Sunday, August 12, 2012

Bummer: If you don't have the ability to type "record salmon run" into your Google search bar, you might believe that CO2 is causing salmon gonad problems

Salmon sex delayed by global warming - environment - 12 August 2012 - New Scientist
GLOBAL warming may be putting a freeze on Atlantic salmon sex. Fishing records from anglers on 59 Norwegian rivers show that more and more salmon are staying out at sea for two or more winters - instead of one - before migrating back upriver to mate.
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Salmon need to eat enough in the autumn for their gonads to mature the following spring. Temperature-driven changes in the food web mean fish may lack food at this critical time, forcing them to fatten up for longer before reproducing. Vøllestad says more time in predator-rich open waters may help explain their overall decline. On the upside, fish should be bigger when they swim upriver.
[August 10, 2012] Chinook salmon may have record run on the Klamath » Redding Record Searchlight
The number of Chinook salmon swimming up the Klamath River this year is expected to be the largest in decades, with estimates ranging from 352,000 to 380,000 fish returning this fall.
[June 2012]: Northwest sees record returns of sockeye salmon - Yahoo! Finance
Record numbers of a once-waning population of sockeye salmon have been returning to the Northwest's Columbia Basin this summer, with thousands more crossing the river's dams in a single day than the total numbers seen in some previous years.

Since Bonneville Dam outside Portland was built in 1938, there have been plenty of times there weren't 38,000 sockeye salmon swimming over the fish ladders in a whole year. But on Monday that many passed the Columbia River dam, and another 41,000 swam over the dam on Wednesday — a rate of nearly 30 a minute. That bought the total so far to 290,000.
[June 2012]:  Record run of red salmon swarms the Copper River: Interior | Alaska news at adn.com
The cumulative in-river fish count at Miles Lake, near the "Million Dollar Bridge" outside Cordova, stood at 469,895 as of Sunday. That is by far the most for that date in the past 34 years. Counting began on May 16.
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This year's giant number got a big boost from all-time daily highs reached last week.

"May 28, 29 and 30 were all records," said Mark Somerville, Fish and Game's area management biologist for sport fish based in Glennallen. "It was the highest we've ever seen in a three-day count."
[July 2011]:  Dipnetters descend on Alaska's Kenai River amid record salmon run | Alaska Dispatch
The waters of the Kenai River literally came alive on Sunday with what may have been a record rush of salmon to the famous Alaska waterway.
2010: Record sockeye salmon run hits BC on Vimeo
The largest sockeye salmon run in nearly a century is breaking like a wave in British Columbia rivers, with as many as 25 million salmon estimated to be returning home to spawn. In comparison, last year's run was just 1.7 million.

1 comment:

Matt Berumen said...

Perhaps only the Atlantic ocean feels the profound climate change. The main story is about Atlantic salmon, but the other articles are talking about NW (Pacific) salmon. All i know is i am in Denver wearing a sweater on 8/13/12 and my gonads feel fine. FYI.