[1] Feds Get Last Words In BiOp Fight
Federal attorneys say they won't gamble with the survival of ESA-listed steelhead, and that's why they are sticking to their BiOp recipe for a maxed-out fish barging policy in May, which is at odds with the court-ordered spill regime blessed by U.S. District Judge James Redden.
Their comments were included in the Justice Department's reply to plaintiffs' response to the Obama administration's additions to the 2008 BiOp governing federal hydro operations in the Columbia Basin, which were released Sept. 15.
Most of the Obama administration's modifications dealt with specific changes that Redden suggested should be included before he would approve the salmon plan back in May. Redden recommended his own court-ordered spill regime be extended over the 10-year life of the BiOp.
Plaintiff environmental and fishing groups, the state of Oregon and the Nez Perce Tribe are asking for even more than what Redden has OK'd. They want 24-hour, seven-day-a-week spill to the dissolved gas caps that the feds say has no support from scientific studies.
However, such an action would make significant reductions in the number of steelhead barged from lower Snake dams. Years of studies have shown benefits to adult steelhead survival from barging juveniles rather than letting them migrate inriver.
The feds have modified their position a little. They say now that the spill/transport issue will go before a regional implementation group every year to make sure the latest information is being incorporated before a final decision is made.
But it seems the government isn't going to budge on the steelhead issue. In its latest filing, it said the plaintiffs have shown no "identifiable" quantitative benefit from their proposed 24/7 gas cap spill regime, but are asking the court to assume that it will not harm the fish.
"The agencies are not prepared, nor are they permitted, to gamble with Snake River steelhead," said the feds' filing.
The feds also claimed the plaintiffs' contentions regarding summer spill are not based on the best science. Plaintiffs want summer spill to last until Aug. 31, regardless of how many, or how few, fish are passing the dams.
The feds' plan also says they will work with other parties to end spill at lower Snake dams before Aug. 31, because the benefits to fish are insignificant. By drawing out the action until the end of the month, they say the added spill costs several million dollars, and increases CO2 production from alternate energy sources, along with less ability to integrate wind power.
The feds also took issue with the Nez Perce Tribe's recommendation that Snake River dam breaching should have been included in the plan. But without authorization from Congress, the feds said it's not an action reasonably certain to occur. Besides, they said it still hasn't been proven that such drastic action would have a net biological benefit for the ESA-listed Snake stocks.
To satisfy the judge, the feds' plan includes the contingency of breaching if stock levels drop precipitously and future studies show a real benefit.
The feds also defended the habitat improvement actions in the BiOp, but said survival benefits are not guaranteed, because that kind of standard, which plaintiffs want, is impossible to achieve.
In their earlier response, plaintiffs argued that benefits predicted by the feds were unsupported by any scientific literature. They referred sarcastically to new restoration actions as a product of the feds' "Lake Woebegone hypothesis--that henceforth, all estuary habitat projects will be above average."
The feds came back swinging, noting that the nearly $1 billion in added fish-recovery actions might be in jeopardy if the judge agrees with plaintiffs.
"But, if this court decides that the plaintiffs are correct in their assertions that survival benefits must be guaranteed with project-level descriptions in advance of multi-year implementation, the foundation of these agreements [the Fish Accords with states and tribes] with the FCRPS BiOp will be called into question," said the feds, who also noted that their incentive to pursue habitat mitigation commitments would be "significantly diminished" if the projects had no ESA value, as plaintiffs claim.
The feds also explained why they decided no extra flows are needed for fish, in addition to what the BiOp already called for. They also took aim at the state of Oregon's "quest for more water," by including a pie chart that showed the state made up just a tiny piece of the flow augmentation pie compared to any of the other players.
The feds' turned down Oregon's request for a new collaboration, because they don't agree with the state position that "habitat cannot mitigate for hydro."
The state of Oregon, in an earlier filing, said that long-term contingencies like drawing down John Day Pool or breaching lower Snake dams should be ready for action before fish population levels sank to 10 percent of their four-year geometric mean, as the Obama plan calls for.
But the feds said that Oregon has confused recovery plans with biological opinions.
"While the administration appreciates Oregon's gesture," said the feds, "irreconcilable differences and unsuccessful discussions between the federal agencies and the state demonstrate that such an agreement is not possible."
The parties to the Accord process--three Northwest states and six tribes that support the salmon plan--sent their own response to the plaintiffs' criticisms of the Obamacized BiOp.
