{"id":27989,"date":"2017-12-19T11:30:38","date_gmt":"2017-12-19T15:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/?p=27989"},"modified":"2017-12-19T12:17:44","modified_gmt":"2017-12-19T16:17:44","slug":"searching-subtle-balance-water-chemistry-save-snake-river-sockeye-salmon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/searching-subtle-balance-water-chemistry-save-snake-river-sockeye-salmon.htm","title":{"rendered":"Searching for a Subtle Balance in Water Chemistry to Save Snake River Sockeye Salmon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">25 years ago in 1992, a mere four hearty Snake River sockeye salmon fought past hungry predators, including humans with nets, and eight dams along the 900-mile journey to spawn. Only one made it all the way back to Redfish Lake Creek, and he was dubbed, \u201cLonesome Larry\u201d by the child of a hatchery technician.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lonesome Larry struggled all the way back\u2014only to find himself alone\u2014just one year after his species had been listed as endangered. His solitary arrival punctuated the problem that had already been recognized, nearly too late. But it also called an unusual amount of attention at the national level to the problem, and poor Larry came to symbolize the cruel realities of the battles various wildlife species are forced to wage against the encroachment of humanity into their worlds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Larry&#8217;s struggles also spurred a new wave of conservation efforts and a gene rescue program based in hatcheries. The hatchery-based activities have been developed and implemented since that time, with the ultimate long-term goal of transitioning away from hatcheries and into a habitat-based effort to allow natural population recovery. However, release strategies and the adult returns associated with the release of smolts are fraught with challenges and have not always been successful.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400; color: #808080;\">The Snake River Sockeye<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pioneers crossing westward entered the Pacific Northwest and saw salmon in the Snake and Columbia rivers in droves. Silver streams of fish swimming against gravity seemed thick enough to allow humans to walk over them and across the river in those days, when<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.idahostatesman.com\/news\/local\/environment\/article160364954.html\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">8 to 16 million salmon<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> populated these rivers, moving down to the ocean to live several years, and then fighting back upstream to spawn and die.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Of those millions, it is estimated that Sockeye Salmon in the Snake River basin made up about 150,000. Around<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/idfg.idaho.gov\/conservation\/sockeye\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">25,000 to 35,000<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of those returned to Idaho&#8217;s Sawtooth Valley, like Larry.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The once-massive Columbia watershed has been whittled down over the decades, though, and now 15 dams form a nearly impassable blockade to salmon with the instinct to move up the Snake River. These dams alone are enough to stop many fish, but they also form a perfect trap for predators waiting for salmon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By the time Lonesome Larry came to Redfish Lake Creek, it was clear that only human intervention could counter the damage that had already been done to the Snake River Sockeye\u2014recognized as an Evolutionarily Significant Unit, and filled with cultural importance for local people as well.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A team composed of experts from various agencies, including the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG), NOAA Fisheries, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, the US National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) have worked together since 1991 to recover the Snake River Sockeye Salmon. In the short-term,<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/fisheries.org\/docs\/wp\/AFS-Fisheries-November-2014.pdf#page=11\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">their goal<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> was to prevent the extinction of the species, and to protect whatever population heterozygosity and genetic diversity remained. In the long-term, their hope was to rebuild populations in a sustainable way, eventually delisting the fish and increasing their numbers until they were once more abundant enough to support harvest demand from local Native American tribes and sports fishers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Springfield Hatchery is one piece of the rebuilding puzzle. It was built in 2013 to protect the species and bring it back in greater numbers. This hatchery is critical to the expanding plan because of its capacity; it was designed to add up to one million more sockeye for release into Redfish Lake Creek.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_27992\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27992\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27992\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Snake_river_captive.jpg\" alt=\"sockeye\" width=\"500\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Snake_river_captive.jpg 500w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Snake_river_captive-300x180.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-27992\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Snake River sockeye salmon captive broodstock at IDFG\u2019s Eagle Fish Hatchery. (Credit: Idaho Department of Fish and Game.)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cFish have been spawned in hatchery settings since the early 1990s,\u201d explains Dr. Jesse Trushenski, an IDFG fish health expert and fish pathologist supervisor. \u201cThe Eagle Fish Hatchery became the dedicated home to the captive broodstock, but we didn\u2019t have a dedicated place to raise the fish they produced. Eggs and juvenile fish have been raised at the Oxbow and Sawtooth Hatcheries, but these facilities didn\u2019t necessarily have the space to accommodate 1 million smolts per year, which was the target as the sockeye program ramped up. That\u2019s why Springfield Hatchery was built\u2014to be the dedicated home for rearing 1 million sockeye smolts annually.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The team had experienced what seemed like success with this plan, at least until recently.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cFish released in the past from the other facilities performed in line with typical expectations for released fish,\u201d comments Trushenski. \u201cNot all smolts make the journey to the ocean\u2014that\u2019s true of sockeye and other anadromous fish, hatchery fish, and natural\/wild fish. It\u2019s a long, difficult journey, and not all of them make it, but in the past the hatchery-reared sockeye have done about as well as other stocks.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, this year biologists from the IDFG discovered there was a problem: smolts released from the hatchery were dying in droves.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400; color: #808080;\">The soft water blues<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you&#8217;ve ever kept a fish tank, you may already know that fish are very sensitive to water chemistry. However, it&#8217;s not easy to predict how the water conditions that are present in wilderness situations will work for fish.<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/wdfw.wa.gov\/publications\/00803\/7_water_quality_2009-03-25.pdf\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Any alterations<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, salinity, suspended sediment concentrations and turbidity, and nutrient and pollutant loading can affect salmon of any age, and smolts are even more sensitive than adult salmon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Water hardness refers to the amount of dissolved minerals, such as magnesium and calcium, in the water. Harder water contains high levels of these dissolved minerals. Waterways that originate from groundwater sources are often harder, since the water traverses rocks in the Earth, picking up minerals as it moves. In contrast, waterways that receive large amounts of rainfall can sometimes be softer.