WELCOME!

Welcome to Salmon Conservation, the website. Here I hope to inform and intrigue you on the rich history surrounding this charismatic species. This front page is meant to be an introduction to the material found in the tabs above. Enjoy!

AN INTRODUCTION TO SALMON CONSERVATION

  Salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) along the entire west coast of North America are a culturally, socially, and economically important group of fish (Compton, et al., 2006).  In the last 100 years we have seen a huge decline in salmon populations, with some estimates showing a 93% decline from historic numbers (Gresh, 2000).  There have been many conservation efforts in the last three decades in effort to restore salmon populations throughout the region, but salmon numbers have been slow to recover.  Obviously, salmon cycles have large impacts on the freshwater ecosystems they occupy, even at diminished numbers. These fish have an anadromous life cycle: they are born in fresh water bodies where they grow to an intermediate stage (smolt), migrate to the oceans and mature into their adult life stage, then return to their spawning ground to reproduce, senesce, and die. Salmon accumulate a substantial amount of nutrients while in their oceanic phase-up to 95% of their mass, which they carry with them as they return to their spawning grounds, which are dominantly oligotrophic systems (Niaman, 2002).  Salmon deposit large amounts of biomass in the form of eggs, a valuable food source for consumers in freshwater ecosystems, but also leave thousands of carcasses behind after spawn-out (Bilby, 1996). These carcass dumps have historically been thought of as key sources of imported marine derived nutrients (MDN) ,such as Phosphorous and Nitrogen, which directly influence the primary productivity of the systems (Holtrgrieve and Schindler, et al., 2011).  This belief has had a direct influence on protocol for logging practices, stream maintenance, riparian restoration, and conservation tactics (Compton, 2006).

                Recent research has challenged this long held viewpoint, with a multitude of evidence suggesting that salmon can in fact be net exporters of nutrients to a system, thereby negatively impacting primary production (Compton, et al., 2006. Holtgrieve, et al., 2011).  Salmon have in fact been shown in some cases to change the productivity of a system so drastically that net autotrophic riparian systems can change to net heterotrophic systems during spawn-out. Current studies are finding that bio-turbation, system geomorphology, and abiotic factors are influencing the amount of nutrient uptake in riparian systems during salmon runs, factors that were once ignored or overlooked (Holtgrieve, et al., 2011. Cram, et al., 2011).  This new evidence could have major impacts on the way conservation efforts are proposed and executed.

The tabs on this website will guide you through the issue of Salmon Conservation.  The history, past conservation efforts, current conservation efforts, and current debate and future conservation are all discussed.  I have designed this website to act as a sort of essay in webpage format, and you can find the reference to any data on my reference tab. I hope to inform and enlighten you, maybe even motivate you to join in on the conservation front.  Salmon are a key ingredient to life in the Northwest, and their conservation is tantamount to any other organism imaginable.