Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 112: Salmon

Transcript

Ep. 112: Salmon · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: severely bug bitten and in my case, underwear listening podcast.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: You can't predict anything, ye don't even before we started.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Can you read tell me what you were saying earlier
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: as a version of saying something's real big oh tron, Yeah,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: i'd a fella tell me. He called he wished us
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: good lucky hunting, but we're gonna be turkey hunting with him. Yes,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: he's excited, but he was in an earlier email not
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: that he's excited about with us, but he's excited about turkey. No,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: he definitely wasn't excited about going with us because he's
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: serious about it and he don't want to be fiddle
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: farting with us when he's out there trying to kill
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: his Missouri bird. So you don't we're not gonna hunt
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: with him. We may or may not, but he might
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: already have one, you know, down by the time we
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: can get there, because we're coming in for day three
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: of the season, so these guys are gonna have two
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: days to start the season. Anyways, he was wishing his
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: good luck, and he was saying in an email, Hey,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: if I can't you know, if this doesn't work out,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: good luck killing a Missouri gobbletron. Yeah, but I hadn't
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: heard that. I don't like it, not to disparage, not
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: to smirch your disparage the guy, but like, I don't
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: like that because I just think of robots a tron
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: to add tron on the end, Yeah, big, like AI turkey.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: So it's smarter than the regular turkey. Maybe that's what
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: he's getting at, right, like like robotics, like artificial intelligence.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Maybe even smarter than the average turkey. Because where I
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: don't where I stopped especially stopped liking it because when
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: you said, it's similar to saying something's mondo. Yeah, we
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: could go around the room someone said to you, Dan,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: if they're like, hey, man, gobbol tron, would you be like,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: what does that mean? Or you have an idea? I
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: would be like, what do you like? Do you mean
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: something that's mando or something that's real? Shy, Mondo isn't
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: even a word. We We're hanging out with a guy
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: who runs, who's a houndsman, and he had been doing
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: a lot of work down in Mexico on research projects.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: So I thought that we would see a track and
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: he'd be like, that's a Mondo track, and I thought
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: it was a Spanish word, So I right away like that,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: and I started picking up in my head everything as
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: big as mondo. But isn't that a system for shoe
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: sizes too? Though? Mando isn't it? Webster says, definition of
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: mondo adverb slang extremely That's what I thought, So I
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: thought that he was well, not that I thought he.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I thought, you speaking in Spanish, And I'm like, if
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: there's a Spanish word to means the giant freaking track,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I'm on that word. So I adopted before I even
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: really clear what he's saying. Then later I'm like, hey, man,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: what does mando translate to? He looks at me, like
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: what do you mean? He goes, It's not mando, it's mango,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: you know, humongous. So that's what of mondo track is. Ah,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: you're right, So the whole time he was just saying mango. Yeah,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: but we like ran with it and we're like, mando
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: is the way to go because I used toad, pig,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: big and big, huge, giant, great big great bigg and
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: pigg stomper. No, yes, I wanted to touch on that.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: No one other quick order, but is Dirt up Smith
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: is joining us here in dirt you. You know, more
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: people have been writing about your your chewing tobacco problem.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Do you care to have me give your uh some
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: up of what their suggestions are? Yeah, just for other
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: listeners struggling with addiction to one guy said there is
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: one of everyone. Another guy came and said to us,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: a guy rode in to say that, in fact, you're wrong,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: and there is a chew that has no Oh, I
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: saw that. Yes, it's just nicotine, right, is that what
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: you're talking about, But it doesn't have the nicotine the
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: part that naked dawf all off and you die. So
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: that's a part of it. Yeah. And I have a
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: buddy who did that. And those things they're speaking of,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: like AI or like technology, a thing that is just
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: nicotine that you put in your mouth just seem you
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: know what I mean, forget what they're called. Yeah, but
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: I tried them. That didn't help. No, I mean, you
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: catch your buzz, but you know old habits, you still
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: got you nice little buzz. Yeah. Yeah, but I did
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: see that. I think you shared that with me or
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: someone instagrammed it to me or something, you know, Bryce
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: and Joe, who weird this ice fishon with? Well, they
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: chew grizzly, And so you put me in an uncomfortable
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: situation because one day I was asking you what kind
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: of chew do you say? And you said, I have
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: a good job. I don't choose grizz. I chew Copenhagen.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: So I saw that they had griz and so no
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: one that you had told me this, and I put
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of faith in what you tell me. I said, oh,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: it's too bad you boys don't have good jobs. And
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: it didn't go over real. Well, well, no one wants
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: to hear the truth, you know sometimes, and then Steve
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: pointed out to them that all, do you have a
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: good job, you know, live out of your truck for
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, well that's what someone else point
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: out with, you can't have hecative a job. He lives
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: in his truck. Well, you know if he lives at trailheads,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: if he's like a weird like when you go to
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: the trail and there's a weird guy be there, contact
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: or it's probably dirt. He's got a tin of cope
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: and you know what's him saving them? Saving the rent
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: for two and Adventures all right, before we move on
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: to what we're here to talk about, I want to
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: just get out. I want to find out how much
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: dirt's gonna get out of this conversation. So name for me,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: if you can, the five species of Pacific salmon. Okay,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: that we that that that that come to the inhabit
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: us waters, the layman's name or the common name silver chimp, sakip, pink,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: biggin's bigg and yet yeah, now name the one in
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: the Atlantic. I gave you the answer when a big
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: in salmon. No, I gave the answer after that. It
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: was buried within the question. It was like their day
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: when my daughter said to me, what's one thousand and two?
