[env-trinity] Disease killing young Klamath River salmon

[Tom Stokely]

http://www.redding.com/news/local-news/disease-killing-young-klamath-river-salmon_18847031
  
Disease killing young Klamath River salmon
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Damon Arthur 
5:50 PM, May 20, 20155:51 PM, May 20, 2015local news | homepage showcase | tablet showcase | happening now Copyright 2015 Journal Media Group. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.JEFF BARNARD/AP PHOTOSHOW CAPTIONKLAMATH RIVER, California - A disease flourishing in warm drought conditions in the Klamath River is killing young salmon and steelhead trying to migrate out to sea.And while in some sections of the river disease has been found in nearly all of the fish tested, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials also said Wednesday the drought has left little water available to send downstream to improve conditions.The Klamath Fish Health Assessment Team says conditions in the river are at orange, which means a fish kill is likely and federal and state agencies need to be alerted.“Orange is probably underplaying the crisis,” said Craig Tucker, natural resources policy advocate for the Karuk Tribe, one of several groups with the assessment team that has biologists monitoring the river.Scott Foott, project leader for the California-Nevada Fish Health Center in Anderson, said about 90 percent of the fish from Klamath brought to his center for testing have the disease, called ceratonova Shasta.Foott didn’t know how many fish were dying of the disease in the river, but said mortality rate among fish with the disease is very high. Fish biologists said conditions in the river are bad this year because of the lack of rain and runoff from snowmelt.Randy Turner, the fish health assessment team coordinator, said with low flows and warm water, worms that carry the disease have flourished on the streambed.The problem isn’t as bad in years when the river is cooler and runs higher and faster in the winter and spring because the current kicks up the gravel and cobble on the streambed, disrupting the worms’ life cycle, he said.The worst section of the Klamath River is from the Shasta River west of Interstate 5 to more than 80 miles downstream to the Salmon River, Turner said.Brian Person, acting area manager of the bureau’s Yreka office, said Wednesday that after consulting with other agencies, they could not send more water downstream to improve conditions for the fish.“We decided that is not the most optimal use of a very short water supply at this point,” Person said.The bureau, as well as other federal and state wildlife agencies, would continue to monitor the fish in the river and could at some point decide to send more water downstream if conditions change, Person said.If the readiness level on the river goes from orange to red — which means a fish kill is occurring — there is probably little officials can do because so little water is available upstream in the river, Tucker said.Even if more water was sent downstream there probably isn’t enough available to benefit the young salmon, Tucker said. And if they use extra water in the spring to help the young salmon swimming out to sea, there might not be enough water in the fall to help the salmon returning from the ocean to spawn.During the past few years bureau officials have had to release more water from the Trinity River to prevent a different disease from killing spawning salmon in the Klamath. That disease, called “ich,” has affected areas below where the Trinity flows into the Klamath River.The young fish dying from the ceratonova Shasta in the Klamath River are upstream of its confluence with the Trinity River, Turner said.It is likely a large percentage of this year’s salmon hatch will not make it out to sea, which means there will be fewer adult salmon returning back upstream to spawn in three years, Tucker said.“I think we’re definitely going to take a hit when the adults return,” he said.Copyright 2015 Journal Media Group. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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