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<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:24.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>What's ailing
the Klamath's salmon?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>John
Driscoll/The Times-Standard<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Posted: 03/25/2009
01:24:16 AM PDT<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>FORTUNA --
Researchers struggling to understand an epidemic of parasites infecting the
Klamath River's salmon raised questions and offered some answers at a gathering
of biologists Tuesday. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Among the
findings were that significantly more young salmon died faster from the
parasite called Ceratomyxa shasta during tests in the river's disease hot spots
in 2008 than the year before. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Rich Holt with
Oregon State University told a conference that chinook and coho salmon exposed
to the parasite in the most infested areas below Iron Gate Dam to the Scott
River, then taken to a lab, died faster than even rainbow trout with no
immunity. A higher proportion of salmon died, too, nearly twice that of 2007,
Holt said. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>C. shasta
targets the intestines of salmon and trout. Adult fish release the parasite's
spores when they die, and the spores then move into an interim host, a tiny
polychaete worm. The worm then releases spores that are taken in by young salmon,
which often die from the parasite. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The worm is
especially prevalent just below Iron Gate Dam, and the percentage of polychaete
worms infected by C. shasta are also highest in the reach around Beaver Creek
and the Seiad Valley. Exactly why the stretch is so rife with the parasite
isn't known, said OSU researcher Jerri Bartholomew, but it's possible that the
large number of adult fish that spawn just below the dam spread huge amounts of
spores. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>”We have a
situation whether the host-parasite balance is out of synch,” Bartholomew
said. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The Klamath's
salmon fishery has struggled in recent years, but last year saw a strong run of
chinook and this year's expected run is expected to be a boom. C. shasta exists
in a number of large western rivers, but in few smaller coastal streams, but is
particularly pervasive in the Klamath. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>In many cases,
the work done in recent years has posed more questions than it has answered.
California-Nevada Fish Health Center researcher Scott Foott and others in 2007
released 121 young chinook salmon implanted with radio tags into the river
below Iron Gate Dam. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The salmon moved
quickly downriver, covering the 196 miles from the dam to Blake's Riffle near
the mouth of the Klamath in just 10 days. Only 7.4 percent survived the trip. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Considering
another study by colleague Kimberly True that found exposure of fish to C.
shasta at the hot spot could be expected to kill them within about 20 days,
Foott's work suggested that the tagged fish were killed by something else. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>But there are a
number of complicating factors. In order to be able to perform the tag surgery
on the salmon, they had to be grown to a size larger than thousands of other
hatchery fish released around the same time. That may have given them a better
survival rate, especially when considering their potential as food for
predators like trout. It also remains to be seen whether fish that travel
quickly through an infested area may avoid getting seriously ill, compared to
those that linger. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Rapid migration,
lower polychaete worm density and lower water temperatures, True found, could
improve survival. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Much more
information -- even simple fisheries information -- is needed on the river,
Foott said. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>”There's
so little basic fisheries survival data in the basin,” Foott said. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>A recent federal
spending bill earmarked some $640,000 for the National Marine Fisheries Service
to study fish diseases in the Klamath, which should give that effort a boost.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>Byron
Leydecker, JcT</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>Chair, Friends
of Trinity River</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>PO Box 2327</span></i><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>Mill Valley, CA
94942-2327</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>415 383 4810
land</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>415 519 4810
cell</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'><a
href="mailto:bwl3@comcast.net"><span style='color:blue'>bwl3@comcast.net</span></a></span></i></b><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'><a
href="mailto:bleydecker@stanfordalumni.org"><span style='color:blue'>bleydecker@stanfordalumni.org</span></a>
</span></i></b><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>(secondary)</span></i><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'><a
href="http://fotr.org/"><span style='color:blue'>http://www.fotr.org</span></a>
</span></i></b><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
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