Puget Sound salmon recovery
Puget Sound salmon recovery is a collective effort of federal, state and local authorities and non-profit coalitions of universities, scientists, business and industry aimed at restoring Pacific salmon and anadromous forms of Pacific trout within the Puget Sound region. Puget Sound lies within the native range of the Pacific Salmon and two sea-run forms of Pacific trout, the coastal rainbow trout or steelhead and coastal cutthroat trout. Populations of Oncorhynchus have seen significant declines since the middle of the 19th century due to over fishing, habitat loss, pollution and disease. Salmon species residing in or migrating through Puget Sound to spawning streams include Chum, Coho, Chinook, Sockeye, and Pink salmon. Pacific salmon require freshwater rivers for spawning and most major tributaries of Puget Sound have salmon, steelhead and cutthroat trout spawning runs.
Major organizations involved in recovery efforts include the Puget Sound Partnership, Shared Strategy for Puget Sound, South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group and Westsound Watersheds Council.
Needs
Pacific salmon rely on nearshore waters and estuaries for survival during a part of their life cycle. Salmon use estuaries and near-shore areas for migration, juvenile rearing, refuge, and feeding. Large trees in rivers are no longer common. The Nisqually River was in pristine condition when it was layered with log jams. It turns out, logjams actually help salmon, partly by slowing the speed of the river and by creating cool pools and channels that are good places for adult and juvenile fish to hide, feed and spawn. When 90% of wetlands were lost, 90% of salmon was also lost.A Migratory Path
Puget Sound's near-shore region is composed of shallow saltwater, nearby wetlands, estuaries, beaches, and bluffs. These areas are critical zones for juvenile salmon as they make the transition from rivers to the ocean. Salmon are known to move through estuaries twice in their lifetimes. The first move is as juveniles when they move to the sea, and the second is as adults when they transition back to the rivers in order to spawn.
A Place To Adjust
Juvenile salmon spend a prolonged period of time in estuaries in order to help ease their bodies adapt to the transition from fresh water to salt water. In a process called “Smoltification”, salmon are able to make the next step in preparing their bodies for the transition from freshwater to saltwater. Specifically, their bodies go through dramatic changes portrayed through their outward appearance, behavior, and even body chemistry. When these salmon return as adults they must go through the same process again in estuaries to help make the transition from saltwater to freshwater before heading back to their respective rivers to spawn.
There are many different species of salmon that run through Puget Sound. Such salmon species include Chum, Coho, Chinook, Sockeye, Pink, and Steelhead. These salmon swim through Puget Sound to spawn in the rivers running into Puget Sound. Some Puget Sound rivers that salmon swim up are: Nooksack, Samish, Skagit, Baker, Cascade, Stillaguamish, Snohomish, Skykomish, Green, Puyallup, Carbon, Nisqually, Deschutes rivers. Salmon also go up Lake Washington, Lake Sammamish, Kennedy Creek, and Minter Creek.
Life cycle
The life cycle of salmon requires specific conditions within the chain of connected environments. Salmon typically live 3–6 years, which often changes depending on life conditions. While some salmon stay within Puget Sound, others will migrate and live deeper in the Pacific Ocean. The salmon begin their journey as fertilized eggs in a stream that eventually hatch and move downstream in freshwater. Once they mature to juvenile salmon, also known as “fry”, they migrate from the freshwater stream towards a brackish estuary where “saltwater meets freshwater”. Here, they begin to adapt to the salt water during a process known as smoltification, which can last up to a few months. Smoltification is crucial to ensure survival of salmon once they enter the Pacific Ocean. At this point, they are ready to transition through the coastal shores into the North Pacific Ocean where they stay anywhere from six months up to five years and travel as far as the Gulf of Alaska. Depending on the species, the salmon are ready to return to their home stream, river, or lake after one to seven years of being in the ocean to begin the process of spawning. Once the salmons spawn, the process begins again with the new salmon.Juvenile salmon: The Most Crucial Stage of the Life Cycle
As mentioned above, juvenile salmon utilize estuaries to transition from freshwater to saltwater environments. Estuaries have "brackish" water conditions, in which water is not purely freshwater or saltwater, but rather an 'in-between.' These estuaries contain the necessary amount of both fresh and salt water so the salmon can steadily adapt without causing harm to their body chemistry, in the process called "smoltification". While this meeting of fresh and salt is necessary, juvenile salmon use estuaries for more than a place of adaption. Eelgrass, also known as Vallisneria, and other aquatic vegetation grows submersed or emergent or around shoreline areas, offering protection and supplemental food for juvenile salmon from predators such as larger, grown salmon, birds of prey, bears, and cougars. Furthermore, "juvenile salmon experience the highest growth rates of their lives while in estuaries and nearshore waters". Since nutrients are so crucial to their growth, the complex food web produced from these water plants such as eelgrass serves the juvenile salmon well, and these salmon tend to be more selective, using instincts to tell them what will better prepare their bodies for ocean residence or migration later in their lives.
