[env-trinity] Fish-kill alert for Klamath

[Tom Stokely]

Fish-kill alert for Klamath

Eureka Times-Standard – 6/21/07

John Driscoll The Times-Standard

 

Fishery biologists are on alert for signs of salmon dying on the Klamath River as temperatures rise and rain grows ever more unlikely. 

 

A group of state and federal agencies, tribes and environmental organizations is fine -tuning water quality and disease-monitoring efforts after raising their alert level to yellow earlier this month. The Klamath Fish Health Assessment Team is a group of field-level biologists that will stay in close touch over the coming months, said California Department of Fish and Game biologist Sara Borok. 

 

”I'd rather be crying wolf than be unprepared,” Borok said. 

 

The team was created in 2003, the year after 68,000 adult chinook salmon died in a low, warm Klamath River. In recent weeks, diseases are also become more prevalent in young salmon, and dead juvenile fish have been showing up in some traps on the river. In the past several years, infections in young salmon have become recognized as routine, and in some areas of the river they claim the majority of salmon. 

 

Nat Pennington with the Salmon River Restoration Council said in a trap on the Klamath just above Weitchpec, about half of the 50 young fish caught Wednesday were dead. 

 

”We had a respite a couple of weeks ago when it rained,” he said. “It seems like things are getting bad again.” 

 

Of equal concern are conditions expected this fall. With little snowpack, both the Klamath and Trinity rivers are being managed under guidelines for a “below average” year. By this fall, when thousands of chinook salmon begin to migrate from the ocean into the river, flows will be low and the river probably warm. 

In 2002, a large run of salmon estimated at 160,000 crowded into the mouths of cooler tributaries but still succumbed to deadly diseases. Temperatures of 73 to 75 degrees were registered that year, and the river above Klamath Glen on the lower river was running at only about 1,800 cubic feet per second. 

This year, the run is expected to be about 121,000, and flows could easily drop to below 2,000 by the time fall salmon begin to run. 

 

Tribal, fishing and conservation groups said removing the Klamath River dams is a necessary step in stemming disease problems on the river and important to restoring healthy fish runs. #

http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_6194042

 
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