{"id":26171,"date":"2024-09-17T23:08:28","date_gmt":"2024-09-17T23:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildsalmoncenter.org\/?p=26171"},"modified":"2024-09-17T23:08:28","modified_gmt":"2024-09-17T23:08:28","slug":"skeena-steelhead-are-having-a-good-year-what-does-that-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildsalmoncenter.org\/2024\/09\/17\/skeena-steelhead-are-having-a-good-year-what-does-that-mean\/","title":{"rendered":"Skeena steelhead are having a good year. What does that mean?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Experts are happy\u2014but holding on to their confetti.<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Between June 10 and August 29, some 33,313 summer run steelhead passed the Tyee Test Fishery\u00a0on the lower Skeena River<\/strong>, surpassing the average of 22,978. According to the British Columbia provincial government, estimated 2024 steelhead abundance on the Skeena is the 13th\u00a0highest year for the test fishery.\u00a0(Graph courtesy B.C. Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship<\/a>.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

By late August, sighs of relief echoed across the Skeena Basin. Numbers were in from the Tyee Test Fishery: more than 33,000 steelhead had passed the lower Skeena\u2014up from 2023\u2019s run of 10,000 fish, and the 13th best return on record<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re happy that returns are strong,\u201d says Greg Knox, Executive Director of SkeenaWild<\/a>, a core Wild Salmon Center partner<\/a>. \u201cBut one year doesn\u2019t make a trend.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knox\u2019s note of caution holds water<\/strong>. After all, we\u2019re just three years distant from the river\u2019s lowest steelhead returns on record\u2014when just  5,400 steelhead passed the test fishery. For at least the past five years, Knox says, the reality is that Skeena steelhead returns have remained stubbornly low. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere can be a sense, with a strong year like this, that everything is fine again,\u201d Knox says. \u201cBut we\u2019re not. If we\u2019re serious about the long-term health of these fish, we have to consider the bigger picture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThere can be a sense, with a strong year like this, that everything is fine again. But if we\u2019re serious about the long-term health of these fish, we have to consider the bigger picture.\u201d<\/p>\nSkeenaWild Executive Director Greg Knox<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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Skeena Watershed. (PC: Ken Morrish, Fly Water Travel.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

An Ocean of Unknowns<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

2024 hasn\u2019t just been good for Skeena steelhead. Numbers are up elsewhere in North and Central British Columbia rivers like the Nass<\/a>, and even down in the Columbia River Basin<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For scientists like Dr. Nate Mantua\u2014a WSC Board Member<\/a>, Science Advisor<\/a> , and head of the Salmon Ecology Team at NOAA\u2019s Southwest Fisheries Science Center in California\u2014broad patterns like this indicate that something may be happening at sea<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steelhead are intrepid ocean travelers, covering distances that can surpass 4,000 kilometers (roughly 2,500 miles) in their multi-year marine journey. Across a broad expanse of the North Pacific Ocean, different steelhead runs overlap, resulting in shared life experiences. The trajectories of steelhead can also overlap with other salmonids\u2014pink salmon, most notably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSteelhead tend to stay in the top few meters near the surface, where they\u2019re subject both to warming water and fierce resource competition from much more abundant species like pink salmon,\u201d Dr. Mantua says. \u201cGrowing evidence suggests that these factors are helping to drive long-term declines in West Coast steelhead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cEvidence suggests that warming water and fierce resource competition from much more abundant species like pink salmon are helping to drive long-term declines in West Coast steelhead.\u201d<\/p>\nDr. Nate Mantua, NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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Dr. Nate Mantua\u2014Wild Salmon Center Board Director, Science Advisor, and head of the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center Salmon Ecology Team\u2014at a 2022 WSC board meeting in the Skeena watershed. (PC: WSC.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

But sometimes, if rarely these days, shifts in marine conditions can prove temporary boons to salmon and steelhead<\/strong>. Though in a system as vast as the ocean, Dr. Mantua is reluctant to guess where or how things might have gone right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you see returns like this year\u2019s, it\u2019s an indicator that 2024 steelhead didn\u2019t get knocked down by tough ocean or stream conditions\u2014that a lot of things lined up in their favor,\u201d Dr. Mantua says. \u201cIt shows that these populations still have a lot of potential, when ocean and stream conditions aren\u2019t sharply limiting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cReturns like this year\u2019s, it’s an indicator that 2024 steelhead didn\u2019t get knocked down by tough ocean or stream conditions. It shows that these populations still have a lot of potential.”<\/p>\nDr. Nate Mantua, NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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NOAA’s most recently published stoplight table<\/a> for marine trends that impact Pacific salmon. Recent years have trended cooler and more productive for salmon forage (color-coded in “green” for good conditions). (Table courtesy NOAA Fisheries.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

If ocean conditions can arguably take the bulk of credit for boosting 2024 steelhead returns, Knox says that means fisheries managers should be careful about reading too much into their own last-minute pivots. <\/p>\n\n\n

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For nearly 70 years, more than 60 percent of summer steelhead runs passing through the lower Skeena River have fallen within or below the “concern zone”<\/strong> for escapement. (Graph courtesy B.C. Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship<\/a>.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

For him, one comparatively good year doesn\u2019t change the need for humans to keep reducing pressure on steelhead<\/strong>. He notes that over the past six decades, the Skeena’s annual summer runs have rarely left the escapement “concern zone”\u2014when it’s estimated that too few fish are making it to spawning grounds to sustain future runs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOcean conditions in the North Pacific are widely variable,\u201d Knox says. \u201cNext year, we could easily be right back in a place where ocean conditions shift, and we\u2019re again having to consider closing fisheries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knox says that while we can\u2019t control the ocean, we still can make a difference for steelhead, both near shore and in freshwater. For the past few years, SkeenaWild and other organizations have been pushing for reforms to Southeast Alaska\u2019s marine salmon fishery,<\/a> where Skeena steelhead can be caught alongside target pink salmon and other species. A solution, Knox says, is to move the fishery closer to shore. It\u2019s an idea that\u2019s taking root across the Pacific, as a growing body of science points to the promise of selective, terminal fisheries in building more sustainable fisheries<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe strongly support the expansion of Indigenous selective fishing practices<\/a> in the Skeena,\u201d Knox says. \u201cThis is the future of fishing.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

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A pilot fish wheel project on the Bella Coola River on the B.C. Central Coast, led by the Nuxalk First Nation with help from Wild Salmon Center, to improve monitoring and selective harvest of salmon. (PC: Jason Moody)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

He points to the Kitselas First Nation\u2019s new fish wheel, as well as dip-netting at the Gitanyow Fish Camp at Lax An Zok\u2014where Knox and partners at Watershed Watch Salmon Society recently saw firsthand the efficiency of these selective practices in action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If one good year doesn’t make a trend, perhaps sustained action can get us there: doing everything we can, every year, to get more Skeena steelhead upriver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When that happens, Knox says, he just might be ready to break out the confetti<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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SkeenaWild Executive Director Greg Knox. (PC: Orjan Ellingvag, Alamy.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>

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