[4] Ocean Productivity Declined In 2009

NOAA Fisheries scientists who monitor biological and physical conditions in the ocean off the West Coast say conditions for salmon have declined from 2008.

But they are not surprised, since 2008 conditions were "unprecedentedly positive" for salmon, according to NMFS scientist John Ferguson, who heads the Fish Ecology division at the agency's science center in Seattle.

And they are still upbeat since they saw spring conditions for migrating salmonids that were still generally favorable, but by the time fall chinook and coho hit the ocean, the situation had deteriorated "significantly," he said.

"Our September coho catches were the lowest on record, and reflected a complete reversal of the state of the ocean at that time," Ferguson said, via an e-mail update.

He said the late summer ocean survey detected few forage fish or juvenile salmon, "but warm water predators like Humboldt squid had come up and onto the shelf and (presumably) ate everything in sight."

According to preliminary data, the spring chinook survey ranked fourth highest since 1998, and there were plenty of lipid-rich copepods for them to eat. The length of the upwelling season was also the fourth best since 1998.

But by September, waters had warmed, and the juvenile fish survey trawled up small silvers at a rate of only 0.01 coho/square km. In 2008, the coho survey was 27 times better than that. -B. R.

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