"For several decades, and to this day," said the sovereigns' filing, "Oregon and the Nez Perce Tribe have passionately pursued and spent millions of BPA and other state and federal dollars annually on the type of habitat projects required by this BiOp, and the environmental plaintiffs have time and again stood before this court and effusively stated their support for habitat restoration and protection and the Fish Accord habitat funding commitments. We applaud and support each of the plaintiff's efforts to make habitat protection a cornerstone of salmon recovery in their management actions. The lack of consistency between their management and policy actions and their legal tactics on the issue of habitat is curious."
Redden scheduled a Nov. 17 conference in his courtroom to discuss issues raised by the Obama administration's additions to the hydro BiOp, but last week he announced the date has been moved to Nov. 23 so that NOAA head Jane Lubchenco can attend the proceeding. The addition of one of the federal government's top scientists could dramatically change the dynamics of the review, say some long-time salmon policy wonks.
They say it means the government is going all out to defend its scientific positions in the latest salmon plan.
Lubchenco personally led a review of the salmon plan by the new administration, which found it to be scientifically sound.
After the review, which included input from an independent panel of scientists, the new administration added elements to address some of the key uncertainties. These included contingency measures such as studies that would examine the possibility of breaching lower Snake dams that could be triggered by significant declines in fish abundance, along with improved efforts to track and detect climate change and its effect on listed species.
Lubchenco was a well-known marine ecology professor at Oregon State University before she was tapped for the top spot at NOAA. She has earned many scientific honors over the course of her career, has served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and won a MacArthur "genius" grant some years ago.
NOAA Fisheries spokesman Brian Gorman said Lubchenco's appearance may have a triggering effect of its own, with the possibility of more big names from the administration showing up. He said one or more tribal chairs may also appear at the hearing to express support for the government's 10-year salmon plan. -Bill Rudolph
[2] Stimulus Funding Will Fill Hole In Corps' Dam-Fix Budget
Though federal fish policy managers say they have already wrung most of the survival improvement out of the hydro system, it's not stopping them from spending another $500 million over the next 10 years to boost fish survival even more.
With the new BiOp calling for performance standards at each dam--96-percent juvenile survival for spring chinook and 93 percent for fall chinook--the Corps of Engineers still has a slew of actions up its collective sleeve. Some dams already achieve those goals, but others do not, especially The Dalles and John Day dams.
The Obama administration had allocated $96 million for these Corps' actions in the 2010 fiscal year, but Congress pared that down to $86 million, with another $5-million cut expected, according to Corps officials.
But fish wonks got some good news in late October, when it was announced that the Corps will get a $5-million shot in the arm courtesy of the feds' stimulus funding, which will boost spending back into the $86-million range for the fiscal year.
The news was broadcast at the Oct. 22 meeting of the Systems Configuration Team, a collection of fish managers and federal agencies whose main task is to prioritize the actions designed to improve fish survival at the eight federal dams.
Top project for the coming year is a $20-million spillway wall at The Dalles Dam that is designed to improve juvenile salmonid survival by reducing the time young salmon spend in the dam's tailrace and being picked off by predators like pikeminnow.
The Dalles Dam is still the one of the toughest spots on the river for salmon passage, due in part to its unusual configuration. To anchor it to bedrock, the dam was built parallel to the river flows, which has caused confused flows in the tailrace and keeps young salmon from exiting in a speedy manner.
The budget also includes some new items that were added after the recent BiOp review by the Obama administration; $600,000 for starting a work plan for lower Snake dam breaching and drawdown studies for John Day Pool, along with development of a salmon life-cycle model based on NOAA Fisheries' dam passage model COMPASS.
Other big-ticket items include more than $9 million to study the feasibility of trap-and-haul fish operations on the Willamette River, $3.7 million for more work to move birds out of the Columbia estuary to reduce predation and $11 million for lower-river BiOp performance testing. Another $4 million has been delegated for various lamprey studies.
The funding for the lower-river performance testing was reduced from $15 million, thanks to $2 million in stimulus money and a change in the testing planned for this year.
The original plan called for acoustic tracking research and other studies to measure dam survival from John Day to Bonneville, but a turbine outage at Bonneville will keep the Corps from trying to measure survival at that dam this year.
