Washington bans commercial net-pen fish farming

Collapsed net pen farming Atlantic Salmon near Cypress Island, WA on Aug. 28, 2017 (photo courtesy of David Bergvall/Washington State Department of Natural Resources)

On November 18, the State of Washington ended commercial net-pen farming of salmon and other finfish in state waters citing impacts to native salmon. Net-pen fish farming has already been outlawed in California, Oregon, and Alaska.

In issuing the executive order banning net-pen finfish aquaculture, Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz stated, “As we’ve seen too clearly here in Washington, there is no way to safely farm fish in open sea net pens without jeopardizing our struggling native salmon,” Franz said. “I’m proud to stand with the rest of the West Coast today by saying our waters are far too important to risk for fish farming profits.”

Read more at Seattle Times and the Anchorage Daily News

Atlantic salmon is the most popular fish on our dinner tables. We’re told it is good for us and good for the environment. But as Salmon Wars, the Dark Underbelly of Our Favorite Fish makes clear, the reality is disturbingly different. Authored by Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collin, their book provides a deep dive into the damage caused by current salmon-farming methods to wild salmon, the surrounding marine environment, traditional fishing communities and the farmed fish themselves.

Reasons to avoid farmed salmon

Salmon Net Pen, Puget Sound (photo courtesy of Wild Fish Conservancy)

With NOAA and the aquaculture industry aggressively pursuing development of open ocean finfish aquaculture, it’s important to note the lessons learned from years of farming Atlantic Salmon.

Search the internet for reasons to avoid farmed salmon and the number seems to range from 3 to 10. Regardless of the number of reasons presented, three core concerns are consistently expressed. Authors  Douglas Frantz AND Catherine Collins presented them in Time recently.

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“Not so long ago, Atlantic salmon was an abundant wild species. Born in the rivers of northeastern United States and Canada, after a couple years in freshwater they embarked on an epic migration, navigating 2,000 miles across the Atlantic to feed and mature off western Greenland. Millions of salmon travelled up to 60 miles a day, fending off predators and feeding on zooplankton and small fish. When the time came, instinct and the earth’s magnetic fields led these magnificent fish back to spawn in the precise rivers of their birth.

Today, wild salmon are an endangered species, gone from most rivers in the U.S. There are many culprits, from polluted waterways and habitat destruction to overfishing and climate change. In the last 20 years, however, a new threat has emerged: floating feedlots on the ocean known as open-net salmon farms. The $20-billion-a-year farmed salmon industry is the world’s fastest growing food producer, and it has made farmed Atlantic salmon the most popular fish on dinner tables North America. But at what cost?

This new fish is an industrialized imposter that risks our health and damages our planet. Farmed salmon are bred to grow fast in cages so crammed that they are rife with parasites and disease. The fish eat pellets of fishmeal, vegetables, and animal byproducts; they are doused regularly with pesticides and antibiotics.

We spent more than two years investigating the global salmon farming business and the multinational companies that control it for our book, Salmon Wars. We interviewed scientists, physicians, fishers, activists, and those in the business of aquaculture. We read academic studies, court papers and previously undisclosed investigative files. We identified and tried to answer three critical questions swirling around farmed salmon.

Image: Colin Czerwinski, Upsplash

First and most important, is eating farmed salmon healthy?

Doctors recommend salmon for protein, nutrients, and heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids. The American Heart Association suggests consuming at least two servings of fish a week. But they rarely spell out the kind of salmon you should eat or warn of the dangers.

Many experts and scientific studies cast doubt on the blanket claim that salmon should be part of a healthy diet when the fish comes from open-net farms. Some farmed salmon may be safer than other types, but consumers rarely have enough information to make that choice. Labels are unlikely to disclose that the salmon was farmed, let alone identify the chemicals used to raise it. The U.S. Department of Agriculture doesn’t even have definition for organic salmon.

