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The Best Weekly Media Round-up of Stories about Salmon and their Habitats
Salmon News
Top 10
Hatchery programs that pour millions of pink salmon into the marine food web may well be having unintended consequences.
Researchers have found that salmon DNA collected in water samples can be used to infer the number of salmon passing upstream to spawn.
Watershed Watch's Aaron Hill says the Wild Salmon Advisory Council's framwework "is biased toward revitalizing wild salmon fisheries rather than wild salmon, with no mention of the non-consumptive economic benefits associated with tourism.”

British Columbians almost unanimous in disdain for polluters, even industries that enrich us economically: poll of 1,658 British Columbians.
The Dzawada’enuxw First Nation of Kingcome is taking legal action against Canada to remove 10 salmon farms from their traditional waters.
When I first arrived in Washington, steelhead were ubiquitous. 150 rivers were open to recreational angling... Instead of husbanding this precious resource, the state adopted management regimes that substituted domesticated hatchery steelhead for naturally produced fish and authorized unsustainable harvest fisheries.

Mowi announced in December that, per an agreement with First Nation groups, it and fellow farmer Cermaq were removing 10 of 17 net pen farms in the Broughton Archipelago area

Common claims that management of animal populations in the United States and Canada is “the best in the world” and “science-based” are often unfounded. But substantial improvements are possible.
Mitch Holmes is Haudenosaunee, and he's one of the developers of Whose Land, an app and website that can help you find out whose territory you're on.
Whether a fish population ultimately recovers from the devastation of a fire depends on whether there are safe refuges up or downstream from burned areas, and whether intact populations from other areas move in to repopulate the spots decimated by fire.
Opinion
 Editor: Re: “Seals out of balance,” Letters, Jan. 11. Of course, humans always need to blame other animal species for the decline of other animal species. 
 have many friends who are either commercial or recreational salmon fishers, and I follow what’s happening to salmon and increasing concerns about dwindling stocks.
After a disastrous 2018, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is forecasting an increase in the number of salmon returning to the fabled Copper River this year, but there’s a caveat.
British Columbia
For almost 30 years, scientists have struggled to understand why so many sea lions get cancer. If they can, they also might answer some of the biggest questions about why humans do, too.
As a summary, 2018 was a year of drastic Chinook salmon fluctuations in the Pacific Northwest and that has been the trend for the last decade.

The Prince Rupert Port Authority has issued a development moratorium on Flora, Agnew and Horsey Banks prohibiting any industrial work in the marine area that could pose a health and ecology risk to salmon populations in the mouth of the Skeena River.
An estuary restoration project in the Fraser River Delta will now be completed thanks to funding from the federal government.
The Skagit Marine Resources Committee is accepting applications for its Salish Sea Stewards program.
 As stewards of our region’s watersheds, all levels of government must work together with the McKenzie interchange project’s leaders to protect the Colquitz River from further environmental impacts.

A University of Northern British Columbia assistant professor will give a talk on the findings uncovered in an archeological project carried out in partnership with the Lake Babine Nation.

The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project will have “significant environmental effects,” but proponents claim these are “justified” because the project is of utmost national importance.
Salmon initiatives benefited last year from Pacific Salmon Foundation funds and community support.
Local governments and people along CN’s line in northwestern B.C. need to be more aware of what’s contained in railcars running through their communities, says the author of a book on the Lac-Mégantic, Quebec disaster.
The intent of the project is to investigate the concept and creation of a Secwepemc youth program to demonstrate the importance of protecting the Fraser River and the salmon.
Canada
The release says the ministers talked about moving forward with the development of an aquaculture act, saying this type of federal legislation would solidify Canada’s commitment to growing the aquaculture sector in an environmentally sustainable manner.
Being able to accurately estimate an animal’s age is an important step in understanding the health of a population.
United States
When Alaskans fish, Lower 48 business interests net the bounty.
Fish traps were banned on the Columbia River more than 80 year ago, but some say it’s time to bring them back as a way for fishermen to catch more hatchery salmon while protecting wild fish.

The 2018 State of the Salmon report by the Governor's Salmon Recovery Office paints a sobering picture.
“Chasing Wild,” a film about an ambitious trip by bike and river raft through the sacred headwaters in northwestern British Columbia, is part of a St. Helena event.
It appears a pattern of heavy storms in the Pacific Northwest may have obscured the effects of climate change over the past 20 years.
In a new poll, environmental interest earned its highest marks since 2001, and green groups want to capitalize in the legislative session.
The proportion of Americans who said global warming is “personally important” to them jumped from 63 percent to 72 percent from March to December of last year.
International

It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to end poverty and remake our economy so that it works for everyone.
Glaciers are crucial sources of water for people and crops in Central Asia. But global warming is causing glaciers there and around the world to shrink every year.
Ireland’s fishing industry and scientists are at loggerheads over Atlantic mackerel stocks but scientists are not all on the same side.
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Conservationists on Wednesday heralded the announcement that Greenland’s commercial catch of wild Atlantic salmon had hit a 13-year low and suggested that harvest could mean better returns on North American rivers where the fish spawn.
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