Striper effect on Salmon

Any of you smart fish guys out there know what the direct effects Striped bass populations have on salmon populations in any given watershed where there are both?

I'm not a smart fish guy but I know Stripers love smolts.  Back then when they still dump the smolts in Benicia during summer time, we catched and released dozen of Stripers each time during the release using jigs.

Thanks. I would take that as something bad, but there has got to be more to how they effect the native populations or at least the normal life cycle behavior of salmon species.

 

ssshhhh
the stripers have no effect, its the exporters...
 

detailed systematic analysis and evaluation of component contribution levels are beyond the state (and not politically safe)

Personally, top predators living in a formerly top-predator-free zone of smolt migration = predation and reduced recruitment.  As much as I like LMB, they are included as well...

2c

So... Along with bad water management, these fish present huge problems for salmon populations.

Considering striped bass were introduced well over a hundred years ago and salmon populations were healthy during much of that time, there's not much evidence that stripers present huge problems for salmon. Striper populations have been much stronger in the past, during times when salmon populations were also healthy, which further weakens the hypothesis about the effect of stripers on salmon.

Yeah, that is a very good point, but have the water issues have tipped the balance in favor of the striper ecologically?  My thought would be that at some point stripped bass, a more resilient fish IMHO could achieve a critical mass of sorts as we "manage" the environment and become the proverbial "straw" if salmon populations dropped to low.

By the way, I really don't know what I'm talking about.  As a semi-educated armchair ecologist, I'm fascinated by the discussion.

Stripers eat a lot of salmon smolts. but the real culprit is man and tecnology. The advances in sonar (fish finding) tecnology has made it possible to find and catch every fish in the sea.
the salmon was being caught out in the ocean by the commercial fishermen until F&G put strong reg on them in the 90's. the year after that ther was huge runs of salmon retruning on every river in the state.
Recently the massive amounts of sulpur that china and inda is pumping into the air as they burn coal to produce electricty in plants without any pollution controls is changing the ocean and weather patterns in the pacific. This lead to the dieoff of all the salmon smolts in 06 and a lot of them in 05. Everything that was spanwed in the ocean in 06 died including crabs.
the delta smelt is loosing out to the shad in the race for food as both  are plankton feeders.
Water diversion is a excuse that the left uses to try to shut down the pumps. The smolts have had a great year in the ocean in 07 and 08 and we should see a strong run this fall and a huge run in 2010.

Recently the massive amounts of sulpur that china and inda is pumping into the air as they burn coal to produce electricty in plants without any pollution controls is changing the ocean and weather patterns in the pacific. This lead to the dieoff of all the salmon smolts in 06 and a lot of them in 05. Everything that was spanwed in the ocean in 06 died including crabs.

The smolts have had a great year in the ocean in 07 and 08 and we should see a strong run this fall and a huge run in 2010.

 

Are you saying that China and India are polluting less

http://blog.oregonlive.com/environment_impact/2009/03/Invasive%20species_1.pdf

Recently the massive amounts of sulpur that china and inda is pumping into the air as they burn coal to produce electricty in plants without any pollution controls is changing the ocean and weather patterns in the pacific. This lead to the dieoff of all the salmon smolts in 06 and a lot of them in 05. Everything that was spanwed in the ocean in 06 died including crabs.

The smolts have had a great year in the ocean in 07 and 08 and we should see a strong run this fall and a huge run in 2010.

 

Are you saying that China and India are polluting less

Yes their industrial production is down by about half, and so they need half the electricty. the period of the peak of the world ecomony on the 02 to 07 era had the chineese and indians opening a coal fired plant every week. and they burn high sulphur coal.

any scientist can tell you that history shows thorugh the study of valcanos that its not C02 that changes the weather but its the sulphur.

Short science lesson

any scientist can tell you that history shows thorugh the study of valcanos that its not C02 that changes the weather but its the sulphur.

Actually, as a scientist I will tell you that that statement is incorrect.  Long-term climate change is caused by the combination and compound effects of shifts in the greenhouse gas suite (CO₂, CH₄N₂O, CFC's, and HFC ). The long term variation in greenhouse gasses is best measured in ice cores, these date back about 740,000 years at present  (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/06/040611080100.htm), analysis of entrapped atmospheric gasses in these cores indicated that greenhouse gasses have gone up and down in an as-yet undetermined cycle for the last 3/4 million years.  BLA BLA BLA...

What is not often discussed in scientific papers and literature is the effect of sulfur dioxide on oceanic currents.  I have seen no data in relevance to the effects of Chinese sulfur dioxide on pacific marine ecosystems, though I am a bit skeptical...  I do know that as solar insulation increases over the central pacific, it becomes more common for pockets of elevated sea surface temperature (SST) to develop.  It is also fairly common that these pockets of warm water to drift eastward, resulting in a shutdown (or at least retardation of) the eastern pacific deepwater upwelling currents, thus resulting in periodic die-off of nearshore coldwater species and resulting starvation of indigenous human populations (research from Chile and Mexico)...

In short:

• Pacific SST variations have a dramatic effect on near shore coldwater species (such as salmon)
  
• Annual variations in regional hydrology (rain and snow) have a dramatic effect on anadromous fishes
  
• Water exports from the delta have actually increased every year since 2000, despite the continual declaration of sub-contract deliveries (contract amounts have been increased for most recipients through various forms of sub-prime contracting and transfers on an annual basis) (check DWR and Reclamation, scary)
  
• The introduction of additional predators in all levels of the food chain has increased the stress on the food web, resulting in over utilization of all food sources from plankton to near apex species (salmon as food for orca's)
  
• The management of water supply for irrigation delivery has resulted in freshwater outflow and supply schedules that are drastically different from pre-Water Project levels (resulting in timing issues for in and out migration of anadromous species)
  

2c: the whole system is out of whack, there is no one culprit, but the state only has the attention span of a gnat and cant look at the system as a whole and will thus not likley be able to fix the salmon/orca/smelt/delta/human need problems...

Jim

Study your volcanism. Sulfur becomes sulfur dioxide which makes a very fine water droplet that doesn’t combine with other droplets of sulpher dixiode, Which makes for a very nasty cloud cover that doesnt loose its precipation.
When that cloud of sulfur dixiode does fall as rain its acid rain which melts snow and causes the acidafication of the ocean. the Asian air pollution come right over the pacific to the artic and west coast of the pacific ocean on the jet stream.
The industrialization of China and its power plants where well written about in the science world in the mid 90's.
The Clinton/gore global warming scam put a stop to the science and now if any scientist tries to point to other realities besides "global warming" as what is happening he is "run out of town".
Global warming shows the true evils of junk science done by politicians and the TV for profit.

Go away Ocean_314.  Your asinine comments are not welcome on this thread and really have little to do with what I'm interested in discussing. 

Thanks Jim & bluefin17 (that pdf is plenty to chew on)

The Clinton/gore global warming scam put a stop to the science and now if any scientist tries to point to other realities besides "global warming" as what is happening he is "run out of town".
Global warming shows the true evils of junk science done by politicians and the TV for profit.

Conspiracy theories abound. Judd, where are you?