Habitat loss
Although salmon spend only a part of their life cycle in near-shore areas, these habitats are critical to the survival of salmon populations. Shoreline habitats of Puget Sound have suffered significant losses over the last 125 years. When marshes are lost, young salmon lose food and shelter. Studies show a 73 percent decline in salt marsh habitats bordering Puget Sound. Nearly all salt marsh habitats within major urban areas along Puget Sound have been destroyed. The Puyallup River Delta, for example, lost 100 percent of its nearshore habitat. Other factors that contribute to habitat loss are pollutants, bulkheads, loss of shoreline vegetation and the blockage from docks and piers. Polluted estuaries and nearshore areas have caused juvenile salmon to suffer adverse effects as they pass through the estuaries. Human-caused stresses can cause immune dysfunction, increased susceptibility to disease, and impaired growth. Bulkheads can disrupt shore drift and shoreline vegetation, thus eliminating cover and food sources for young salmon. Loss of shoreline vegetation along the shore is of particular importance to juvenile salmon because it stabilizes the shoreline, provides shade, acts as a protective cover, organic input and food source for young salmon moving in close to shore. The decrease in riparian vegetation along the shoreline can also account for an increase in stream temperature, which can benefit invasive species of bacteria and parasites that are harmful to the salmon. There are also concerns over hatchery spawned salmon that are capable of spreading diseases to wild populations of juvenile salmon. These wild spawns are not able to fight off these illnesses that the hatchery fish are given antibiotics for, which can also drop wild spawn rates. Arguments can also be made that while hatcheries are able to meet conservation and sustainable fishery goals, they are not meant to be a long-term solution to the native salmon populations sustainability. This can give a false sense of security to the public and mislead them into thinking hatcheries are a viable long-term solution to the native salmon populations and that they can benefit the salmon and the environment. Furthermore, while hatchery fish raise the overall population of salmon that can be harvested, they also attributed to the decline in ecosystem and natural wild populations. The added population of hatchery fish to the wild population can also lead to an over harvest of the wild populations due to the overcompensation of hatchery fish being released and fishermen assuming they’re catching the hatchery spawns. The hatchery fish can also affect the density dependent mortality rate of the wild populations as the increase of juvenile hatchery spawned salmon affects the carrying capacity of the wild salmon’s native environment. This leads to competition among the two groups and limits the number of fish the ecosystem can support. Docks and piers can block light to underwater habitats such as eelgrass meadows, and sources of food and shelter for juvenile salmon and other marine life.In conclusion, of all of the threats that salmon are faced with, including climate change, disease and animal predation, habitat loss is one of the greatest threats. Salmon face many obstacles throughout their cycle that add on the four mentioned before: loss of access to historic habitat, habitat destruction, pesticide use, aquaculture, urban development and encroachment onto riparian areas and increasing water temperatures in streams. It is critical to have open passages to natal or home streams for adults to spawn. If their energy is depleted before they spawn, they die without producing the net generation of fish. Warming water temperature and low water levels in streams also accelerate pre-spawn mortality.