Welcome to the California Fisheries Blog

The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance is pleased to host the California Fisheries Blog. The focus will be on pelagic and anadromous fisheries. We will also cover environmental topics related to fisheries such as water supply, water quality, hatcheries, harvest, and habitats. Geographical coverage will be from the ocean to headwaters, including watersheds, streams, rivers, lakes, bays, ocean, and estuaries. Please note that posts on the blog represent the work and opinions of their authors, and do not necessarily reflect CSPA positions or policy.

An Opportunity Missed?

Posted on March 4, 2016 by Tom Cannon

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released 400,000 Winter-Run Chinook salmon smolts from the Livingston Stone Fish Hatchery into the Sacramento River near Redding. But according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Steve Martarano, “The release won’t occur until we see a significant increase in density and flow in the Sacramento River. It’s based on a rain event.” ¹

Last year Reclamation released some water from Shasta for the “event” (Figure 1). This year there was no such an “event” (Keswick release) (Figure 2). The real question is whether they missed the “real” flow event in January (Figure 3) when storm flows from Cow, Cottonwood, and Battle Creeks downstream of Redding brought flows near Red Bluff to 10,000-40,000 cfs. Why didn’t Reclamation and the Service coordinate release of water from Keswick and the salmon smolts at Redding in late January? Shasta inflows in January reached 40,000 cfs.(Figure 4.) Such a release would have also helped the wild salmon emigrate from their spawning reach at Redding to San Francisco Bay and the Ocean.

Figure 1. Keswick Reservoir releases into the upper Sacramento River near Redding in winter 2015.

Figure 2. Keswick Reservoir releases into the upper Sacramento River near Redding in winter 2016.

Figure 3. Upper Sacramento River flow near Red Bluff winter 2016.

Figure 4. Shasta Reservoir inflow during January storms.

http://www.orovillemr.com/environment-and-nature/20160204/400000-winter-run-salmon-planned-for-sacramento-river-release ↩

February Delta Smelt Update

Posted on March 3, 2016 by Tom Cannon

The February trawl survey indices are in – there are a few Delta Smelt left (Figure 1).

The Smelt Working Group, created as prescribed in the Smelt Biological Opinion issued by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (in the Department of Interior), has stated following its meetings on February 15 and 22: “The fact that sporadic Delta Smelt catches have continued to occur at Prisoners Point under the lowest February SKT survey on record indicates that the risk of entrainment remains high and is incompatible with current pumping levels.” ¹

After its February 22 meeting, the Working Group added: “Salvage: Four delta smelt on February18, geographic influence of the pumps extends to the lower San Joaquin River at the more negative end of this flow range, especially affecting the southern bank near Jersey Point. Recent salvage of adult Delta Smelt confirms that entrainment into the export facilities has occurred and likely is continuing…. The Working Group concluded that any salvage observed at either facility will be of high concern because Delta Smelt abundance is at a historic low, contributing to low detection probability of Delta Smelt in salvage under RPA compliant operations (BiOp page 338). One fish was detected in salvage sampling on January 21 and February 18, counting as eight salvaged Delta Smelt due to an expansion factor of four.”

Following these meetings, the US Bureau of Reclamation (also in the Department of Interior), which operates the federal export pumps in the South Delta, exported more than double the recommendation of the Smelt Working Group. Together the state and federal exports were nearly triple the recommended amount (<2000 cfs). This situation, where the state and federal experts in the Smelt Working Group were ignored by their managers, who instead maximized Delta exports in February, is a gross violation of the intent of the state and federal endangered species acts and species protections in the biological opinion. Graph of Kodiak Trawl Figure 1. Record low indices for Jan-Feb 2016 in Kodiak Trawl Survey²

Few Smelt Left are at High Risk

Posted on February 24, 2016 by Tom Cannon

This third week of February 2016 the Smelt Working Group concluded “the risk of entrainment remains high and it is incompatible with current pumping levels”¹. Basically as Delta inflows decline after the early winter stormwater recedes in early February and South Delta exports increase, the risk to Delta Smelt is high with the onset of spawning imminent. Despite the high risk assessment, state and federal managers have decided to raise exports to the maximum allowed under the Delta Smelt Biological Opinion, to 6,000 cfs, which is triple the 2000 limit suggested by the working group, and about a third of Delta inflow. The working group warns the managers that just because there are few smelt being seen in Delta surveys does not mean that the remnants of the populations are not at risk.

