Salmon conservation
Encyclopedia
The survival of wild salmon relies heavily on them having suitable habitat
for spawning
and rearing of their young. This habitat is the main concern for conservationists everywhere. Salmon habitat can be degraded by many different factors including land development, timber harvest, or resource extraction. These threats bring about the traditional methods of protecting the salmon, but a new movement aims to protect the habitats before they require protection.
or reducing water extraction
for human consumption, and protecting the habitat. In the last 20 years, Washington State Fisheries, in cooperation with local tribes, has decreased the Puget Sound salmon
harvest by as much as 90% (NMFS, 2007).
Protection of habitat is addressed in a core/satellite model in which certain areas are identified as highly used “core” areas and less valuable “satellite” areas. This model assumes that not all potential habitats will be used by the salmon. The problem with this method is that the reaches between the core and satellite areas are given a low intrinsic potential, which may result in a lower priority for protection. If these corridors become impassible due to damming or destruction of riparian habitat, the corresponding satellite region is lost as habitat. If several of these reaches go unprotected, the total habitat area for the salmon can quickly dwindle. This is considered by some to be a losing strategy, possible leading to the extinction of salmon.
A new method of conservation has been put forward by Rahr and Augerot of the Wild Salmon Center
. Their method takes a broader stance at protecting salmon habitat. Instead of using the core/satellite approach, they propose protecting entire river basins
as whole systems. They call this the “Proactive Sanctuary Strategy,” which aims to preserve the stream habitats in the western United States
and Canada with particularly high values, areas considered "salmon strongholds." There is an estimated four to six stream basins that would meet this requirement. These high-value basins are irreplaceable and must be protected now while they are still mostly pristine. Basins or “strongholds” in this category are expected to be able to sustain themselves for the next 100 years. This method is not meant to be a replacement to the currently ongoing protections afforded by local, state, and federal governments, such as the methods discussed above. Instead, it is a proactive method to reduce or prevent the need for these other methods.
The idea for this “headwaters to the sea” strategy was first proposed in 1892. Due to the success of hatcheries on American rivers, the idea did not gain any momentum at the time. The idea was revived in the early 1990’s when conservationists realized the shortcomings and lack of coordination between efforts by federal, state, and local authorities. The agencies in charge of the fisheries such as NOAA often lack the authority to act on existing threats. The new conceptualization of salmon habitat conservation
posited that we must protect the most intact or valuable drainages first by working from the headwaters downstream to create a continuous corridor of protected habitat. Several of these sub-basin scale refuges would come together to protect an entire basin as a whole unit. This does not mean that all of the land will be owned by governments or conservation organizations. The plan envisions both public and private landowners working together on a sub-basin scale to preserve habitat. This goal will be met using three main principles. The first aims to create “a series of intact and diverse (in terms of life histories, genetics, and species) Pacific salmon
populations in full basin sanctuaries.” These populations could be a source of individuals to transplant to other rivers if needed. The second principle aims to “Ensure the maintenance of functional habitat connectivity from the headwaters to the estuary.” This connection of habitat helps to promote diversity in the population by providing several localized spawning locations. The final principle establishes a “system of strongholds (regional priority sub-basins)” which would contain the most biologically significant populations and habitats.
These principles could be used to create the sub-basin strongholds and basin sanctuaries discussed above. In regions where the habitat is currently highly fragmented due to high human populations, it may only be possible to create sub-basin level protections. These areas include the regions at the southern end of the extent of salmon habitat such as northern California
. Full basin sanctuaries may only be possible in sparsely populated areas such as northern British Columbia
and Alaska. There likely would only be four to six of these basin scale sanctuaries. These areas could be mixed use so as to provide value to local populations as well as salmon populations. Mixed use would have limits though. Such limits may include exclusions from areas of great value to salmon such as ideal spawning grounds or places where young fish may be vulnerable. Strongholds would be determined by the value and practicality of connecting the often more intact headwaters with the often disturbed estuary zones.
This relatively new method of conservation does not advocate for the elimination of current conservation methods. Instead, it builds a foundation for future salmon habitat that does not need such restoration and restriction. These goals are large and will likely require funding that has never been seen in salmon conservation, but it has the potential to pay off better in the long term. Until this kind of planning and funding is a reality, smaller scale projects like the one recently adopted in Puget Sound
represent a bridge between old and new methods.
adopted a new plan for the recovery of salmon in Puget Sound. It is estimated that currently 10% of the historic salmon runs still exist in the region. Some individual runs have diminished to just one percent. The newly adopted plan combines specific efforts on the watershed level with more general legislation at the state level. Focusing on watershed level management is similar to the ideas presented by Rahr et al., except that in the Puget Sound plan, all watersheds, no matter their value, have developed a plan of action. However, by allowing each watershed group to customize their plan for conservation, higher value regions can adopt more of the principles set forth by Rahr et al. Lower value watersheds will use more traditional methods to reach citizens and educate them about the ecology of their streams.
