<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.6000.16414" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<H1><B>Counts predict big year for little salmon </B></H1><B>Ocean - Juveniles
are flourishing so far in 2007, turning up in among the highest numbers in 10
years <BR></B>Friday, July 20, 2007 <BR>RICHARD L. HILL <BR><B>The Oregonian</B>
<BR><BR>The number of juvenile salmon off the Northwest coast is among the
highest that has been recorded since a yearly survey began a decade ago.
<BR><BR>Researchers hope it's a sign that adult salmon numbers may increase in
the next two years. <BR><BR>Scientists credit this year's rebound of juvenile
coho and chinook to an early arrival from Alaskan waters of zooplankton, the
tiny algae-eating animals that are the foundation of the Pacific Ocean food
chain. <BR><BR>"It's been a fabulous year so far," said Bill Peterson, a
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries oceanographer who
conducts the annual survey from Newport to northern Washington. "But conditions
can turn sour, and the salmon out there right now could perish in great
numbers." <BR><BR>The number of juvenile salmon caught in the coastal trawl
surveys has been low the past few years because of warm ocean conditions and
delayed upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water. <BR><BR>This year's survey
compares with high catches in 1999 and 2003. <BR><BR>Counts of juvenile spring
chinook in June are a good indicator of the return of adults two years later, so
spring chinook landings should be above average in 2009, Peterson said. Larger
numbers of juvenile spring coho mean that there may be more coho adults as early
as next year. <BR><BR>Juvenile salmon migrate from freshwater streams to the
ocean, where they feed for one to four years before returning to spawn in the
stream where they hatched. <BR><BR>Peterson credits the increase in juvenile
salmon to cooler water off Oregon, beginning last summer after nearly four years
of warm ocean conditions. He speculates that the cooler ocean may be linked to a
powerful climate cycle called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a regional
phenomenon in which the climate flip-flops every few years between wet-cool and
dry-warm phases. <BR><BR>"If it's moving to a cool phase, that would be good
news for the fish, seabirds and a lot of other animals," Peterson said. "They've
been beaten down and weakened the past four years because of lousy conditions,
but they might be able to get their body fat back up if this trend keeps going."
<BR><BR>The zooplankton includes high numbers of northern copepod species that
aren't often seen off Oregon. Fish, birds and whales feed on the copepods, tiny
crustaceans that feed on phytoplankton blooms produced by summer upwelling.
Northern species are nutritionally better for marine life because they have more
fat than their southern cousins, which are more prevalent during warmer periods.
<BR><BR>Roy Lowe, manager of the Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex,
said he's pleased about the increase in plankton because he was concerned about
the many dead seabirds this year. <BR><BR>"But that doesn't instantly produce
forage fish for birds and other animals," he said. "There's a lag time, so it's
too early to say what effect this will have on getting these birds in better
shape." <BR><BR>The subarctic zooplankton began showing up in Northwest waters
in March, one of the earliest arrivals on record, Peterson said. The only other
years when the zooplankton arrived that early -- 1970 and 1972 -- were
characterized by very high salmon survival, he noted. <BR><BR>An upwelling of
cold, nutrient-rich water along the Oregon coast has stalled in the past few
days, raising concerns that the rebound may fizzle, said Peterson, a courtesy
professor at Oregon State University. He cautioned that the counts from research
trawls in May and June are preliminary, and final results won't be available
until a final survey in September. <BR><BR>Richard L. Hill: 503-221-8238;
richardhill@news.oregonian.com <BR><BR>
<DIV align=center>©2007 The Oregonian<BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>