The working group is also concerned with what may soon occur once smelt do start spawning. As Longfin Smelt have begun spawning, I have summarized recent data to specifically look at that risk. Figure 1 shows the recent early February Smelt Larval Survey results along with annotations of net flows. Under 6000 cfs exports negative upstream net flows occurs throughout the central Delta (red arrows). The larval smelt in this area will transport to the south Delta over time. With spawning smelt in this area, their offspring will also likely move south to the pumping plants.

With most of the larval Longfin in Suisun Bay because of the earlier storm flows, the risk to the population is low. Yet, these are a state endangered species with these export operations causing a measurable take. With Delta Smelt yet to spawn, they are more likely to be found further upstream because of lower Delta inflows, thus putting their larvae at greater risk than Longfin, especially given ripe adults are present in the central Delta.

One final note, with these operations and declining Delta inflow, the low salinity zone where smelt larvae concentrate will be drawn ever eastward from eastern Suisun Bay into the central Delta. This pattern will increase the risks to smelt. The upstream edge of the low salinity zone is moving upstream in the lower San Joaquin channel with the higher exports as seen at Antioch (Figure 2) and False River (Figure 3).

Figure 1. Early February Longfin Smelt densities from Larval Smelt Survey² with added annotations of net flow in the Central Delta zone of influence (red circle) of the South Delta exports. Blue circle shows catch at Jersey Pt station (809). Red arrows depict net negative flows on the order of 400-5000 cfs³. (Note these early February Longfin larvae densities are by far the lowest observed in the eight years of surveys.)

Figure 2. Salinity (EC) at Antioch in the San Joaquin channel of the west Delta during February 2016. (Source: CDEC)

Figure 3. Salinity (EC) in False River in the central Delta during February 2016. (Source: CDEC)

Fishbio confuses yet again – this time it’s California Salmon Hatchery Programs

Posted on February 13, 2016 by Tom Cannon

The new internet “journalism” and “science” forums bring out fisheries issues for debate in an open forum in a timely manner. No longer do we have to wait for the peer-reviewed reports and papers to come out two or more years after the fact. I subscribe to all that I can find – blogs, newsletters, and websites. Two of my favorite blogs on California Central Valley issues are Fishbio’s Fish Report¹ and UC Davis’s California Water Blog.² For news and information nothing beats Mavens Notebook.³

A recent Fishbio post focuses on the problems with hatcheries.⁴ As in most posts (even mine), there is room for debate.

Their post begins with a discussion of the increasing reliance on hatcheries after 150 years of development in California. It fast-forwards to the present dependence on hatcheries for sport and commercial fisheries. It relates the recent recommendations of the California Hatchery Scientific Review Group:

Define hatchery production goals in terms of the number of salmon that survive to age 3 in the ocean just prior to harvest, instead of setting goals based on the number of juvenile salmon released;
Cease transporting and releasing juvenile salmon outside their river basin of origin;
Improve monitoring and evaluation of hatchery operations; and
Improve coordination of operations among hatcheries (CAHSRG 2012).

The Fishbio post then takes us subtly off-course with: “As a result of technological improvements and, possibly, human preferences to spawn the largest and fastest growing fish, salmon are growing to larger sizes faster in the hatchery environment, which has resulted in a new life-history type (springtime releases of “advanced smolts”). These large, young fish did not exist earlier in the time series, but they now dominate the type of fish released from state-operated hatcheries.”

While the state hatcheries do raise some “advanced” smolts for release into the Bay in late spring for the commercial fishermen, these fish are “advanced” only in the sense they are reared longer in the hatchery to a larger smolt size with greater chance of contributing to the commercial fishery along the coast after release in the Bay. The vast majority of the 30 million smolts raised in Central Valley hatcheries are “normal-sized” 3-inch April-May smolts, which in many cases are actually smaller and later ocean-entry than the wild salmon that enter the estuary as December-February fry-fingerlings and enter the ocean as smolts in March-April a month before their hatchery counterparts.

The post ends with a critique of hatchery practices: “Another marked change in hatchery practices occurred around year 2000, when fish began to be stocked at similar sizes in similar locations at similar times of year…. With long overdue, detailed hatchery information now freely available, more informed stewardship of California’s iconic salmon population is now possible.”