The loss of the turbine will likely reduce the ability of Power House II's corner collector's to get juveniles past the concrete, so any attempt to measure overall survival at the dam would probably be underestimated this year. -B. R.
[3] Pikeminnow Catch Down From Previous Years
The nearly 142,000 pikeminnow caught this year in the BPA-funded bounty program was down from the typical catch of 160,000 to 200,000, but officials were quick to point out that it doesn't necessarily mean the program designed to reduce predation on juvenile salmonids is running out of steam.
More likely, it may be running out of the right-sized pikeminnow that qualify for a reward of four to eight bucks apiece.
"This year, the total number of pikeminnow caught was lower than in recent years, but we believe it's due to the program doing what it was designed to do, reduce the number of pikeminnow in the river," said Russell Porter, senior program manager for the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, in a press release. "But that's not to say that we should stop fishing for them."
To improve participation, especially toward the end of the season, the pikeminnow program has added some new marketing strategies. Anglers pulled 180 specially tagged fish out of the river this season worth $500 each. After Aug 1, anglers were eligible for weekly drawings of $1,000, for a total of $60,000.
"The real winners are the salmon, because pikeminnow eat millions of juvenile salmon and steelhead every year," said BPA project manager John Skidmore. "Reducing the number of these predators through this program helps boost salmon and steelhead survival."
Since 1991, more than 3.3 million northern pikeminnow have been removed from the Snake and Columbia rivers through the program. Last year 158,191 northern pikeminnow were turned in. As a result, northern pikeminnow predation on juvenile salmon in 2009 was cut by an estimated 37 percent.
Most are caught below Bonneville Dam. Since 1991, that part of the Columbia has accounted for about 40 percent of the total pikeminnow harvest. Annual reports estimate that catch-per-unit effort averaged 6.2 pikeminnow per angler in 2001, rising to 7.7 by 2008. -B. R.
[4] Great Returns For Upper Columbia Steelhead
Like their cousins in the Snake, Upper Columbia steelhead are having a nearly off-the-charts return. By the end of last week, the 2009 run had more than doubled the 2008 return.
The numbers may be much more modest than the Snake's quarter of a million steelies, but it is still great news.
By Nov. 9, the steelhead count way upriver at Rocky Reach Dam was 29,478 fish, with more than 9,500 estimated to be wild. Those overall numbers will likely be the highest since the dam was built in 1977.
The numbers in 2001 and 1985 come close, when around 22,000 steelhead had been counted by this time of the month. But in 2001, more than 10,000 were wild. It's a far cry from 1995, when only 1,739 of the ESA-endangered Upper-C steelhead were counted at the dam by this date.
Next to Idaho's listed Redfish Lake sockeye, the Upper-C steelhead run has probably been the stock in the poorest shape in the entire Columbia Basin.
According to a 2006 analysis by the Interior Columbia Technical Recovery Team, the Upper-C steelhead needed more than a 300-percent improvement in survival to reach the 5-percent risk level under their most optimistic analysis. When the TRT used data from only the past 20 years, their results were even more shocking. It said the stock may need more than a 500-percent improvement to maintain a 95-percent chance of surviving over the next 100 years.
Most of the steelhead counted at Rocky Reach have passed Douglas PUD's Wells Dam, where more than 25,000 have been tallied, and most of these are heading for the Methow River.
Others turned off at the Wenatchee (between Rocky Reach and Rock Island dams) and Entiat rivers, which are fed by watersheds besides the Methow, where NOAA Fisheries scientists have developed interim recovery thresholds for returning wild fish.
The fish agency has pegged interim abundance targets of 2,500 steelhead for the Methow, 500 for the Entiat, and 2,500 for the Wenatchee.
With the large return, especially of hatchery fish, managers have wanted to reduce their impact to wild fish on spawning grounds.
On Sept. 29, they opened a generous sport fishery on hatchery-raised returnees on the upper Columbia, Wenatchee, Icicle, Entiat, Methow (where 15,000 hatchery steelies are due back) and Okanogan rivers. In addition, the Similkameen River opened to hatchery steelhead retention beginning Nov. 1.
Anglers are allowed a daily limit of four adipose-fin-clipped hatchery steelhead, which must measure at least 20 inches in length. Steelhead with intact adipose fins must be immediately returned to the rivers unharmed. Anglers also will be required to release any steelhead with one or more round holes punched in the tail fin.
