The fish coming up river now are chromers nothing dark about them. Here is the article:

By Isabella Breda
Seattle Times staff reporter

Quinault Nation shuttered its fall coho fishery a month early this year after harvest numbers came in at just a fraction of what was expected. Now, fishery leaders have called on the state to do the same.

“It’s our way of life, and these days, it’s a source of income as well,” said Cleve Jackson, a policy representative for Quinault Fisheries. “Our people would fish no matter what: to eat, to feed their soul.”

But the state Department of Fish and Wildlife pushed back on these requests from the Quinault. In a Thursday letter, the state cited levels of returning natural spawning coho above the 10-year average to date in one tributary of the Chehalis River.

They acknowledged depleted natural returns of coho in other coastal systems and ultimately pointed to a lack of “technical tools available that would inform our shared decision making,” as state and tribal co-managers of the fisheries.

The tribal nation was anticipating to harvest more than 50,000 coho salmon from the coast, coastal rivers and streams. Three weeks in, they came up with fewer than 10,000 fish.

Quinault Fisheries leaders worry there are more “paper fish” than fish running up the rivers and fear the fishery is not being managed for future generations. “I work for the nation, but I also work for the ones that can’t speak for themselves,” Jackson said. “If there is no salmon, then there’s no kʷínayɬ [Quinault people].”

After several years in the ocean, migrating as far as 1,000 miles to feed and grow, coho return to their birth streams and tributaries, guided by their snout. The fish often gather or hold at the mouth of the river and wait for rain to raise streamflows before heading to their spawning grounds. They begin to turn deep burgundy as they ripen, with the males growing a hooked noses and big teeth.

These coastal coho runs, like other oceangoing fish across the state, took a hit from the warm water “blob” that parked itself off the West Coast about a decade ago. The blob — driven by a long-lasting high-pressure ridge — appeared in 2013. It’s part of a larger pattern that led to low snowpack, drought and depleted marine nutrient levels.

Since the blob was documented as a primary contributing factor to the downturn in coho production in 2015, the stock has struggled to recover, according to Quinault Fisheries.

The number of tools available to fishery managers to conserve runs is shrinking as climate change adds a layer of threats on already struggling salmon.

Ashley Nichole Lewis, a member of the Quinault Nation and a fishing guide, said she’s watched the warming waters — sometimes reaching lethal temperatures — and late-season rains force the salmon to change their behavior.

“We very much respect the science, but the traditional knowledge suggests conserving now is going to set us up for a future that we want,” Lewis said. “Our village is currently being relocated to a higher ground because of climate change, and we feel the impacts of climate change on many levels. Our fish are certainly feeling it also.”

As glaciers, like those that feed the Queets River, recede, some rivers will be further choked off from access to sufficient, cool flows.

Large marine heat waves in the North Pacific have occurred each of the past four years, typically beginning offshore in the spring and moving to the West Coast in the fall, before retreating in the winter.

These were among the largest heat waves on record for the eastern North Pacific since monitoring began in 1982.

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In the Queets River, only in one of the last eight years have the runs achieved the escapement goal, or the number of salmon that “escape” harvest and return to the river or hatchery to spawn and sustain the population.

The natural coho stock in the Queets is currently under a rebuilding plan through the Pacific Fisheries Management Council after being designated “overfished” in 2018 when spawning escapement levels dropped below the minimum threshold.

Last fall, amid Western Washington’s driest recorded June to October, salmon crossed their fins as long as they could before fighting their way upstream, many relegated to the lowest reaches of the river without sufficient water to help carry them to their prime spawning habitat.

It not only changed how the salmon spawned but prompted state, tribal and federal officials to close some fisheries, concerned about the number of fish that could successfully spawn.

“We’re facing climate and continued population growth and habitat degradation,” said Jackson, the Quinault fisheries policy representative. “We have to do this. We have been taking this more precautionary approach because of those things.”

Isabella Breda: 206-652-6536 or ibreda@seattletimes.com; on Twitter: @BredaIsabella. Seattle Times staff reporter Isabella Breda covers the environment.