Hope for wild Chinook

Last week I was in Cancun (a little warm for salmon) attending the Latin America and Caribbean Fisheries Conference. A very interesting session was about introduced salmonids in South America. Apparently they are getting overrun with WILD Chinook down there. One river in Chile was hosting runs (catch plus escapement) of 17-90K. Does WA even have 90K wild Chinook in total? They believe the numbers in total are significantly higher. They have also found good numbers in Argentina and they are moving into Brazil. As a side note but including hatchery production S America is producing more salmon than AK catches.

Were the descendants of these Wild Chinook brought in for commercial or sport harvest? Possibly unknown? Interesting to hear they’ve really flourished down there.

Good habitat, lack of predators, lack of commercial pressure, ample food supply in the South Pacific?

Would be interesting to know their migration route.

It sounds like what you're saying is they have them on both coasts.

They were brought down as sport fish. Mostly WA stocks. Apparently both stream and ocean type. They actually rear in the SW Atlantic. Go around Cape Horn. Interestingly the population is most age 2 and 3 and 4 with few 5s. Makes me wonder if our current fisheries are actually eliminating the older age classes. These runs just started up in the 80s I think.

They know the at-sea routes. One wonders what they eat out in the ocean and whose lunch they are taking. Maybe whale food as the whale numbers are way down. Bunch of fascinating talks and I will be providing them some more information and contacts here.

Been following that area for more than a few years myself! Incredible fish returning to that area these days! Simple Google search will reveal the true story tonight! WA stocks for sure and even Cowlitz stock too and the Cowlitz Springer stock are doing incredibly well ;-) Sacramento fish have also contributed down there too Don't look or search for "Austral King Camp" as you might shed a tear for what could be again.... Proves a point of no habitat degradation, dams and population expansion are key points into restoring a healthy population of healthy return of Chinooks! I missed the Kamchatka trip years ago but won't miss a trip down there for sure! Clock is ticking for this old guy!!

Here's what they don't have down there. No dams. No logging as much of the watersheds are National Parks. No marine mixed stock fisheries. Few commercial fisheries. No bycatch in other fisheries. Since the fisheries are terminal there isn't the international sharing issues.

What is neat or depressing is that Chile and Argentina can show us how to have a lot of Chinook.

Almost as successful an introduction as the Great Lakes have been.

Kings, Coho,Steelhead, Brown trout.

Some videos out there of Clancy Holt w/Gary Loomis down at the Old Yankee lodge trying to dial in trolling for them. A more recent one is out w/ Cody Herman down there in an estuary struggling to get bites. I haven’t seen the final series of those videos. Some 30-50 lbers around. Also wonder what they eat and how long before the commercials take over.

I believe brown trout were stocked down there first and rainbows. And its trophy fishery. Wonder if the salmon have had an impact on the trout population ?

The session was about impacts and history. Chinook, rainbow, and browns are well established as well as brookies. There are some steelhead; some which appear to have spawned up to 8 times. Amazing what happens when you don't kill them early. Coho are establishing in smaller streams. Atlantics which are primarily an aquaculture fish have not been very successful at establishing populations except for some residents.

I think, based on what I saw, that the trout are primarily in different reaches and maybe different streams. For example, trout in streams tributary to the Amazon, have nothing to worry about. But, they are looking at impacts.

They are concerned about impacts to native fauna as these are an invasive species. But, they do realize that the invaders are bringing in money and subsistence. Complex problem but it is truly nice to see that Chinook have a chance to be wild and abundant somewhere in the world.

“it is truly nice to see that Chinook have a chance to be wild and abundant somewhere in the world.”

It may be nice, but can they truly be “Wild” if they are all from ”Hatchery Stockings” in the end ?

Not that I’m against hatchery fish. I just wished our regional salmon hatchery management could have found a way to have it work here to the benefit of all here...

They are spawning in the wild they are evolving in the wild. And they aren't being supplemented.

Remember that 15,000 there were no as in zero Puget Sound salmon. They all strayed in once the ice melted and evolved into the mass of stocks we used to have.

One of the early tasks in my career was to help define some terms for the Agency. Hatchery fish were born and raised for some time in a hatchery. Wild fish were born and raised in the wild. Native fish were wild fish without input of hatchery fish. Needed to get those three straight within the staff.

Been trying to explain the fourth grade level 2 x 2 matrix for over two decades now. Closed minds continue to reject it IN DROVES.

It ain't rocket science... it's either wild or hatchery on one axis.
It's either native or NON-native on the other.

It is rather simple, Doc.

Ahh yes, the decades old “Native fish”vs, the “Wild fish” vs hatchery fish word game that took the fish managers, activists, and politicians over a decade to adopt and promote here in Wa. As I recall the hatchery fish mixing with non hatchery fish in the wild waters vs non wild waters and straying were the tuff things to come to grips with while finalizing the “Correct” naming of non hatchery fish in the systems.