The selective fisheries were approved by NOAA Fisheries, who determined that they will not impede recovery of the region's wild steelhead, said Jim Scott, WDFW's assistant director of fisheries.
"This is a terrific fall fishing opportunity that also will help further fish recovery efforts by removing hatchery-origin steelhead and increasing the proportion of wild steelhead onto the spawning grounds," Scott said. -B. R.
[5] Skagit Chinook Run Best In Over 30 Years
Around 25,000 wild summer/fall chinook have made it back to the Skagit River, the largest return since 1974, when fish managers began keeping a closer eye on the run, after the Boldt decision gave Puget Sound tribes the right to harvest half the region's surplus salmon.
This year's number is more than twice the returns of the past two years, but only a little more than the 23,750-fish return in 2004. In 2005 and 2006, the run came in above 20,000 fish, as well.
In March 1999, the population was listed for protection under the ESA, along with other wild runs as far west as the Elwha River, and more than two dozen hatchery stocks in the Puget Sound region. That fall, only about 5,000 fish returned to the Skagit.
The Skagit accounts for about half of the wild summer/fall chinook return in Puget Sound, and that's after about half of them are caught in various fisheries, most prominently off Vancouver Island. A 2008 treaty negotiation with Canada will reduce their impact some on the Skagit run.
Before the new harvest regime was put in place, Seattle City Light biologist Ed Connor said the harvest impact was more like 60 percent.
But enough fish made it back this year to allow a sport chinook harvest in the Skagit for the first time in 16 years, Connor told NW Fishletter.
The river also saw a monster return of pink salmon this year. Official numbers were in the 1.2-million fish range, but Connor said it might be as high as 2 million.
The big pink run could help with improving fish runs in the Skagit, said Connor, especially steelhead, which were included for protection under the ESA in 2007. He said they should be great fertilizer to boost productivity of the other fish stocks in the river.
The official abundance level for recovering the upper Skagit chinook is around 26,000 fish if productivity is low--only one recruit per spawner. But if productivity rises to nearly four recruits per spawner, the abundance level needs to be only around 5,000 fish.
For the lower Skagit, recovery-level abundance levels are pegged between 3,900 and 16,000, depending on how many adult fish return from each spawner. -B. R.
[6] Sea Lions Eat More, Enjoy It Less
A new report from the Corps of Engineers has estimated that sea lions around Bonneville Dam consumed nearly 5,000 spring chinook this year, or about 2.7 percent of the spring chinook run.
Charged with investigating the eating habits of the sea lions and reducing their predation on adult salmon at the same time, the Corps has used steel screens, loud noises, firecrackers, boat harassment, night vision goggles, monoculars, scopes. thermal imaging, and high-powered spotlights to both chase them away and see how much carnage they are responsible for.
After a court battle with the Humane Society, a federal judge approved the lethal removal of some of the biggest, hungriest sea lions. But that drastic action hasn't really helped much, either.
Readily admitting to using many assumptions in its analysis, the report estimated that the 25 sea lions removed over the past two years has allowed a thousand or more extra spring chinook to pass the dam. That's only about .3 percent of the 297,000 spring chinook adults counted passing the dam in 2008 and 2009.
Twenty sea lions were captured this year, six were branded or tagged and released, four were removed to aquariums and 10 were euthanized after it was determined they carried diseases that made them undesirable for relocation.
More Stellar sea lions showed up near the dam this year, which made up for a reduction in California sea lions, but the report says they caught more salmon per individual. In April, 82 different sea lions had been observed, less than last year's 101, but close to the numbers seen between 2005 and 2007.
According to the report, "The removal of 25 sea lions between 2008 and 2009 failed to reduce the overall salmonid consumption estimate. However, those same 25 California sea lions account for only about 7 percent (25 of 355) of the sea lions identified over the years."
Since these removed animals had been at the dam longer and ate more than other sea lions, the report says consumption estimates would have been higher if they had not been removed.
Evidently, this year's 2.7 percent predation by marine mammals at the dam is down slightly from last year's 3.2 percent. In 2007, researchers pegged their consumption at 4.7 percent and 3.1 percent in 2006 (around 3,000 fish).
Stellar sea lions ate an estimated .3 percent of the spring chinook run. They prefer to dine on white sturgeon earlier in the season. Researchers say they ate around 1,700 or so.
