[env-trinity] Redding.com: Larger salmon releases planned after fish die-off

[Tom Stokely]

http://www.redding.com/news/local-news/larger-salmon-releases-planned-after-fish-die-off_76757413 
Larger salmon releases planned after fish die-off
Damon Arthur 
5:45 PM, Jan 27, 2015
5:45 PM, Jan 27, 2015
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Winter rain recently attracted Chinook salmon into Salt Creek west of Redding. 
DAMON ARTHUR/RECORD SEARCHLIGHT
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REDDING, California - After a massive die-off last year, officials are more than tripling the number of endangered winter-run Chinook salmon released into the Sacramento River.
Next month the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to release about 600,000 winter-run Chinook into the river below Keswick Dam. The first of three releases from the Livingston Stone National Fish Hatchery is expected next week, agency spokesman Steve Martarano said.
The winter-run salmon, which rely on cool water for spawning, took a hit when water coming out of Shasta and Keswick dams got too warm, killing off 95 percent of the eggs and recently hatched fish released from the hatchery.
Officials also believe nearly all the wild, naturally spawning salmon died due to warmer water in the river, where the fish lay eggs in the gravel.
“It means there is a high likelihood that there may not be many, if any, naturally spawned winter-run returning to spawn in 2017,” said Jordan Traverso, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Typically, about 27 percent of the young salmon released from the hatchery survive. State officials estimate survival last year at about 5 percent, Traverso said.
The eggs and recently hatched salmon need water temperatures below 60 degrees to survive. But low water levels in Lake Shasta drove the water temperature up, said Sheri Harral, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates Shasta and Keswick dams.
“There was no more cold water left in the lake,” Harral said.
During normal years, bureau officials get colder water for fish from a deeper pool beneath the surface of the lake and send it through the dam into the river.
But after three years of drought, the lake fell to its second-lowest level on record and the cold water pool was depleted, Harral said.
Before Shasta and Keswick dams were built, the winter-run salmon spawned in the cooler water upstream of where Shasta Lake is now.
State and federal wildlife agencies have been working for decades to restore winter-run salmon levels. But from 1992 to 2012 an average of 6,191 naturally spawned winter-run returned each year to the Sacramento River, well short of the goal of 110,000.
The winter-run is one of four Sacramento River salmon runs — winter, spring, fall and late fall. The fall run is the largest, drawing an average 70,845 naturally spawning Chinook each year.
Officials also plan several other steps during the year to aid the fish, including rescuing fish stranded in warm water pools in the Sacramento River, releasing some fish into the cooler water of Battle Creek, doing more restoration work on Battle Creek and possibly reducing salmon catch limits in the ocean and in the river.
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