Sockeye Salmon’s Decreasing Spawning Numbers in the Fraser River
For 60 years before the 1990’s, around 8 million sockeye salmon were forecasted to have been returning to spawn in the Fraser River. However since the 1990’s researchers have noticed a decline in numbers. The decline has been so dramatic that in 2009 numbers did not meet the replacement rate (2011). There are different predictions as to why the numbers are decreasing year by year as there are varying factors that could be to blame. Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat studied the numbers of sockeye in the Fraser River of the brooding year, in 2008, to see if there was any indication as to why the corresponding spawning year, 2012, was so low. The government paper Part Three:
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Through many field studies, scientists have correlated a certain gene sequence found in the gills of the fish along with the survival likelihood of the salmon. As a result, the salmon, which carry this specific gene sequence, were 13.5 times more likely to die before returning to their birthplace to spawn as compared to those salmon that didn’t carry the gene (Scientific American, 2011). Not only is the presence of the gene sequence a good start into finding the cause of this disappearance, but it also suggests something even more helpful. According to Tony Farrell, a fish physiologist at the University of British Columbia, this gene sequence found in the gills of the salmon resembles that of a viral infection (Scientific American, 2011). The possibility of a strain of salmon leukemia is plausible and should raise concern for more than just fish …show more content…
The Fraser sockeye salmon is a very important species of fish in many communities in the province of British Columbia, generating millions and millions of dollars each year. With a decline in the number of salmon returning each year, not only will environmental problems arise but also economic ones. “This puts pressure on the communities of British Columbia that rely on these sockeye salmon for food, social and ceremonial purposes”(Cohen Commission, p. 14) as well as “recreational pursuits and livelihood needs” (Cohen Commission p.14). Jobs would be lost, and as a result less money will be made, having a potential impact on British Columbia’s GDP. On the other hand, what this means for the environment is even more startling. This could affect the food chains in the marine ecosystems, and affect many of the ocean’s other creatures. Salmon have both predators and prey; their declining numbers may have a great impact on the marine food web as a whole. The potential pathogen, or one of nature’s causes, may also affect other species in the marine ecosystem, which could bring potential ecosystem altering
On the day of April 18, 2015, Fish and Wildlife Service and California Department of Fish and Wildlife released 54,000 hatchery juvenile spring-run Chinook salmon into the San Joaquin River. A failure is that dry year conditions will likely impact the number of returning fish. The five year drought really had an impact on the project since the salmon is in critical conditions for survival to adulthood and to support the goal of the Restoration Program to restore the salmon. The updated cost of the entire restoration increased from $1 billion to $1.5 billion, which includes $300 million for levee work that the state would address. If El Nino comes to California it will only benefit us. I have not changed opinion after I researched further into the project. My viewpoint stayed the same as before since the project was not really successful for the reason of the drought not helping the
In the past, because the glaciers disappeared slowly can make people have a low temperature, clean water during the summer, but at the same time the salmon begin and end their lives. With temperature getting warmer and our glaciers melting, every stage of salmon’s life cycle is getting hurt.
This loss of salmon life in the river system greatly affected the nutrient levels in the rivers. As stated in the film, the sockeye provided
Rosenau, Marvin Leslie, and Mark Angelo. Conflicts Between Agriculture And Salmon In The Eastern Fraser Valley / Prepared By Marvin L. Rosenau And Mark Angelo. n.p.: Vancouver : Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, c2005., 2005. UFV Library Catalogue
The salmon are all sterile females which are grown in contained land-based systems, therefore they will not be able to breed among themselves or with other fish. So it is unlikely that the fish will have an impact on wild populations.
In this entertaining, search into global fish hatcheries, New York Times writer Paul Greenberg investigates our historical connection with the ever changing ocean and the wild fish within it. In the beginning of the book Paul is telling his childhood fishing stories to his friends, that night Paul discovers that that four fish dominate the world’s seafood markets in which are salmon, tuna, cod, and bass. He tries to figure out why this is and the only logical answer he could come up with is that four epochal shifts caused theses wild fish population to diminish. History shows that four epochal shifts happen within fifteen years causing certain fish species populations to diminish. He discovers for each of the four fish why this happened to
Rupert Murray’s The End of the Line focuses on the depletion of the oceans fisheries and the devastating effects it has already begun to have on ecosystems and less affluent populations. The film opens with a description of the tribulations of Newfoundland. Once possessing waters so populous with cod that one could “walk across their backs in the water,” improved technology and larger fishing vessels began to deplete the fish stocks. Despite placing a moratorium on fishing in 1992, the fisheries had already been depleted to the point of complete collapse. Similar processes are occurring around the world, as only .6% of the ocean is restricted to fishing vessels. According to the film, much of the ocean’s catch has declined by 90%; the continuation of current trends if continue, stocks will collapse by 2048.
