Point Reyes Light - December 4, 2003
Environmentalists rap new home for salmon
By Ivan Gale
A group of hatchery-raised coho salmon are swimming against a current of environmental groups haggling with government agencies before they can be set free into local waterways.
Agency involvement
A proposal by state and federal agencies to introduce non-native coho salmon into Walker Creek is causing concern among activists that existing native coho populations may be put in harm’s way.
Representatives from the state Department of Fish and Game as well as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) met with environmentalists and Walker Creek landowners on Wednesday at the Red Barn in the Point Reyes National Seashore to discuss the plan.
The coho were first rescued as fry three years ago by Fish and Game from drying-up pools in Olema Creek.
The move was part of a plan to restore threatened populations to the Russian River.
"[Fish and Game] felt the Russian River coho population was so dangerously low the [coho] salmon would become extinct, or there would be inbreeding between brothers and sisters," Reuven Walder of the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network (SPAWN) told The Light Tuesday.
The plans were dropped when Fish and Game’s analysis showed the Olema Creek cohos’ genetic makeup is different from Russian River coho.
Tainting population
This resulted in environmentalists’ fear of "tainting a unique genetic population," Walder said.
Releasing the rescued fish back into Walker Creek was also rebuffed for the same reasons, noted Gordon Bennett of the Sierra Club Marin Group, an opponent of the plan.
"These fish represent a very small subset of the genetic variation in Olema Creek," Bennett reminded Fish and Game in a letter. "If re-introduced to the same watershed, [these coho] could unnaturally skew its genetic balance."
Walker Creek, which is within the same watershed as Olema Creek, has no documented coho population of its own.
That waterway, then, may be the only hope for the more than 100 coho that were raised in artificial tanks and are nearing the end of their lifespan. If the fish are not released back into the wild during a major rain this winter, biologists say they will die without ever been given a chance to spawn.
Walder says he supports Fish and Game’s attempts to re-establish coho populations, but the agency needs to make sure there are no existing coho that spawn in Walker Creek.
"I don’t have a position on it yet largely because the data isn’t in," Walder said. "There could be a native run [in Walker Creek] which may expand on its own... if there is a native run in there, who knows what their genetic structure is."
Fish biologist Paul Siri of UC Davis was critical of the way the state and federal agencies came up with the plan without enlisting help of environmentalists and scientists.
"I don’t think the risks have been clearly articulated by the [Fish and Game] or NOAA," Siri said. "And I think too few people with areas of expertise like homing, imprinting, and conservation biology have not been pulled into to this assessment.
"I think one of the big concerns is these are animals removed as fry that otherwise would have died from natural selection in their home watershed, reared in an artificial environment, and brought back as adults placed in [the Walker Creek] habitat that is no longer supporting coho."
Lack of a plan
He also derided the lack of a plan to monitor the succeeding coho generations, and warned against using "emotional" reasons to release the hatchery-raised fish. Other concerns of re-introducing the coho into Walker Creek include the likelihood of the straying back into Olema Creek, and of transmitting disease, Siri told The Light.
"You have to ask, is this effort going to contribute to the recovery of salmon anywhere, or will it pose a risk to other coho that are the nearest neighbors?" Siri said. "Now people are feeling pressured that there’s some urgency as described by the department and NOAA."
But spokeswoman Gayle Seymour of Fish and Game said no concrete plans have been made.
"This is really a preliminary [stage] to get information from stakeholders," she said. "No decisions have been made."