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Meaning what happens when you add one thousand and two?
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: And I was like, you just said it? What salmon
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: lives in the Atlantic? Is this the question you posted
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: to me in the start? Because I'm thinking to two
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: when you started the question. No, okay, I'm giving you
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: the answer, what salmon lives in the Atlantic? Oh Atlantic salmon?
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: So we got yeah, no, no, we're good. So Dan
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: so that that's dirt myth and and then um Janie
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Poodles is here, and then we're all speaking to my
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: brother Danny, who I mentioned all the time whenever fish
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: comes up, because uh, fish biologists, fisheries what do you
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: like to say? Fish biologists? Fisheries biologists. But but that
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: involves a lot more than fish. Yeah, I know, I know.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Um yeah, my like the current job title I'm working
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: under is a fisheries biologist, but uma, my background is
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: pretty as well rounded in aquatic ecology and um, I've
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: done work with a lot of work with habitat and
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: aquatic insects and food webs and that sort of stuff.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: So didn't it come up with you first? Like your
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: first kind of work was around aquatic invertebrates. Yeah, that
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: was kind of my path into fish. But yeah, I
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: got really interested in them as an undergrad working on
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: a fisher fisheries degree, and um, yeah, the first part
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: of my career was spent entirely on aquatic insects and
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: I'm still fascinated with them, but uh you know, yeah,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: now it's mostly just through the avenue with them being
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: fish food. Yeah. If you were gonna like, what percentage
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: of your time do you spend thinking about and talking
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: about um issues having to do with salmon, it's most
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: of my time, most of my professional time. And why
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: is that? I mean, one you like, but because it's
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: because there's an industry around it and so there's money
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: to support it. I mean that that's that's certainly part
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: of it. But I mean you have to do work
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: that people care about, and you know, when you're when
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: you're working in Alaska and I'm a freshwater biologists, I
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: don't really you know, operate on the marine end of things. Um,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: you know, in terms of Alaskan freshwaters. It's just you
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: can't overstate the importance of salmon, you know, culturally, economically, ecologically,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: just incredible. They define Alaska. And you'd like to fish
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: them too? Oh I love to fish them. Yes, yeah,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: it's some one of my favorite things in the world.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: And the as Dirt pointed out so eloquently, there are
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: um five species of salmon on the Pacific coast of
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: the US, and all five of Colonel Alaska. Yes, yeah,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: run through real quick what the five Pacific salmon are
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: with like a kind of a basic sense of like
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: what their groove is, okay, yeah, just in terms of
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: how they and then what's up with the Atlantic salmon?
