CLARIFICATION: In
a previous column I made mention of the Watershed Wide 1602 permit and the Programmatic
Incidental Take Permits for coho. I wanted to clarify that I fully support these options
negotiated by our Resource Conservation Districts. The RCDs have done an excellent job of
crafting these options for our landowners as an alternative to time consuming and
expensive individual permit processes or the regulatory risk of not obtaining a permit.
I do not, however, support the Fish and Game’s separate move to
fund Cal-Trout and a contractor to conduct instream flow studies on the Shasta and Scott
Rivers with apparent plans to use Section 5937 of the Fish and Game code to demand more
water in the future for fish habitat.
NATURAL RESOURCE USE ADVISORY
COMMITTEE: Siskiyou County is currently working on an ordinance to establish a Natural
Resource Use Advisory Committee. The purpose of the committee is to review proposed
federal and state actions, (such as federal land management, state resource use
regulation,) and make recommendations on
proposal comments to the Board of Supervisors. This will be part of the
“coordination” role that County government has with the federal and state
government. These Committee members will be appointed from candidates representing mining
and dredging, range management, forestry, agriculture, natural resources, fish an
wildlife, recreation, tourism or water. Those wishing to serve should send a letter of
interest to the Board of Supervisors at P.O. Box 750, Yreka, CA 96097. http://www.co.siskiyou.ca.us/
FISH DISEASE: Many people are under the impression that poor
habitat conditions caused by agriculture, logging and mining are the main reasons for
declines in salmon and steelhead populations. It has long been known that predation plays
a substantial part in thinning fish populations. (Estimated at as much as 98 percent by
the Klamath River Fisheries Restoration Task Force.) We also know that scientists are
researching the large part that ocean conditions (El Nino and La Nina) play in the food
source for salmonids for a large portion of their life.
Locally on the Klamath River, disease plays an enormous role in
juvenile fish survival. Ceratomyxa Shasta and Parvicapsula
Minibicornis are pathogens that are hosted by a worm. The pathogens infect juvenile
fish, which can be fatal. Results of this year’s study indicate that C. Shasta was
detected in 18 percent of juvenile Klamath Chinook salmon and P. minibicornis was detected
in 72 percent. In the study, C. Shasta
infected 37 percent of juvenile coho and P. minibicornis infected 72 percent. In the screw
trapping inventories of outmigrating salmon, the highest visible signs of infection in
juvenile fish seemed to occur at Bogus Creek. http://www.fws.gov/arcata/fisheries/projectUpdates/FishHealthMonitoring/
Klamath%20Pathogen%20Monitoring%20Update%2009-24-2007.pdf
Although the pathogens are
present throughout the Klamath mainstem, hot spots of concentrated infection appear to be
the Williamson River in Oregon and around Beaver Creek
below Iron
Gate dam. Adult
salmon appear also to be infected. A sampling of 2006-07 returning Iron Gate hatchery fish indicated that
100 percent of fall Chinook were infected with P. minibicornis and 85 percent with C. Shasta. 55
percent of adult coho had P. minibicornis and 95 percent had C. Shasta. In the 2005-06
sampling year, 100 percent of steelhead trout adults were infected with P. minibicornis
and 50 percent with C. Shasta. (No sampling of steelhead was done in 06-07.)
The Scott River and Shasta River don’t seem to be
infected with the pathogens. Scientists have speculated that infected adult fish carcasses
deposited as returning fish back up and wait to enter the hatchery could be the reason
that the area between Iron Gate and Beaver Creek is so infected.
This does not mean that it is
not important to improve fish habitat in the tributaries. But, until the mystery of the
source of infection and its cure is figured out, it appears that the juveniles produced in
the Shasta and Scott Rivers face a gauntlet of fatal infection on their way to the ocean
and back as adults.
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