Over the years, as the world has evolved, fishing methods were improved as well, and, especially from the 20th century, several changes had forced the way the fishery was done in North Atlantic. As world population was increasing quickly, the cod demand has grown tremendously. New technologies were introduced and thus catch rates of northern cod began to exceed the hazardous limits of the stock’s ability to rebuild. This fact summed with another that will be shown below led to the cod collapse in the Atlantic Canada by the 90’s.
The stories of each fish flow together as each story shows how humans have pushed to gain more control over the ocean and the delicious animals that swim in it’s depths. Greenberg starts in the free-flowing rivers where salmon are commonly found. It is there that early humans of the Northern Hemisphere most likely began their infatuation with fish. Greenberg puts it as, “It(salmon) is representative of the first wave of human exploitation..” (170) Once Europeans learned to fish, they had the ability to fish in shallow ocean water which is where sea bass are usually found. Later, fishermen s...
Slowly, as the trends continue, we will inevitably see many fish species start to disappear. In fact, the ill-treatment of species on the Canadian border has already devastated a large species, the cod. In the 1950s the Newfoundland Grand Banks was home to a plentitude of cod; early European explorers said,”that if you lowered a basket into the water, cod will fill it to the brim.” It supplied the locals with an item of trade and a source of food.
The salmon fishing industry has exploited the fish for centuries. Records of the White and Barents Seas, Northern Russia, salmon catch from the 17th Century through the 20th Century show increased exploitation and the inevitable decline of biomass (Lajus et al., 2007). In Podporozh’e weir 387 salmon were caught annually at the end of the 17th Century while 1947 fish were caught annually in the beginning of the 20th Century. Similar catch was recorded in Podporozh’e district with 560 fish annually in the 17th Century and 1544 fish annually in the beginning of the 20th Century. Catch from the Onega River illustrates even more exploitation with 848 fish annually in the 17th Century compared to 2586 fish and 3141 fish annually in the 17th Century, 1820s, and beginning of the 20th Century respectively. The catches gradually decreased in numbers after the beginning of the 20th Century due to overfishing and the introduction of the timber industry to the area. The size of the fish had dropped over this span of time from an average weight of 8.09kg in the early 17th Century to 6.72kg in the beginning of the 20th Century. In 2002 the weight had gotten even smaller with an average of 4.2kg. The Varzuga district had catch values that were even more alarming with 25,151 fish caught in the 18th Century increasing to 58,484 fish the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. However, despite the amount of fish taken from the Varzuga River the population seems stable. The Varzuga River is one of the most productive salmon rivers in the world. The ability of this river to support the large harvest is believed to be due to its lack of natural resources in the area and the remoteness keeps human populations down and makes getting to the area di...
U.S. Food And Drug Administration (2013, July 23). An overview of Atlantic salmon, its natural history, aquaculture, and genetic engineering. Retrieved May 1, 2014, from http://www.fda.gov/AdvisoryCommittees/CommitteesMeetingMaterials/VeterinaryMedicineAdvisoryCommittee/ucm222635.htm
Atlantic cod has played and continues to play an important role in human society; however, the species’ survival is dependent upon the maintenance of seagrass. A main issue related to the massive decline in this species is attributed to the disappearance of large areas of Zostera marina (Z. marina) seagrass (30 000 km2 in twenty years). The meadow provides an abundance of nutrients annually and contributes many liters of oxygen daily; the area can even take in ten times the amount of carbon dioxide as a section of Amazon rainforest of equivalent size.
However, only a small percentage of salmon live to reach their natal stream or spawning grounds. Those males that survive the trip are often gaunt, with grotesquely humped backs, hooked jaws, and battle-torn fins. The females are swollen with a pound or more of eggs. Both have large white patches of bruised skin on their backs and sides.
Unless the current situation improves, stocks of all organisms that are currently fished for food are predicted to collapse drastically by 2048 (WWF 2.) Briggs emphasizes that over-fishing “has induced population collapses in many species. So instead of having less than a hundred species at risk, as was the case some 30-40 years ago, there are now a thousand or more