qathet Living, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Lee George stands on the bank of the Tla’amin Creek, his baseball cap dampening in the light July rain. The ground he stands on is muddy. He scans the river, looking for coho fry.
Just a few inches of water flow
over the rocky creek.
A few tiny fish swim by.
Lee, who has managed this hatchery since about 1990, is worried about the level of the water, the heat. What will it do to this year’s salmon?
Continue reading Worry for our WatersNational Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
For millennia, the Salish Sea — the shared body of water linking northwestern Washington state and southern B.C. and encompassing the Puget Sound, Strait of Juan de Fuca, and Strait of Georgia — was abundant with salmon.
The keystone species is the bedrock of the entire ecosystem of the Pacific Northwest. All seven species of Pacific salmon populated the Salish Sea — sustaining a host of other iconic animals, such as bald eagles, southern resident killer whales, and grizzlies, along with their surrounding aquatic and terrestrial environments and scores of Indigenous nations and cultures.
But beginning in the late 1970s, salmon survival, particularly for chinook, coho, and steelhead — which migrate to the ocean like salmon, but can spawn multiple times — began a mysterious downward slide, especially in the marine environment, said Isobel Pearsall, director of marine science at the Pacific Salmon Foundation (PSF).
Continue reading Cross-border Salish Sea study finds key puzzle pieces of wild salmon die-off