The fact is that stocking has become more diversified than ever. Millions are released at the hatcheries and in the mainstem rivers below hatcheries, often coincident with storm flows and good Delta conditions. Millions are released over the spring months directly into the Bay. The “advanced” smolts are usually released in June. In wet years, more are released in rivers, and in drought years, more are released in the Bay. Winter, Spring, Fall, and Late-Fall Run smolts are released at different times and places. Each hatchery has its own schedule to maximize use of the common resources (e.g., personnel, trucks, pens, ramps, etc.). Hatchery programs are now more “informed” and better managed and coordinated than ever before, and making concerted efforts to continue to improve.

Without the hatchery efforts in the past decade of drought, there would be few salmon left for sport and commercial fisheries. One of the greatest challenges for California fisheries management in the next decade is to continue to improve hatchery practices while also restoring wild salmon runs, so that the wild fish are not only kept from extinction but also contribute substantially to sport and commercial fisheries.

More on Mark-Selective Steelhead Fisheries

Posted on February 10, 2016 by Don Beyer with Prologue by Tom Cannon

Don Beyer and many others are concerned with the recent movement to limit hatchery production and mark-selective fisheries of Steelhead in the Puget Sound and Columbia River regions in Washington State. At the center of the debate have been proposals to eliminate hatchery programs on rivers with wild Steelhead.¹ Typically, WA Steelhead fisheries focused on winter hatchery fish (adipose fin clipped), with catch-and-release of wild non-clipped fish in winter and spring. In recent years, popular mark-selective and wild catch-and-release fisheries have been shut down on rivers in WA with seemingly healthy populations of wild Steelhead.² Will NMFS extend these strategies to California?

Recent catch of a hatchery Steelhead in the lower American River in Sacramento. (Photo by T. Cannon)

Marking of Hatchery Fish for Selective Fisheries

by Don Beyer

Salmon and steelhead hatcheries have been in existence for decades along the Pacific coast. The purpose of these hatcheries has been to maintain or improve fisheries for sport, commercial, and tribal interests. They are also a key factor in providing mitigation for habitat losses due to water resource projects such as dams, urbanization, land use alterations, and pollution which have negatively impacted wild fish populations.

Hatchery fish are utilized for food consumption by not only humans, but by marine mammals (e.g., Orcas, seals/sea lions, porpoise/dolphins), birds (bald eagles/ospreys/herons), and other fish (e.g., bull trout), many of which are protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), Marine Mammal Act, or other similar Federal acts. The sport fishing industry that has developed over decades around fish resulting from hatchery programs also has a very large economic impact involving millions of dollars.

As a result of the ESA and its efforts to protect non-hatchery raised salmon or steelhead, it was difficult for fishermen to distinguish between hatchery and non-hatchery fish and it appeared that harvest would need to be strictly curtailed or eliminated. To resolve this challenge, hatchery fish were required to be clearly “marked” so that they could be differentiated from non-hatchery fish. The most widely adopted approach has been to remove the adipose fin (a small non-functional fin near the tail of the fish) in juvenile fish before they leave the hatchery to migrate to the ocean. In this manner, if a fisherman caught a salmon or steelhead with an intact adipose fin, they were required to carefully release the fish (even if the season was open for that species). This approach (termed “selective fishery”) was to allow fishermen to continue fishing while protecting ESA-listed salmon or steelhead. Without this approach, the sport, commercial, and likely tribal fisheries would have ceased to exist. It took many years in all Pacific coast states, along with the efforts of many people, to get the selective fishery approved and implemented.

Other approaches are also being undertaken to minimize or eliminate interactions of ESA and non-ESA listed fish. For example, in the past, steelhead from Washington state hatcheries were released at the hatchery and often at other locations either upstream, downstream, or even other river systems. To minimize potential interactions with ESA-listed steelhead, this practice has been minimized to releases only at the hatchery. This takes advantage of the exceptional homing abilities of adult hatchery fish to return to their place of origin (i.e., the hatchery), thus reducing the interactions with non-hatchery fish.

Without the adipose-marking of fish, current fisheries would not be able to continue because fish protected under ESA could not be differentiated from hatchery fish. As such, a major food source for humans and other ecosystem components (e.g., those mentioned above) would cease to exist along with the loss of a major industry dependent on hatchery production. Without selective fishing, the only possibility for a return to a harvestable level of fish would be for ESA-listed species to recover to a level of sustainability that includes harvest. This is a long-term undertaking and may not be possible in some areas where the habitat would not sustain recovery. However, in some situations such as the Columbia River system, progress is being made through recovery of habitat, improvements in hydroelectric and hatchery programs, and harvest restrictions. On the latter, the selective fishery approach has allowed a very viable sport, commercial, and tribal harvest to continue.