Killing The Klamath River

Started by Keta, August 09, 2024, 03:21:34 PM

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Maxed Out

Quote from: Gfish on October 20, 2024, 05:37:38 PMHatchery environments are like laboratories for breeding various fish diseases. Crowded raceways and ponds, low water quality, crappy diet and constant skin and fin injuries(they bite each other chasing after pellet feed).

....and the hatcheries also fertilize eggs willy nilly, and sometimes mate a brother and sister without knowing.

 West coast Canadian hatcheries use broodstock from captured wild male salmon to keep that from happening, and have much more robust returns of mature fish. Wish our hatcheries managers would learn from our neighbors to the north
We Must Never Forget Our Veterans....God Bless Them All !!

oc1

#46
Maybe it makes more sense to be stocking Lost River Sucker and Shortnose Sucker instead of salmon and trout.  The sucker will eat the worms that harbor the parasite that kills the salmon. 

There are well-known techniques for mass production of suckers and other members of the carp family.   Since these particular suckers are endangered species the hatchery gets extra points and extra funding.

USFWS is already building a sucker hatchery there that's scheduled for completion in 2026.  However, it is only 8.5 acres of ponds with a production goal of only 60,000 fish per year.  That's less than two fish per square meter.  They need to think big and broaden the goal from saving the suckers to saving the entire ecosystem.  The century-old existing Klamath Hatchery says it produces 3 million trout per year.  Hatcheries always lie about their numbers but it's still probably a lot more than 60,000 fish per year.

jurelometer

Ooh... more interesting stuff.

It looks like the endemic sucker species (four total) are affected by the dams, but also by the draining of wetlands/water diversions for farming, so the hatchery work is focused more on preserving the species until the the lakes and streams are in good enough shape to support a recovering population.  Juveniles in the wild are not currently surviving long enough to reach reproductive age, and the existing reproductive population is aging out. They could be one big drought event from extinction.

Didn't see any claims that a recovered sucker population would affect salmon parasites, but considering how huge the historic biomass was, it seems unlikely that the basin ecosystem would be the same without them.

Here is one overview:

https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/70209229

Stuff that Lee probably knows all about, but I was just vaguely aware of: 

A big chunk of restoring the watershed comes at the expense of the ranchers and  farmers in the area, which were traditionally family operations. Many were homesteads granted to returning WWII vets. Burdened with more frequent droughts and increasing water diversion restrictions, some (many?) are selling out to big Ag operations, which brings a different set of challenges to making the necessary tradeoffs.  I am not going to open this can of worms, as it is would get political real fast.  :-X 

Fixing the Klamath piecemeal just keeps getting more complicated, but it seems to be the only option.

-J

Gobi King

Similar efforts are underway in MI
Most hydro dams are in disrepair and owners do not want to pour in the $$

So overall taking out dams is good for salmon ??
Shibs - aka The Gobi King
Fichigan

oc1

#49
Quote from: jurelometer on October 21, 2024, 05:35:00 PMDidn't see any claims that a recovered sucker population would affect salmon parasites, but considering how huge the historic biomass was, it seems unlikely that the basin ecosystem would be the same without them.

What made me wonder was a photo somewhere in the links above showing worm collection.  Those things grow on a hard surface as well as in the substrate where you'd expect to find a tube polychaete.  If a PhD in SCuBA gear can scrape them off a boulder, then why-the-heck hasn't some small fish or crustacean come along and eaten them?  Tube polychaetes are a delectable worm in a mucus sack.  Any small fish, crawfish or glass shrimp would love to find some.  It doesn't make sense unless things are much worse than I imagined.

jurelometer

Quote from: oc1 on October 22, 2024, 05:06:39 AM
Quote from: jurelometer on October 21, 2024, 05:35:00 PMDidn't see any claims that a recovered sucker population would affect salmon parasites, but considering how huge the historic biomass was, it seems unlikely that the basin ecosystem would be the same without them.

What made me wonder was a photo somewhere in the links above showing worm collection.  Those things grow on a hard surface as well as in the substrate where you'd expect to find a tube polychaete.  If a PhD in SCuBA gear can scrape them off a boulder, then why-the-heck hasn't some small fish or crustacean come along and eaten them?  Tube polychaetes are a delectable worm in a mucus sack.  Any small fish, crawfish or glass shrimp would love to find some.  It doesn't make sense unless things are much worse than I imagined.

These suckers are big suckers, one species getting up to around a yard long. From what I just read, Klamath suckers were historically abundant enough that they were harvested by pitchfork.  There was even a commercial fishery.  That means a lot of zooplankton, bugs and worms getting chowed down by a lot of fish.

They also have those toxic algae blooms in the lake nowadays which cause dieoffs of suckers annd other species.  Also  a loss of wetlands for rearing juveniles and the food that they eat.    So things got pretty bad in multiple  dimensions.

Quote from: Gobi King on October 21, 2024, 10:36:55 PMSimilar efforts are underway in MI
Most hydro dams are in disrepair and owners do not want to pour in the $$

So overall taking out dams is good for salmon ??

Pretty much.  Dams usually screw up habitat, and impede migration.  They can also help with some useful stuff like controlled releases during droughts to keep the rivers flowing and cold. But pretty much always a net negative.

