Category Archives: Scott Veirs

Nearshore distribution and size-structure of juvenile salmon and forage fishfrom the observations and modeling on watersheds, marine waters, and marine biota. These talks will focus

Elisabeth Duffy*, David Beauchamp

Juvenile salmon are moving through Puget Sound (PS) from April-July.  By end of July most have made it to the deep ocean.  Percent of fish from hatcheries is about 50% in N PS and 90% in S PS.

Nearshore fish comunity: herring and perch up north, hatchery salmon dominate in the south; salmon are 30-130mm, herring 130-160cm, sand lance 100-130cm; north diets dominated by insects, south diet by crab larvae, euphausids; predators drive early mortality and salmonids dominate (cutthroat target smallest juveniles)

Overall, marine survival has been really low, and lowest during pink years.  The bigger the fish are in July, the better their marine survival.

Where do we go from here?

  • synthesize data across Salish Sea
  • Prey supply (zooplankton) is a big data gap

Northern resident bounty this year?

This just in from salmonuniversity.com:

Forecasts are great for the Queen Charlotte’s and the Nushagak in 2009

Canadian Fisheries claims the water temperature is the coldest in 11 years and the ocean conditions are perfect for setting up huge runs of returning Chinook and Coho for 2009.  In 2005 the Nushagak had over 300k returning Chinook – this year will be the returning fish from that run, coupled with terrific ocean conditions equates to a banner year in 2009

What does this mean for the southern residents?