Kill birds and tell animal rights people to shove off, steelhead are more important than their feelings.

 

Maybe in another 20 years, they will be shocked impact of pinniped predation.

 

It is hard for me to believe that any one paying attention over the past decade would be "shocked" to find that juvenile steelhead are being consumed by predator birds in the mid Columbia River. I can believe some were "shocked" to actually see data on how high those predation rates were. Maybe now that the "Scientists" actually know the mortality rates, something effective can be done about it.

 

That's not at all what they said. Read the first paragraph:

Scientists who study avian predation in the Columbia Basin have long known that birds can be a significant cause of death for young salmonids--especially upper Columbia River steelhead. But even Allen Evans and Dan Roby were surprised by the numbers after tallying cumulative impacts of 14 bird colonies on this especially vulnerable run of steelhead, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

They weren't "shocked to find that juvenile steelhead are being consumed by predator birds"...the surprise was just how high the cumulative impact of all the colonies was now that they have hard data from a decade+ long study.

The fact that as much as 87% of steelhead smolts that die in a 150+ mile stretch of the Columbia is caused by birds is pretty crazy...that's a figure that I've never even seen hinted at by anyone in the history of this forum. Given how much bitching is done about steelhead survival rates, I think it's fair to assume people here would be "surprised" at that 87% figure as well.

 

As a mitigator to bird predation of salmonids, perhaps the wind farm industry can re-spin itself from green energy to chrome energy and gain several more decades of subsidies.

 

That is definitely some high predatioj on the Columbia, anyone have any info on bird predation in PS or colony size?

 

No mention of Pelicans? They must do a fair share of damage also . . .

 

I'm shocked!

 

Interesting about the birds. Birds and seals both are problematic. But let's try to remember that birds and seals preyed on salmon and steelhead long before the decimation of the Columbia basin salmonids. What's the root of the problem? Dams. It seems to me that controlling the birds and the seals to help the steelhead would be not unlike taking aspirin for your headache when you've got a brain tumor growing in your skull.

That said--those dams ain't coming down in the near future. So, controlling the predators should be an option on the table. Just remember the real reason we can't live happily with those birds and seals.

 

Interesting about the birds. Birds and seals both are problematic. But let's try to remember that birds and seals preyed on salmon and steelhead long before the decimation of the Columbia basin salmonids. What's the root of the problem? Dams. It seems to me that controlling the birds and the seals to help the steelhead would be not unlike taking aspirin for your headache when you've got a brain tumor growing in your skull.

That said--those dams ain't coming down in the near future. So, controlling the predators should be an option on the table. Just remember the real reason we can't live happily with those birds and seals.

Agreed. It's not the birds that have caused the problem. It is us.

The use of lasers mentioned in the article are relatively inexpensive and should be implemented at the outfall of all the dams. Same goes with the "sprinklers".
The study reports that the use of both have had a positive impact, so why not implement them immediately?

 

I know we are probably at a point with steelhead that we probably need to do something with predator birds and pinnipeds. That being said, it is always amazing to me that the initial reaction in 2019 is “kill off the predator”. Animals that have evolved in this ecosystem to do exactly what they are doing.

Maybe I am pessimistic in thinking we should just let nature course correct versus implementing another man made solution on top of the mess we have already created. The fact that this statement was made in that article gives me little confidence that folks doing this work have any shot at making the situation better....

“Evans said steelhead smolt mortality by birds is so great and so variable that it should be accounted for in any work or study looking at juvenile survival rates. "If you don't account for it, you could work on another study and come to an erroneous conclusion because you didn't account for the fact that bird predation was cut in half, or doubled. If you want to understand mortality, you need to measure mortality,"

No sh*t....

 

The deposition of dredged materials in the lower has created larger islands for ground nesting birds in the lower Columbia. Some islands have become safe havens for the birds as they lack the natural predators to limit population growth.

 

Also, I think dams slow down the rivers to the extent that silt, dirt, etc., are not flushed out to see like they used to be.

And logging has created a lot more of that as denuded hillsides slip into streams and rivers. Look at Tillamook bay - over 90% of the bay has silted up in the past 100 years.

At the end of the day, bottle rockets, pinniped extermination, bird extermination, are only treating the symptoms of the problem.

 

If people think killing off all the birds and predators is going to save the salmon easily, we have another thing coming.

Things evolved to eat things, take over niches, then starve or change..
"Save the Neanderthal and Saber-tooth Tiger!" would compromise our lofty place in present time.

We can try and shore up some things, but this is big big stuff.

It is an ecosystem, a working biosphere. Picking and choosing how humans like and dislike creatures for taste and fun is not a great idea.

How is it working in the slim time we have been top dog?

Not so great.

