10 The Osprey

Climate Change and the New Realityfor Wild Salmon and Steelhead

By Greg Knox

For a Chinook salmon born inthe Skeena River, life has al-ways been difficult. Thesegiants grow well over a hun-dred pounds making them

the largest salmon in the world. Life forthem is complex. Hatching from thegravel in early spring, they spend ayear living in turbulent glacial waters,hiding behind boulders, dashing out forfood as it floats by and ducking into acrevice when a bull trout or steelheadwanders past. If they survive their first winter,

young Chinook head down to the estu-ary in late spring and early summerwhere they transition from fresh to saltwater. They search for new food, avoidnew predators and learn how to swimagainst ocean currents and waves. Dur-ing this time, they are the most vulner-able. After many weeks of growing in size,

Chinook leave the estuary, head northalong the coast towards SoutheastAlaska and the rich feeding groundssouth of the Aleutian Islands, about3000 kilometers away. If they don’t findenough food to grow, this long journeyis near impossible. These iconic fishspend one to six years eating herring,shrimp, and squid. Such rich foodquickly stores as fat, which improvestheir chances of making it home tospawn. The North Pacific is not the place it

used to be. In 2013 a massive expanseof warm water, known as the “Blob”,changed the food web, currents, preda-tors and prey. Small nutrient-inferiorzooplankton replaced the large oil-richzooplankton that thrived in a cool NorthPacific. Both salmon, and the fish theyprey on, eat zooplankton — the founda-tion of the food web in the ocean. The“Blob” lasted three long years then sub-sided in the water. For more than threeyears, our salmon had little to eat.The North Pacific has been warming

and cooling for thousands of years. Thisnatural cycle is well linked to both thenumber, and the health, of returningsalmon from Washington, Oregon andBritish Columbia. When water is cooler,

our salmon do well. In years whenwater is warmer, our salmon do poorly.Over the last decade, this naturalwarming and cooling cycle has brokendown, with more rapid fluctuations be-tween warm and cool years. Averageocean temperatures have been increas-ing for more than a century, bringinggreater uncertainty and poorer salmonreturns across much of their rangefrom California to Southeast Alaska.The story isn’t much better closer tohome. The same warm water that af-fects the feeding grounds of the North

Pacific is warming our estuaries. Manysalmon leave their rivers to find littlefood when they reach the ocean. Manyare starving to death before they areable to head north to the open Pacific.Food is not the only issue. In many

places, there are new predators. Fishnormally found off California, such asmackerel, are showing up in largernumbers on the coast of British Colum-bia and Southeast Alaska. They feed vo-raciously on young salmon.

Upriver, both juvenile and adultsalmon face new challenges. Hot,record-breaking summers can pushtemperatures to dangerous levels.Warm water depletes oxygen, weakenssalmon immune systems and slowssalmon down. These stresses can killthem before they have a chance to laytheir eggs. Low water cuts access tocreeks, reduces habitat and makes iteasier for wolves, bears, eagles, and forus to catch them.

Even if they manage to spawn, hugestorms called atmospheric rivers areoccurring more frequently, causing his-toric floods and landslides. Thesestorms arrive in the fall and flush eggsout of the gravel, change river coursesand choke eggs with silt. The nutrientsof their recently deceased parents areflushed out of the system, and juvenilesborn the spring prior try to find refugeif they can. This is on top of habitat destruction,harvesting, fish farms, and everythingelse we throw at them.Fortunately, the news is not all bad.Salmon are resilient and highly adapt-able. We just need to imagine them col-onizing our rivers after the last Ice Ageto understand what they are capable of.This isn’t simply an abstract exercise.Salmon are still pioneering new habi-tats. An example is Strohn Creek inBritish Columbia’s Nass watershed.Here, tens of thousands of sockeyespawn where a glacier stood only a fewdecades ago. Salmon are also moving further north.Species like coho and Chinook areshowing up in arctic rivers like theMackenzie where they have never beenseen before. Pink and chum salmon areincreasing in numbers and expandingtheir range. Pacific salmon are movingeastwards across the Canadian arctic.Atlantic salmon are moving west. Bar-riers of ice and cold are vanishing be-tween these geographically isolatedspecies.Most surprisingly, overall numbers ofPacific salmon are at a historic high.Productivity has shifted northwardsinto the northern extremes of the Pa-cific, into the Bering Sea and ArcticOcean. An example is Bristol Bay,where sockeye are at record levels,boosted by increasing food productivity(more than 60 million sockeye returnedto Bristol Bay this year alone). Condi-tions in the frigid Bering Sea are warm-ing, which is ideal for those same largeoil rich zooplankton that thrive in a coolNorth Pacific. Northern populations of pink and

Salmon are on thefront lines of climatechange. As their

feeding grounds in saltand freshwater changemany populations are

in crisis.

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September 2018 • Issue No. 91 11

chum salmon are also at historic highs,boosted by massive ocean ranching pro-duction out of Alaska, Russia andJapan. These hatcheries now produceabout 40 percent of all Pacific salmonin the ocean. Six billion juveniles a yearare being released into the North Pa-cific, taking advantage of the plentifulfood in the high Pacific and Bering Sea. Further south, the story is much dif-

ferent. These hatchery-produced fishcompete — and out-compete — our wildfish, and southern populations of sock-eye are losing their competitive battlewith the prolific numbers of pinksalmon. Sockeye in the Fraser, Skeena,Nass and parts of Southeast Alaska areexperiencing record lows. Chinooksalmon are also on the front lines.Sport, commercial and food fisheriesfrom California to Alaska are beingshut down. Many populations are at lessthan half their normal numbers. Chumin Northern British Columbia havebeen depressed for decades and manysouthern populations are fluctuatingwildly. Coho are fairing slightly better, possi-bly due to differences in where theyfeed. Most stay closer to the coast ofAlaska. Pink salmon also stay closer toshore and are doing okay, although notfor the even year cohort. Their shortlife span and brief stay in freshwatermay also be of benefit, reducing expo-sure to the complexity of the changeshappening in both rivers and the ocean. Unfortunately, this is our new reality.For those of us who live south ofAlaska, it isn’t a question of whether ornot salmon have the ability to adapt; itis a question of whether or not we givethem a chance. Our management systems are out-

dated, built when environmental condi-tions were relatively stable andpredictable. The Ricker curves andfisheries models of the past are basedon assumption that no longer hold true.Productivity can shift wildly year toyear, and a long gradual decline is beingexperienced by most species south ofAlaska.Our ability to accurately forecast howmany of each species will return to agiven watershed each year is now unre-alistic. Fisheries models are too sim-plistic to be able to predict the vastarray of changing conditions in ourocean, rivers and lake systems. Climate change requires better tools

to understand how many fish are re-turning in season in real time. It also re-

quires that we start off the fishing sea-son with precautionary harvests, andadjust upwards or downwards depend-ing on the actual numbers of fish re-turning. We can no longer base ourfisheries on a predictive model or pre-season estimate, as is often the currentapproach.We are also counting far less than we

used to. Stream counts in British Co-lumbia for example are at a fraction ofhistoric levels, and further cuts arecoming. This is at a time when we needmore information, not less. For manysystems and populations we have no in-formation. A recent study reported thatwe only have enough information to as-sess half of the salmon populations onBC’s north and central coast. We arefishing blind; gambling and hoping thefish will show up on the spawninggrounds.The experiment of releasing billions