The report also says the sea lions ate a few lamprey, with estimated consumption around 100, but it said that number may be significantly underestimated.
One well-known sea lion even hitched a ride on the back of a towboat going through the lock at Bonneville Dam last May, and was later seen often in the dam's forebay or further upriver, as far as The Dalles Dam spillway. He was last seen in mid October.
However, salmon predation by marine mammals in the 146-mile stretch of the river below the dam is a big unknown. What is known is that 1,500 or so sea lions hang out down there. NOAA Fisheries scientist John Ferguson, speaking at a Power Council-sponsored confab on Columbia estuary science and policy, said those 1,500 sea lions may be eating 20,000 spring chinook every year
A 1999 NMFS report said that predation by marine mammals on salmon was difficult to quantify, but was undoubtedly much less in the open ocean, rather than estuaries where salmon congregate during seasonal migrations. A 1993 study had estimated that harbor seals alone, about 3,000 individuals, consumed nearly 23,000 adult spring chinook in the Columbia River, with about one-quarter of them assumed to be heading for the Snake.
Biologists say sea lions can eat about six salmon a day, if the fish are available.
In 2007, one sea lion, known as C 265, who had been in the neighborhood for the past five years, was trapped near Astoria, and weighed in at 559 pounds. After being radio-tagged and tracked -- the pinniped was down near Newport, Oregon in late March, but spent most of his time in April and May feeding on salmon at Bonneville -- he was trapped once again at Astoria on May 21 and tipped the scales at 1,043 pounds, a gain of 484 pounds in two-and-a-half months.
After he showed up again this year, C 265 was the first to be euthanized.
Meanwhile, back at Bonneville, the report recommends reducing areas where the marine mammals can haul out, like along PowerHouse II's corner collector, to make it easier to trap them and reduce their ability to hang out near the dam. It also said that the devices which created loud noises at fishway entrances to deter sea lions didn't really work, although their use on a more random basis might be more effective. -B. R.
[7] Enviro Groups Pick New Water Fight
Several environmental groups say they intend to sue the Bureau of Reclamation to keep the agency from building a new siphon in the Odessa irrigation area of eastern Washington with $50 million in federal stimulus funding. They say it will allow too much water to be taken out of the Columbia River.
"The latest climate change studies in the Columbia River Basin show that the Columbia River is already too warm for fish like salmon and steelhead and water availability is a major limiting factor." said Brett VandenHeuvel, director of Columbia Riverkeeper. "Given the Northwest's investment in recovering salmon and steelhead, the Bureau's de facto decision to expand the Columbia Basin Project makes no sense."
The groups have already sued the Bureau over a new management process called the Columbia River Initiative that would draw down Lake Roosevelt behind Coulee Dam one foot each summer to provide more water for fish flows, municipal, and agricultural uses, including 30,000 acre-feet a year to the Odessa area to reduce groundwater pumping by farmers, where aquifer levels continue to decline. The Initiative is also designed to help junior water-rights holders in drought years when their water supply might be curtailed otherwise.
A study conducted by Washington State University concluded that aquifer decline could cost Adams, Franklin, Grant, and Lincoln counties as much as $630 million dollars annually in regional sales, a loss of 3,600 jobs, and a loss of $211 million in regional income.
The Bureau says the new siphon would be needed before any more water can be delivered to the Odessa region. A tunnel had already been completed years ago under the I-90 highway to facilitate future construction.
The groups proposing to sue, the Spokane-based Center for Environmental Law & Policy, the Sierra Club and Columbia Riverkeeper, say it's illegal to spend the stimulus money on projects that haven't undergone NEPA review.
The Bureau had earlier conducted an environmental analysis of the Columbia River Initiative and concluded that it had negligible impacts to ESA-listed fish stocks, after a consultation with NOAA Fisheries.
The Bureau, in a June response to the groups' earlier complaints about using stimulus funding for the Weber Siphons, said the capacity of the siphons would exceed that needed to deliver the water from the drawdown agreement because they would be built to meet the capacity of the pipes coming into each siphon on each end.
The environmental groups had argued that the siphon expansion would allow for delivery of 202,000 acre-feet of water to the Odessa subarea, that would serve 57,000 acres, about half of the acreage that is now watered by deep wells.
