Salmon Steward

salmon Steward magazine 17 salmon Steward magazine i n the mid-1990s there was a sudden and precipitous decline of wild Coho in the Salish Sea, followed by historically low catches of Chinook. Yet, until recently, very little had been done to understand the cause. The Salish Sea Marine Survival Project is a five-year research effort to determine the most significant factors affecting juvenile salmon and Steelhead survival in the Salish Sea, including the border-spanning waterways of the Strait of Georgia, Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Planning began in 2012, and the $10-million research effort in Canada began in 2014 in the Cowichan. Leading Canadian efforts in the Strait of Georgia, the Pacific Salmon Foundation implemented an intensive pilot year of research studies aimed at defining critical parameters for measuring early marine survival and growth, and to help determine the most cost-effective sampling program to be applied through 2015-2018. The work was focused on examining juvenile Chinook and their physical environment. Many of these kinds of studies had never been done before in the Strait. nEW tEchnOlOgy In the past, determining Pacific salmon mortality rates was done by marking fish in freshwater and simply counting the number that returned to the marine environment; in some thriving watersheds, it was a process that entailed turning over thousands of dead salmon carcasses. In the Salish Sea, we've developed a much more practical approach involving PIT (Passive Integrated Transponder) tags, which are inserted into fish as small as 65mm and provide a lifetime individual barcode that is read by receivers. These PIT tags provide an infinite range of marking locations, times, species and sizes. For this project, the PIT tags were read by receivers in the river mounted on seals' heads, and in the form of hand-held wands. The information from the PIT tags will help determine marine and freshwater survival, extent of seal predation as well as the growth and movement of small salmon. Use of PIT tags should lead to great progress in identifying the relative survival of juvenile Chinook. nEW findings Other initiatives discovered that algal blooms could have a major impact on juvenile salmon. Algae blooms occur naturally in the marine environment and are usually harmless, but some produce fish-killing toxins. We have also observed a significant increase in the number of microbes carried by young salmon — but it is not yet understood whether this results in mortality. One major accomplishment in 2014 was the development of the citizen science program, which outfits small civilian boats and trains volunteers to conduct oceanographic sampling. The beauty of the program is that it allows us to be everywhere at once and make data comparisons not previously possible. thE yEar ahEad The 2015 research program and associated budget were developed in December 2014. It is an ambitious program with more than 25 studies designed to identify where, when and why mortality of juvenile salmon occurs in the Strait of Georgia. These include the use of acoustic and PIT tags, new genomics methods to study salmon health, sampling for predators, examining the extent of wild-hatchery and wild-aquaculture interactions, quantification of the interactions between harbour seals and salmon, and habitat restoration. This will make for an exciting three years! Visit marinesurvivalproject.com for more information. A yeAr oF ProgreSS For SAlmoN AND The STrAIT oF georgIA Dr. Isobel Pearsall projeCt Coordinator, salish sea marine surViVal projeCt S C i e n t i f i C r e S e a r C h Above: Summer students use a PIT tag reader to check for tags in juvenile salmon. Right: Students seine for species sampling in Cowichan Bay. WHO Cares About Salmon? A seal pitches in to the Project with his PIT tag beanie. 2015 includes an ambitious program designed to identify where, when and why mortality of juvenile salmon occurs in the Strait of Georgia.

• Cover
• p04-5_Chair
• p26-27_ProjectList
• p28-29donors