Humans are turning our Earth into a sewer

 

What it seems a few are missing, but has been touched on, is this problem was created by us. This is an artificially altered ecosystem. Without the man made islands, reservoirs, and structures that are harboring these massive colonies of birds, the birds would have existed in their natural abundance and predation minimized. We cannot just alter the ecosystem then say "let nature figure it out" if you want any semblance of the original ecosystem to exist. If that is the view we have then Salmon and Steelhead are doomed. Mitigation is the only answer, whether its harassment, reverting back to the original ecosystem, or lethal, we need to do something.

 

Letting nature take its course likely makes sense . . . in natural ecosystems. When humans modify ecosystems, we pick winners and losers, intentionally or not. Since we decided to modify the ecosystem, I think we're obligated to figure out what it is we want as the desired future condition, and then take the actions that get us there. And that might include predator control that we weren't planning on.

Kinda' like the wolf management thing. Whoda' guessed that wolves would move back into WA state? We could let nature run its course, and we'd get some kind of result. However, the ecosystem has been changed since wolves were eradicated. Habitat is different, and we as a society decided that we want deer, elk, and cattle on this modified range. Like it or not, we have to have a wolf management plan or accept the boom and bust cycles of prey and predators that happens when nature runs its course.

Unfortunately I don't expect we'll be as sensible in dealing with avian and pinniped predators of salmonids. Salmonids are screwed.

 

This is true. That being said, I have no confidence humans will solve this issue. You can't have your cake and eat it too. We jacked up the ecosystem. Now If we decide to continue down the road and not rollback the changes we made, the sacrifice is salmonids in the Columbia. If we took the short sighted approach of removing every pinniped and every predatory bird from that ecosystem, would that bring salmon and steelhead numbers back to pre Lewis and Clark days? No... could it bring stocks back from the brink of extinction .....maybe? At what cost though? Do you have any confidence humans can quasi solve one problem we created without creating another, potentially worse one? I don't unfortunately.

I am definitely getting more pessimistic the older I get. I just think we are kidding ourselves if we think that outside of a momentous shift in how humans view, exploit, and cohabitate this earth with other natural resources, we will be able to balance or restore ecosystems again with human solutions. We'll play god and make human decisions that benefit us under the guise of progress or protection of species we deem important. Not solving the problem though, just changing it.

It will be solved about 1000 years after the next big meteor hits earth. That's my prediction.

Until then, I guess I just need to throw on my blinders, get behind a short sighted, half baked quasi solution that will marginally increase my happiness via potentially better fishing in my lifetime to the detriment to who knows what on a long and short term basis. I'm past 40 now and don't have kids. I guess it's an easy decision for me.

I'm not advocating doing nothing. Let's at least try and get to the root cause though. Stop with the sh*tty patches on a sinking boat. We need a new f'ing boat. Unfortunately, I am not at all confident humans are capable of building it....

 

Is this thread not indicative of how freaking screwed up and argumentative we are about salmonids? Jeez. Arguing about "shocked", "surprised"? How the hell are we ever going to agree on any management plan when we're arguing semantics on a report?

If anyone is surprised, shocked, #whateverthehellyouwantocallit about bird predation, you've been living in a vacuum. Yeah, dams and their reservoirs and plunge pools are a problem, a massive problem. The bigger problem is us. Mankind. We just keep bulldozing along. Pave paradise, put up a parking lot, build another road, how about a new subdivision, another Amazon distribution plant, a few more UPS trucks, let's not forget EV trucks.

 

There is at least some mitigation going on. I've seen the NAs out in boats below The Dalles dam shooting bottle rockets at the seagulls during spring out migration. I'm sure thats just a small piece of the damage but at least they are doing something there. Not sure what you can do with diving birds except reduce the populations.

And they are certainly lethally removing seals from the Willamette. I believe they can remove up to something like 100 per year.

 

Bottle rockets and lethal removal of up to 100 pinniped/year is just pecking around at the edges of the problem. To really get serious about it, managers would likely need to try removing 50% of the birds/year and 1,000 pinnipeds/year. Then we might be able to measure significant improvements in survival. I say this in regards to experience in trying to improve juvenile fish survival (by reducing mortalities) by modifying streamflow management in a hydro operation. Turns out, statistically at least, the only way to get statistically significant and measurable results is to take much larger actions than managers wanted to.

We take the environmentally major action of putting walls in rivers, turning rivers into lakes, and then think we can mitigate effects with half-assed measures that just peck away at the edges of the problems. As a species, humans are especially bad at arithmetic.

 

One interesting aspect of the problem is Salmon, Colonial water birds, and pinnipeds all receive some protection from US federal agencies. So who picks the priorities? Makes Columbia River salmonid predation a tough nut to crack.