“It is confusing, and I suspect there is willful confusion out there,” Dr. Leonardo Trasande, a professor of environmental medicine at New York University, told us. “We know that every fish is a trade-off between omega-3 content and toxic content like PCBs. From the perspective of salmon in general, the balance favors consumption of that fish. Now the challenge here is that I can’t tell which salmon is farmed the right way or the wrong way.”

As early as 2004, scientists found levels of polychlorinated biphenyls, a probable carcinogen known as PCBs, seven times higher in farmed Atlantic salmon than in wild salmon. More recent studies found high levels of other chemicals and antibiotics in farmed salmon. Researchers at Arizona State University discovered increases in drug-resistant antibiotics in farmed seafood over the past 30 years, leading to concerns about increased risk of antibiotic resistance in humans. Toxins often wind up in salmon flesh and accumulate in people who eat the fish.

Some studies warn that a single meal per month of farmed Atlantic salmon can expose consumers to contaminant levels exceeding standards from the World Health Organization. The risk is greatest for infants, children, and pregnant women because of the potential harm from contaminants to developing brains.

Seafood Watch, an independent guide to fish consumption affiliated with the Monterey Bay Aquarium, recommends avoiding most farmed Atlantic salmon because of excessive chemical use and disease. Nutritionists generally recommend eating wild salmon over farmed salmon.

Second, is farmed salmon sustainable?

Salmon farmers often advertise their fish as sustainable and naturally raised. These assertions are deceptive.

Salmon are carnivores. Fish meal and fish oil from anchovies, sardines, mackerel, herring, and other small forage fish comprise 25 to 30 percent of most salmon feed. Fully a quarter of the fish harvested from the world’s oceans winds up in feed for aquaculture and pets. To meet growing global demand for salmon, huge trawlers pillage the fisheries off the coast of West Africa and Peru, robbing subsistence fishers of their livelihood and increasing food insecurity.

“You take the food from the plates of people in West Africa to feed the people of Europe and the United States and other countries,” Dr. Ibrahima Cisse of Greenpeace told us.

Salmon farmers argue that they fill the need for protein as the global population grows. Depleting fisheries in low-income countries to provide an unsustainable fish for richer countries sets a dangerous precedent.

Efforts to develop alternative protein sources are under way in university laboratories and start-ups. So far, there is no end in sight for the industry’s exploitation of small fish.

Recent court cases have challenged the industry’s sustainability claims. Norway’s Mowi ASA, the world’s largest salmon farmer, settled a deceptive advertising case in federal court in New York City a year ago. The company paid $1.3 million and agreed its U.S. subsidiaries would stop using the phrases “sustainably sourced” and “naturally raised” to describe its smoked salmon.

Finally, are farmed salmon raised naturally in ways that do not harm the environment?

You be the judge.

The fish spend two to three years in open-net farms that contain up to a million salmon jammed into 10 or 12 cages, which extend 30 feet below the surface and are anchored to the seabed. The crowded cages are petri dishes for tiny parasites called sea lice and many viruses that kill farmed fish and endanger wild salmon when currents carry them outside the farms.

Massive doses of pesticides, including banned neurotoxins, and antibiotics are deployed against the parasites and pathogens. Some of the residue winds up in the salmon, and some falls to the seabed below the cages. Untreated waste from excess feed, decomposing fish, excrement, and chemical residue forms a toxic stew that kills or drives away marine life for hundreds of yards. One photo we found showed a yardstick stuck to the 32-inch mark in slime beneath a salmon farm.

Salmon in open-net farms die from parasites, disease, and warming waters at a staggering rate. Estimates are that 15 to 20 percent of farmed salmon die each year before they are harvested; that is tens of millions of fish. By comparison, the mortality rate for factory chickens is 5 percent and 3.3 percent for feedlot cattle. Young wild salmon beginning their migration are especially vulnerable to the plumes of sea lice from the farms. Escaped farmed salmon compete with wild ones for food and weaken the gene pool through interbreeding.