of juvenile salmon into the North Pa-cific may have worked when conditionswere cool and productive. In an envi-ronment of a continual warming ocean,many scientists believe hatchery fishare simply replacing wild salmon, espe-cially those populations that originatefurther south. Salmon from Californiato British Columbia show up to thefeeding grounds later and are at a sig-nificant disadvantage. This raises the issue of fairness. Do

states and countries further north havethe right to replace wild fish from sys-tems like the Columbia, Fraser andSkeena with hatchery fish? The ocean ranching dilemma must beaddressed at an international level. ThePacific Salmon Commission and NorthPacific Anadromous Fish Commissionare responsible for having these con-versations, yet they remain silent onthe issue. There are solutions. An exam-ple is implementing a cap and tradesystem for hatchery production in theNorth Pacific to contain the problem.Alaska may not be immune either. Sci-entists believe hatchery pink and chumproduction may be adding to declines ofChinook salmon throughout the state,and to poor returns of sockeye in south-east Alaskan rivers. As people and communities who de-

pend on salmon, we need to face ournew reality. There simply aren’t asmany fish as there used to be and it isunlikely to get much better anytimesoon. It also seems unlikely govern-ments will take the lead to solve the is-sues, and there are no magic bullets.Our expectations and mindset must

completely change. We should not ex-

pect to harvest the species we preferevery year and we need to be ok withharvesting fewer Chinook and sockeye.We also need to be adaptable during thefishing season, focusing our harvest onthe species and populations that areshowing up in healthy numbers. Catch and release needs to become a

more common management approachin sport fisheries, and killing fishshould to be seen as a privilege not aright. Commercial fisheries, especiallyoffshore troll fisheries for Chinook andcoho need to adapt in-season. Quotasshould no longer be a number decidedby biologists and bureaucrats at the Pa-cific Salmon Commission months be-fore a single salmon has returned to thefishing grounds.Most importantly, clear rules around

how many salmon we need to get ontothe spawning grounds must be set outbefore hand. In the absence of spawn-ing targets and rules, lobbyists for eachinterest group fill the space. This re-duces the transparency of decision-making and pushes managers tomaximize harvest. The goal becomesmaintaining the status quo instead ofmaintaining healthy fish populations.The result is conflict, uncertainty, anddiminished salmon throughout ourcoast. In the end this is about more than fish.It is about whether we are willing totake action now to ensure our kids andgrandkids will be able to experience themagic of salmon.As I see it we have two choices — en-

trench ourselves in our own self-inter-est and fight amongst ourselves untilwe fight over the last fish. Or, sit down,with an open mind, and have difficultconversations with our neighbours inan effort to preserve access to thesefish. We need to figure this out together.

We need to respect that we are allsalmon people.

Greg Knox is Executive Director ofSkeenaWild Conservation Trust, basedin Terrace, British Columbia. Learnmore about their work at:www.skeenawild.org

Continued from previous page

12 The Osprey

There is Nothing Right About Atlantic Salmon Farms

By Alexandra Morton

The salmon farming industryin western North America isclinging to an outdated busi-ness model so mired in con-troversy that it has become

a risk to the farm salmon brand acrossthe continent. In addition to the death ofincreasing hundreds of thousands ofBritish Columbia farm fish annually ap-parently due to algae blooms1, industryoperating costs in BC now includelawyering up on multiple fronts, 9-footelectrified fences around the farms anda waterborne security force to followvessels that express too much interestin the facilities. In the face of an esca-lating storm of damming science, an in-digenous uprising, catastrophicnegligence, multiplying lawsuits andopen rejection by a widening sector ofsociety, the industry appears unwillingto adapt. Solutions do exist to restoreimpacted wild salmon populations andgrow a sustainable aquaculture indus-try, but for now the industry remainsdedicated to the low-cost option ofdumping all of its waste into the ocean.The problem is they are feedlots, andfeedlots break natural laws, triggeringpathogens to multiply unnaturally andbecome destructive. California, Oregon and Alaska never

allowed marine salmon farms, and re-cently Washington State legislated theend of marine Atlantic salmon farmingby 2022. The only region in the north-eastern Pacific that still embraces themarine salmon farming industry isBritish Columbia, Canada. However,British Columbians have lived with theindustry for 30 years and are increas-ingly demanding that the industrymove out of the ocean into tanks wherethe effluent can be safely contained.Those British Columbians include; themunicipalities of Vancouver Island(where the industry is located)2, BC’smost influential chefs3, the union ofgovernment employees4 and the power-ful tourism industry5, even the highlyconservative Pacific Salmon Founda-tion6 and Indigenous governments aresuing the industry and the federal gov-ernment7,8. The industry has been

pushed to a crossroad; move willinglyinto tanks on land or suffer the publichumiliation of being chased out.

Science

When Norwegian companies such asScanmar and Stolt first began import-ing millions of Atlantic salmon eggsinto Canada, government knew this wasa high-risky endeavour. In 1990, PatChamut, Director General of Fisheriesand Oceans (DFO), Pacific Regionwrote to the Director of Pacific RimTrade:

“Continued large- scale introductions[of Atlantic salmon eggs] would eventu-ally result in the introduction of exoticdisease agents of which the potentialimpact on both cultured and wildsalmonids in B.C. could be both biolog-ically damaging to the resources andeconomically devastating to its usergroups.”

Twenty years later, the scientific evi-

dence suggests he was right. As com-panies began importing Atlantic salmoneggs into BC, a salmon wasting diseasewas spreading rapidly through Nor-way’s fish farms. In 2010, ten yearslater, scientists discovered the culpritwas piscine orthoreovirus (PRV). Bythen hundreds of millions of the Norwe-gian Mowi strain Atlantic salmon eggshad been shipped worldwide with noPRV screening. In 2013, I published onits discovery in British Columbia, pre-senting evidence that it is from Nor-way9. However, the public record shows thatsenior scientist, Dr. Kristi Miller, headof DFO’s genomic lab in Nanaimo, BChad not only detected PRV two yearsearlier, she had reported to DFO that itwas causing acute disease in PacificChinook salmon. Release of this infor-mation was suppressed10. In 2016, Marine Harvest, the world’s

largest Atlantic salmon farming com-pany, co-authored a series of scientific

Alex Morton collects feces and bits of flesh coming from an Atlantic salmon farm. She carried out this work from Bainbridge Island to the north end of Vancouver Islandover the summer of 2018. Photo courtesy Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

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September 2018 • Issue No. 91 13

papers with government scientists sug-gesting PRV is harmless and natural toBC11,12,13. However, the conclusion thatPRV is endemic to BC did not stand upto scientific scrutiny and was re-tracted14. Then six years after makingher discovery, Miller published thatPRV is not harmless.PRV uses salmon red blood cells to

multiply. In Atlantic salmon, the virusleaks out, damaging heart and skeletalmuscle, weakening the fish to the pointthey can barely move. In absence ofpredators, farm salmon can recoverand be marketed. However, Dr. Miller’slab found that in Pacific salmon thevirus fills the cells until they burst enmasse causing organ failure15.Publication of this finding stripped in-ternal gears within DFO as it collidedwith policy. Policy dictates that DFOmust promote aquaculture, but 80% ofBC farm salmon is infected with PRV16

and Canadian law prohibits fish in-fected with a disease agent from enter-ing the ocean17. If DFO admits PRV is ahighly contagious, foreign diseaseagent, 80% of BC farm salmon can’tleave the hatcheries, crippling the in-dustry.

