Managed Extinction by Rick Williams

This book is a recent work by Dr. Rick Williams, a leading figure in Spey casting at FFI, who visited Japan last month. Last month I had the opportunity to hear directly from the doctor about this book.

Japanese salmon juveniles go down to the sea with meltwater in the spring, and spend 1 to 3 months in the coastal areas near the river mouth, where they develop their swimming ability and ability to catch food, and by early summer when the cold current leaves the coast, they migrate to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. The Sea of ​​Okhotsk, a relatively closed sea area, is characterized by an abundance of food and few competing species. The juvenile fish that stay in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk until late autumn migrate to the western North Pacific Ocean, where they spend their first winter. In the spring of the following year, the juvenile fish migrate to the Bering Sea, where they join their “big brothers,” adult and immature fish, and spend the rest of the year until autumn. The Bering Sea is a favorite water area for Japanese chum salmon from spring to autumn, where they catch food and grow large as they migrate.

So, I asked Dr. Williams, an authority in this field.
Hiro: A professor at a fisheries university in Hokkaido said, “The salmon that head to the sea as usual are running out of energy by the time they reach the northern seas because the water temperature has risen too much, and they are losing the fight for survival with other fish. What do you think?”

Dr. Williams: In the Bering Sea, Japanese salmon (fish of the Salmonidae family) may suddenly start losing the fierce competition for survival with Pacific North American salmon and trout. North America is also experiencing abnormal weather due to global warming, and it is highly likely that salmon and trout reached the Bering Sea in search of cold water and abundant feeding grounds, and then got caught up in fierce competition for food there, so there is a good chance that the hypothesis that Japanese chum salmon were losing the competition for survival there is valid. “

The main points of Dr. Williams’ book, “Managed Extinction,” are as follows. It refers to the phenomenon of the decline in wild salmon and rainbow trout in the Pacific Northwest over the past 150 years. Many populations are now at risk of extinction, especially in the Snake River Basin in Idaho. Extensive habitat modification and mainstem dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers have contributed to the decline of salmon and rainbow trout, but continued reliance on farm production rather than conservation measures to restore declining salmon runs has led to management leading to extinction. Recovering endangered upper basin salmon and rainbow trout populations requires removal of four dams on the lower Snake River, restoration of river ecological processes, and development of a new salmon management paradigm that emphasizes ecological resilience and management.

This year there was also the shocking news that fishing in Gaula, Norway, a mecca for Atlantic salmon fishing, was to be closed. When I went to the Teshio River two years ago in late October there were huge numbers of salmon there. However, this November, there were less than 10% of what there were then. It may be overly optimistic to hope that this is simply a cyclical phenomenon in Hokkaido salmon that occurs every four years, as it always has, rather than a deleterious effect of global warming.