2021 Synthesis Report
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
FACTORS LIMITING SURVIVAL OF JUVENILE CHINOOK SALMON, COHO SALMON AND STEELHEAD IN THE SALISH SEA: SYNTHESIS OF FINDINGS OF THE Authors: Isobel Pearsall, Michael Schmidt, Iris Kemp, Brian Riddell Represents the opinion of the Salish Sea Marine Survival Project Synthesis Committee Synthesis of Findings of the Salish Sea Marine Survival Project V1. 2021 This is a living document. Please cite as: Pearsall I,* M Schmidt,* I Kemp, and B Riddell. 2021 Synthesis of findings of the Salish Sea Marine Survival Project, Version 1.0. www.marinesurvivalproject.com, www.psf.ca, and www.lltk.org. * These authors contributed equally to the work. Authors: Isobel Pearsall, Pacific Salmon Foundation Michael Schmidt, Long Live the Kings Iris Kemp, Long Live the Kings Brian Riddell, Pacific Salmon Foundation Synthesis Committee Members: Andrew Trites, University of British Columbia Richard Beamish, Canada Department of Fisheries and Oceans Carl Walters, University of British Columbia Francis Juanes, University of Victoria Kristi Miller, Canada Department of Fisheries and Oceans Chrys Neville, Canada Department of Fisheries and Oceans Ian Perry, Canada Department of Fisheries and Oceans Brian Hunt, University of British Columbia Correigh Greene, NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center Barry Berejikian, NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center Dave Beauchamp, US Geological Survey Brian Riddell, Pacific Salmon Foundation Julie Keister, University of Washington Neala Kendall, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Mike Crewson, Tulalip Tribes Sandie O’Neill, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Villy Christensen/Greig Oldford, University of British Columbia Chris Harvey/Isaac Kaplan, NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center Kathryn Sobocinski, Western Washington University Kevin Pellett, Canada Department of Fisheries and Oceans Ben Nelson, University of British Columbia/NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center Paul Hershberger, US Geological Survey David Willis, Canada Department of Fisheries and Oceans Cover photo: Eiko Jones 2 Synthesis of Findings of the Salish Sea Marine Survival Project V1. 2021 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables and Figures . 4 Executive Summary . 8 Introduction . 20 Project History . 22 Environmental Conditions During the Project Period . 23 Hypotheses Assessed . 24 Where Are We? A State of Knowledge Snapshot . 25 Declines in Salish Sea Marine Survival and The Early Marine Critical Period . 27 Declines in Marine Survival . 27 Is There a Critical Period Determining the Abundance of Salmon in the Salish Sea? . 31 Early marine growth . 31 Mortality in first summer . 32 Hatchery Versus Wild Survival . 33 What We Know About Factors Affecting Marine Survival: Findings, Next Steps in Research, and Management Implications . 35 1. Salmon Behaviour and Physical Habitat . 35 Changes to outmigration timing and interrelationships with other factors . 35 Distribution, Migration Pathways, and Residency . 37 Physical and Biogenic Habitat . 41 2. Food Supply . 45 Prey availability . 45 Water quality/Biogeochemistry . 57 Mismatch between salmon outmigration timing and prey availability . 64 Forage fish competition with Chinook and Coho salmon . 68 Harmful Algae . 69 Ocean Acidification . 73 3. Predation . 75 Predator abundance and specialization . 76 Prey switching and pulse prey abundance . 79 4. Disease and Contaminants . 83 Pathogens and disease . 83 Contaminants . 91 Conclusions and Looking Forward . 99 Acknowledgements . 105 Strait of Georgia Participants . 106 Puget Sound Participants . 108 References . 109 Appendix A. Complete List of Hypotheses . 134 Appendix B. Stocks and Years of Marine Survival Data Used in Chinook, Coho, and Steelhead Trends Figure . 138 3 Synthesis of Findings of the Salish Sea Marine Survival Project V1. 2021 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1. Synthesis Committee perspectives on the significance of the different SSMSP hypotheses to explain the changes in marine survival for Chinook, Coho, and steelhead in the Salish Sea ..................................... 11 Table 2. SSMSP hypotheses. Explanations and predictions are in Appendix A ...................................... 24 Table 3. Synthesis Committee perspectives on the significance of the different SSMSP hypotheses to explain the changes in marine survival for Chinook, Coho, and steelhead in Puget Sound and Strait of Georgia . 