Where the heck are the Columbia chinook?

Fishing industry suffers with salmon runs at historic low

By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PORTLAND -- Fertilizer salesman Rex Harke had planned to take 12 of his most loyal clients on a salmon-fishing expedition down the Columbia River this week.

Normally at this time, the spring chinook salmon are charging up the river in the tens of thousands, heading from the Pacific Ocean to their spawning beds.

But in a phenomenon that has puzzled environmentalists and government biologists, this season the fish have failed to appear. The alarmingly low numbers have prompted officials to halt sport and commercial fishing on the river -- and Harke reluctantly called his guide to cancel.

It was one of 57 cancellations that Clancy Holt, the president of the Sportfishing Guides of Washington and an avid salmon fisherman, said he received in the three weeks since the closure was announced last month. In all, he has returned $10,000 in deposits to clients such as Harke, whose group was expecting to fly in from Colorado, California and Washington.

Charan Sandhu, the manager of the Kalama River Inn on the Washington side of the Columbia, said he also is seeing cancellations. In the past 10 days, he said, he's processed 65 -- mostly from fishermen.

The closure's economic effect is hitting the fishing industry hard, with ripples in communities up and down the river, said Liz Hamilton, executive director of the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association. She estimates the region will lose as much as $10 million as a result of the closure.

"It just puts a black cloud over the area that is very hard to overcome," Hamilton said.

Fishing-tackle manufacturers are especially affected.

In February, when fishery managers were predicting a high run, salmon lures were selling by the grocery bag -- hundreds at a time, said Buzz Ramsey, the regional sales manager of Luhr Jensen & Sons, the country's largest manufacturer of salmon lures.

Now, the company has been forced to lay off five employees, after sales fell 7 percent compared with the same time last year.

This week, Oregon's and Washington's fish and wildlife departments are expected to slash their forecast for spring chinook expected to enter the mouth of the Columbia River from the Pacific Ocean to around 80,000 -- about a third of the 254,000 they had initially predicted.

If all the fish disappear, or just about all of them, where did they go?

Being from Minnesota, all I know about Salmon, is it comes in a can, or you can get a whole salmon at the butcher counter.

From what I have read in magizines, and other sources, I have some ideas.

Salmon go to sea as Smolts, and swim clockwise around the Pacific Ocean Rim, for a period of 3 or 4 years, before returning to their home stream/river.

Fishing Ships, can figure out the average speed of the swimming salmon, and know where they are on their journey at any given time.

With GPS, a watch and caladar; there can be factory fishing ships located along their whole route, as the salmon are due to arrive.

What I am saying they are draining the ocean of every salmon that they can catch. It is legal, because they are in international waters. And their is no one to stop them.

Again that is the thought running through my mind. Not saying it is so, but I sure would not put down a money bet that it is not happening.

~Parnelli

Side Note: There was a report about a week ago that the Baltic Herring have disappeared, and the spring catch, is about 1/3 of the normal haul. Herring prices are soaring, because of the shortage. Where did the Herring go?

Are both stories, just the final outcome of a over havested fishery? Cheap food source to feed a world, that has too many mouths to feed, and not enough food to feed them all?

[This message has been edited by Steven H. McGarthwaite (edited 26 May 2005).]

Maybe thats where all the cheap "wild" salmon from China is coming from.