The law

In May 2015 I won a lawsuit againstthe Minister of Fisheries and MarineHarvest. The judge agreed farmsalmon must be screened for PRV priorto transfer into marine pens. However,the Minister of Fisheries refuses to ac-knowledge this federal court ruling. Iam taking Marine Harvest, Cermaq andthe Minister of Fisheries to court againto try to ensure that all farm salmon bescreened for PRV prior to transfer intomarine pens. The Namgis First Nationis also suing Marine Harvest and theMinister of Fisheries to stop them frombringing PRV-infected Atlantic salmoninto farms in their territory. Thesecases will be heard together beginningSeptember 10, 2018 in Vancouver Fed-eral Court. In addition, the Dzawada’enuxw FirstNation of Kingcome Inlet have filedclaim of Aboriginal title in BC SupremeCourt against the Province of BC, Ma-rine Harvest, and Cermaq for placingsalmon farms in their territory withouttheir permission18. “I was asleep, now Iam awake, and salmon farms are goingto be removed from my territory,” sayschief Willie Moon.

Uprising

On August 23, 2017, a meeting washeld in Alert Bay, just north of Vancou-ver Island, with people coming togetheronce again to try to figure out how tostop salmon farms from destroyingwild salmon runs. But this time it wasone of those rare moments when thesparks of change ignite. Hereditarychief Kwakwabalas, Ernest Alfred,stood up and said, “Tomorrow I amgoing occupy the Marine Harvest farmat Swanson Island,” and with that theschool teacher quietly left the room topack. Maybe it was the presence of theSea Shepherd research vessel MartinSheen or the horrifying stream of im-

ages captured by hereditary chiefGeorge Quocksister Jr., travelling onthe Martin Sheen, who boldly boardedsalmon farms and lowered cameras intothe pens. Maybe it was my 20 years ofresearch into the impact of salmonfarms in his territory, or the fact no onehad food fish this year, or all of theabove.

The next day Ernest Alfred andKarissa Glendale boarded the farm andtold the surprised workers that theywere staying until the farm was re-moved. Two days, later the Dza-wada’enuxw boarded another MarineHarvest salmon farm, Wicklow andthen the Marine Harvest Midsummersite, where the process of restockingwith Atlantic salmon was physicallyhalted. Over the next 290 days, cabins with

woodstoves and bunks were built on thefarms. George Quocksister lent the oc-cupiers his boat, Sea Pride, as a supportvessel. I lived in my speedboat at thefarms, indigenous and non-indigenouspeople helped keep the sites manned aseveryone struggled to maintain the ef-fort and some semblance of our lives.Marine Harvest eventually won a

legal injunction and removed peoplefrom the farms, but camps were set upin the woods right beside the farms. Asluck would have it, all 20 of the fishfarm provincial tenures in the region ofthe occupations, called the BroughtonArchipelago, were due to expire onJune 20, 2018. The occupations drewtens of thousands of followers on face-book and so the premier of BC, JohnHorgan, brought part of his cabinet toAlert Bay where delegates of all theBroughton Nations met them in full re-galia. The premier said he was thereto listen to their stories, but the nationswere far beyond that. Within weeks,the Province of BC entered unprece-dented government-to-governmenttalks with these nations. The June 20thdeadline passed and the tenures wereplaced in limbo. The outcome of thesetalks will be announced this fall, daysafter the court hearings against theMinister of Fisheries for putting dis-eased fish in their territories.While the industry states their respectof indigenous rights, their actions speaklouder. It appears to be a one waystreet, with the industry using territo-ries whether First Nations want salmonfarms or not. All BC nations are watch-ing to see what happens as many areangry with the industry.

Washington State chooses wild

On August 19, 2017, a salmon farm inPuget Sound, Washington crumpled andreleased around 260,000 Atlanticsalmon. Cooke Aquaculture, an At-lantic Canada company, claimed the ac-cident was caused by extreme solareclipse tides, but investigation by theState of Washington reported thatCooke Aquaculture had simply failed toclean their nets, and so the tons of mus-sels growing in the fecal-rich environ-ment caused the anchors to drag andmoorings to snap19. People were outraged, and Lummi Na-tion fishermen caught thousands of At-lantic salmon in Pacific waters in anattempt to limit the damage. State leg-islators responded by drafting a bill toget salmon farms out of WashingtonState waters.Cooke Aquaculture spent $72,000 lob-bying against the bill20 and March 2,2018, the day of the vote, 25 amend-ments were quietly attached to the bill.Each had to be voted down individuallyor the vote on the bill would have beendelayed. As each amendment was de-

Washington State prohibits PRV-infectedsalmon from enteringthe ocean, while BC

officials bend the rulesto allow it.

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14 The Osprey

feated, the clock ran past the 5pm clos-ing time. With the end in sight a Sena-tor ran into the room and breathlesslyproclaimed that the bill violated rule25! The live feed went silent, peoplewandered in disarray and it was re-solved there was no “violation.” Thefinal vote was 16 to 30, and the bill to re-move Atlantic salmon farming in Wash-ington State waters by 2022 was passed.I leaned back at my desk and looked

out at the archipelago in front of me, aplace where so many salmon used toleap all at once that you could smellthem on the breeze. Now, since thesalmon farms, there are almost none,unless you count the 8 million Atlanticsalmon swimming on life support, ma-chines pumping air into the pens tokeep them alive until harvest. Whilethe biological significance of the vote islimited, as Washington State fish willpass 100 BC salmon farms as they mi-grate, the political significance wasseismic.A few weeks later, Washington State

prohibited 800,000 PRV infected At-lantic salmon from entering a farmplanning to operate until the 2022 dead-line.Among the indicators that something

is very wrong with salmon farming inBC is the fact that Washington prohibitsPRV-infected farm salmon from enter-ing the ocean, while just across the bor-der Canada has joined the industry inbending the laws to allow it, which isperhaps the most disturbing.

What is the answer?

The Fraser River is the biggestsalmon producing river in the worldand over half the salmon farms in BCare clustered on the migration route outof this river. Today, 60% of FraserRiver sockeye are threatened, or spe-cial concern or “facing imminent extir-pation.”21 Fraser River steelhead in theThompson and Chilcotin tributarieswere emergency listed because theyare at risk of imminent extirpation22.Fraser River Chinook catches have flat-lined23. Broughton Archipelago, Clayoquot

Sound and Quatsino Sound are all partsof the BC coast renowned for wildsalmon runs, until salmon farms movedin. Role call for collapsing wild salmonstocks in fish farmed regions of Ire-land, Scotland, Norway and easternCanada could fill pages, while in Alaska

and Russia, where salmon farms werenever permitted, they are enjoyinghealthy, abundant wild salmon returns.The science reports wild salmon go intocollapse wherever salmon farms oper-ate24.