Up to 85 percent of the salmon we eat is imported from farms along the coasts of Norway, Chile, Scotland, and Canada. Yet the Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for food safety, pays scant attention to farmed salmon at a time when food-borne pathogens are on the increase. For instance, an investigation by the General Accounting Office, an arm of Congress, found that the FDA inspected 86 samples out of 379 thousand tons of salmon in 2017.

Fortunately, there are alternatives. New technology, called recirculation aquaculture systems, grows the fish in closed-containment facilities on land. The fish swim in tanks filled with filtered, recirculated water and the salmon never touch the ocean, eliminating the use of chemicals and damage to the environment.

Several recent surveys show that consumers will pay a premium for products that are sustainable and don’t harm the environment. Land-raised salmon may eventually upend the global market. For now, transparency, better regulation, and accurate labels on farmed salmon are essential to ensure good choices for our health and the health of our planet. Until that happens, farmed Atlantic salmon from open-net pens is off our menu and should be off yours.

The Colorado stream case that could revolutionize river access

Image: Taylor Grote, Upsplash

Ben Goldfarb, High Country News, June 27, 2022

From a river-access standpoint, Colorado is among the West’s oddest states. Federal law dictates that the beds of “navigable” rivers — waterways once used as highways for commerce — belong to the states, which, in turn, generally allow boaters and anglers to use them. Idaho, for instance, grants public access for “all recreational purposes,” including angling on foot, on any river capable of either carrying cut timber or “being navigated by oar or motor.” Washington permits fishermen and other members of the public to wade streams deep enough to float “a bolt of shingles.”   

By contrast, Colorado has historically denied that it even has navigable rivers. In 1912, the state’s Supreme Court opined that the state’s waterways — steep, rushing, canyon-bound — were “nonnavigable within its territorial limits.” By that logic, the beds of even major rivers belonged not to the state, but to the owners of adjacent private properties, who often didn’t look kindly on the intrusions of the hoi polloi. When, in 1976, a group of rafters drifted past a ranch that abutted a shallow stretch of the Colorado River east of Kremmling, they were convicted of trespassing for having the audacity to occasionally bump the bottom. In the aftermath, many of the state’s landowners and recreators struck a delicate, informal agreement: You could float through private land, but you couldn’t touch bed or bank.

[Roger] Hill, however, prefers to do his fishing on foot. In 2018, he sued Joseph and Warsewa for access to the Arkansas where it flowed past their property; later, he added the state of Colorado to his suit. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Hill believes, the Arkansas River was historically navigable, and its bed thus belongs to the public. And while his case applies only to the river that locals affectionately know as the Ark, it could ultimately affect waterways throughout Colorado, where the public has never craved outdoor opportunities more. “We don’t have enough quality recreational opportunities to satisfy demand today,” Hill told me. “There are waters I’ve wanted to fish for 50 years, and I’ve been denied the use of a state-owned resource.”

Waste Not

1 in 3 wild fish are discarded before ever reaching a plate. This invention tackles the waste.

By Emma Bryce, Anthropocene, July 1, 2022

Researchers have invented a method that can strip and use the entire carcass of a herring, turning everything from its head to its tail into food that’s suitable for human consumption, instead of just the prized filet alone.

Their innovation could help tackle enormous quantities of fish waste along the supply chain, and simultaneously reduce pressure on severely overfished wild stocks at sea.

The new sorting method makes it possible to extract and separate an additional five parts of the fish just as carefully as the filet: the head, belly flap, backbone, tailfins, and internal organs. The trial technology, developed by researchers from the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, has already been successfully tested at a fish processing plant in the country, which is now making new food products for human consumption from these leftover parts, including fish mince for burgers, made from the backbone and head.

Nation’s largest ever dam-removal project to begin on the Klamath

Klamath Basin Tribes and allies from the commercial fishing and conservation organizations stage a rally calling for the removal of PacifiCorp’s four Klamath River dams to help restore Klamath Salmon runs (photo: Patrick McCully, Wikimedia Commons)

Kurtis Alexander, San Francisco Chronicle, May 21, 2022

After decades of negotiation, the largest dam-removal project in U.S. history is expected to begin in California’s far north next year. The nearly half-billion dollars needed for the joint state, tribal, and corporate undertaking has been secured. The demolition plans are drafted. The contractor is in place. Final approval could come by December.