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Why is there only one over there? Um, so the
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: the five Pacific salmon um, we have the pink or
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: the humpy salmon. Yeah, that's good too, because every salmon
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: has two names as which is totally it's like weird
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: that way, and they're one that has more because there
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: are all there are different names. You know, down in
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: the Northwest, I mean, you know, they're like Schinook salmon.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: They have different names. In British, Columbia, Washington, they have
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: a million names. But so pinks and humpies within Alaska
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: each has two that are sort of in common usage. Yeah,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: so pinks and humpies and um they are the smallest
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: and most common of the salmon, and they have a
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: sort of a that's the most common salmon numerically, Yeah,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: most numerically abundant of the salmon. Um. They're just everywhere
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: when the pink salmon run. You've been seeing them in
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: the you know, when you're around the small coastal streams,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: like down around the fish shack or even up in here.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: But yeah, when the when the humpies are in there
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: in thick you know, and there's just thousands of them
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: everywhere you go, and the whole place stinks like dead salmon. Yeah,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: they're just incredibly abundant UM, so they know they have
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: a short life history. Every pink salmon that that that
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: that is spawning in the creek is two years old.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: It was laid as an egg two years prior to
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: that um and that's just that's set in stone pretty much. Yeah,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: it's yeah. So so when you have a river that
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: has a pink salmon run that returns in odd years
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: and a pink salmon run that returns in even years,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: those are two completely separate populations of pink salmon, both
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: with their own separate population dynamics, and so one of
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: those could plummet for whatever reason. Oh yeah, it's incredibly
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: lopsided in some places like that. And I can't remember
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: if it's odd or even like the Fraser ever down
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: and down in British Columbia, in one year it gets,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: you know, millions and millions of pink salmon, and then
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: the next year it gets essentially none, and it just
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: alternates every year like that, so odd, you're even you're
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: you know, it's gonna be good or not good. Yeah, yeah,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: And that's shifts depending on geography and and over long
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: time spans, it probably shifts. You know within an area,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: an area might turn from a pink to it, or
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: from an odd to an even or whatever you know.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: But some areas are pretty even. In some areas are
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: more lopsided. But really two separate populations. Okay, so that's
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: pinks and humpies. What's their Latin name? On karnis They're
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: all on kakus. That's how you pronounce it. Wh Yeah,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: that's how I pronounced the least yeah and uh and
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: hump and the humpy is is gorbushka. I think it's
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: how it's pronounced that rushes Russian. Yes, yeah, I believe so.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: I believe so. Um. But but pinks are uh life
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: history wise they um, that's with all of the Pacific them.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: And they are spawned in the sort of late summer
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: or fall, and eggs incubate sort of into the winter
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: and hatch kind of maybe late winter early spring and
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: pink salmon uh upon hatching, and they absorbed the yolk
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: and emerge from the gravel and they leave the river.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: They just migrate to freshwater. Rent if they hatch, they
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: don't linger. They don't linger. No, And why do pinks
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: like pinks don't run long distances? No, they're there are
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of there as a lot of them spawned
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: sort of inner tidal areas and low in river systems.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: They're just adapted using that part of the watershed. Yeah,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: you know, they might run a couple hundred yards. Oh yeah, yeah,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: you seem spawning in intertidal areas on that freshwater lens.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: You know, they migrate into the lower into the estuary,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: then drop back out as the tide ebbs and flows. Yeah,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: and when they come out of their egg, they're right
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: out in the ocean. Yeah. Well, they come out of
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: the egg and they s level little yolk attached, right,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: and they once that yolk is absorbed and then at
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: that point their jaws fully developed and they start feeding
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: sort of on their own. And by that point, yeah,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: those pinks are just following the current and they I think,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: you know, they started a time they're hatching too. Are
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: there emergence to coincide with um sort of the spring
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: run off, and they just kind of follow that down
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: to the ocean. When those when the salmon's eggs are
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: laying there, like the salmon their eggs like take a
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: pink for instance, his eggs don't stick to the rock
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: they're just laying like in and sheltered areas out of
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: the current between rock. The they're actually buried. I mean,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: the female excavates the nast the red and the and
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: she lays the eggs there and they're fertilized, and and
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: then she'll ba actually bury them under gravel. Yeah, you
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: see him digging out but I don't know this, so
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: they really cover them up. The ones that aren't covered.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: She'll take a pocket and then you know, screwed up
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: stream a little bit and dig another one and that
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: kind of falls back on the previous pockets. She started
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: taking a series of these pockets and lays eggs and
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: them and then buries them as she It goes along,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: So march long to the next So where does when
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: does the mail come in? As she those eggs are
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: fertilized as she's dropping them. Really yeah, I mean you
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: can see it, and you see them. They'll they'll sort
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: of they'll sort of uh sandwich upside by side and
