the film forum library tutorial contact

Federal Fish Managers Brace for Another Warm Year in the Northwest Anna King KUOW.org, October 28, 2015

The summer's early snowmelt, record temperatures and drought in the Northwest killed young hatchery fish and adult fish returning to spawn. And federal experts are expecting 2016 to be even worse for fish.

Seventy U.S. Fish & Wildlife managers passed around a microphone this week in a hotel conference room. They told scary stories about warm Northwest water. The Columbia River heated up this summer, and nearly the entire run of returning sockeye was lost.

Susan Gutenberger is a federal Fish & Wildlife manager. She said the salmon went up tributaries -- and still died.

"There were hundreds of them," she said. "And then of course they had fungus but they also had a couple of other problems."

Several Northwest federal fish hatcheries lost fish to disease or had to evacuate fish to other facilities. Fish experts hope for deep snowpack and predict a need to redesign hatcheries for warmer weather.

Related:

Biologist warns of climate warming effects on Idaho's wild salmon
At a Trout Unlimited meeting last week in Idaho, Bert Bowler, a fish biologist and former Columbia River policy coordinator for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, said warming waters in the Pacific Ocean, the Columbia and lower Snake, pose a risk to the survival of the wild salmon that migrate to Idaho.

-- Idaho Mountain Express

Related Sites:
Idaho Department of Fish and Game Snake River Sockeye Program
NOAA Fisheries Manchester Laboratory Sockeye Program