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<P class=headline-detail><FONT face=Arial size=2>Please note that for all the
money spent on downstream migrant smolt traps, the biologists still don't know
how many smolts are moving downstream. We keep hearing that counting
outmigrating smolts is the best measure of success of restoration efforts, but I
don't see that the technology is there to do it and I'm not sure it ever will
be.</FONT></P>
<P class=headline-detail><FONT face=Arial size=2>TS</FONT></P>
<P class=headline-detail><A
href="http://www.heraldandnews.com/articles/2004/06/24/news/top_stories/top4.txt">http://www.heraldandnews.com/articles/2004/06/24/news/top_stories/top4.txt</A></P>
<P class=headline-detail><B><FONT size=3>Salmon parasite still spreading
questions</FONT></B> </P>
<P class=byline-detail>Thursday, June 24, 2004 4:08 PM PDT</P>
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<P class=story-detail>Published June 24, 2004<BR><BR>By DYLAN DARLING
<P class=story-detail><SPAN class=storydetail>Scientists scoured 87 miles of the
Klamath River last week for salmon fingerlings killed by a microscopic
parasite.<BR><BR>What they found was both unsettling, and uncertain.</SPAN> </P>
<P class=story-detail><SPAN class=storydetail>"Anyone on the river will tell you
that there are fish dying every day," said Ron Reed, biologist for the Karuk
Indian Tribe.<BR><BR>Ceratomyxa shasta, or C shasta, has killed high percentages
of salmon fingerlings found in traps along the river since early May, but it's
hard to figure out how those numbers relate to the amount of fish that survived
in the river, and to what is normal, officials said.</SPAN> <BR><BR><SPAN
class=storydetail>Presence of the parasite raises concern for the 5 million
salmon fingerlings released from the Iron Gate fish hatchery from late may to
early June.<BR><BR>Reports show 269 dead salmon fingerlings have been recovered
from the Klamath River. But biologists say there's no way to extrapolate what
percentage of the fish in the entire river system may have succumbed to the
parasite.</SPAN> </P>
<P class=story-detail><SPAN class=storydetail>"Because this is the first year of
this kind of survey it is hard to say if it is worse this year or different,"
said John Engbring, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's California
and Nevada Operations office in Sacramento.<BR><BR>Divers observed that C shasta
has made its way downriver, affecting clumps of fingerlings in the lower part of
the river's middle reach.</SPAN> </P>
<P class=story-detail><SPAN class=storydetail>The survey data were released at a
meeting of the Klamath Fisheries Task Force, a group of federal and state
officials, tribes and stakeholders that has meet three times a year since 1986.
The meeting, being held in Klamath Falls at the Shilo Inn, started Wednesday and
ends today.<BR><BR>The C shasta parasite is common to main stem of the Klamath
River, from the Pacific Ocean to the Williamson River. But there is no data on
how many salmon it affects per year.</SPAN> </P>
<P class=story-detail><SPAN class=storydetail>"I don't think any of us know how
this would compare to other years," Engbring said. "This is really a
baseline."<BR><BR>The parasite spends part of its life inside tiny, 3-millimeter
long worms that float in the river's water, and the other part inside salmonid
fish, which include, salmon, steelhead and trout.</SPAN> </P>
<P class=story-detail><SPAN class=storydetail>While inside the fish, the
parasites eat away at the intestines, multiplying and causing a lethal
infection. Fish with C shasta usually die.<BR><BR>"Once they get it, they are
the living dead," Manji said.</SPAN> </P>
<P class=story-detail><SPAN class=storydetail>Although the percentage of fish
being found dead from C shasta in the four traps along the stretch of river is
high - up to 95 percent - the number of fish caught in the traps is relatively
low, said Neil Manji, fisheries biologist for California Department of Fish and
Game.<BR><BR><STRONG><U>"You don't even know how many fish have gone by," he
said.</U></STRONG></SPAN><STRONG><U> </U></STRONG></P>
<P class=story-detail><SPAN class=storydetail>So trying to figure out how many
fish are affected becomes a percentage game, he said.<BR><BR>To try to get a
better idea of how the parasite is affecting fish in the river, scientists
blitzed the river last Thursday and Friday.</SPAN> </P>
<P class=story-detail><SPAN class=storydetail>Fourteen scientists from federal
and state agencies, as well as American Indian tribes and private groups, fanned
out from Happy Camp. Using kayaks, jet boats and rafts, as well as snorkels and
underwater video cameras, they looked for signs of a fish dieoff on the stretch
of river between Klamath and Big Bar.<BR><BR>Along with C shasta, another
parasite called parvicapsula, which attacks a fish's kidneys, has been found in
Klamath River salmon.</SPAN> </P>
<P class=story-detail><SPAN class=storydetail>Manji said the parasite is similar
to C shasta, and often fish get affected by both, so it is hard to tell which of
the parasites caused a fish's death.<BR><BR>The parasites have been infecting
this year's hatch, which emerged from spawning beds, in and out of the Iron Gate
hatchery, in December and January, which are now about the size of a human's
pinky finger.</SPAN> </P>
<P class=story-detail><SPAN class=storydetail>People along the river are not the
only ones concerned about the parasites.<BR><BR>Dan Keppen, executive director
of the Klamath Water Users Association, said Klamath Reclamation Project
irrigators are worried that blame for the spread of the parasite could be put on
the Project if "catastrophe theorists go wild."</SPAN> </P>
<P class=story-detail><SPAN class=storydetail>He said more research need to be
done about the parasites.<BR><BR>"We need to know how this relates to past
years," Keppen said.</SPAN> </P>
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