There is nothing right about marinesalmon farms. They do not create moreemployment than they destroy, they donot feed the world as they use wild bait-fish to feed farm salmon; they are not

benign and eating farm salmon does notprotect wild salmon. The pens trap un-regulated tons of herring. They are thebiggest herring fishery on the coast ofBC. They are wild salmon infectionsites. The evidence suggests that fish

farms spell the end of wild salmon.They are the biggest reversible impacton wild salmon and steelhead.Deep in the labyrinths of DFO there

An aerial view of the Marine Harvest Glacier Falls salmon farm in the Tribune Chan-nel of Broughton Archipelago off northern Vancouver Island. Photo courtesy SeaShepherd Conservation Society

Atlantic salmon at the Marine Harvest Swanson Island salmon farm suffering fromblisters whose cause is unknown. Photo by Ernest Alfred

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September 2018 • Issue No. 91 15

is a scientist whose work allows salmonto speak, to tell us exactly where andhow we are hurting them. Using ge-nomic profiling to read their immunesystems, we could ask salmon exactlywhere and how they are dying. For ex-ample, genomic profiling can tell us ifa salmon is suffering from high watertemperature, starvation, chemical ex-posure, bacteria, sea lice, specific typesof viruses etc. Thus armed, we couldthen sleuth out the source of impact,modify our behaviour and go back tothe fish and ask did we make it betterfor you?

This would work to include wildsalmon in our future. However, Dr.Kristi Miller became a poster scientistfor government muzzling when her re-search into what was killing off theFraser River sockeye salmon pointed toa virus with linkages to a leukemiavirus found in many salmon farms ontheir migration route25. Science versuspolicy.

What can you do?

First, people who love salmon have be-come as important to the survival ofthis fish as the rivers, forests andocean. While we cannot begin to matchfarm salmon lobby funds, every timeyou contact government, appear at pub-lic opinion events, write a letter to anewspaper editor, or quietly meet withgovernment representatives, youbreathe life into salmon. Second, keeping farm salmon off yourplate will help wild salmon repopulatethis coast. Corporations need cus-tomers. If you don’t buy farm salmonraised in marine net pens, they willraise them on land. Third, fund the people you think are

making a difference no matter howsmall an amount. Those standing up tothe salmon farming industry are fight-ing companies with deep pockets andintense interest in crushing the opposi-tion. When I first discovered that sea lice

from salmon farms were eating youngBC wild salmon to death, I wrote to aNorwegian scientist. He said two things I could not accept

at the time: “I suggest you drop this.Your government and the salmon farm-ing industry will attack you. And thenhe said from now on you will have badyears and good years for lice, but in theend there will be no more wild salmon.”

This spring, after 18 years of re-searching the damage by sea lice fromsalmon farms on wild salmon in theBroughton Archipelago26, the river ofmillions of tiny, young wild salmon mi-grating to sea had dwindled to sparseschools of dozens. It is almost over.As I continue my science and ac-

tivism, I trust the indigenous govern-ments in talks with the Province of BCand I am hopeful Canada’s FederalCourt will uphold the law. Farm salmoncan be moved, wild salmon cannot. Weare making a choice, it is either or.Every voice for wild salmon counts.

Alexandra Morton is an independent bi-ologist who was studying orca of theBroughton Archipelago when salmonfarms arrived in 1989. As the impact ofthe industry became increasingly ap-parent, Morton responded by publishingscientific papers on the impact onwhales, bottom fish, sea louse out-breaks and salmon farm viruses and fil-ing lawsuits, most recently to stop thetransfer of PRV-infected farm fish intoBC marine farms. She has publishedseveral books, including “Listening toWhales”, Ballantine Press. She fundsher ongoing research through the Rain-coast Research Society atRaincoastResearch.org.

References

1. https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/aquaculture/algae-bloom-hits-grieg-seafood-farms-in-british-columbia-killing-250-000-salmon2. https://avicc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/2018-Resolutions-Disposition-AVICC.pdf Resolution R283. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/big-name-b-c-chefs-protest-salmon-farms-1.46074214. https://www.bcgeu.ca/bcgeu_signs_declaration_asking_provincial_govern-ment_not_to_renew_fish_farm_tenures_in_defence_of_wild_salmon5. https://vancouversun.com/news/politics/b-c-tourism-operators-call-for-can-cellation-of-fish-farms-as-deadline-looms6. https://www.psf.ca/news-media/pacific-salmon-foundation-position-aqua-culture-bc7. http://www.namgis.bc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/2018Mar13-Namgis-Release-Aquaculture.pdf8. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-first-nation-files-title-claim-to-challenge-fish-farms-in-traditional-territory-1.46915899. https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1743-422X-10-23010. Document acquired through Freedom of Information Act, ATIP A-2016-01097-DSP pg 59.11. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2504897712. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.014147513. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.014622914. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.016492615. https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.0153016. http://marineharvest.ca/globalassets/canada/pdf/other-pdfs/piscine-re-ovirus-prv-information-sheet_gary-marty_2013.pdf17. Section 56 Fisheries General Regulations18. http://commonsensecanadian.ca/aboriginal-title-claim-threatens-renewal-bc-salmon-farm-tenures/19. D Clark, K Lee, K Murphy, A Windrope. 2017 Cypress Island AtlanticSalmon Net Pen Failure: An Investigation and Review. Washington Depart-ment of Natural Resources, Olympia, WA. 20. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/bill-to-phase-out-at-lantic-salmon-farming-in-washington-state-nears-deadline/21. https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/commit-tee-status-endangered-wildlife/assessments/wildlife-species-assessment-summary-nov-2017.html Last accessed on April 29, 2018.22. https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/emergency-assessment-con-cludes-that-bcs-interior-steelhead-trout-at-risk-of-extinction-673950263.html23. http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fm-gp/fraser/docs/commercial/albionCH-dailytotal-eng.htm24.http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.006003325. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/331/6014/214

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Recovering Chum Salmon in the Lower Columbia River Basin

By Kristen Homel

Chum Salmon (Oncorhynchusketa) were once abundant inthe Columbia Basin but arenow listed as threatenedunder the Endangered

Species Act. This decline has had sub-stantial ecological and economic im-pacts in the basin. In this article, Iexamine the causes for decline, howthey relate to the life cycle of chumsalmon, and collaborative efforts to re-cover populations.Chum salmon are an iconic species inthe Northwest, with their distinct pur-ple and green spawning colors and thepronounced kype on the males. Theygrow to an average of 8-15 pounds, andup to 3.6 feet in length, making themthe second largest species of salmon.Globally, chum salmon have the largesthistorical distribution of all the Pacificsalmon, extending from the Sacra-mento River in California, north toAlaska, east to Russia, and south to theKorean peninsula. In the northern por-tion of their range — places like Wash-ington, British Columbia, Alaska,Russia, and Japan — they are ex-tremely abundant. As a result, they arean important component of commercialand subsistence fisheries, and also havesubstantial economic value. Chumwere abundant in the Columbia Basin,too, until the 1940s, when the popula-tions suddenly collapsed. Unlike northern populations, chum

salmon in the Columbia Basin predom-inantly exhibit a fall- run life cycle.Adults return to spawn at ages 3-5 andenter the lower Columbia River in Oc-tober. They remain in the river untilthe first fall rains cue upstream migra-tion. Spawning peaks around mid- tolate November. Eggs incubate over thewinter and fry outmigrate in earlyspring. After a short estuary residenceof a few weeks to months, the smoltsenter the ocean. Similar to pink salmon,the majority of the life cycle occurs inthe ocean.In the Columbia Basin, chum salmon

