Sundancefisher
10-16-2010, 09:10 AM
Something fishy: The salmon are back
Spawning sockeye salmon is seen making its way up the Adams River in Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park near Chase, B.C. Thursday, Oct. 14
Jeff Bassett for National Post
Brian Hutchinson on the Adams River, B.C., National Post · Friday, Oct. 15, 2010
The river would run red again. Scientists may have scoffed but old timers, natives, outdoor enthusiasts, they dreamed of it. Blood red, as in some mythical tale.
So it is, right now. A river red with millions of returning sockeye salmon. After an incredibly long journey of survival, the sockeye are back, and thrashing, biting, fighting. Coupling and preparing to spawn before they die.
This is a true — and truly mysterious — fish story. It started four years ago, at this very spot, when the same fish were just little fry. They wriggled from the Adams River and eventually swam down to the Pacific Ocean. They moved en masse yet undetected, to coastal Alaska and then back for the final, most difficult leg, 450 kilometres long: From the Strait of Georgia, where they last touched salt water, and upstream against the turbulent Fraser and Thompson rivers, deep into the B.C. interior.
Then into Shuswap Lake, before a hard left turn towards the Adams River, a mountain-fed stream that in other seasons, other years, would seem merely pleasant, not so consequential.
What invisible force could guide these creatures back? There are only theories. The scent of the river, perhaps. Instinct compels them, just as curiosity and wonder drives thousands of humans to witness the sockeyes’ last hours of life. The fish are very healthy, but the males have become almost grotesque. Their backs are now humped; their jaws have turned green and have sprouted ugly fangs.
This is the final year of a quadrennial cycle, a sockeye Olympics when a “dominant” run born wild four years prior returns to its birthplace. A good return was expected, but nothing like this.
A year ago, about one million sockeye returned to the Fraser River, only one-tenth of the expected count. Calamitous, the scientists said. Officially distressing, replied the Prime Minister’s Office; the federal government called for a Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River.
Led by Supreme Court of British Columbia Justice Bruce Cohen, the commission of inquiry commenced this spring and will begin evidentiary hearings in two weeks.
In the meantime, confounding expectations and mocking the experts, some 34,546,000 wild sockeye returned to the Fraser River this summer.
It was the largest such return in at least 97 years.
Some 13 million of the sockeye were caught as they swam into and up the Fraser, most of them taken by commercial fishermen. Another 15 million likely perished in the turbulent river runs, either in the fast-flowing Fraser, or later in the Thompson. A lot of fish died after reaching Shuswap Lake, so close to home.
Their pale carcasses piled up. Cottagers closing up in advance of winter noticed an abundance of expired salmon along the shore. They caught the smell.
The smell: It’s horrible. Hawkers who have set up in the adjacent provincial park sell paper masks emblazoned with the slogan: I Survived the Stink. And the Adams River is now filled with hundreds of thousands of dying, dead, and decaying salmon. But the paper masks don’t sell. Visitors seem to accept the awful stench. Every day this week, busloads of schoolchildren and carloads of families turned into the provincial park, where volunteers from the Adams River Salmon Society greeted them with more information than most could handle.
The sockeye run peaks this weekend, or maybe the next. With these fish, no one can say anything anymore with any certainty. The return to Adams River started early and continues to amaze.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” said Sonja Vernon-Wood, president of the salmon society. “When we started planning six months ago, no one knew this was going to happen.”
Volunteers along with parks and fisheries workers have spoken with visitors from every province, almost every American state, and dozens of other countries. People are hearing about this “once in a lifetime” sockeye run and are making a dash for the Shuswap. Ms. Vernon-Wood counts herself as one of the amazed.
“I’ve always been touched by the salmon,” she said. “They bring tears to my eyes, these fish, they really do.”
A team of fish scientists — ichthyologists — from Japan emerged from a rented SUV. Jiro Sakaue came here precisely four years ago and witnessed the last dominant run of sockeye. He immediately planned a return visit, this time with two friends, for a whole week. And not for work or for their science; for these men, it’s more important to just watch and enjoy nature’s spectacle.
We walked down a wooded trail that follows the Adams River bank. Mr. Sakaue had with him an underwater camera apparatus that he plans to put to good use. The three men all brought dry suits with them, for swimming in the ice-cold river.
I asked if that was really allowed.
“Yes, if you’re prepared,” said Shinji Kitagawa, one of Mr. Sakaue’s friends. He opened a knapsack and pulled out a letter of referral from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
We stared down at a school of sockeye, tightly packed, pushing slightly against the river’s flow and remaining in one place. Dozens of them, in one little spot. Then one fish just — stopped. It floated away, down the river, one big eye opened towards the sky.
“Ahhhh,” sighed Mr. Sakaue, with some reverence it seemed. As the salmon go, so do we.
