7089

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7089
• Author: Northwest Power Planning Council.
• Title: Strategy for Salmon
• USFW Year: 1992.
• USFW - Doc Type: Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
• Copyright Material: NO

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Th e ,L d n 9 S t rug 9 I e 0 f

s... coLumbia River
amOH

Note: The pointers used here are graphic devices.
These impacts occur throughout the basin. .

F. r?m.. . the t~e th.ey are hat~hed to.the
trme they dIe; salmon are m motion-
and in peril. While still quite young,
they drift on a wash of runoff thatcarrles
them (town from their freshwater birthing
streams to the saltwater sea. For some young
salmon, this first trip of their lives can be 900
miles long. They must pass as many as nine
major hydroelectric dams, where turbin~s .
can kill or stun them, leaving them easy prey
for waiting predators.
Before the dams were built; the journey to
the ~ea was a quick one, lasting a week or less. With
the dams, the salmon are often stalled in reservoirs.
The hazard here is a biological one. Their instinct to
migrate can be lost.
Only about a quarter of the yoimg salIDon .
survive the first leg in their long migration.
Once in the Pacific Ocean, most of the Colum-
bia's salmon swim north, traveling thousands of
miles, feeding on small sea creatures along the way.
Larger Sea creatures, in turn, feed on them. .
In the ocean, Columbia River sa.lmon also are I
the target of major commercial and sport fishing
industries. ~y the time they turn back toward the
mouth of the Columbia, only a fraction of their
original number remain.
In the lowest reaches of the Columbia,
fishers again await the salmon. Fish ~at
escape capture here are the remnant hope of
future runs, but they must first struggle back
past the dams.~
The final survivorr-typically less than
1 percent of the original tiny migrants-seek
the stream of their origin, where they wiJl.
reproduce, then die. But more than a third of.
the spawning streams in t:he basin hav,e been
blocked off by dams that lack fish ladders.
Much of the remaining habitat was degraded
by siltation~ pollution, excessive water temperatUre
and the/loss of spawning gravel and deep holes
where salmon rest and feed. The poor. condition of
these streams will be the first, and last, constraint
on the survival of Columbia River salmon.

1 in the reservoirs.

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