 While the decision to remove four hydroelectric dams along the Klamath River between California and Oregon was financial, it was urged — and enabled — by those hoping to see a revival of plants and animals in the Klamath Basin.

“ ‘At its heart, this is really a fish-restoration project,’ said Mike Belchik, senior fisheries biologist for the Yurok Tribe, which has long lamented the decline of salmon on its ancestral territory in the basin.  

At stake is nothing less than the future of the cherished chinook salmon run. The fish once numbered in the hundreds of thousands in the Klamath River, making its migration the third-largest salmon run on the West Coast. While the four dams no longer generate significant power, according to [former owners] PacifiCorp, some residents along the California-Oregon border have opposed the demolition because of a reluctance to surrender any power source, the pending loss of waterfront property on the reservoirs, and less water available for fighting wildfires.

 The dams are not used for irrigation, municipal water, or flood control. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which has final say over the dam removal, released a draft environmental impact statement in February, suggesting that the benefits of the venture outweigh the concerns.

 Texas-based ecological restoration company Res, which has been contracted to help return the river to its natural state” is planning to revegetate 2,200 acres of land that will resurface once the dams are torn down and the reservoirs are drained. The new terrain that will come with dam removal is expected to not only boost fish numbers, but also increase biodiversity. This can harden the fish to the challenges of drought, warming water temperatures, and other hardships likely to come with the changing climate.”

Aquaculture Opportunity Areas—Calls for Comment

Open Ocean Finfish Impoundment (photo: Dane Klinger, Oregon State University)

Open ocean aquaculture is considered the future of sustainable seafood production by its proponents. However, experience with large-scale offshore finfish aquaculture has raised a number of serious concerns including disease, pollution, and excessive harvest of forage fish to feed these fish farms—to name three.

NOAA has published Notice of Intent to Prepare Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Gulf of Mexico and Southern California Aquaculture Opportunity Areas. These Programmatic Environmental Impact Statements seeks to assess the impacts of identifying one or more Aquaculture Opportunity Areas in Federal Waters of the Gulf of Mexico and Southern California.

The Notice of Intent initiates a formal 60-day public scoping period for the programmatic environmental impact statement that will close on July 22 for Southern California and August 1, 2022 for the Gulf of Mexico. During this time, NOAA is seeking public comments to inform the scope and content of the programmatic environmental impact statement.  

Concerned anglers are encouraged to engage in the programmatic scoping process. Public comments may be submitted in writing. Information and instructions on how to submit comments can be found as follows

Southern California Aquaculture Opportunity Area PEIS (Deadline: July 22)

Gulf of Mexico AOA Aquaculture Opportunity Area PEIS (Deadline August 1)

Bill Calls for Repeal of Funding for State Fish and Wildlife Agencies

Whitney Tilt, Editor

On June 22, 2022, the “RETURN our Constitutional Rights Act of 2022’’ (H.R. 8167) was introduced to the House of Representatives. The bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) states, “I’m proud to formally introduce, along with the support of over 50 of my Republican colleagues, the RETURN (Repealing Excise Tax on Unalienable Rights Now) our Constitutional Rights Act. This legislation would effectively eliminate the federal excise tax on firearms and ammunition, because no American should be taxed on their enumerated rights.”

Citing assaults against citizen’s Second Amendment rights and “treacherous threats that seek to weaponize taxation in order to price this constitutional right out of the reach of average Americans,” Rep. Clyde’s bill proposes removing nearly all excise taxes on hunting and fishing equipment, with only a handful of taxes remaining but seriously capped. 

