After years of scarcity, the rivers of the US and Canadian Pacific Northwest are running red, literally, with huge numbers of sockeye salmon, previously believed to be in crisis.
Since the middle of last month, in a torrent expected to last through early next month, sockeye have plunged and leapt up Alaskan streams, massed through the mouth of the mighty Fraser River in Vancouver, and filled Oregon and Washington waterways.
“We don’t know why for certain,” said Barry Rosenberger, a manager with Canada’s federal fisheries department.
All experts agree that conditions have been near-perfect for this year’s sockeye, a strikingly red species with a dramatic four-year life cycle.
“Salmon have had us on a roller coaster,” marine biologist John Reynolds of Simon Fraser University said. “Last year we had the lowest return in at least 50 years, and this year it looks like it will be the highest in nearly a century.”
The bounty follows years of intense scarcity that closed or restricted many fishing areas, mostly in Canada where last year’s near-demise of sockeye in the Fraser River prompted Canada to appoint a commission to investigate.
It began holding public meetings last month just as this year’s massive return began.
The numbers this year affect Japan and Russia as well as North America, and are shocking: In the US, an estimated 40 million sockeye entering six Alaskan river systems through Bristol Bay broke all records, Rosenberger said.
The Columbia River in Oregon has seen “the largest sockeye return since 1938,” he said, while Japan and Russia are enjoying “phenomenal returns.”
However, the biggest news is in Vancouver, where the largest sockeye return in nearly a century is entering the mouth of the Fraser River — arguably the world’s single largest historic salmon migration route.
On Tuesday the joint Canada-US Pacific Salmon Commission increased its estimate of Fraser sockeye to 34.5 million, while Canada’s fisheries department said native, commercial and sports fishers caught some 10.7 million.
Before the local commercial fishery wrapped up Tuesday, the glut overwhelmed local canneries and sent consumer prices plunging by as much as 70 percent to US$15 per fish, as people lined up at wharves to buy directly from boats.
The last major Fraser run was some 39 million fish in 1913 — before disaster struck at the aptly named Hell’s Gate, 200km northeast of Vancouver.
After a railroad construction crew sent a rockslide crashing into Hell’s Gate, more than 38 million salmon battered themselves to death against the barrier; only about 2 percent of the run made it through, according to the fisheries department.
Following decades of conservation measures and repairs to migration routes, local residents are now expressing hope.
“These are days of miracle and wonder for those of us who care about the fate of wild salmon,” author Stephen Hume wrote in a local newspaper column.
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