Archive for the ‘Fishing’ Category

White Salmon River - Salmon Free Again

Breached on the 26^th of October 2011, the Condit Dam, built in 1913 and named for its chief engineer, is coming down for good.  For the good of the salmon, other migratory fish and whitewater enthusiasts, according to the local American Indian tribal leaders and members of the advocacy group American Rivers.

Calling the area a “paradise”, tribal elder, Gerald Lewis of the Yakama Nation, recalled the stories of how members of their tribe hunted, fished and gathered native plants and berries in the area before the dam was built. He said, “Taking that dam out releases the river, turning it back to its natural state. The fish that live in these waters will be able to swim freely and spawn as they used to without having that un-natural barrier in place. It’s like reawakening a person – their body, heart, mind and soul.”

The dam, more than 12 stories tall, was built on the White Salmon River in 1913, near Vancouver Washington.  Originally built to provide power for the Crown Willamette Paper Company in Camas, WA, it had ‘fish ladders’ that allowed the salmon to migrate upstream.  However, shortly after the dam’s completion, the fish ladders were destroyed twice by storms and rather than replace them again, Northwestern Electric (the owners at the time) were required to participate in a fish hatchery scheme instead.

The current owners of the dam, PacifiCorp, decided that the alternations the federal government required, which included the addition of fish ladders, were going to be too costly so they applied for decommissioning the dam. At 471 feet long and 125-foot high, the Condit Dam is the largest dam ever to be removed in the US.

Glacier-fed, the White Salmon River originates on Mount Adams, and captured 3.3 miles above its mouth, it empties into the Columbia River. Without the dam, at least 33 miles of habitat will open up for the Steelhead and the Tule Chinook. Famous for its natural beauty, the opening of the river with the removal of the dam will create many new recreational opportunities.

To keep the spawning nests from being inundated by sediment when the dam is breached, fisheries staff captured 679 Tule Chinook from below the dam and relocated them to the river above.  A tunnel 18 feet wide and 13 feet tall was created in the base of the dam, so that once the dam had been breached, water and sediment could pass from the reservoir above.

The next 11 months will see the dismantling of the structure of the dam and restoration of the natural streambed. The estimated cost for improvements and fish ladders required by federal regulators was $100 million, so the estimated $32 million for the dam’s removal is a considerable saving for Pacificorp.

White Salmon To Swim Free Again on the White Salmon River

Long Line Fishing Kills

Besides the report of masses of seabirds getting covered with spilled oil, they also are at great risk as by-catch from long line fishing.

Fishing lines, often 80 miles long, are baited with lots of small fish aimed at catching large fish like tuna.  However thousands of birds try to feed on the bait and get hooked or caught up in the nets and drown. In the Southern Ocean alone, around 40,000 albatross per year succumb to this threat and world wide the numbers of seabirds runs into the hundreds of thousands.

Long line fishing became much more popular after the moratorium on drift net fishing on the high seas.  Long line are set out on the seabed as well as in the water column.  Different types of fish are caught at the different depths but with more than a billion hooks set worldwide each year, seabirds pay with their lives for the fish we eat.

There are some simple techniques that can be used to reduce the mortality of seabirds with regards long line fishing, for instance, dying the bait blue, setting the bait underwater and at night, and using bird scarers to increase the weight of the lines.  Some national fishing fleets are already using some of these techniques but an international initiative, like the banning the use of drift nets, would give the seabirds and other undersea wildlife a fighting chance.

Damaging Smoke and Fires

So far we’ve discussed the impact that man-made hazards can have on seabirds but what about natural events such as fires, floods, hurricanes, volcanoes, algal blooms etc. that could spell disaster for them?

Severe weather events, fires, floods, tsunami and volcanoes actually have little impact on seabirds primarily because birds and other animals are so much better tuned into the vagaries of nature.  They generally don’t get caught in severe storms because they leave before the storms come or they take shelter wherever they can if they can’t fly away quickly enough.  Sometimes migrating birds crossing open sea, may get caught by hurricane winds but even here because the birds are tuned in, they make alterations in their flights paths to avoid the severe weather.

Coastal habitats are vital to birds for shelter as well as for food and resting places.  Man can do quite a lot to help by not cutting down sheltering trees, not building right up the shoreline and making sure that supplementary food is put out for the birds after severe weather in which the food they normally eat – berries, nuts and fruits – may have been stripped from trees and bushes.

Algal blooms are becoming a more well-known phenomena around all of our coast lines and something birds can not outrun (outfly!).  Tens of thousands of seabirds died in October 2009 off the coast of Washington and Oregon because of the bloom created by Akashiwo sanguinea, a single-cell algae or phytoplankton.

These algal blooms can spell disaster for seabirds because when two specific conditions combine – low salinity and warm water – the algae’s reproduction explodes.  Winds then blow the algal bloom onshore where the surf whips it up into a sticky foam.  The foam sticks to the seabirds and strips the waterproofing from their feathers.  Once stripped of this critical element, the birds die of hypothermia or drown.

Algal blooms are happening more often and in more places.  Is this as many scientists think, part of global warming and climate change?  Can humans do anything about this?