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: they're there. You see that. They'll open their jaws and
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: even kind of quiver a little bit, you know, and
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: like that's the action right there. I didn't like. And
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: he's even see the milk drifting down the current. You
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: see a male like when you see a female laying,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: you see her like the way. So that's digging. You're digging.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Because I was saying this here day, Like when we
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: used to fish steelhead, you'd be staring into a place,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: you know, steelhead hang out. I couldn't tell they're anything there,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: and you catch the female flash. That flashing is the digging.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: She's like laying on her side. And picture like if
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: you put your hand on the bottom and the rocks,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: you lifted it up, you'd create some suction, right and
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: that would kind of pull the rocks up. That's that's
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: what she's doing with her whole body. Okay, yeah, so
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: I have pictured it. I didn't. I didn't of this.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: I had in my head my whole life here that
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: they lay the egg down and the mail comes in
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: somehow fertilized the sitting egg. But they need to do
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: it in tandem. Yeah yeah, yeah, it's happened all at once.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Can you real quick talk about before we get back
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: to the other ones. Can you talk about when when
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: you like the act of fertile when you're furt like
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: doing artificial and salmon in salmination of salmon eggs in
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: a bucket. Uh huh. I remember saying one time that
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: you saw were there's like a five gallon bucket of eggs. Yeah,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: and someone would put in like a table spoon. Yeah, yeah,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: stuff shockingly potent. Yeah, tables a squirt right, like, yeah,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: like a squirt of seamen. Stir that bucket up with
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: this ladle a spoon and be like that bucket is fertilize. Yeah. Yeah,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: this was in some uh uh, some little hatchery experience
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: I had in my in my undergraduate days. But yeah,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: they would take a a bucket of salmon eggs and
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: take a they would just squirt. I think that you
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: would use a few males to make sure that they
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: had you know, good viable one and a little maybe
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: little diversity. Um, but just a little squirt of sperm
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: from each of those fish and do a big bucket
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: of eggs, stir it up and they're good to go,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: ready to roll? Yeah, Okay, march onto the next fish,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: um up in the size. Let's go from Like, we
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: can't leave the humpy until we talk a little bit
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: about like why does he get that funny shape when
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: he comes back into Yeah, yeah, we can do that,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: but I was planning on coming back with some other
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: other issues, But yeah, why not talk about why they
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: call them humpies while they come home? It's at humpy.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: The humpy term refers to the big kind of pumped
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: back that the male or male pink salmon gets during spawning,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: and it's crazy hook jaw yes, yes, um, And so yeah,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: those are secondary sexual characteristics I guess analogous to the
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: ornamentation on a bird or something like that. And they're
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: just demonstrating their The hump makes them look bigger and
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: more opposing, and the hook jab makes them look rougher
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: and tougher, and they they use that to display and
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: for aggression, to compete for females, you know, with other males.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: So that's him getting tricked out, getting pimped out and
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: ready to spond. Yeah. Do you know, like, are you
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: familiar with the late um geneticist Stephen Jay Gould? Yes,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: a little. He had a point he made one time
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: and one of his books I was reading, We're He's
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: kind of getting that something I'm sure you deal with
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: and talk about all the time would be that, like
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: we don't know why things become the way they become
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: and he was using an example like someone might look
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: and be like, wow, bark, right, bark is brown? What's
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: the genetic what's the selective advantage of brown bark? Like
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: why is it brownie? What is the tree gaining from
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: having brown on bark? And he would say, maybe what
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: the tree is doing is that there's an advantage to
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: having very thick bark, something structural in that, because it
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: can resist forest fire. So the advantage of the thickness
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: of bark um as over the years it's selected for
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: thicker and thicker bark. It just so happens for for
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: maybe perhaps no advantageous region reason at all, that it's
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: obtains a certain color. But we look and ponder over
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: the color, thinking like why is it that way, when
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: it's just there's no reason. It's that it's like green leaves.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: There's nothing special about that color. It's just, yeah, the
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: tree isn't gaining from having green leaves, or the color
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: is a byproduct of some other but in this case
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: it does seem like so. But in this case, like who,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: like maybe some other reason, like why they get a
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: big hump and a hook jaw, or is it so?
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Like obviously it has to be that it has that
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: because it's like a competitive selective. It's so many other
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: species have you know, sort of well breeding, similar types
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: of secondary sexual traits that come out during breeding. Um.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: And you know salmon lived for multiple years that those
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: traits don't appear until you know, right right at the
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: time spawning. Yeah. And it makes sense because it's a
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: competitive environment. Yeah, I think, like, yeah, jockeying for favor. Yeah, exactly,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: and it fits with their mating structure. Yeah, I mean
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: it makes sense and it probably takes some amount of
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: energy to do it, oh for sure, for sure to
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: trade off. Yeah yeah, um our fish? Is it true?
