Smalma

Thanks again for both your reply and impute!

Once again Smalma, you have brought to this boards attention, something that really makes sense to me, and may just explain WHY our wild steelhead runs may be declining and possibly on their way out (for the short term anyway!). I don't know if you even knew that you may have hit the nail right on its head!

You said; "Your dinosaur example is interesting- they were successful for 10s of millions of years. However the prevailing theory is that a large asteroid crashing into the earth drastically and suddenly changed their habitats through dramatic climatic changes. They were not able to adapt and became extinct. My concern is that our alterations of our streams is becoming the steelhead's asteroid."

Very interesting point that you have made! Do you think that it just might be possible that our fish (wild native steelhead) are now experiencing a small form of an asteroid called "El Nino"? It would sure make sense to me, especially after reading your latest reply and explanation about; "It is clear the timing of the spawning of our wild steelhead is determined in large part by the hydrograph of their watershed. Those systems whose hydrographs are dominated by rainfall (high lows in the late fall/early winter and declining flows from spring into the summer…)".

I can see a direct correlation between declines in our steelhead returns to the increasing number of the El Nino events. Just maybe, that may be part of our problems and we are just too blind to even see the correlation between the two. The changes that may be occurring are NOT as sudden at your asteroid theory, but never the less, they are continuing to change the climate all over the world. It's just possible; that we aren't looking at the big picture and that we are only looking at a much smaller picture called local "habitat". If the steelheads aren't finding the right water temperatures in the oceans, and they aren't getting the right food chain either in our oceans or their streams to support their cycle of life, Isn't it just possible that we are not seeing the whole picture here?

I guess we tend to go after the "habitat" issue, because it's in our own "back yards" compared to knowing almost nothing about what really "happens to steelhead" when they leave our coast and begin their final growing cycle in someone's else's habitat. The more I think about it, the more I am concerned that we may be barking up the wrong tree! I am not saying that "habitat" is not a key factor in steelhead survival; because it is. But what I am saying is; maybe it's not so much the habitat in our "back yards" to blame, as much as it may be the habitat in "the ocean" that is killing off our wild runs of steelhead.

It appears that we may be facing the doubled edged sword when it comes to habitat at home and habitat at sea. Steelhead can't make it with just one and not the other. So my question to you is; Does any of your research or studies show what the effects of El Nino has been, or is on seaward bound steelhead, or the natural production of native steelhead? Or are we all just making guesses on what we think is really going on?


Cowlitzfisherman