historically spawned upstream to atleast Celilo Falls at river kilometer

(RKM) 309. This was a substantial wa-terfall before construction of TheDalles Dam was completed in 1957 andthe falls were inundated. Other anec-dotal data suggest chum salmon mayhave migrated upstream as far as LittleGoose Dam on the Snake River, a mi-gration of 638 RKM. Within this histor-ical distribution, chum salmon wouldhave spawned in most tributaries of allsizes and in portions of the ColumbiaRiver where large gravel and cobblebeds existed. The spawning popula-tions were quite large. In fact, in 1928,it is estimated that over a million chumsalmon returned to the Columbia Basin.This estimate comes from commercialfishing records showing over 8 millionpounds of chum salmon harvested thatyear. Beginning in the 1930s and extendinginto the 1940s, chum salmon experi-enced precipitous declines in abun-dance and distribution. Causes for

decline included loss of spawning habi-tat and access to habitat, altered hy-drology, changes to the function of theestuary, predation, and over-harvest.By the 1950s, only hundreds or thou-sands of chum salmon returned eachyear. Of the 16 historical populations inthe basin, 90% were extirpated (that is,lost). Remaining populations now pri-marily occur on the Washington side ofthe lower Columbia River, and returnson the Oregon side are so low that theyare considered functionally extirpated.Moreover, the historical distribution upto Celilo Falls was reduced to isolatedpopulations below Bonneville Dam. Inresponse to these declines, chumsalmon were listed as threatened underthe Endangered Species Act in 1999.

Background

To understand how these populations

Chum salmon Evolutionarily Significant Unit in Oregon and Washington.Map by National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration.

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September 2018 • Issue No. 91 17

initially collapsed, it is important to geta sense of the history of the ColumbiaBasin with respect to canneries and theearly commercial fishing industry. Thefirst canneries were constructed in thelower Columbia River in 1866, and rep-resented a significant technological ad-vance in the ability to preserve fish andsupply it to the East Coast or abroad.Canned salmon was a cheap protein,and there was a huge demand for it. In“Salmon Fishers of the Columbia”,Courtland Smith reports that by 1885,there were 40 canneries processingover 3 million pounds of fish per year.During this time, salmon returns to theColumbia basin (of all species) rangedfrom 10 to 16 million fish a year. Chi-nook salmon were the main target forthe fisheries and were worth more perpound than chum salmon. However, bythe late 1800s and early 1900s, Chinooksalmon runs began to collapse fromover-fishing. At this point, fishing pres-sure shifted to Chum Salmon. Numer-ous techniques were used, but purseseines, gill nets, and fish wheels werehighly effective. In fact, according tothe Northwest Power and ConservationCouncil, by 1889 there were 57 fishwheels and 156 salmon traps operatingon the Columbia River. Harvest ofchum salmon during this time periodwas substantial — estimated at over70% of returns to the Columbia Basin. As the overall abundance of chum

salmon decreased, the deteriorated con-dition of spawning and estuary rearinghabitats exacerbated declines. In par-ticular, chum salmon spawn in the mostdownstream, low gradient, portions oftributaries. These are also the locationswhere sediment tends to accumulatewhen land use impacts result in in-creased erosion upstream. Becausesalmon deposit their eggs in the gravel,if sediment covers the gravel, it resultsin suffocation and increased mortalityof the eggs. In systems with increasedsediment, it takes a large number ofspawners to flush out the sediment andexpose the spawning gravels below.When populations decline, fewer adultsreturn to spawn and they have a re-duced ability to clean the gravel. In thisway, an initial reduction in the abun-dance of spawners from one cause(here, the historical fisheries), resultsin perpetual depression of populationsbecause the habitat is degraded. Thiscombination of historical harvest andhabitat degradation represents just oneof the interactions between environ-

mental factors that has resulted in alack of recovery. Other specific rela-tionships are being actively investi-gated.The loss of chum salmon has had im-

portant ecological effects in the Colum-bia River. Of the 10 to 16 millionsalmon and steelhead that historicallyreturned annually to the ColumbiaBasin, chum salmon may have com-prised 7 to 10% of the return. At an av-erage of 8-15 pounds each, those chumsalmon returns represented a signifi-cant input of nutrients into the Colum-bia River basin. As mentioned above,the loss of chum salmon has negativelyaffected the quality of lower gradientspawning habitats, but not just for thesurvival of chum salmon eggs. Cleanerstreams are more suitable for allspecies of salmon. In addition, chum

salmon are a vital part of the food webin the stream, estuary, and oceanphases of the life cycle. For example,in streams, carcasses are consumed bymammals, such as bears and coyotes,and eggs may be consumed by otherfish species, including sculpin and cray-fish. In the estuary, chum salmonsmolts contribute to the diet of cohosalmon, cutthroat trout, gulls, double-crested cormorants, harbor seals, andmore. And in the northeast PacificOcean, chum salmon adults are the sec-ond-most preferred food item of an-other iconic species — the residentkiller whale, following their preferreddiet of Chinook salmon. As John Muirwrote, “When we try to pick out any-thing by itself, we find it hitched to

everything else in the Universe.” Thisis true of the relationship betweenchum salmon and the food web of thePacific Northwest and why chumsalmon could be considered a keystonespecies.There have also been substantial eco-nomic losses resulting from the declineof chum salmon. Globally, salmon har-vest is a 2 to 3 billion dollar industry.In data aggregated for 2005-2007, theWild Salmon Center reported thatglobal chum salmon harvest for bothroe and meat was valued at between 789million and 1.073 billion dollars. In theUnited States, that value ranged from119 to 269 million dollars. Although theeconomic value of harvest varies annu-ally due to many factors, the value ofchum salmon harvest is consistently asubstantial portion of the global salmon

market. Indeed, in 2017, chum salmonharvest in Alaska alone was valued at128.3 million dollars, according to theAlaska Department of Fish and Game.

Recovery in action

Given the importance of chumsalmon, it is a major priority of the Ore-gon Department of Fish and Wildlife(ODFW) to rebuild populations on theOregon side of the lower ColumbiaRiver. To this end, ODFW developed afour-pronged recovery approach, en-tailing (1) habitat restoration to pro-mote natural recolonization, (2)development of a conservation brood-

Kristen Homel with a chum salmon during broodstock collection.Photo courtesy Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife

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18 The Osprey

stock (3) supplementation and reintro-duction, and (4) researching and ad-dressing limiting factors. Ultimately,these steps are designed to re-establishself-sustaining, naturally reproducingchum populations. Following the model established by

Washington Department of Fish andWildlife, habitat restoration has beenbroken up into long term and shortterm strategies. The long term strategyis to recover spawning and estuaryrearing habitat. This will involverestoring the processes (for example,sediment transport and a natural hydro-graph) that create habitat throughlarge-scale integrated projects. By fo-cusing on restoring the ability ofstreams to function naturally, we ex-pect to see long term benefit from spe-cific restoration efforts. For example,process-based restoration might in-volve replanting a significant riparianbuffer around a large extent of astream while also placing large wood inthe stream to trap sediment. Ideally,large wood could be placed in thestream over time until the trees in theriparian zone were large enough tobegin recruiting to (falling into) thestream and functioning as habitat. The short term strategy has a very