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Can you say generally like fisher like birds where the
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: males do a lot more ornamentation? There flash here man's
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: on the salmon world for why I But yeah, I
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: think so. I think so. And parental care tends to
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: be males and ornamentation tends to be males females in
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: that regards, unlike birds, because the parental care among the
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: fishes tends to be fall more in the males. Um.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: But in terms of ornamentation, yeah, I think so. And
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: then with the salmon, are the males all bigger than
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: the females. No, that's a that's I don't think so,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: that's a good question. I think it's the females on average,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: tend to be a little bigger, tend to be a
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: little bit heavier than the males. I think. So, so
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: when you catch a big, huge king, it could be
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: either sex. Could be either sex. Yeah, yeah, are you
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: cool on that? I'm cool man. I think at the
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: top end, I can picture some big males. But on average,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: the females might be a little bigger. They tend to
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: livel they tend to be a little older. On what species,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: just salmon in general. Yeah, well, well pinks are always
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: coming back at two. Why shouldn't say that? Not pinks,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: the others. Yeah, the other one, the ones we haven't
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: got too yet, the ones we'll get into. So what's
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: the next one? Um, let's just moving up the So
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: I mean you think a pink salmon is being you know,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: quite marine right right, because they they um spend relatively
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: little time in freshwater. Um, and so chump salmon have
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: sort of a similar life history and that they oh,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: that's a good observation. They don't spend like they have
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: to have the fresh water, but they just don't spend
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: any time. They're only user for breeding. Yeah, I mean
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: as soon as that um, as soon as the fry
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: emerges from the gravel, like they can handle saltwater right away. Um,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: which you know, the other salmon started to have a
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: more bottled transformation and they yeah, they they're out of there. Yeah,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: so he's dead. They all die when they're two. And
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: he could have spent eacon freshwater as a free swimming fish. Yeah.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Um so yeah. Chump salmon um have a somewhat similar
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: life history in that they go to see soon after
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: emerging from the gravel. Um. A lot of chump salmon
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: are also spawned sort of coastally low in the watershed.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: But there are, but there are some some chump salmon populations,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: like the Yukon River in Alaska, for example, where chump
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: salmon move a really long way up rivers. Um. You
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: didn't say the two names for chums, chump salmon and
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: dog salmon would be the two. I'm sure there are others,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: but in those are the two that are common usage
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: in Alaska. UM where they deviate from pink salmon is
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: that chump salmon um will can spend multiple years rearing
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: and freshwater. UM, I think multiple years, I'm sorry, in
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: saltwater and saltwater, so they they leave fresh water soon
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: after emerging UM and the typically in the spring of
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: the year, and they can spend multiple years at sea.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: I think two and three years is pretty common for them.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: So with pinks, when you want to go to step
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: back with pinks from it, because when pinks, like if
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: you catch a big male or big whatever, you catch
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: a big specimen who's like obviously bigger than the other ones,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: there's nothing he's not he's he's older, he went to
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: a better place in the ocean. Yeah, you know, there's
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of variation and sort of aggressiveness, tolerance for risk,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: and those sorts of things over the span of two
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: years can result in fish of different sizes. Yeah. And
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: and a chump can choose to stay another year. Yeah,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: and they that's a that's a good way to put it,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: because it sort of is a decision that they make
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: UM every year when they're rearing in the ocean. Basically,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: they decide, while am I gonna spawn this year or
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: am I gonna wait another year? What is that like? UM?
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: I know we're using decision, but what does that look like?
