Shock: Canada's Chinook are Circling the Drain

The Guardian: 'We're sounding the alarm': half of Canada's chinook salmon endangered.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/05/canada-chinook-salmon-endangered

Drives me absolutely insane to read sentences like (paraphrasing), "Some populations are thought to be down to around 200 fish." Considering that some, significant percentage of all runs gets sucked up in nets in the open ocean, each of those populations is being robbed of recruits needed to meet even pathetically low escapement goals.

The writing's been on the wall for a while. Now that Canada's finally crying foul, will we heed what has been written, or will we continue to harvest our way to a recovery that looks a lot more like gradual, planned extinction?

I see no reason to honestly expect anything but the latter.

Canada's problem is Alaska. Nobody but Alaskans catch AK fish so nobody has a hammer. Canada got Washington's "attention" by overfishing Chinook, coho, and intercepting Fraser sockeye before they entered "sharing" waters. Their only hope for reigning in AK is to get the rest of the US to grow even one, much less a pair, and act to protect fish coastwide.

All the more reason to discontinue using WA tax dollars (via General Fund) to raise hatchery Chinook and coho. The citizens who pay the costs don't get enough in return to make the investment worthwhile. Shut it down; maybe that will get BC and AK attention.

This is the first of five Pacific reiterations of the Atlantic cod fishery collapse.

This was said a 20 years ago...

"Seal cull debated for atlantic cod recovery"

"Unusual water temperature blamed for poor Atlantic cod returns"

For those that don't know, the collapse was from over fishing.

I agree that "AK" is the problem. Next, let's examine just who "AK" is. I'm not sure what the actual breakdown is, but I know a lot of the "Alaska commercials" hail from mainland US ports, Seattle in particular. Pretty sure nearly all the lobbying money that keeps Washingtonian commercials on the open seas of Alaska is coming out of Seattle, so maybe we won't have to go all the way to Alaska to find those most accountable.

To Salmo g.'s point, Washington taxpayers ARE reaping the benefits of tax dollars going to hatchery production, but it's all going to a tiny percentage. Not entirely different from how "tax breaks" work....

Yes.

The hatchery production in WA generally comes from recreational license holders. I doubt that the commercial guys based in WA but fishing AK are buying sport fishing licenses here, so they are getting a free ride.

It's not exactly a free ride, but to your point, the fishermen aren't the ones paying the lobbying bill. That would be the processors and fish buyers... the only stakeholders with enough bankroll to play the game of political willpower.

SHOCK?

Not!