different objective — to create artifi-cial spawning channels to increase pop-ulation abundance as a buffer againstcatastrophic loss. These artificialspawning channels are constructed tocontain a suitable composition of graveland small cobble, and sufficient depth,flow, and temperature to maximize thesurvival of chum salmon eggs. Esti-mates of egg to fry survival in thesechannels may exceed 50%, makingthem a high production area with thepotential to serve as a source for recol-onizing adjacent, restored habitats. Ul-timately, the goal is to construct severalof these spawning channels throughoutthe recovery area. By including bothshort term strategies to increase abun-dance in each recovery population, andlong term strategies to restore func-tioning habitat throughout the recoverypopulations, we hope to achieve im-provement in freshwater survivalrates, distribution of spawners, andoverall abundance of chum salmon inthe Columbia Basin.With current abundance at such a lowlevel, natural recolonization into re-stored (or soon-to-be restored habitats)is thought to be insufficient to re-estab-lish functioning populations. The spa-

tial extent where spawners could go isso large that there is a high probabilitythat recolonizing spawners may notfind each other. Therefore, the secondpart of the recovery strategy is to de-velop a conservation broodstock toserve as a source for supplementationand reintroduction efforts. To this end,ODFW has been operating a conserva-tion broodstock program since 2010 atBig Creek Hatchery in Oregon. From2010-2014, eggs were collected from theGrays River, a large, genetically simi-lar population in Washington. Eachyear, wild-origin adults were collectedfrom the Grays River basin andbrought to the Grays River Hatchery tobe spawned. Eggs were held on site atthe hatchery until they had reach theeyed stage. At that point, approxi-mately 100,000 eyed eggs were trans-ferred to Big Creek Hatchery in Oregonwhere they were reared, marked withtags or other types of markings, andeventually released at the fed-fry stage,when the fry have absorbed their yolksacs and eat on their own. Once adultsbegan to return to Big Creek from thesereleases, we shifted to using those re-turns for our egg collection.Beginning in 2013, adult returns to

Big Creek Hatchery were sufficient tomeet broodstock collection goals andalso to conduct experimental supple-mentation and reintroduction efforts.Supplementation involves releasingchum salmon into a population wherethey exist at a very low abundance andhave not been able to recover naturally;reintroduction occurs in streams wherechum salmon were historically presentbut no longer occur. The experimentalphase of reintroductions was designedto determine which streams might betargeted for reintroduction, whichstages (fry, adults, etc.) should be re-leased, when those releases shouldoccur, and how release strategies re-lated to survival rates in freshwater, es-tuary, and marine environments.

Experimental reintroductions ofadults were conducted from 2010-2015and release of eyed-eggs from remotesite incubators (RSIs) occurred in 2014and 2015. From adult reintroductions,we determined that egg to fry survivalrates range from 0.38 – 27.4%. Thesesurvival rates vary among sites andamong years at a single site. In con-trast, eyed-egg to fry survival rates inRSIs consistently exceed 95%. Eachtype of reintroduction satisfies a differ-ent component of the recovery strategy.Eyed-egg release is a good techniquefor rapidly increasing abundance,

whereas adult outplanting is useful foridentifying the condition of the habitatand freshwater survival and also foridentifying where habitat restorationmay be neededAlong with this restoration and rein-

troduction work, we have also been re-searching limiting factors. Previouswork has focused on identifying habitatavailability and quality throughout thehistorical distribution for four popula-tions. Another recent study focused onidentifying fry migration patternsthrough the estuary as a first step in un-derstanding which habitats they occupyand what potential threats they mightencounter during the estuary phase oftheir life cycle (e.g., predators, lack offood, disease, etc.). Additional researchis focused on understanding climatechange impacts, particularly as they re-late to the variation of behavioral (orlife history) strategies expressed in theColumbia Basin.

Future

The Columbia River chum salmonstory has a lot of moving parts. Thepath forward is certainly challenging.But we also have the opportunity towrite a positive ending to the story, andit is not a story that will be written byscientists alone. Although research andrecovery planning have identified thespecific actions that need to be com-pleted to achieve recovery, it is thecommunity and stakeholder involve-ment that will allow salmon recovery tobe successful. As Margaret Mead said,“Never doubt that a small group ofthoughtful, committed, citizens canchange the world. Indeed, it is the onlything that ever has.” In the ColumbiaBasin, we have seen this in action. Mul-tiple groups are working to implementrestoration projects; volunteers assistwith broodstock collection or researchprojects; and outreach events result inbig turnouts of interested communitymembers. This collective stewardshipover salmon recovery is powerful andeffective and absolutely critical to thesuccess of these efforts.

Kristen Homel is the Chum SalmonReintroduction Coordinator for the Ore-gon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

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September 2018 • Issue No. 91 19

Great Lakes Steelhead Win the Adaptation LotteryBy Avril M. Harder and Janna R. Willoughby

Evolution, as we often thinkabout the process, typicallyhappens over thousands ofyears as populations diver-sify and eventually form

new species. Shifting environmentalconditions is one example of an eventthat can prompt evolution, since evensmall changes can nega-tively affect an individual’sability to survive or repro-duce. In these situations,populations must adapt tothe new conditions, move toa more suitable habitat, ordie; adapting to new condi-tions or moving to new loca-tions are both examples ofevolution in progress. How-ever, this process is differ-ent for introduced species,including steelhead trout,because introduced popula-tions are often placed innew habitats that are vastlydifferent from their nativehabitats. In these situations,establishing a populationmeans that adaptation mustoccur very rapidly. Thispresents an interesting co-nundrum for evolutionaryand conservation biologists.Could an introduced popula-tion bring enough geneticvariation from its nativerange to evolve fast enoughto survive big environmen-tal changes?How quickly a population

can adapt is likely influ-enced by events in that pop-ulation’s history. Forexample, if a prolongedheat wave occurs, onlysome individuals will have the traitsnecessary to cope with the hotter con-ditions. As a result, many individualswill die and the surviving group willconsist of individuals able to toleratehigher temperatures. However, the sur-viving group will retain only a smallportion of the genetic diversity that hadbeen present before the mass mortality

event. While the population may appearto recover by increasing in size, the ge-netic effects of removing large num-bers of individuals from the breedingpool may hinder the potential for thepopulation to adapt or retain genetic di-versity in the future. This idea of reten-tion of genetic diversity can be thought

of as a lottery. When individuals arelost, the unique genetic informationthose individuals carried is also lost.For a population, high amounts of ge-netic diversity can be equated to buyinglots and lots of lottery tickets; the moretickets your group has, the higher thechances of at least a few membersstriking it rich. In genetic terms, only

some of the genetic diversity present ina population will turn out to be useful,or adaptive, in a new environment. Themore diversity there is in a population,the greater the chances that a popula-tion will contain useful versions ofgenes if conditions change. In otherwords, while the population is in the

process of genetic recovery, its abilityto adapt quickly may be diminished,simply due to decreased genetic diver-sity. Steelhead trout are an excellent modelfor understanding how populations canrapidly adapt to new environmentalconditions. In their native range, steel-

Figure 1.Map of rivers from which steelhead genetic samples were taken in the native range(Pacific Ocean tributaries) and in the introduced range (Lake Michigan tributaries). Steelheadnative range is indicated by shading along the Pacific coast.