26 Figure 1. Marine survival trend for Chinook (top panel) and Coho (middle panel) in Puget Sound (blue), Strait of Georgia (pink), and WA/BC Coast and Columbia River (green) and for steelhead (bottom panel) in Puget Sound + Strait of Georgia’s Keogh River (teal). A smoothing function (colored line and gray envelope showing confidence interval, generalized additive model (GAM), survival ~ year) was applied to illustrate trend. All panels span ocean entry years 1978-2015. Underlying data as described in Zimmerman et al. 2015, Ruff et al. 2017, Kendall et al. 2017, and Sobocinski et al. 2021. See Appendix B for the stock list and any discrepancies between this graph and the papers .............................................................................................. 9 Figure 2. Map of the Salish Sea ................................................................................... 20 Figure 3. Landed catch of Chinook and Coho salmon in the Strait of Georgia and Strait of Juan de Fuca, 1970 to 2014. Prior to 1995, catches included recreational fishing and commercial troll; after 1995, catch is limited to recreational catch as troll gear is prohibited for Chinook and Coho in this region ............................................... 22 Figure 4. Image showing unusually high sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean in May 2015 as compared to the 2002-2012 average. (Source: American Geophysical Union) .................................................... 23 Figure 5. Marine survival trend for Chinook (top panel) and Coho (middle panel) in Puget Sound (blue), Strait of Georgia (Pink), and WA/BC Coast and Columbia River (green) and for steelhead (bottom panel) in Puget Sound + Keogh River (teal). A smoothing function (colored line and gray envelope showing confidence interval, generalized additive model (GAM), survival ~ year) was applied to illustrate trend. All panels span ocean entry years 1978-2015. Underlying data as described in Zimmerman et al. 2015, Ruff et al. 2017, Kendall et al. 2017, and Sobocinski et al. 2021. See Appendix B for the stock list and any discrepancies between this graph and the papers ....................... 28 Figure 6. Proportions of Salish Sea Chinook marine survival rates on even ocean entry years greater than on odd ocean entry years for two time periods (1986-1999 in blue and 2000-2012 in orange), illustrating a regime shift that occurred around the year 2000 (Source: M. Haggerty) ............................................................. 30 Figure 7. Annual mean and standard deviation of release date and release size (length) for hatchery Chinook in the Salish Sea from 1950 to 2016. Panels display annual mean release date (A) and size (B) for the entire Salish Sea (black lines), and for individual sub-regions (gray lines) (Adapted from Nelson et al. 2019a) ............................... 35 Figure 8. CPUE (catch per hour) of juvenile Chinook salmon captured in trawl surveys 1998-2017. Top panel shows summer CPUE; bottom panel shows fall CPUE. (Source: C. Neville, DFO) ............................................ 37 Figure 9. Catch distributions of juvenile Chinook salmon in trawl surveys 1998-2017. Top panel shows summer catches and bottom panel shows fall catches. (Source: Chrys Neville, DFO) ........................................ 38 Figure 10. CPUE for juvenile Coho salmon in the Strait of Georgia in September. (Source: C. Neville, DFO) ......... 39 Figure 11. Deviation from mean length of Coho juveniles in the Strait of Georgia in September. Positive deviations from the mean indicate larger fish. Juveniles have been generally larger since 2013. (Source: C. Neville, DFO) ....... 40 Figure 12. Marine survival rates of hatchery and wild Coho salmon indicator populations entering the Strait of Georgia (Source: K. Pellett, DFO) ........................................................................... 40 4 Synthesis of Findings of the Salish Sea Marine Survival Project V1. 2021 Figure 13. Chinook smolts leave both the Green and Skagit Rivers early as small fry and later as larger parr. However, returning adults to the urbanized, developed Green River are only derived from those smolts that left as larger parr. The fry component did not appear to survive. Similar results were apparent in a number of other degraded estuaries. (Source: L. Campbell, WDFW) ...................................................................................... 42 Figure 14. Underlying trends derived from 12 zooplankton taxonomic groups (top panels A, B) and 10 physical variables (bottom panels C, D) in the Strait of Georgia. Black dots and blue line and shading represent trends and their 95% confidence intervals derived for each year. Dashed and dotted lines separate groups of years which cluster together. Zooplankton trend 1 represents large- and medium-sized calanoid copepods; zooplankton trend 2 represents chaetognaths, fish larvae, and medusae. Physical trend 1 represents sea temperature and event timing (e.g., spring bloom, Fraser River peak flow); physical trend 2 represents sea surface salinity and vertical stratification. (Source: Perry et al. 2021 .........................................................................................