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_27993\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27993\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27993\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Snake_river_release.jpg\" alt=\"sockeye\" width=\"500\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Snake_river_release.jpg 500w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Snake_river_release-300x180.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-27993\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A salmon is released in the wild. (Credit: Idaho Department of Fish and Game.)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the case at hand, the water at the hatchery is hard, while the water in Redfish Lake Creek is unusually soft. Trushenski and her team discovered that stress caused by the shock of going from the very hard water to the unusually soft water was killing the smolts. The water quality experts who were hired to evaluate the hatchery did not highlight this issue, but that&#8217;s not surprising to Trushenski, for several reasons.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThey didn\u2019t identify a problem in their evaluations because there\u2019s really nothing wrong with Springfield\u2019s water source,\u201d Trushenski clarifies. \u201cIn fact, Springfield\u2019s water chemistry is not all that unusual\u2014there is nothing in that water chemistry profile that is unusual or would suggest that it would be a problem for raising fish. What <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> unusual is the water chemistry of Redfish Lake Creek\u2014it is unusually soft. But that\u2019s not something that would have been on anyone\u2019s radar.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Much of the issue here is that hatcheries are \u201cabsolutely\u201d much more complex than they might seem to an outsider; with so many moving parts that impact living creatures, things sometimes go wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400; color: #808080;\">Solving the soft water problem<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What comes next is the tougher question to answer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re working through now,\u201d Trushenski explains. \u201cThrough a series of experiments, we identified that fish were able to make the transition if they were allowed to do so in a step-wise fashion, in other words, if they could transition from high to medium hardness, and then medium to low. The Salmon River is the water source for the Sawtooth Hatchery. Its hardness is about halfway in between Springfield\u2019s and Redfish Lake Creek. By acclimating the Springfield fish for a week or two at Sawtooth, they seemed to handle the shift to very soft water much better. Based on those results, that\u2019s how the majority of smolts are going to be released next Spring\u2014Springfield to Sawtooth, then Sawtooth to Redfish Lake Creek. We think that\u2019s an excellent short-term solution.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_27994\" style=\"width: 810px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27994\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27994\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Snake_river_larry.jpg\" alt=\"sockeye\" width=\"800\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Snake_river_larry.jpg 800w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Snake_river_larry-300x180.jpg 300w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Snake_river_larry-600x360.jpg 600w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Snake_river_larry-768x461.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-27994\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lonesome Larry. (Credit: Idaho Department of Fish and Game.)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meanwhile, Trushenski and the team are working to develop a more lasting solution to the problem.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAs for the long-term, we are experimenting with some water mixing and water softening options that would allow us to take fish directly from Springfield to Redfish Lake Creek\u2014without the stop-over at Sawtooth\u2014which would be much easier to manage logistically. So, we\u2019ve identified the problem and a short-term solution, and we\u2019re continuing to refine options for a long-term fix.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some voices in the community are critical of the entire hatchery-based program and have called instead for<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tri-cityherald.com\/news\/local\/article185455993.html\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">breaching some of the dams<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the river so salmon can pass unimpeded. Trushenski simply points out that the plan they are executing now is far from haphazard:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI will say that I trust the science and the expertise of the many, many knowledgeable people that were involved in shaping and implementing the current recovery plan.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Moreover, water softness is not the only challenge the species is facing.<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/columbiariverkeeper.org\/blog\/hot-water-crisis-on-the-columbia\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">High temperatures in 2015<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> killed most of the salmon in the reservoirs. Some believe rising temperatures overall are related to climate change, which is fueling a debate about what to do next. However, Trushenski points to the practical issue for the salmon: whatever the cause of the high temperatures, they are dangerous for the fish.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cClimate scientists will be sure to tell you that it\u2019s about long-term trends, not one particular season or year\u2014I don\u2019t think you can attribute any one event or year to climate change,\u201d Trushenski points out. \u201cBut it is safe to say that the conditions experienced in 2015 were certainly not good for salmon.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nevertheless, Dr. Trushenski has confidence in the ability of the team to help the smolts acclimate gradually given the right settings, coupled with their careful monitoring and testing protocols.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe are confident we can make this work,\u201d Trushenski remarks. \u201cAcclimation to differences in water chemistry is something that is regularly handled elsewhere. It\u2019s just a matter of finding the right approach\u2014something that works biologically for the fish and logistically at the scale we are dealing with.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Top image:\u00a0Endangered sockeye salmon swim over spawning grounds in Redfish Lake, Idaho. (Credit: Idaho Department of Fish and Game.)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unusually soft water is killing salmon smolts released from hatcheries; scientists are working to find ways around this water chemistry problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":27991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,461,5,458,8,49,466,462],"tags":[517,60,487,515,516,109,74,348,482,514],"class_list":["post-27989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aquatic_species-htm","category-conservation","category-featured-articles","category-fish-science","category-newsfeed","category-rivers-streams","category-salmon","category-species","tag-conservation","tag-featured","tag-fish-science","tag-idaho-dept-of-fish-and-game","tag-idfg","tag-news-ticker","tag-noaa","tag-rivers-streams","tag-salmon","tag-sockeye"],"remote_post_permalink":false,"remote_post_featured_image":false,"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Searching for a Subtle Balance in Water Chemistry to Save Snake River Sockeye Salmon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Unusually soft water is killing salmon smolts released from hatcheries; 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