[env-trinity] Scientists on the Klamath River's salmon disease epidemic

[Felice Pace]

Last year up to 100% of the juvenile salmon which were captured and tested
while migrating down the Klamath River in hopes of reaching the Pacific
Ocean were found to be diseased. Only 8% of the juvenile salmon fitted with
radio transmitters made it to the Klamath Estuary and to the Pacific Ocean.
This year few juvenile salmon are showing up in down-migrant monitoring
traps; up to 100% of juvenile salmon tested are already diseased even
before the hottest months with the worst water quality have arrived.

Independent scientists at Oregon State University say that "severe
infection by the myxozoan parasite *Ceratomyxa shasta* has, in large part,
been responsible for the declining numbers of juvenile KR fall Chinook and
coho salmon and subsequent impacts on later adult returns." They add that
"the reduction of the commercial (ocean salmon) catch by 90% in 2006 was a
direct result of the weak returns of Chinook salmon to the Klamath River
(KR)."

Read the entire statement by OSU scientists and access related information
at:
http://microbiology.science.oregonstate.edu/content/disease-effects-wild-populations.

The Klamath River's unprecedented salmon disease epidemic is negatively
impacting coastal economies in Oregon and California, not to mention
Klamath River and tribal communities. Why is it then that we read nothing
about this in the press? Why are the tribes, fishing organizations and
environmental groups which claim to be champions and defenders of Klamath
Salmon silent? And how is it that a Biological Opinion (on operation of the
Bureau of Reclamation's Klamath Irrigation Project) can stand unchallenged
when that Opinion robs the Klamath of the flushing spring flows which
scientists say are one of the few things humans can do to stem a Pacific
Salmon disease epidemic that is both unprecedented and the direct result of
the Klamath's terrible water quality?

Most importantly, which tribe, fishing or environmental organization will
end the silence and step up to challenge the Biological Opinion which is
killing most of the juvenile salmon produced in the Klamath River, its
tributaries and even the Iron Gate Hatchery?

Felice Pace
Klamath, CA 95548
707-954-6588
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