Salmon's sea change by Terry Glavin, Globe & Mail, 18 July 98

Bering Sea - July 97 - huge phytoplankton bloom, visible from space
Astonishing shifts in sea-surface temperatures along BC coast as measured by lighthouse keepers - higher than in 65 years of measurements

Strange sea change - "regime shift", "change of epoch", more than El Nino, global warming & greenhouse gases? Something to do with earth’s cycles - the sun?

BC fish caught - 800,000 tonnes, combined weight of all humans in BC Alaska Wash Ore -

Low price for fish 1/3 of that of 10 years ago - present value is 0.5% of BC’s gross provincial product. Quantity of farm salmon soon be more than wild catch in BC

1970’s macroplankton abounded off Calif. Now gone and salmon are starving. By 1990 half of salmon range empty, accelerating now to stage where almost all salmon runs left of US west coast are now threatened endanger or extinct.

BC - 142 salmon runs extinct, more than 800 are in trouble. Not much info on BC runs - just over half of 9,600 runs have been assessed for BC & Yukon - 142 extinct, 624 high risk of extinction, 78 are at moderate risk and 23 are of special concern. BC coho and chinook runs that used to be in hundreds of thousand 10 years ago are now in serious, serious trouble

Sharp beak dolphin gone risen from 15,000 in 70s to 400,000 in Calif. Alone

Alaska Runs - Bristol Bay sockeye collapsed last year & this year, also Kuskokwim River chum and western Alaska’s chinook runs. Yukon fisheries had to be closed this year - spawners down

“At current rates of decline, the researchers say , greenhouse gas emissions will cause sockeye salmon to disappear within 50 years throughout their Pacific range. The pattern will move progressively from south to north.”

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