I believe that the Protective Sanctuary Strategy put forth by will be necessary to ensure the future of our wild salmon populations. Unfortunately, large scale and high cost may prohibit it from becoming reality for some time. In the mean time, efforts such as the Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Plan will slowly move toward that larger scale. By combining the currently most practical basin sanctuary methods with proven legislation and community cooperation, salmon habitat in the Puget Sound will be well on its way to recovery and preservation.
The problem with hatcheries lies in the subtle connections between elements of the salmon system. The earliest hatcheries were simply egg-incubating that released small fry into the streams. Through this system, people tried to protect the eggs in the bottom of stream so that they would reduce the mortality of young salmon hoping to increase the salmon population. People raise them to fingerling size before turning them loose, and people put salmon in the tightly packed space. However, people feed them a mixture of fish offal, horse meat, tripe, and condemned pork and beef. As a result, it causes disease, furthermore, the disease infects from one salmon to others.
Conservation versus Restoration
Conserving salmon broadly refers to saving, using with care, and taking precaution, whereas restoration refers to returning salmon runs back to a previous state. Restoration is more complicated than conservation and it has many meanings in river restoration at large.
Salmon Conservation Groups
There are many coalitions, councils, non-profits, and government-funded groups focused on conserving wild salmon. As Mindy Cameron wrote in a 2002 Seattle Times article, “billions of dollars have been spent to reverse declining salmon runs, with no guarantee of success. What's needed here is a new kind of public conversation about salmon and their place in our future.” Here are two groups dedicated to that new public conversation:
Save Our Wild Salmon is “a nationwide coalition of conservation organizations, commercial and sportsfishing associations, businesses, river groups, and taxpayer advocates working collectively to restore self-sustaining, abundant, and harvestable populations of wild salmon and steelhead to rivers, streams and oceans of the Pacific Salmon states.”
Wild Salmon Center is an international conservation organization formed “to identify, understand and protect the best wild salmon ecosystems of the Pacific Rim. We devise and implement practical strategies, based on the best science, to protect forever these extraordinary places and their biodiversity.”
Habitat
* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...
for spawning
Spawn (biology)
Spawn refers to the eggs and sperm released or deposited, usually into water, by aquatic animals. As a verb, spawn refers to the process of releasing the eggs and sperm, also called spawning...
and rearing of their young. This habitat is the main concern for conservationists everywhere. Salmon habitat can be degraded by many different factors including land development, timber harvest, or resource extraction. These threats bring about the traditional methods of protecting the salmon, but a new movement aims to protect the habitats before they require protection.
Traditional protections
Traditionally salmon habitats have not been protected until they are severely degraded and the run is nearing extinction. At that time, several steps might be taken to restore the population. Fish hatcheries are a popular remedy that are successful in the short term. However, they may just be masking a problem instead of getting to the root of it. Other methods of conservation may include limiting or eliminating harvests of the run, protecting water qualityWater quality
Water quality is the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of water. It is a measure of the condition of water relative to the requirements of one or more biotic species and or to any human need or purpose. It is most frequently used by reference to a set of standards against which...
or reducing water extraction
Water abstraction
Water abstraction, water extraction, or groundwater abstraction is the process of taking water from any source, either temporarily or permanently. Most water is used for irrigation or treatment to produce drinking water....
for human consumption, and protecting the habitat. In the last 20 years, Washington State Fisheries, in cooperation with local tribes, has decreased the Puget Sound salmon
Puget Sound salmon
Besides humans, no other creature penetrates the Northwest so completely. The salmon is to the entire Northwest what the spotted owl was to old-growth forests, a telling indicator of ecological health. Due to many factors, Puget Sound salmon are in decline. Among the many factors is the drastic...
harvest by as much as 90% (NMFS, 2007).
Protection of habitat is addressed in a core/satellite model in which certain areas are identified as highly used “core” areas and less valuable “satellite” areas. This model assumes that not all potential habitats will be used by the salmon. The problem with this method is that the reaches between the core and satellite areas are given a low intrinsic potential, which may result in a lower priority for protection. If these corridors become impassible due to damming or destruction of riparian habitat, the corresponding satellite region is lost as habitat. If several of these reaches go unprotected, the total habitat area for the salmon can quickly dwindle. This is considered by some to be a losing strategy, possible leading to the extinction of salmon.