 

No. ODFW,WDFW and the tribes should just defy federal law and do it.

Ask forgiveness not permission.

In fact if i were head of WDFW I'd just do it then inform the governor what i had done and take full responsibility for it..

I know things wouldn't go down that way but that's how i dream of it.

 

It always amazes me when scientists are shocked when what lay people tell them has been going on for decades turns out to be true.

Some things don't need to be studied, they just need to be addressed. Kill the birds kill the seals. Duh!
Will it solve all our problems, no. Might it buy us some time? Yes.

 

The notion that mankind can "manage" something it doesn't truly understand and get the results it wants (today) is a sucker's bet. Apparently, prior to this study, they didn't appreciate the impact of large bird colonies on down-migrating steelhead smolts. Before that and as was pointed out, they didn't appreciate what depositing sandy dredge spoil and creating large islands in the Columbia would do. Before that, they didn't appreciate the impact of the lower 4 Columbia dams would have on salmon/ steelhead populations. And before that . . . . ad infinitum. It's like my 16 year old driving on the highway- he's ALWAYS sure he's right and CERTAIN that he knows what to do when he doesn't know sh!t from shinola. Man's hubris is shocking but not at all surprising. Salmonids are indeed screwed.

 

We take a free flowing river and artificially manipulate it for power, then when the native fish disappear we artificially produce millions of salmon and steelhead smolts, by producing millions of smolts we get tens of thousands of predators eating them......well....Control the f'n predators! Its no different for ranchers or anybody else raising anything artificially. Do you think a rancher releases his cattle everyday and is shocked when the wolves keep eating them, do you think he just keeps going about his business raising more cattle as even more come up missing? F' no! Dead yote or wolf....
More cattle are raised, sold, and eaten in a manipulated environment by us, now lets do the same for salmon and steel.
Since we as humans arent willing to control are manipulation of the environment(leaving it alone), then we best be gettin to manipulating what we can, when we can do it, and it starts by killing lots of predators. I liked Robs post above, so maybe the first thing to go is me, ive obviously lost my mind.

 

Shouldn't that headline be something like "Scientists shocked to find beating a dead horse costs millions!"

 

I was counting eggs on the dredge tailings for a friend's company and every time it was foggy there were raccoons everywhere...I wonder how they got there?

 

Saw this article today regarding a Columbia trib.
I had no idea that many outfitters fished the CW.
SF

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.idahostatesman.com/outdoors/fishing/article238089759.html

 

However, the public may not agree because of the cute and cuddly factor. My belief is biological controls should be no respecter of how cute an animal is.

We had a name for this years ago when I studied wildlife management at Ohio State... The Bambi Syndrome.

 

Bambi VS Godzilla...my favorite movie!

 

Absolutely--a classic. It's a bit shorter than most films.

Sorry... #threaddrift

 

When humans modify ecosystems, we pick winners and losers, intentionally or not. Since we decided to modify the ecosystem, I think we're obligated to figure out what it is we want as the desired future condition, and then take the actions that get us there.

"We're obligated". Understatement of the eons. It's taken four and a half billion years for the planet, and life itself to get to this point. At least to how it was before we started screwing things up. We've made these dramatic changes to ecosystems for our benefit, and thrown natural checks and balances out the window in the process.

So no, we should not be shocked when some species dis-proportionally reap benefits at the expense of others. That's how nature works. We (collectively) made the decision to alter the system. So unless we take a hands-off, "let nature take it's course" approach, then it's absolutely our responsibility to attempt to restore some balance. However it may offend our sense of 'fairness'. Or even rile (understandable) righteous indignation. Within the context of 'un-natural' selection, those values are utterly meaningless. Just as they are within a purely natural context. Values based in science and logic, are the only ones that should be guiding us... At least in how we attempt to manage nature.

Put another way. We as a species are just following the same survival model every other has since the beginning. The difference being, we are the first to have meaningful understanding of how the changes we impose on the environment affects other life. A key point in that understanding, is the importance of diversity in how life adapts to environmental changes. Given the massive changes we've already caused, and with even greater impending global-level changes, it would seem that maintaining as much diversity as possible is our best chance for allowing life to adapt.

So as I see it, the only meaningful question about managing overly successful species in the context of un-natural selection, is whether it is adversely affecting diversity of the ecosystem as a whole. Especially when those disparate impacts are to keystone species such as salmon.

Fifty years from now questions of controlling sea lions or birds being scapegoats, won't matter to the salmon and steelhead that went extinct because we did what was 'fair'. Yes, there are a myriad of human reasons for the decline of anadromous fish, but controlling predators is low hanging fruit that success of other, more 'ethical', conservation measures may ultimately depend on.