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20 The Osprey

head are born in freshwater streamsbut migrate to marine habitats formuch of their life. In contrast, GreatLakes steelhead, which were intro-duced and established self-sustainingpopulations in the late 1880s, are fresh-water adapted. In our recent paper, wecompared genetic diversity in steel-head sample from the native and the in-troduced range (Figure 1). As a resultof the introduction into Lake Michigan,where only a small number of fish werereleased compared to population size ofthe steelhead native range, Lake Michi-gan steelhead experienced a 10% re-duction in genetic diversity across theirgenomes (an individual’s complete setof DNA). It has been hypothesized thatinterbreeding with previously intro-duced rainbow trout may have providedthe genetic diversity necessary forGreat Lakes steelhead to adapt to fresh-water conditions. However, there is no

evidence of interbreeding betweenGreat Lakes steelhead and rainbowtrout. This suggests that steelhead re-producing in the Great Lakes broughtthe genetic diversity needed for matu-ration in freshwater with them from

their native range, rather than adaptingby interbreeding with Great Lakes rain-bow trout after being introduced. Thismeans that, despite the loss of geneticdiversity, introduced steelhead won thelottery in terms of gene versions, assteelhead possessed the right geneforms to adapt to freshwater in an in-credibly short period of time (less than25 generations or about 100 years).For Great Lakes steelhead, the pri-

mary challenge was moving to an en-tirely freshwater life cycle from ananadromous one. Adapting to freshwa-ter likely required different biochemi-cal mechanisms because freshwaterand marine fishes cope with salinity invery different ways. Marine fishes areconstantly drinking large amountswater in order to counteract their ten-dency to lose water to their salty envi-ronment. Freshwater fishes do notdrink water, but because salts are rarein freshwater, fishes must actively takeup salts from their environment. Each

of these strate-gies requiresdifferent sets ofcellular machin-ery. Migratorysalmonids areable to switchbetween thesetwo strategiesas they movefrom one envi-ronment to an-other, butm a i n t a i n i n gthese two sepa-rate mecha-nisms requiresa lot of energy.In the GreatLakes steelheadp o p u l a t i o n ,changes in howsalts were bal-anced were atleast partiallymediated bychanges in twogroups of genes:carbonic anhy-drases andsolute carrierproteins (Figure2). Both car-bonic anhy-

drases and solute carrier proteins helpfish acquire ions (salts) from theaquatic environment. These sameprocesses also work to maintain a con-stant pH by uptake of needed ions andrelease of waste products. In the case

of Great Lakes steelhead, it is no longernecessary—or worth it, in terms of en-ergy—to maintain the types of cellularparts required for marine life. Instead,the genetic changes suggest that steel-head may have shifted to prioritizingthe cellular components needed forfreshwater salt balancing strategies.Interestingly, similar studies on stick-leback have identified some of the samegenes as important for fish transition-ing from marine to freshwater environ-ments. This suggests that these genesmay be important for the transitionfrom marine to freshwater habitats andmay represent winning combinations ofgenes in many fish species. Although coping with salinity level

differences is an obvious difference be-tween marine and freshwater habitats,the habitats also differ in other wayssuch as prey availability. Shifts in whatsteelhead ate may have led to the evo-lution that occurred in another gene,known as CERK, in the Lake Michiganpopulation (Figure 2). CERK is gener-ally important in metabolism, and thechanges to this gene in Lake Michigansteelhead may be related to new foodsources or foraging and activity pat-terns in their new environment. How-ever, CERK is also involved in woundhealing. In fish, salinity has a big im-pact on how open wounds heal; in fresh-water, the tissues exposed by theopening of a wound degrade much morequickly than they would in marine wa-ters, simply due to the amount of salt inthe respective environments. These dif-ferences have led to distinct woundhealing strategies in freshwater andmarine fishes.Because of CERK’s role in wound

healing, invasive sea lamprey in theGreat Lakes may have also contributedto changes in this gene. Although somePacific lamprey in the steelhead nativerange are parasitic, they are present atmuch lower densities than sea lampreyin Lake Michigan and they do not feedheavily on salmonids. In the GreatLakes however, invasive sea lampreyare present at very high densities and,prior to the implementation of lampreycontrol efforts, commonly contributedto salmonid mortality. In one laboratoryexperiment, rainbow trout subjected toa single sea lamprey attack died as a re-sult of their injuries 40% of the time.After sea lamprey were first observedin Lake Michigan in 1936, their para-sitic feeding strategies may have ex-erted very strong pressure onsteelhead. With its crucial role in wound

Figure 2. Genomic locations and functions of genes with roles inLake Michigan steelhead adaptation. CERK is localized to chro-mosome 4, carbonic anhydrase genes are located on chromo-some 8, and solute carrier proteins are found on chromosome 28.Approximate gene locations on each chromosome are noted witha band.

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September 2018 • Issue No. 91 21

healing, variation in CERK may haveprovided improved mechanisms ofwound healing to freshwater steelheadfaced with the new challenge of sealamprey attacks. If changes in CERKare in fact due to increased woundingby sea lamprey, this evolution couldonly have occurred since 1936, whensea lamprey were first recorded inLake Michigan. This suggests thatsteelhead were adaptive lottery win-ners twice over: once during the initialintroduction when they were first cop-ing with a freshwater life cycle andthen a second time after parasitic sealamprey invaded the Great Lakesecosystems (Figure 3).

Although steelhead successfullyadapted to the Great Lakes ecosystem,some of the traits that were beneficialto survival at that time may shift againover time. Beginning in the mid-1980s,new hatchery stocking efforts were im-plemented that involved the release ofmultiple, genetically diverse steelheadhatchery strains. This resulted in an in-crease in overall genetic diversity bythe time Lake Michigan steelhead weresampled again in 1998, indicating thatstocked fish successfully reproduced inthe wild. However, the new steelheadstrains also partially reversed some of

the adaptive changes that occurredprior to 1983. Thus, while these new in-troductions may increase diversityacross the Lake Michigan steelheadgenome, they may also undo some ofthe genetic changes that have helpedsteelhead to succeed in the GreatLakes. The conservation and manage-ment of introduced salmonids in theGreat Lakes is complex, but if the goalis to maintain natural reproduction inthese systems, introduction of newgroups of steelhead may interfere withand reduce reproductive success in theGreat Lakes. On its face, it is impressive that steel-head were able to adapt to a novel envi-ronment rife with new challenges andsuccessfully establish a naturally re-producing population. Lake Michigansteelhead were able to undergo thisadaptation despite losing at least 10%of the genetic variation that was pres-ent in their native range. It is not clearif the shifts in the genes related to saltbalance and metabolism occurred im-mediately upon release into the GreatLakes or more gradually over a numberof generations. Regardless, these largeshifts in genes involved in both meta-bolic and salt balance pathways providethe first glimpse of how and why intro-duced Pacific salmonids have been suc-

cessful in the Great Lakes ecosystem.This result also suggests that even de-clining or small populations with some-what limited genetic diversity may stillbe able to rapidly adapt to changing en-vironmental conditions if the popula-tions are lucky enough to carry theright gene versions from the nativerange. Understanding how populationsrapidly adapt to new conditions is im-portant in evolutionary biology andecology, as increasing conservation ef-fort is devoted to combating the effectsof climate change, managing invasivespecies, and guiding reintroduction ofendangered species. Because futureconservation efforts will rely onspecies’ ability to adapt to new condi-tions, isolating the genomic fingerprintof recent adaptation is critical in pre-dicting responses to management in achanging landscape.

Avril M. Harder is with the Departmentof Biological Sciences, Purdue Univer-sity, West Lafayette, Indiana. Janna R.Willoughby is with the Department ofForestry and Natural Resources at Pur-due University. This article is based ontheir recent paper published in Molecu-lar Ecology.