Protective sanctuary strategy
A new method of conservation has been put forward by Rahr and Augerot of the Wild Salmon Center
Wild Salmon Center
The Wild Salmon Center is an international non-profit organization that works to protect wild salmon, steelhead, char, trout and the ecosystems on which these species depend. Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, United States, the WSC partners with communities, businesses, governments, and other...
. Their method takes a broader stance at protecting salmon habitat. Instead of using the core/satellite approach, they propose protecting entire river basins
Drainage basin
A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...
as whole systems. They call this the “Proactive Sanctuary Strategy,” which aims to preserve the stream habitats in the western United States
Western United States
.The Western United States, commonly referred to as the American West or simply "the West," traditionally refers to the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. Because the U.S. expanded westward after its founding, the meaning of the West has evolved over time...
and Canada with particularly high values, areas considered "salmon strongholds." There is an estimated four to six stream basins that would meet this requirement. These high-value basins are irreplaceable and must be protected now while they are still mostly pristine. Basins or “strongholds” in this category are expected to be able to sustain themselves for the next 100 years. This method is not meant to be a replacement to the currently ongoing protections afforded by local, state, and federal governments, such as the methods discussed above. Instead, it is a proactive method to reduce or prevent the need for these other methods.
The idea for this “headwaters to the sea” strategy was first proposed in 1892. Due to the success of hatcheries on American rivers, the idea did not gain any momentum at the time. The idea was revived in the early 1990’s when conservationists realized the shortcomings and lack of coordination between efforts by federal, state, and local authorities. The agencies in charge of the fisheries such as NOAA often lack the authority to act on existing threats. The new conceptualization of salmon habitat conservation
Habitat conservation
Habitat conservation is a land management practice that seeks to conserve, protect and restore, habitat areas for wild plants and animals, especially conservation reliant species, and prevent their extinction, fragmentation or reduction in range...
posited that we must protect the most intact or valuable drainages first by working from the headwaters downstream to create a continuous corridor of protected habitat. Several of these sub-basin scale refuges would come together to protect an entire basin as a whole unit. This does not mean that all of the land will be owned by governments or conservation organizations. The plan envisions both public and private landowners working together on a sub-basin scale to preserve habitat. This goal will be met using three main principles. The first aims to create “a series of intact and diverse (in terms of life histories, genetics, and species) Pacific salmon
Salmon
Salmon is the common name for several species of fish in the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the same family are called trout; the difference is often said to be that salmon migrate and trout are resident, but this distinction does not strictly hold true...
populations in full basin sanctuaries.” These populations could be a source of individuals to transplant to other rivers if needed. The second principle aims to “Ensure the maintenance of functional habitat connectivity from the headwaters to the estuary.” This connection of habitat helps to promote diversity in the population by providing several localized spawning locations. The final principle establishes a “system of strongholds (regional priority sub-basins)” which would contain the most biologically significant populations and habitats.
These principles could be used to create the sub-basin strongholds and basin sanctuaries discussed above. In regions where the habitat is currently highly fragmented due to high human populations, it may only be possible to create sub-basin level protections. These areas include the regions at the southern end of the extent of salmon habitat such as northern California
Northern California
Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The San Francisco Bay Area , and Sacramento as well as its metropolitan area are the main population centers...
. Full basin sanctuaries may only be possible in sparsely populated areas such as northern British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
and Alaska. There likely would only be four to six of these basin scale sanctuaries. These areas could be mixed use so as to provide value to local populations as well as salmon populations. Mixed use would have limits though. Such limits may include exclusions from areas of great value to salmon such as ideal spawning grounds or places where young fish may be vulnerable. Strongholds would be determined by the value and practicality of connecting the often more intact headwaters with the often disturbed estuary zones.
This relatively new method of conservation does not advocate for the elimination of current conservation methods. Instead, it builds a foundation for future salmon habitat that does not need such restoration and restriction. These goals are large and will likely require funding that has never been seen in salmon conservation, but it has the potential to pay off better in the long term. Until this kind of planning and funding is a reality, smaller scale projects like the one recently adopted in Puget Sound
Puget Sound
Puget Sound is a sound in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and one minor connection to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean — Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and...
represent a bridge between old and new methods.
Puget Sound salmon recovery plan
In 2007, the National Marine Fisheries ServiceNational Marine Fisheries Service
The National Marine Fisheries Service is a United States federal agency. A division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Commerce, NMFS is responsible for the stewardship and management of the nation's living marine resources and their habitat within the...
adopted a new plan for the recovery of salmon in Puget Sound. It is estimated that currently 10% of the historic salmon runs still exist in the region. Some individual runs have diminished to just one percent. The newly adopted plan combines specific efforts on the watershed level with more general legislation at the state level. Focusing on watershed level management is similar to the ideas presented by Rahr et al., except that in the Puget Sound plan, all watersheds, no matter their value, have developed a plan of action. However, by allowing each watershed group to customize their plan for conservation, higher value regions can adopt more of the principles set forth by Rahr et al. Lower value watersheds will use more traditional methods to reach citizens and educate them about the ecology of their streams.