As the vast majority of anglers and hunters know, the 1937 Pittman-Robertson Act (Wildlife Restoration Act) and its 1950 companion legislation, the Dingle-Johnson Act (Sport Fish Restoration Act) are considered the foundational cornerstones for fish and wildlife conservation in the United States. From Pittman-Robertson’s inception, it has enjoyed the strong support of the gun and ammunition manufacturers, who pay the excise tax at the time of manufacture, and the sportsmen and women who pay for the passed along cost at the time of purchase. Along with the licenses and fees paid by hunters and anglers, these excise taxes comprise a significant portion of the budgets of state fish and wildlife departments – in the case of Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks and others, they provide the near-totality of the department’s budget. 

Since 1939 the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program has converted an excise tax on firearms, ammunition, archery, fishing equipment, motorboat and small engine fuels into $25.5 Billion in funding for the states. Combined with the required 25 percent match, they fund wildlife and fisheries restoration, public access, and hunter and aquatic education – to name a few of the many benefits. 

One wonders at the motivation of the 50+ members of Congress who are willing to bet the hunters, anglers, and outdoor recreationists in their constituencies believe that the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program is an infringement on their Second Amendment rights. But a Mark Twain observed, “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.”

 A copy of the bill and its cosponsors is found at Congress.gov. Listed sponsors represent the following states: AL, AZ, CA, CO, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MD, MO, MN, MS, MT, NC, NY, OH, OK, PA, SC, TN, TX, VA, and WI. If your state is listed you may wish to pass along your thoughts to the appropriate member of Congress.

A scene brought to you by the excise taxes paid by hunters.

Fish Bytes-May 2022

Fly Boxes Go Recyclable

Consider switching to non-plastic fly boxes for dries, nymphs and small streamers. Two sizes available.

Small Fly Box, 2” x 2” x 1.25”

Large Fly Box, 6" x 3" x 2"

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Striped Bass Amendment 7 Finalized

The American Saltwater Guides Association reports that the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) met in early May to finalize Amendment 7 to the Striped Bass Management Plan. “In the spirit of optimism, it’s hard not to acknowledge a surprisingly good outcome. Overwhelmingly, public comment was focused on precaution and expedient action to address problems with the stock.”

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Humans make red tides worse

Under the heading of a “Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious” comes a new University of Florida study with two nonprofit research partners that shows clear ties between nitrogen from human activities and the longevity and severity of the saltwater harmful algal blooms.

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It’s easier to break a bog than to repair it

What do bogs in Indonesia and mangrove forests in Central America have in common? They are both powerful carbon sponges, capable of sucking up greenhouse gases at up to five times the rate of a forest. And they are both disappearing at alarming rates.

New mapping tool for marine species

Scientists conduct a trawl survey off the coast of New England. (NOAA)

NOAA Fisheries is launching a new tool to better track the location and movement of marine fish in U.S. waters. The Distribution Mapping and Analysis Portal reveals that the ranges of many marine species are shifting, expanding and contracting in response to changing ocean conditions. The interactive website will improve data sharing and collaboration, facilitate decision-making about fishery management and science and increase overall knowledge of species distribution for stock assessments.

The portal displays data from NOAA Fisheries bottom trawl surveys for five regions (Northeast, Southeast, Gulf of Mexico, West Coast and Alaska) and includes a map viewer and graphing capabilities for over 800 marine fish and invertebrate species caught during the surveys. Understanding how species are distributed in space and time, and the factors that drive patterns, are central questions in ecology and important for species conservation and management.

“Our climate and oceans are changing, and these changes are affecting the distribution and abundance of living marine resources in our waters,” said Rick Spinrad, Ph.D., NOAA administrator. “Changes in fish stocks can have significant economic and cultural impacts for communities and businesses across the U.S. The visualization capabilities of this new tool boost our ability to turn the data NOAA collects into robust decision-making resources for the entire fishery management community, helping build a Climate-Ready Nation.” Read the rest at NOAA News..

These maps from the Distribution Mapping and Analysis Portal show changes in black sea bass distribution from 1974 to 2019. Black sea bass expanded approximately 140 miles north over this period of time. (NOAA)

If at first you don’t succeed, flush flush again.

