[6] Spring Chinook Run Hits 100,000, Shad Count Nears 3 Million
The 2005 upriver Columbia spring chinook run is officially over, and it finished off slightly above the latest estimate by harvest managers, who pegged it a couple of weeks ago at 93,000 fish and reopened the river to sport fishing for hatchery chinook on June 4.
The final tally was a 100,341 fish, a far cry from the managers' pre-season estimate of more than 254,000 springers, but it has climbed back to within about 60 percent of the 10-year average. This year's numbers are somewhat inflated from past counts, since the managers have extended the spring counting season by two weeks.
When it became evident that the run was coming up short, fishing was closed April 24. The return is much less than what was expected, based on last year's jack counts of more then 9,000 fish. This year's 5,000 jacks are about half the 10-year average.
Up at Lower Granite Dam, the trend is similar, with about 25,000 spring chinook counted, about 55 percent of the 10-year average, but the 1,144 jacks are about one-third the 10-year average.
However, the news is better in the upper Columbia, where fish counts are tracking much closer to last year's returns. The 14,000 springers counted at Priest Rapids Dam are only slightly below the 10-year average and slightly above last year's count. This year's jacks are running close to the 10-year average, but are only about half of last year's number. A significant harvest is planned for the non-ESA-listed upper Columbia summer run, but it remains to be seen whether the returns will be high enough to allow it.
The spring chinook run on the Willamette has not approached pre-season expectations, either. About 30,000 chinook have been counted at the falls so far, with 70,000 originally expected for the year. About 88,000 fish were counted by this time last year. At the end of May, managers said it had been tracking at about 60 percent of the pre-season forecast.
Meanwhile, shad numbers at Bonneville are going through the roof with nearly 3 million of this large cousin of the herring family having passed the dam in 2005. The biggest day so far was June 11 when more than 700,000 were counted passing the dam. That's pretty good for an introduced species whose life history is shrouded in mystery and effects on other Columbia River species like salmon are largely unknown. -B. R.
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