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Topic: What’s Up With All the Salmon in Kellogg Creek?  (Read 717 times)

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Hojoman

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December 7, 2017

Question: In the 17 years I have lived and fished in Discovery Bay, I have never seen anything like the number of salmon being caught this year. I have caught 10 salmon over 20 pounds incidentally while fishing for stripers and largemouth bass as you can’t fish for salmon in this part of the Delta, and have observed seals catching an unbelievable amount of salmon. This has all occurred in Kellogg Creek in Contra Costa County. Are these salmon confused and doomed as there is no place for them to spawn? (David)

Answer: David, what you’ve been seeing in Kellogg Creek – and what many others have seen and reported to us at other small tributaries in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Delta this year – likely are the consequences of many factors in the past few years, including the prolonged drought, stream flows and water management in the Central Valley and adjustments in fisheries practices and salmon behavior that resulted from the drought. During the drought years, larger-than-normal numbers of juvenile Chinook salmon were trucked from Central Valley hatcheries and placed in net pens in San Pablo Bay to improve their survival upon release. Hatchery salmon smolts are released every year from San Pablo Bay net pens, but the drought necessitated higher numbers of salmon be delivered there in order to reduce mortality in the rivers from low flows, warmer temperatures and poor water quality as a result of the drought. Consequently, it is possible that some of these young salmon were not able to imprint on their native rivers as salmon do when they naturally make their way down their home waters out to sea.

Although the majority of these hatchery-raised salmon migrate back to their natal rivers with no problem, some may be returning to freshwater to spawn after years in the ocean and straying to the wrong river. As the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) works to evaluate fish returning to Kellogg Creek and other tributaries, we will have a better idea of the origin of those salmon. A percentage of hatchery fish have their adipose fin clipped and a small coded tag inserted into their body. CDFW will look for these elements in returning fish to evaluate if the salmon were raised at any one of the state’s hatcheries.

Are they doomed? Pacific salmon die after they spawn. It is part of their natural life cycle. The salmon you see returning to freshwater throughout California to spawn are also in the process of dying, including those in Kellogg Creek. Spawning is the last act of their lives. Over many decades of fishery management, state and federal biologists have recovered carcasses from some of these wayward salmon containing coded-wire tags with their age and origin that have helped shed light on what is happening, which has influenced hatchery practices of the past and will continue to influence hatchery practices in the future.

Even if the salmon do not spawn successfully in Kellogg Creek, they recycle nutrients back into the freshwater upon their deaths. Their carcasses also provide a food source for many insects, birds and animals. The information about Kellogg Creek will be integrated into the broader evaluation of salmon returns to Bay and Central Valley rivers and creeks and to hatcheries. The health of salmon spawning in their natal creeks and rivers is critical to the future health of salmon populations. Evaluations of salmon returning to the hatcheries in the Central Valley is occurring now. Preliminary assessment shows below- average to above-average returns of fall-run Chinook salmon across the hatcheries. Overall, these returns should allow for collection of sufficient eggs and milt from returning fish to spawn another generation of hatchery salmon.


NowhereMan

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I don't understand this. It sounds like the responder is saying that it is a good thing that lots of salmon are dying without successfully spawning. It seems to me that should be considered a failure. Am I missing something here?
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