He also argues the case of Wild v. Farmed from a foodie perspective. No mention of sea lice.

Now that’s Good Eats

I don’t know about you, but I’ll be asking about the origin of those salmon filets next time I fire up the smoker. (yes, I’ll have to buy salmon, I live in California, and can’t afford an Alaska trip this year).

My smoked salmon recipe doesn’t include Florfenicol.

Wild Salmon Grilled on Cedar Plank, by woodleywonderworks on flickr

Had a great day fishing the McCloud River Preserve the other day, part of the Nature Conservancy. Afterwards, while taking a rehydration break at the cabin, we ran into Christopher Babcock, one of the Field Scientist who keep the Preserve running. An actual River Keeper.

After chit-chat about fishing success (or lack thereof), weather, smoking regulations on the Preserve, and the like, he mentioned the recent grant that the Conservancy received to restore the Shasta River at Big Springs. This was recently written about at the Trout Underground.

You know when you are talking with someone, and that light goes off in their eyes when the topic turns to a topic where they are passionate? That happened. He lit up with energy and enthusiasm about the great opportunity that has come across, to restore the coho run on the Shasta River.

Watershed Institute of UC Davis staff work to monitor the river. The Watershed Institute is working in parternship with the Nature Conservancy. Photo Credit: Bridget Besaw

For years, agriculture operations have been slowly killing this river, and the baby salmon that call it home. The cool 55 degree water was being pumped out to irrigate plants, and the runoff returned at ambient temperature. This is fine for the plants, but it way too warm for the salmon fry. The river has also been used to irrigate the local cattle population. The cows walking in the river tend to flatten out cut banks and channels in the river, which also warms up the water.

Coho Salmon, photo credit: redakuma

Christopher described the strategy they are using to restore the coho salmon habitat:

• Protect the riparian area with fencing to keep the cattle away.
• Restore the channel, to allow deeper (and cooler) water to flow
• Assist the repopulation of Coho Salmon

Build it and they will come: this works for crooked baseball players, but is pretty slow for salmon restoration. We mentioned the idea of introducing hatchery salmon to populate the river. Christopher schooled us on the genetics of hatchery fish, and instead shared his idea of introducing fertilized eggs to the ecosystem. This gives the Coho run a jump-start, but they still have to fight it out against nature to survive – so only the fittest return to fill the next generation gene pool.

That chat was a highlight of the day.

McCloud River at the Preserve

Here is how the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) describes the project:

This project will improve more than 11 miles of important salmon spawning and rearing habitat along the Shasta River and tributaries by supporting natural revegetation of 70 acres of the riparian zone and actively planting 20 riparian acres. Additional activities include creating structural improvements to allow for fish-friendly irrigation. These efforts will protect cold water springs, enhance cold water flows, and restore aquatic habitat critical for Chinook, steelhead, and threatened coho salmon in the Shasta River, which is the last major tributary before the mainstem Klamath River dams and crucial for salmonid restoration.

20 acres of riparian habitat restored, 70 additional acres enhanced, and 11.2 stream-miles improved for salmon

What a cool finish to a day on the water…

]]> http://wcflies.com/blog/2009/07/shasta-river-coho-restoration-the-nature-conversancy/feed/ 0 http://wcflies.com/blog/2009/06/salmon-eating-hair-bag/ http://wcflies.com/blog/2009/06/salmon-eating-hair-bag/#comments Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:39:12 +0000 WhiskeyCreek http://wcflies.com/blog/?p=405 Awww…  Its so cute.

Cute, until it grows a bit more and becomes a salmon eating bag of fur, and follows your boat around waiting for a tasty meal.

So, how to protect salmon from predators? Of course, eliminate the predators. All of this being a government run operation, each predator gets due process, a fair trial, appeals, and finally, at the end of the line, a humane night-night.

Here is a story of C265, a Sea Lion that was found guilty of eating salmon. C265 experienced the ultimate punishment. He was tracked for years (since 2002), before being put down for his salmon eating ways.

The complexity, cost, and effort of all of this boggles the mind. At least its providing jobs, and does match this era of “government can solve everything” mode of thinking.

As a reminder of all the other activities in place to mitigate the damage done by the dams, check out this 60 Minutes segment:

Watch CBS Videos Online

Tiburon hosted an outstanding event today – Kiss and Release. This was a party centered around releasing 1000 baby chinook salmon into San Francisco bay. High-school students raised the salmon from eggs, and had help from hundreds of kids. The kids appeared to be from 3 years old to 10. What a great way to educate kids about salmon.

How it went

The anticipation excitement peaked when the salmon truck arrived- filled with fingerlings that were raised in water from Adobe Creek in Petaluma California. The truck had a thousand salmon, about 3 inches long. The fish were raised from eggs in Casa Grande high school – by students. All of the water used came from Adobe Creek, which hopefully causes the salmon return to spawn.

The fingerlings had to be acclimated to the bay water – so the first order of business was to organize a bucket brigade to bring bay water to the salmon truck. The kids tried, but their (literally) pint-sized buckets didn’t help much.

After giving the salmon 20 minutes to acclimate to the new water, the release started. A new bucket brigade ferried the fish to the water’s edge. The high school kids distributed the fish to the younger set – who had the honors to release each fish.

This was a cool release. This girl released her fish a little too soon, in the grass when a wavelet flooded the area. The salmon was stuck in a footprint, about 2 inches of water. On the next wavelet, the salmon wiggled out of the footprint, then wound it way through the grass out into the bay.

The cool part was seeing that fish use its instincts to head out into the safety.

The sponsors

The United Anglers of Casa Grande high school in Petaluma, CA supplied the fish. They have a fantastic program, adopting a dead Adobe creek and brought it back to life. Cleaning up the creek, planting trees to re-establish a fishy habitat, build a state-of-the-art hatchery, and raised salmon using Adobe Creek water. King salmon returned to spawn in Adobe creek, the first salmon in a century.

The Tiburon Salmon Institute is chartered with educating children on rebuilding habitat and protecting the remaining salmon.

The Romburg Tiburon Center is a marine laboratory for San Francisco State University. The Romburg Center maintains salmon rearing pens and is a very important part of the marine biology education.

Trout Unlimited contributed to this event, and had a booth. My wife actually read the Have Your Salmon and Eat it Too brouchure, cover to cover during lunch.