12/24/10
The number of salmon seen in parts of the Eel River this year have dwarfed that in any other year since the 1940s. All across the watershed, people have reported big numbers of salmon moving in to spawn. There's no official tally of fish anywhere but at the Van Arsdale Fisheries Station, but fish lovers and biologists are saying the run -- which is now tapering down -- was impressive. At Van Arsdale, the previous record for chinook salmon was 1,754 in 1986-1987. This year: 2,313, and a few more may trickle in. ”A lot of people are impressed with the numbers of chinook we've seen,” said Fish and Game Associate Fisheries Biologist Scott Harris. “What I'm really impressed with is this is a 100 percent wild population.” There's no way to accurately correlate the numbers seen at Van Arsdale with the rest of the watershed. But Harris said that there were reports of big numbers of salmon running up the Van Duzen River -- perhaps more than in 20 years -- and in other areas. Fish watchers on the South Fork of the Eel River also reported an impressive run. The number of jacks at Van Arsdale is also far above last year's total of 139. Jacks are 2-year-old fish that return early to spawn, and are often a good indicator of the health of the following year's run. To date, there have been 746 chinook jacks at Van Arsdale. Steelhead are faring only slightly better than last year's run at this time, but that run is just getting under way. At Van Arsdale, 17 steelhead have been counted, compared to 10 last year at this time. Steelhead numbers at Van Arsdale have fluctuated widely, reaching a high of 7,679 in 1960-1961, falling to just a handful in the early 1990s, and holding at about 250 per year since then. Last year's steelhead count was 324. Coho salmon are rarely seen at Van Arsdale anymore, though estimates of their numbers in the early 1900s were in the tens of thousands. Estimated historic runs of chinook salmon and steelhead in the entire watershed were between 100,000 and 800,000, according to a 2010 report by the University of California at Davis Center for Watershed Sciences that was commissioned by California Trout. Heavy logging, water diversions, commercial fishing, invasive species and dams that block spawning habitat have all been implicated in the declines. Chinook, coho and steelhead are federally protected, which has led to regulations on logging, fishing and gravel extraction. Harris said that a wet spring will probably help young salmon avoid predatory pike minnows on their way out to sea, and mean better survival.