There were a few naming missteps, and a few iterations before they started teaching the folks within the fisheries management teams the new “correct” naming of the fish they managed.

Of course the folks on the beaches and boats fishing for these now nameless fish watched it all happen for years, no wonder we can’t see the lite of the 2 x 2 fish definitions matrix. Reminded me of the Global Warming words games. That started in the 70s with Global cooling, then Global warming to to now climate change...

I dunno. The folks I worked with, in two WA agencies, seemed to have a good grip on what hatchery, wild, and native were. Can't speak for admin level, though.

In the 70s when I became a bit of an environmentalist it was fear of a second little ice age and the Atlantic Escalator stopping. Oh and the cry was zero population growth.

Thing is climate change is a valid description as long as one knows the climate is always changing and never the same in planet time not human. Moon, earths orbit and axis tilt, and volcanoes shape our weather. If one can live 10k years in the future the Sahara will bloom and upper Africa rivers now dry will run again. All about earth's orbit and axis tilt.

It did not gather much attention but just a bit back in 2022 a under sea volcano went off and it was in the top ten in human times but we lucked out as it was under water. https://www.science.org/content/article/massive-undersea-eruption-filled-atmosphere-water

those fish came from the Kalama and Cowlitz springer runs, the largest caught down there in Chile was reported to be 72 pounds..

Chinook in the Patagonia region have a much more diverse genetic ancestry than just "Kalama and Cowlitz springer runs". This 2017 report states that "Patagonian Chinook clearly had a diverse and heterogeneous ancestry". It does state though that West Cascades springs (ie Cowlitz) contributed substantially to the populations in the southern river basins. It is a hodgepodge of genotypes showing up besides Cowlitz springs that included Willamette springs, West Cascade falls (Bonneville, Cowlitz) and of course Soos Creek (Green/Duwamish). It was mostly Washington and Oregon stocks.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-14465-y

That's a fascinating read Darth. Thanks!

i meant to say originally, it wasnt until the late 1980s that they started using other stocks, originally in the late 1800s, they used stock from California systems and it failed...

in the early 80s they used stock from the Kalama and Cowlitz and it took off, then they started using stocks from Oregon, Wa, and BC...

The Chilean "hatchery" origin salmon successfully self sorting, populating, reproducing, and living to be 5 year old GIANTS kind of pokes a few holes in WFC "science" behind inferior hatchery genetics, don't you think?

If hatchery origin genetics are so inferior, why do Chilean Chinook look like this?:





Oh yeah, these genetically inferior completely incapable inept and toxic hatchery origin strays also just produced WORLD RECORD Chinook genetics:

https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/opinion/pat-neal-the-tale-of-the-100-pound-salmon/#:~:text=A%20new%20world%2Drecord%20Chinook,was%20a%2097%2Dpound%20monster.

It's super interesting to me that the evil dreaded hatchery fish can somehow at the same time be both (1) completely incapable of survival do to lack of fitness and totally deleterious if bred with Wild and at the same time (2) so successful at utilizing habitat and finding food to eat they are outcompeting there supposedly superior wild counterparts.

Look what happens when you eliminate ocean fisheries and gill nets; the fish revert back to sizes that worked for them in nature.

Those runs were obviously started with hatchery fish but that is now stopped. Natural selection has removed the non-adaptive genes. The problem we have up here is that we put the inferior fish on the grounds annually and in many cases they are the majority. Selection never has a chance.

My comment is obviously largely tongue in cheek.

Case in point in ~10 generations mostly unmolested these fish have proliferated and established life histories and age classes thought to be largely extinct here in the PNW.

Sure seems as though the habitat and climate arguments may not be the primary driver for size and abundance decreases here at home.

Maybe if we stopped killing all the fish and sending them to Costco in New Mexico they would have a chance to grow up and spawn in what habitat we do have available.

The primary age classes down there, at least as reported at the meeting, were 2-3-4. I am looking for more information on if that is shifting. They are getting lots of age-2 females so it's not just jacks at that age.

Habitat not a problem here? They have rather intact habitat. They do present an interesting ecological study as they are a rather invasive species moving into areas just recently opened. They are moving into systems where nothing like them exists which is like what the salmon did here when the glaciers retreated 15,000 ybp.

But, at the end of the day, we kill too many of them, too much of their food, not enough of their enemies, and in general act like we couldn't be bothered if the wink out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0WjfoJmzGs

Part 2 of a 3 part series.

BINGO!

Nice TULES!

What I have found to be interesting in reading up on these fish is the cultural difference in attitude towards commercial fishing. The limited access to these wild streams, and the fact there isn't a major (paved) road lining every stream. It's almost like they apricate the abundance of natural recourses that surround them...

That or the land is remote. Lots of it is in National Parks.