Unique Idaho salmon numbers rise, but extinction looms

摘要

A unique population of salmon that for thousands of years has been reproducing in one of Idaho's wildest places experienced a small increase in adults returning to spawn this year. But the number of chinook salmon returning to the Middle Fork of the Salmon River and its tributaries is just a tiny fraction of historical numbers, experts said. "More is better, but it's still abysmal numbers," said Russ Thurow, a research fisheries scientist with the Forest Service based in the small city of Salmon. "We're bouncing around just above extinction." A survey completed in September of spawning beds found that about 900 chinook salmon, which can surpass 20 pounds, returned this year, compared with 320 last year. Most of the basin is protected in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. It contains about 460 miles of still-pristine spawning habitat that in the 1800s experienced an annual return of an estimated 150,000 adult salmon. Spawning bed surveys from the 1950s and 1960s led to an estimate of nearly 50,000 salmon returning those years before the runs plummeted following the completion of dams on the Snake River.