A carrier ship releasing ballast water in the 1990s (CSIRO/Wikimedia Commons)

Warren Cornwall, Anthropocene, March 16, 2022

North America’s Great Lakes have long been a poster child for the damage caused by aquatic invasive species, and the difficulty of stopping them. 

In the chain of lakes that together form the world’s largest freshwater ecosystem, zebra mussels from Russia and Ukraine choke intake pipes for drinking water systems, swarms of spiny waterfleas from Europe and Asia devour native zooplankton, and voracious ruffe (a kind of fish) feast on the eggs and young of native fish. 

The number of invasive species in the lakes has climbed inexorably for decades, to roughly 190 species today. Efforts to halt new arrivals seemed to make little difference. Until now. 

Over the last 15 years, the number of new invasive species showing up in the lakes has plunged. New research points to one strategy for much of the success: Quite literally, giving invasive species the flush.

Photo and description from Minnesota DNR

The spiny waterflea is native to Europe and Asia. The species was unintentionally introduced into the United States’ Great Lakes through the discharge of contaminated cargo ship ballast water. They were first discovered in Lake Ontario in 1982, and spread to Lake Superior by 1987.

Spiny waterfleas are predatory zooplankton that eat other zooplankton. They migrate into deeper waters during the day to hide from predators, and return to shallower water at night to find food. During the spring and summer, they reproduce by cloning. In the fall, or when conditions in the lake are cold or there is less food, they will reproduce sexually and produce tough eggs that are resistant to drying and freezing. Females carry their eggs and young on their back.

World’s largest fish breeding grounds found under the Antarctic ice

Male icefish, part of a massive colony, guard their nests in the Weddell Sea. Photo: Alfred Wegener Institute.

At 60 million nests, the icefish colony stretches for 240 square kilometers

Erik Stokstad, Science, January 13, 2022

The most extensive and densely populated breeding colony of fish anywhere lurks deep underneath the ice of the Weddell Sea, scientists aboard an Antarctic research cruise have discovered. The 240 square kilometers of regularly spaced icefish nests, east of the Antarctic Peninsula, has astonished marine ecologists. “We had no idea that it would be just on this scale, and I think that’s the most fantastic thing,” says Mark Belchier, a fish biologist with the British Antarctic Survey and the government of South Georgia & the South Sandwich Islands, who was not involved in the new work.

In February 2021, the RV Polarstern—a large German research ship—was breaking through sea ice in the Weddell Sea to study marine life. While towing video cameras and other instruments half a kilometer down, near the sea floor, the ship came upon thousands of 75-centimeter-wide nests, each occupied by a single adult icefish—and up to 2100 eggs. “It was really an amazing sight,” says deep-sea biologist Autun Purser of the Alfred Wegener Institute, who led the ship’s underwater imaging.

Plastic Trash Islands?

Image: Haram et al.

Giant patches of plastic floating in the ocean have become home to an experiment in a new hybrid ecosystem, made up of stowaway species from coastal environments and organisms that dwell in the middle of the Pacific. Meet the "neopelagic" world.

Is plastic trash in the middle of the ocean becoming a new kind of island habitat?

Warren Cornwall, Anthropocene.

Finding a sea anemone bobbing in the middle of the ocean is a bit like stumbling across a rainforest-dwelling kapok tree perched on a Saharan sand dune. Yet, that’s what has happened in recent years as people sailing the Pacific Ocean in search of plastic trash capture entire communities of coastal organisms clinging to debris hundreds of kilometers from the nearest beach.

The discovery of sea anemones that normally dwell near the shore, seemingly thriving in the ocean on small islands of trash, is forcing scientists to rethink basic assumptions about where different species can live. They have even proposed a new name for this type of community—neopelagic, or “new open ocean.”

““The open ocean has not been habitable for coastal organisms until now”

— Greg Ruiz, Marine ecologist, Marine Invasions Lab at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center

The Study: Haram, et. al. “Emergence of a neopelagic community through the establishment of coastal species on the high seas.” Nature Communications, Dec. 2. 2021.