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: You know, it seems to be related to the foraging
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: conditions and how rapidly they're growing. Um, and if they
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: are when that decision window comes if they're if they're
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: if they're in good condition and growing rapidly, they're more
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: inclined to spawn at the younger age. So so sort
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: of paradoxically, like you know, for a given species, a
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: bigger salmon tends to be an older salmon, and it
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: was one that was sort of growing at a slower
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: rate and it took longer to get big. When does
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: that So when does that like, um, that trigger or
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: decision happened for salmon? Oh, it's that? Is that not
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: well understood? How? You know? It's not really my area.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, I but I can speculate that, you know,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: probably late winter springtime, you know, you know, they're they're
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: out in the Pacific somewhere and and and it's it's
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: either time to turn and start heading home or not,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: you know, and your body start like making the eggs,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: yeah exactly, to mature sexually and yeah exactly, so you
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: know they need to leave allow some time for that.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: So it's not a you know, not a last minute
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: or a game time decision. Yeah, yeah, because you're you're
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: like takes months to develop them. Yeah exactly. You know,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: in general, um with chums or whatever. How far out
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: into the ocean do they go way out, like all
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: the way out, all of them. Yeah, I mean they're
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: overlapping and in their ocean distribution. North American um salmon
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: in general, she noook tend to be a little more
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: coastal king salmon, but you know the others, they're overlapping
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: with Asian fish, and they're all intermingled out in the
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: middle of the Gulf and out in the middle of
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: the North Pacific. And like a North ammon who might
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: otherwise going to North Korea or is going to Siberia,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: is interacting at sea with our fish. Yes, yeah, wow, man,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I didn't all that really. Yeah, but a king might
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: be more of a homebody there there. Yeah, I mean
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: there's yeah, they tend to stick closer. I mean, they
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: tend to stick closer to the coast. Yeah. Yeah. And
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: then then you just think about the fisheries, right, like
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: people catch along the coast of Alaska, and presumably for theirselves,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: people catch king salmon year round winter kings they call Yeah,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: they called the black mouth. Yeah, yeah, but you know
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: who there aren't any coho inshore that Yeah, there's no
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: winter cohole fisher, there's no you know, there's no chum
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: salmon inshore or so um. But yeah, there are king
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: salmon in coastal waters all the time. When you say
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: interact with these other salmon out there, is it like
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: one school passes by the other school or is it
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: like all of a sudden they're like, hey, let's all
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: get together and feed together. That's a good question. I
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: don't know. No one knows that yet. Yeah, I don't know.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Maybe maybe judging by how some people that in sort
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: of engage in that sort of research might see, you know,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: in a if they're hooking fish or gill netting or whatever,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: they may see that they're intermingled with fish of Asian
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: origin or whatever. But I'm not that familiar with that.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: On that same note, do they ever bumping each other
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: and spawning the same spawning sources like or because at
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: that point they are going to their home stream and
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: there won't be two species in the same home stream.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Oh for sure. Yeah, yeah, but different timing. But what
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: he was saying is there is fish coming out of
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Asia and then coming out of North America, that when
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: they're out there growing there, they might be swimming around together,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: but they go so far out from the ocean that
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: they are competing with each other. But that doesn't happen
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: with a oh I got you, I got you because
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: they split up. Think about if they came all back
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: to the same place, they would cease to be different
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: of different origins. Yeah, I'm saying that each subspecies. There's
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: never a case where species or not each species when
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: it comes from the same you know, freshwater source, like
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: they wouldn't be pinks and jump coming from the same
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: like freshwater spawning ground. Oh yeah, for sure they do.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: And will they like run into each other at that?
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah? Oh are you saying this dirt? Are you
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: saying that do pinks and chums intermingle out in the
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: high seas opposite in the spawning like back at there's
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: where they you know, they'll be in the river at
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: the same time. Yeah, Oh, definitely, they're choosing like different
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: types of habitat and stuff, but they can certainly overlap
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: during the at the timing of their spawning is there
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: And what made me ask that is like do they ever?
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Is there ever? I don't know if cross breedings hybridize it. Yeah, yeah,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: you know, I think that's pretty rare in the native
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: range of salmon. But in the Great Lakes, I know
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: that it's not it's it's not uncommon there. I've seen
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: in the Great Lakes where Pacific several species of Pacific
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: salmon have been introduced. I have seen hybrids of king
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: salmon and pink salmon. Okay, that's really It looks like
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: a great, big humpy doesn't. Yeah, it's goods the way
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: that they are, you know, like you're saying that so
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: much eggs and so much spermy, like big old fish orgy. Yeah.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: They're all spawning roughly at the same time a year. Yeah.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: But in the you know, in there in the native range,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: it's maybe it happens I but not common. Yeah, not common, alright,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Dogs and chums they don't go they tend to not
