Fraser pink salmon returns half of expected

Salmon returns just keep getting worse on the Fraser River.

End-of-season estimates show that fewer than 3.6 million pink salmon have returned to the Fraser, less than half the median pre-season forecast of 8.7 million fish and not enough for a commercial or sport fishery.

There was a one-in-10 chance that the pink returns would be as low as 4.4 million, but the results were even worse.

“It was much less, obviously much poorer than expected,” Mike Lapointe, chief biologist with the Pacific Salmon Commission, said in an interview. The average pink run on the Fraser is closer to 12 million.

The estimated fry-to-adult survival rate of 1.6 per cent this year is half the average of 3.2 per cent.

The total catch of Fraser-bound pinks by Canada and the U.S. was just 159,000 fish this season, mainly Aboriginal fisheries but some test fisheries.

The dismal pink returns are in line with previously reported poor sockeye returns on the Fraser this season — about 1.5 million fish compared with a median pre-season forecast of 4.4 million.

Pink salmon have a two-year cycle (compared with four years for sockeye), meaning the fish that returned this year were spawned in 2015. This year’s return forecasts were based largely on counts of small fry migrating down the Fraser in 2016. The pinks travelled as far north as the Gulf of Alaska before returning to the Fraser this year as adults.

The bulk of pinks spawn downstream of the Fraser Canyon, but some have been reported as far upstream as Prince George, evidence that they may be expanding their range, Lapointe said.

He said no one really knows why ocean survival has been so poor. Food, predators, and especially ocean warming could be factors. “It’s smart to be humble and admit we don’t know,” he said. “All we know is they didn’t come back.”

Lapointe said “everyone is hopeful” that sockeye returns will be strong in 2018 — the famous Adams River cycle. About 29 million sockeye returned to the Fraser in 2010 and about 20 million in 2014, he said.