A Drain on Montana's Madison River

A de-watered upper Madison River, after the Hebgen Dam spillway malfunction. Photo courtesy of Kelly Galloup

The importance of gray infrastructure was in clear view on Montana’s Madison River on November 30th when a mechanical failure shut down a spillway gate on the Hebgen Dam to a trickle. Water flows plunged from 640 cubic feet per second to below 200 in a matter of minutes. The dramatically reduced flow stranded fish and other aquatic life in the side channels and flats. Hundreds of volunteers from far and wide turned up to rescue trout, sculpins, and other critters.

The lasting effects of the dam failure on the Madison River’s fisheries are unknown but they will go beyond the stranded fish to encompass the thousands of brown trout redds, full of freshly-spawned eggs, and the invertebrate life hidden from view.

There is good news in that the damage could have been a lot worse—if the weather has not been unseasonably warm, the spillway had closed completely, and if the low flows had not been restored by the morning of December 2nd. But there are a lot of IFs and much concern about WHY—why the failure occurred, why the dam operator failed to notice and quickly respond, why this sort of failure seems to occur again and again placing human and ecosystem health and safety at risk.

It was the vigilance of a local fly shop. the Slide Inn Fly Shop, that notified the dam operator of the accident (who was unaware of the problem), It was the Madison-Gallatin chapter of Trout Unlimited, local fly shops, and many anglers who mobilized to stranded fish under the guidance of help Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. And it will be the angling community that works to prevent similar mishaps in the future.

Lost and Disconnected on Canada's Fraser River

A major focus of the recently enacted Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework (BIF) is the reconnection of habitat and improving fish passage, vital for all fishes but particularly important for highly migratory species like salmon, steelhead, paddlefish, and sturgeon.

A recent report by a group of researchers quantifies the amount of lost and inaccessible habitat for Pacific salmon in Canada’s Fraser River, one of the most important spawning and rearing grounds for Pacific salmon in British Columbia. The report finds salmon have lost access to as much as 85 per cent of their historical floodplain habitat due to dikes and similar man-made infrastructure.

The research paper, “Quantifying lost and inaccessible habitat for Pacific salmon in Canada’s Lower Fraser River,” published in Ecosphere, further finds that comparing habitat accessibility and barrier density against the assessed status of populations reveals insights useful for understanding the impact of barriers on spawning and rearing and guiding the allocation of restoration effort. Applying methods for addressing missing data, such as lost streams and unmapped barriers, was essential for estimating the accessibility of habitat within a historical context.

The report also observed that while much emphasis has been placed on the role of marine conditions in wild Pacific salmon recovery, the magnitude of habitat loss in the Fraser River cannot be ignored and suggests it is a major driver of observed salmon declines.

The Research: Finn, R. J. R., Chalifour, L., Gergel, S. E., Hinch, S. G., Scott, D. C., and Martin, T. G.. 2021. Quantifying lost and inaccessible habitat for Pacific salmon in Canada’s Lower Fraser River. Ecosphere 12 (7):e03646.

Colorado Parks & Wildlife stock unique cutthroat trout

A Hayden Creek Cutthroat (photo: CO Parks & Wildlife)

A Cutthroat trout, with unique genetics, rescued by Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) aquatic biologists from the Hayden Pass Fire in 2016, have been stocked into remote creeks high on Pikes Peak as part of a continuing cutthroat restoration project.

Tiny South Ruxton Creek, located at about 10,000 feet altitude on the South Slope of Pikes Peak in the Pike National Forest and Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU) property, will become the third stream in the region where CPW is working to restore the trout, informally called Hayden Creek cutthroat.

In addition to South Ruxton Creek, Hayden Creek cutthroat will be introduced by CPW into North French Creek above 10,400 feet on the northwest slope of Pikes Peak as well.

CPW began looking for remote, fishless, high-altitude creeks like South Ruxton and North French to serve as a possible new homes for these important cutthroat trout not long after the July 2016 fire charred 16,754 acres and filled the South Prong of Hayden Creek with ash and debris, making it uninhabitable for the fish.