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: go far into the rivers. But but some there was
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: some very serious exceptions. Yeah, like the ones that will
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: goal thousand, thousands of yeah kilometers leased up to Yukon. Yeah,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: other rivers and pinks are never found up there. No
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: pinks are going a little ways in you know, miles,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: tens of miles, maybe hundreds of miles, but not thousands.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't invite the listener to go pull up a
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: map of to pull up a map of North America
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: and ponder for a moment, look at the Yukon. So
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: like you can imagine, like like how big Alaska is
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: biggest state. If you center Alaska over a map with
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: lower forty eight, you kind of like wind up centering Alaska,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: you know in the around Iowa or so, and um,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: southeast Alaska is way down into Texas. The I think
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: the Allusians go out to the California coast southeast Alaska
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: like Georgia and down in there. It's just huge. So so,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: but look at the map of North America and ponder
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: for a moment that fish entering the Yukon. So the
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Yukon kind of like cuts Alaska half east to west
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: and flows out um in western Alaska. That salmon that
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: are entering the Yukon at the coast are spawning in
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Canada and in the United States has a treaty with
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Canada dictating how many salmon we're gonna let swim through
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: the border. It's an enormous journey. Yeah, I don't know
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: how many miles it is at that point, but it's
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: a lot. Yeah. Um, And that's chums. And real quick backup,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: there's the thing one you touch on the sort of
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: like economic value or the like the table fair value.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Chums are low man on the totem pole of the
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: five salmon the least well regarded from a food from
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: a food perspective, I guess, I guess so, and I'm yeah, um,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: I mean I can speak more as in Alaska and
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: so someone who you know eats a lot salmon and
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: has a lot of conversations about salmon, and it's like
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: starts steep in salmon culture. But yeah, and I don't
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: think there's a great market for them either. But I mean,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: I think the reason they have the nickname dog salmon
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: is because it's you know, it's often dog food, even
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: even even still today. Um and yeah, pink salmon are
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: pretty low regard in terms of food ue to at
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: least among the last and a lot of them wind
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: can Yeah. Yeah, but there's an industry around can pink salmon,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: and um, A lot of that goes to Europe and
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: England in particular, in the color on the pink salmon.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: It might be why they call him pink salmon. That's
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: what that refers to. Yeah, and like reds red Yeah,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: very red appetizing flesh. Yeah. And yeah, tom salmon don't
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: have great color. Um, and they tend to have low
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: fat content because they're not undergoing a long freshwater migration,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: and so it kind of keeps the demand down and
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: the price down. They have big eggs though, and um
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: there that's um. They're fish commercially. A lot of their
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: commercial values in the row, most of which gets which
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: probably goes to markets in Asia. Yeah, okay, what's the
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: next salmon? Um, let's go to Sakai reds red, reds,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: reds or socks um. Yeah. So so similar type of
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: life history pattern. They're anadromous and uh. They the adults
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: returned from the ocean to their natal river or in
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: the case of Saki lakes. Um. They are strongly associated
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: with the lakes and spawning occurs um often in or
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: near lakes. So they go upper river to get to
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: a lake. Yes, yes, exactly right, um and there on. So,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: like we talked about with pinks and chums, after they
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: emerge from the gravel. Those two had to see. Saki
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: for the most part, had to a lake, and so
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: the spawning occurs like along the beaches and lakes in
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: some cases where it's upwelling or or or sort of
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: wind driven kind of currents um or the spawning feeder
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: streams or even outlet streams, and those vicious are genetically
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: programs and know where that lake is and head for
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: that lake once they had to be an upstream or
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: downstream from their particular location, and they spend a year
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: or two in most or a year or two rearing
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: in that lake in a lake, in a lake, and
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: they get how big in the lake? Oh? What was
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: I think? I'm just roughly yeah, a few inches. What's
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: the advantage there? So then he spends a year or
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: two in a freshwater lake and then he's like, now
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: I will go to the ocean now, yeah, exactly, exactly, yeah,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: And what's the advantage of that um Probably just it's
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: just a niche they filled, you know, they're in that
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: lake and they're in you know, instead of what we'll
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: talk about how king salmon and soccer and coho salmon
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: sort of make living as juveniles in the river. But
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: they've just served adapt this lifestyle where they're living in
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: a lake and they feed on plankton in the water column.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: They're sort of a pelagic uh fish for a couple
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: of years, but at some point their needs become too
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: great and they go to see. Uh. It's at some
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: point they sort of in an evolutionary sense, they've made
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: the decision that they can grow a lot faster by
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: migrating to the ocean. They're uh the marine environment is
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: much more productive. There's a lot more food out there,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: and they reach a size that is big enough that
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: they're not gonna get eaten the moment they poke out there, right. Uh.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: So it's a bit of a balance how long do
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: you stay in fresh water? But when they reach a