Figure 3. Timeline of important events in salmonid evolutionary history and Great Lakes steelhead introduction efforts.The scale of the top line is millions of years ago and the bottom line represents number of years before present. The widthof each box on the timelines (e.g., the box for 274 million years ago) represents the range of time over which that event oc-curred.Continued from previous page

Negotiations between the US and Canada were begun inMay to modernize the Columbia River Treaty between thetwo nations. Top priority objectives, according to the US De-partment of State, are to continue to improve flood controloperations, ensure a reliable supply of hydropower and pro-vide better ecosystem management. Led by the Departmentof State, the US negotiating team includes the BonnevillePower Administration, US Army Corps of Engineers, the De-partment of the Interior and the National Oceanic and At-mospheric Administration. In addition to the CanadianGovernment, negotiations also involve Native peoples withinthe Columbia River basin. The history of the Columbia River Treaty goes back to the

devastating 1948 Vanport flood on the Oregon side of the Co-lumbia River that severely damaged that city as well as costa number of human lives. That disaster prompted a call forconstructing dams for more effective flood control on theriver. To help with flood control on the US side river, Canada

agreed to build three dams in British Columbia — Duncan,Hugh L. Keenleyside and Mica The Canadians also allowedthe US to build the Libby Dam whose reservoir floods intoCanada. Those dams’ reservoirs inundated 270,00 acres offish and wildlife habitat in Canada, as well as displacingabout 2,000 Indigenous people who lived along the river, andimpacted agriculture, tourism and other economies.In return for those flood control measures, the US paid

Canada $64 million to cover 60 years of flood control ex-penses and a portion of the hydroelectric power potentialfrom the flow regimes created by the new dams. The Colum-bia Treaty was signed by both nations in 1964.Because the treaty allows the either country to terminate

the agreement after September 2024, both parties havebegun negotiations to keep it in place.For wild fish advocates, the fact that the orignal treaty only

considered flood control and hydropower and did not includethe dams’ effects on ecosystems and fish, offers an opportu-nity to ensure that those considerations are included thistime around. The approach by conservation groups and In-digenous people along the river is to include an ecosystem-based function. This would require both governments to takeinto consideration the needs of fish and wildlife as part of theriver’s management regime. Restoring wild salmon to theCanada reach of the Columbia River and its tributaries wouldalso be a primary goal.A series of town hall meetings are being scheduled through-out the Columbia River basin to solicit public input. More in-formation can be found on the Department of State websiteat state.gov.

Despite the fact that First Quantum Minerals, an investorin the proposed Pebble Mine at Alaska’s Bristol Bay, pulledout in May, the Canadian company Northern Dynasty Miner-als is moving ahead with their plans for developing the mine.The company is now the sole investor in the Pebble Projectand is working towards getting all the required permits tobegin developing the mine.To mine the Pebble deposit of gold, copper and molybde-

num, the Pebble Mine complex would eventually stretch for20 square miles of land owned by the State of Alaska in theBristol Bay watershed. The open pit mine would be as deepas 1,700 feet and be more than a mile long and wide. It wouldalso require the construction of an earthen dam 700 feet highand several miles long to contain mine waste. The contain-ment pond would be 10 square miles in size and intended tohold 2.5 to 10 billion tons of mining waste.The mining com-plex would also include about 100 miles of roads that wouldcross numerous salmon streams.Bristol Bay is the world’s largest producing sockeye salmonfishery along with strong runs of Chinook salmon that themine would put at risk, along with the traditional culture andeconomy of the region’s population.The Bristol Bay commercial salmon fishery is worth about$1.5 billion and provides more than 14,000 jobs. In addition,it also supports a major recreational fishing experience aswell. The state of Alaska collects about $90 million each yearfrom taxes and fishing licenses relating to Bristol Baytourism. About 37,000 fishing trips are taken each year inBristol Bay.Currently, the US Army Corps of Engineers is beginning

work on an Environmental Impact Statement for the pro-posed Pebble Mine. During the scoping period this summerthe Corps received more than 400,000 comments that ex-pressed concern over the proposed mine and its impacts onBristol Bay salmon, residents and the salmon-based econ-omy.The Corps released its final, 37-page scoping report in lateAugust.More information can be found at:

savebristolbay.org.

22 The Osprey

FISH wATCH — wIlD FISH NEwS, ISSuES AND INITIATIvES

The Columbia River Treaty governs flood control and hy-dropower on the Columbia River. Conservationists want to addecosystem function as well. Photo by Jim Yuskavitch

Columbia River Treaty Negotiations inProgress

Northern Dynasty Minerals Moves aheadwith Pebble Mine Plans

Continued on next page

September 2018 • Issue No. 91 23

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I was profoundly sorry to hear the sad news of Nathaniel P. Reed’s death. OnJuly 3, 2018, while fishing the Grand Cascapedia, he tripped, fell and hit his headcausing a life-threatening injury. Although promptly transported to Quebec Cityhospital where in spite of excellent care, he died on July 11, 2018. He was 84 years

old.Nat was a devoted and effective public servant

who championed conservation causes for almostsixty years. He served six Florida governors andtwo presidents in numerous senior positions in-cluding Assistant Secretary of the US Departmentof the Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks wherehe co-authored the Endangered Species Act.He helped found 1000 Friends of Florida, servingboth as president and chairman of the board. Natserved on the boards of many environmental andconservation organizations, including AtlanticSalmon Federation, Everglades Foundation, Natu-ral Resources Defense Council, Yellowstone Na-tional Park and National Geographic Society.Wild Atlantic salmon, wildlife everywhere and

the people who love them have lost a champion.Nat was a close, personal friend and advisor. I had

the great pleasure of fishing some weeks with him on his favorite river, the GrandCascapedia as well as in Norway on the Orkla. He was a wonderful companion,cheerful camp mate and consummate gentleman in the finest sense of that word.Nat once told me that while Assistant Secretary he regretted that he had not de-voted more attention and resources to conservation of wild Columbia basin salmonand steelhead when those fish were still relatively abundant instead of their cur-rent status teetering on the brink of extinction. Let us dedicated ourselves to dou-bling our effort to prevent that irreversible calamity.He is survived by his loving wife, Alita;, sons Nat Jr. and Adrian; daughter Lia;

and five grandchildren. Pete SoverelFounder and PresidentThe Conservation Angler

We Have Lost One of America’s GreatConservationists, Nathaniel Reed

After two years of negotiations,Canada and the US signed a new PacificSalmon Treaty in September. Firstsigned in 1985, the treaty provides aframework for the two countries to co-operate in the management, includingharvest, of Pacific salmon.The new 10-year agreement covers

pink, chum, coho, sockeye and Chinooksalmon that migrate between Cape Fal-con, Oregon north to Southeast Alaska.It defines the salmon fisheries manage-ment obligations of both the US andCanada to prevent overfishing whilepermitting each country to receive ben-efits equal to the production of salmonthat originate in each country’s waters.A major component of the new agree-ment involves Chinook salmon stocksthat are listed under the US Endan-gered Species Act, many of which mi-grate from the Columbia River andPuget Sound north into British Colum-bia and Alaskan waters. The agreementcalls for reducing Chinook commercialcatches in Alaskan waters by up to 7.5percent when poor returns are forecast.Canada will reduce its catches by up to12.5 percent when those conditions arepredicted. This will increase the num-ber of Chinook returning to Oregon andWashington waters. More informationis available at psc.org.

Continued from previous page

uS and Canada Sign NewPacific Salmon Treaty

Photo courtesy The Everglades Foundation

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