National Post
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Something+fishy+Salmon+back/3680072/story.html#ixzz12XEGATMt
Spawning sockeye salmon is seen making its way up the Adams River in Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park near Chase, B.C. Thursday, Oct. 14
Jeff Bassett for National Post
Brian Hutchinson on the Adams River, B.C., National Post · Friday, Oct. 15, 2010
The river would run red again. Scientists may have scoffed but old timers, natives, outdoor enthusiasts, they dreamed of it. Blood red, as in some mythical tale.
So it is, right now. A river red with millions of returning sockeye salmon. After an incredibly long journey of survival, the sockeye are back, and thrashing, biting, fighting. Coupling and preparing to spawn before they die.
This is a true — and truly mysterious — fish story. It started four years ago, at this very spot, when the same fish were just little fry. They wriggled from the Adams River and eventually swam down to the Pacific Ocean. They moved en masse yet undetected, to coastal Alaska and then back for the final, most difficult leg, 450 kilometres long: From the Strait of Georgia, where they last touched salt water, and upstream against the turbulent Fraser and Thompson rivers, deep into the B.C. interior.
Then into Shuswap Lake, before a hard left turn towards the Adams River, a mountain-fed stream that in other seasons, other years, would seem merely pleasant, not so consequential.
What invisible force could guide these creatures back? There are only theories. The scent of the river, perhaps. Instinct compels them, just as curiosity and wonder drives thousands of humans to witness the sockeyes’ last hours of life. The fish are very healthy, but the males have become almost grotesque. Their backs are now humped; their jaws have turned green and have sprouted ugly fangs.
This is the final year of a quadrennial cycle, a sockeye Olympics when a “dominant” run born wild four years prior returns to its birthplace. A good return was expected, but nothing like this.
A year ago, about one million sockeye returned to the Fraser River, only one-tenth of the expected count. Calamitous, the scientists said. Officially distressing, replied the Prime Minister’s Office; the federal government called for a Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River.
Led by Supreme Court of British Columbia Justice Bruce Cohen, the commission of inquiry commenced this spring and will begin evidentiary hearings in two weeks.
In the meantime, confounding expectations and mocking the experts, some 34,546,000 wild sockeye returned to the Fraser River this summer.
It was the largest such return in at least 97 years.
Some 13 million of the sockeye were caught as they swam into and up the Fraser, most of them taken by commercial fishermen. Another 15 million likely perished in the turbulent river runs, either in the fast-flowing Fraser, or later in the Thompson. A lot of fish died after reaching Shuswap Lake, so close to home.
Their pale carcasses piled up. Cottagers closing up in advance of winter noticed an abundance of expired salmon along the shore. They caught the smell.
The smell: It’s horrible. Hawkers who have set up in the adjacent provincial park sell paper masks emblazoned with the slogan: I Survived the Stink. And the Adams River is now filled with hundreds of thousands of dying, dead, and decaying salmon. But the paper masks don’t sell. Visitors seem to accept the awful stench. Every day this week, busloads of schoolchildren and carloads of families turned into the provincial park, where volunteers from the Adams River Salmon Society greeted them with more information than most could handle.
The sockeye run peaks this weekend, or maybe the next. With these fish, no one can say anything anymore with any certainty. The return to Adams River started early and continues to amaze.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” said Sonja Vernon-Wood, president of the salmon society. “When we started planning six months ago, no one knew this was going to happen.”
Volunteers along with parks and fisheries workers have spoken with visitors from every province, almost every American state, and dozens of other countries. People are hearing about this “once in a lifetime” sockeye run and are making a dash for the Shuswap. Ms. Vernon-Wood counts herself as one of the amazed.
“I’ve always been touched by the salmon,” she said. “They bring tears to my eyes, these fish, they really do.”
A team of fish scientists — ichthyologists — from Japan emerged from a rented SUV. Jiro Sakaue came here precisely four years ago and witnessed the last dominant run of sockeye. He immediately planned a return visit, this time with two friends, for a whole week. And not for work or for their science; for these men, it’s more important to just watch and enjoy nature’s spectacle.
We walked down a wooded trail that follows the Adams River bank. Mr. Sakaue had with him an underwater camera apparatus that he plans to put to good use. The three men all brought dry suits with them, for swimming in the ice-cold river.
I asked if that was really allowed.
“Yes, if you’re prepared,” said Shinji Kitagawa, one of Mr. Sakaue’s friends. He opened a knapsack and pulled out a letter of referral from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
We stared down at a school of sockeye, tightly packed, pushing slightly against the river’s flow and remaining in one place. Dozens of them, in one little spot. Then one fish just — stopped. It floated away, down the river, one big eye opened towards the sky.
“Ahhhh,” sighed Mr. Sakaue, with some reverence it seemed. As the salmon go, so do we.
National Post
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Something+fishy+Salmon+back/3680072/story.html#ixzz12XEGATMt