A study is underway to look at alternatives to groundwater pumping in the Odessa subarea. BuRec is looking at other sources of water, including modifying operations at Banks Lake, through additional drawdown of a two-foot operational raise, and construction of a new 127,000 acre-foot reservoir in Rocky Coulee. They say several water supply options may be necessary to provide a sufficient replacement water supply.
The Bureau told the environmental groups last June that construction of the Weber Siphons was not part of the Odessa Subarea Special Study. Odessa groundwater mining was allowed, in part, because of the early belief that the Columbia Basin Project would expand into the Odessa subarea and replace groundwater use.
In the 1980s, it was decided that expanding the CBR was not economically feasible. The project currently supplies irrigation water to about 670,000 acres of agricultural lands between Grand Coulee and the Quad Cities. The original plan called for distributing water to more than a million acres. -B. R.
[8] Washington F&W Commission Adopts Hatchery Reform Policy
On Nov. 6, members of the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission approved a new hatchery and fishery reform policy.
Key elements of the new policy include more focus on the harvest of abundant hatchery stocks by commercial and recreational fisheries to support sustainable fisheries and reduce the number of hatchery fish spawning in rivers; developing and promoting alternative fishing gear to maximize the harvest of hatchery fish and reduce their numbers on spawning grounds; improving the fitness and viability of wild salmon and steelhead runs by working towards the broodstock standards developed by the regional Hatchery Scientific Review Group in all state hatchery programs by 2015, and integrating hatchery-reform initiatives into comprehensive action plans designed to meet conservation and harvest goals for specific watersheds throughout the state.
With the state facing another $2-billion deficit, it may be hard to pay for the reforms, but the new policy also directs WDFW to seek funding "from all potential sources," expand selective fisheries and ensure state facilities comply with fish-passage standards, water-intake screening and pollution control. -B. R.
[9] Canada To Investigate Fraser Sockeye Debacle
A judge from the British Columbia Supreme Court has been picked to head an inquiry into this year's disastrous return of Fraser River sockeye, which led to a total shutdown of the Fraser-based commercial salmon fishery. More than 10 million fish were expected to show, but only about 1.4 million returned.
According to a press release from Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office, Judge Bruce Cohen will not only investigate the sockeye decline, but he will be expected to make recommendations for improving the sustainability of the Fraser sockeye salmon fishery, including any changes in relation to the DFO's management of the Fraser sockeye fishery. The report will be submitted to the government on or before May 1, 2011
"The Government is establishing a public inquiry to take all feasible steps to identify the reasons for the decline of the Fraser River sockeye salmon population," said the Prime Minister. "It is in the public interest to investigate this matter and determine the longer-term prospects for sockeye salmon stocks."
After predicting a 2009 return of more than 10 million sockeye, Canadian biologists were stunned at the poor show of the country's premier sockeye run. The first batch of returning Fraser sockeye, the Early Stuart run, returned at about half the original prediction of 165,000 fish. The second peak, the Early Summer run, was expected to come in around 740,000, but only about 175,000 showed. The largest component, the Summer run, was pegged at close to 9 million. However, after test fishing and initial inriver counts, only about 650,000 returned.
The Commission has already said the low returns may be due to factors in marine areas sometime between ocean entry in the late spring and early summer of 2007 and the adult return in 2009. Most juvenile Fraser sockeye migrate north up Georgia Strait. Farmed fish critics blame sea lice that the sockeye might have picked up from netpens on their migration up the inside of Vancouver Island.
The sockeye run in northern BC's Skeena River was extremely poor this year as well, but PSC biologist Mike LaPointe said earlier this year that the wild sockeye from Vancouver Island's Barkely Sound were returning in expected numbers, and the Harrison Late-run sockeye from the Fraser tributary were returning at twice their expected number of 69,000 fish. About 200,000 made it back to the Harrison.
LaPointe said the Harrison sockeye had a unique lifestyle compared to other Fraser stocks. They don't spend a year growing in freshwater lakes, but migrate down river shortly after they emerge from the gravel, and spend months hanging out in Georgia Strait before they head north to the Gulf of Alaska, via a route that takes them outside of Vancouver Island. Most Fraser juveniles quickly migrate up the inside.
These differences may have helped them survive better, said LaPointe, since Georgia Strait was fairly warm the year they went to sea in 2007.
The Fraser pink salmon run fared much better, in numbers that approached 20 million fish this year, about 10 percent higher than the preseason estimate. The pinks also travel up the inside route during their juvenile migration. -B. R.
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