The crazy part is that since the ecosystem has adapted to the presence of the dam, yanking out the dam causes a yet another adaptation cycle, which brings a new set of issues to manage.  It is not  simply unwinding back to the good old days. 

That is how this thread got started. We are kicking around some of  the ramifications of yanking out the Klamath dams.

-J

oc1

It's weird because a century ago they were building dams as fast as they could so we'd all be civilized.  Now, they can't get rid of them fast enough so we'll all be environmentally conscious.  Something like 1,300 dams have been removed in the last 30 years.  They just blew up one in Maryland a few weeks ago.  In MD, they are trying to restore herring and alewife for the Chesapeake Bay.  If it goes forward, the Snake River project will a big one; that also in the name of salmon migration and spawning.

From a fishing perspective, the removal of some dams would be catastrophic.  Without the Santee Cooper dam in SC there would be no landlocked striped bass or the recreational fishing economy that grew up around them.

Gfish

Interesting stuff. Depends on where you're coming from. A "net negative" or net positive. The Smith and Chetco Rivers in N. Cal. & S. Or. showed me which side I land on. The real kicker though, was experiencing Alaskan Rivers. Choked with various Salmonid runs all throughout the warm season.
The Snake R. system would be interesting to see change. Those are some long-tall dams. Navigation, electricity production, irrigation and recreation would suffer, though.
Fishing tackle is an art form and all fish caught on the right tackle are"Gfish"!

Keta

#53
A big part of the "mullet" (sucker) problem has to do with  20,000 cormorants (relatively new to the upper basin) thousands of native pelicans, mergansers and western greebe eating them.

The Klamath Tribe has had a "mullet" hatchery on the Sprague River for decades and the nature conservancy has flooded thousands of acres on the north end of Klamath and NW side of Agency Lake over 20 years ago.

Artificial downstream water demand has reduced the size of Tule Lake and a lot of it was de-watered a few years ago.  One good thing about dewatering Tule Lake was it reduced the levels of avian botulism on the refuge.
Hi, my name is Lee and I have a fishing gear problem.

I have all of the answers, yup, no, maybe.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Mark Twain

Ron Jones

All I can say is that we didn't see salmon in the upper Elwha for something like 4 years, and it took over a decade to be certain that there were actual returns. We still won't be able to fish it for another 8 years, and I'm certain it will be another decade after that again.

Humans aren't horrible, we were just ignorant, and there is never an answer that everyone sees as the best. Without a doubt, these removals are about getting votes, but at the end of the day, several human lifetimes from now which is really the only frame of reference that matters, them being gone is a good thing.

The Man
Ronald Jones
To those who have gone to sea and returned and to those who have gone to sea and will never return
"

Keta

#55
The silt will wash downstream the next few high water events but the clay will be around for a long time.  The spawning habitat above Irongate is no where near the claimed 40 miles, more like 150 miles, and much less than the clay covered gravel below Irongate Dam.  The dams needed to go but the way they did it was greedy driven stupidity.
Hi, my name is Lee and I have a fishing gear problem.

I have all of the answers, yup, no, maybe.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Mark Twain

jurelometer

From a couple days ago:  Over a hundred chinook past the dams, 20 or so reds spotted. I think a steelhead too. Video taken of spawners by the Yurok tribe:



They are pushing upstream, looking healthy, and a few tried to get up the fish ladder at the Keno dam, but no joy.  There is probably more work needed to enable larger fish to get past Keno.

The tribe and the biologists are pretty happy with how things are going so far, but a long way to go:

https://www.ijpr.org/environment-energy-and-transportation/2024-11-01/fish-biologists-collaborate-to-track-pioneering-klamath-river-salmon

Got my fingers crossed...

-J

Keta

#57
Unlike the lower 3 dams in California the Oregon dams, JC Boyle, Keno and Link River dams, were built with fish ladders.  The ladder at the Link River Dam was replaced a decade or so ago with a modern ladder that allows the klamath and lost river suckers access to Klamath Lake. 

As far as steelhead on the Klamath I do not think it has a fall run.
Hi, my name is Lee and I have a fishing gear problem.

I have all of the answers, yup, no, maybe.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Mark Twain

Gfish

Where we gon git all de e-lec-tricity we's used ta usin?
Will the kilowatt-hour price go up? Alternative sources?
Fishing tackle is an art form and all fish caught on the right tackle are"Gfish"!

Keta

#59
The lower 3 dams generated less power than the upper dam, JC Boyle, and it was used for peaking power as it did not have enough flow to run continuously.  Power wise the loss of these 4 dams is not a big concern and none were flood control or irrigation dams. 

Removing them was a good thing, dumping silt on spawning steelhead and covering many miles of spawning gravel with clay is a tragedy and will not replaced by the little suitable gravel areas above the dams, the 400 mile number is a lie as most is mud bottom and  the main tributary of Jenny Creek is mostly diverter to the Rogue Basin at the Howard Prairie dam.  Lower Spencer Creek, the Wood and parts of the Sprague and Williamson (below Spring Creek) should be good.

Hi, my name is Lee and I have a fishing gear problem.

I have all of the answers, yup, no, maybe.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Mark Twain