As the fire raged, staff from CPW and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) crossed fire lines to rescue a portion of the population before monsoon rains came, flushing the creek with choking sediment and ash. CPW removed 158 cutthroat trout from the stream, took them to the Roaring Judy Hatchery isolation facility near Crested Butte and spawned the fish the following spring. Now, CPW is  stocking them into several streams within the Arkansas Basin to ensure these unique cutthroat genes survive. CPW is taking extraordinary steps to preserve the fish because they contain genetic markers that match a museum specimen collected from the Arkansas River basin in 1890. 

CPW and the USFS have established populations of Hayden Creek cutthroats in two creeks  – Newlin and Cottonwood – and hope to stock them in up to five streams in the Arkansas basin where these fish could be introduced. Spreading them across the region makes them less vulnerable to extinction due to an isolated catastrophic fire, flood or disease outbreak.

Last fall, CPW aquatic biologist Cory Noble identified Ruxton Creek as a rare fishless creek and determined its habitat would be favorable for Hayden Creek cutthroat. Lack of fish makes the process of establishing a population much easier. And a waterfall creates a natural barrier to any non-native fish invading the stocked stretch of water. Ruxton Creek is also ideal thanks to the cooperation CPW enjoys from USFS and CSU.

National Fish Habitat Partnership Funding: Call for Proposals

The Western Native Trout Initiative (WNTI) and its partners announce their Request for Project Proposals for federal FY2023 funding. WNTI anticipates receiving between $150,000 and $230,000 in NFHP funds for FY2023 projects. The exact amount of funding available to the partnership varies annually and is not known at this time. This is a very competitive process and for the last five years the pool of applicants has exceeded the available pool of funding. Typical funding per project is in the range of $25K-$50K.

WNTI’s Priorities: As a National Fish Habitat Partnership, WNTI’s #1 priority is the protection and restoration of habitat for western native trout and char species. Under this broad priority, we consider actions that achieve the following to be our highest priority:
A. Actions that provide long-term protection of intact and healthy aquatic ecosystems that support priority populations.
B. Restoration projects.

Applications are due by 5:00 p.m. Mountain time on Friday January 21, 2022.
All applications for the RFP are submitted through our online application portal. The RFP announcement and all documentation with specific guidance for completing the application and a link to the online portal is available on the WNTI website. Late or incomplete applications will be not accepted.

A 112-YEAR OLD BUFFALO

A 112-year old bigmouth buffalo from Minnesota blew maximum age estimates for the species out of the water, so much so that the bigmouth buffalo became the oldest age-validated freshwater fish.

A 112-year old bigmouth buffalo (Ictiobus cyprinellus) from Minnesota is the oldest age-validated freshwater fish, blowing the previously assumed maximum age estimates for the species out of the water.

From the May 24, 2021 FishingWire.

The supercentenarian fish was collected as part of a North Dakota State University study, and more than quadrupled a previous maximum age estimate of 26 years. A team form Oklahoma State University shared its findings in a paper titled “New Maximum Age of Bigmouth Buffalo.”

Not only does this study shatter our perceptions of bigmouth buffalo longevity, it also shows that the fish mature at a later age than previously thought, and suggests that age classes may not reproduce each year. Another study in North Dakota confirmed that bigmouth buffalo exhibit what is called “episodic” or irregular recruitment, and that it is related to environmental conditions. The fish have occasional years of spawning success separated by periods of poor reproduction for a decade or more. This slow-paced life history strategy is consistent with other large-bodied and long-lived species with few natural predators. The new life history information on bigmouth buffalo, and similar data specific to Oklahoma, can help biologists better understand and collect further data to manage this species, and other species like it.

The Fishes of Montana App notes: These large, powerful native fish have a reputation for being both tough to catch and very tough to land on rod and reel. In some areas of its range, Bigmouth Buffalo are hunted at night with bows. Bigmouth Buffalo come to the surface to feed at night making relatively easy targets. Indiscriminate bowhunting has extirpated the species from in many areas that once had large, healthy buffalo populations.