I believe that the Protective Sanctuary Strategy put forth by will be necessary to ensure the future of our wild salmon populations. Unfortunately, large scale and high cost may prohibit it from becoming reality for some time. In the mean time, efforts such as the Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Plan will slowly move toward that larger scale. By combining the currently most practical basin sanctuary methods with proven legislation and community cooperation, salmon habitat in the Puget Sound will be well on its way to recovery and preservation.
Hatcheries
There are debates over the effectiveness of hatcheries. Proponents of the plan argue that hatcheries are essential to the survival of salmon within the Puget Sound region and beyond. Other groups argue against the hatcheries because they claim that it offsets the environmental balance by introducing the artificially raised salmon populations and pitting them against the natural population.The problem with hatcheries lies in the subtle connections between elements of the salmon system. The earliest hatcheries were simply egg-incubating that released small fry into the streams. Through this system, people tried to protect the eggs in the bottom of stream so that they would reduce the mortality of young salmon hoping to increase the salmon population. People raise them to fingerling size before turning them loose, and people put salmon in the tightly packed space. However, people feed them a mixture of fish offal, horse meat, tripe, and condemned pork and beef. As a result, it causes disease, furthermore, the disease infects from one salmon to others.
Habitat
Salmon use a variety of habitats and cross multiple international borders which make conservation acts even harder to organize and manage. They're habitat must be fixed and monitored before we can even begin to think about conserving and protecting these magnificent creatures. Salmon are a very resilient species, but human causes are driving them to the brink of disaster as we continue to invade their habitat space. Dams, population growth and other human causes are significantly impacting salmon runs and the way that these organisms live. We need action now from communities, states and countries to help preserve these iconic creatures and make sure that they will never go extinct.Dam Removal
Salmon have a very important life cycle. They return to the same gravel bed where they were hatched to lay their eggs and then die, providing the surrounding environment with nutrients that they would otherwise not have. A recent study documented 137 species that benefit from and utilize the ocean-origin nutrients that salmon deliver . The creation of many dams along the Snake and Columbia Rivers have blocked Salmon access to some of the most pristine habitats available, preventing them for being able to spawn effectively as they would've done without the dams being in their way. Even though some dams have fish ladders to assist salmon in their journey up the river, many salmon often die on their return to their birthplace. If the dams were to be removed, and the region convert to utilizing alternative energy sources such as wind and wave power, this would allow for wild salmon to return to pristine habitats in which they could lay eggs that would more likely hatch and grow into substantial wild salmon and also provide nutrients to the already pristine habitat that will make it an even better salmon breeding area. In 2000, the Oregon Chapter of the American Fisheries Society -- representing hundreds of fishery professionals -- passed a resolution that "The four lower Snake River dams are a significant threat to the continued existence of remaining Snake River salmon and steelhead stocks; and if society wishes to restore these salmonids to sustainable, fishable levels, a significant portion of the lower Snake River must be returned to a free-flowing condition by breaching the four lower Snake River dams, and this action must happen soon" . It is vital to salmon conservation that the remaining wild salmon be able to spawn in safe, quality habitats so that the populations of salmon can rise again.Conservation versus Restoration
Conserving salmon broadly refers to saving, using with care, and taking precaution, whereas restoration refers to returning salmon runs back to a previous state. Restoration is more complicated than conservation and it has many meanings in river restoration at large.
Salmon Conservation Groups
There are many coalitions, councils, non-profits, and government-funded groups focused on conserving wild salmon. As Mindy Cameron wrote in a 2002 Seattle Times article, “billions of dollars have been spent to reverse declining salmon runs, with no guarantee of success. What's needed here is a new kind of public conversation about salmon and their place in our future.” Here are two groups dedicated to that new public conversation:
Save Our Wild Salmon is “a nationwide coalition of conservation organizations, commercial and sportsfishing associations, businesses, river groups, and taxpayer advocates working collectively to restore self-sustaining, abundant, and harvestable populations of wild salmon and steelhead to rivers, streams and oceans of the Pacific Salmon states.”
Wild Salmon Center is an international conservation organization formed “to identify, understand and protect the best wild salmon ecosystems of the Pacific Rim. We devise and implement practical strategies, based on the best science, to protect forever these extraordinary places and their biodiversity.”