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: certain size the the head of the ocean, they're big
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: enough to survive. I mean, the survival rates very low
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: regardless of how big these fish are when they're migrating.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: But yeah, they get to a certain size ahead of
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: the ocean, and they take their chances there because the
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: return is potentially you know, huge in terms of the
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: potential for uh the forage base is much larger. And
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: how long do they how long does the redd sak
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: go out to sea. For um, they're rather variable, but um,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: I would tune to four years. I think it's pretty common.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: And they come back weighing about what like just from
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: efficient perspective like pound wise, um, oh, like you know,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: maybe three to six pounds, it is pretty common, just
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: guessing um. And then two quick things, can you explain
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: like what a cokene he is? So yeah, cokeney is
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: a landlocked Sakai salmon. So it's a population of Sakai
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: salmon that lives in a lake. Um. But for whatever reason,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: they don't they don't. They don't go to the ocean
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: either they sort of you know, made that decision not
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: to go, or they're somehow blocked. And there are natural
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: populate because there's a lot of introduced populations of cocony,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: but they come from natural populations that somehow through some event.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Then no, I don't I don't think coke cocony are
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: necessarily um blocked from going to the ocean instead of
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: just life history. So there are cocony populations that could
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: go to the ocean. Yeah, they say, unless they spin
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: off from that lakes Saki population and just become cocony.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Just I mean you can think of it the same
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: way as some resident rainbow trout populations have spun off
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: the steelhead population and just stay played. So the opposite
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: happened there. Yeah, and then but Cokeny's dinky though. Yeah,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: they don't get big because they mean they reach sexual
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: maturity at a small size because they're in that lake environment.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: But compare that to how big an ocean saki is.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: That just shows you that the difference in growth potential
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: between those two environments. And then they'll soccer will do
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: some mega migrations or no they yeah, they used the
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: whole North Pacific. Yeah, no, I mean when they go
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: up a river, they'll shoot. Yeah. I mean they're really
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: attached to lake. So if you have a river system
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: that has a lake, you know, way way way upstream.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: Uh oh, what's Redfish Lake in Idaho. That's an interesting example. Um,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know how far inland that is, but it
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: was a Saki population all the way in Idaho. They're
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: going up the they're going up the Columbia and then
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: into the clear water or whatever. Yeah, I can't yeah. Uh.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: And then that fish. Talk about this for a minute,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: because like that fish is a fatty fish. Right. Uh, yeah,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm not sure about up. Well, here's the question,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: why do you see why do some people think there's
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: a salmon called a Copper River salmon like as its
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: own species. Sort of, well, it's it's more of a
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: brand than a species. But yeah, um, but so you know,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: there's in lots of ways salmon adapt to their you know,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: they're really a product of the river and they adapt
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: their specific river. And you know, so in the case
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: of well I mentioned earlier, fat content, it's sort of
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: it's sort of an adaptive trait of salmon in it
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: relates to um. You know, when salmon begin their freshwater migration,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: they stop feeding and they live on their fat reserves
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: and fished that um are destined for a spawning ground
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: that's further up some river tend to put on a
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: little more fat than fish that are spawning lower in
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: the watershed. Um. So, the Copper River being a large,
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: relatively large watershed with some you know, in terms of
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: saki some somewhat long migrations, they tend to be a
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: little fatter, and people certainly value that the fatty content. Yeah, yeah, um,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: and the comparison that's often made you know, in south
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: central alaskas to that of the keena I salmon. That's another.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: The Kenai River is another really popular local Soakai salmon fishery,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: and the migration uh for the freshwater migration there isn't
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: quite as long, and people regard those some people at
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: least regard those fish as being less fatty and less flavorable.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: But there's probably some data on it. I don't. I'm
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: not familiar with it though. Can you real quick explain
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: the dip net fishery that you engage in? Yeah? So uh.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Alaska residents are allowed to participate in a number of
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: fisheries that are called personal use fisheries where um, yeah,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: they let you do some things that would be considered
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: poaching pretty much anywhere else. Uh. So, there are a
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: few in south central Alaska, the Copper River, the Kenai River,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: the Casillaf River, and sometimes with some others um during
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: US principally, yeah, these are mostly focused on sok salmon,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: but the state opens it up to for locals to
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: fish with dip nets and um. A dip net is
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: defined as basically a landing net with a hoop up
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: to five feet in diameter, so they're potentially very large nets,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: and people will line up on the along the beach
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: and waiters with these nets in the water or in
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: some cases fish from a boat and sort of told
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: these nets down river, you gotta hold them in your hand,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: and you're allowed, um, you know, a generous supply of
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: salmon for your family. Um, like it might be fifteen
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: sock eyes for the head of household twenty five right now.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: So I think the Kenai and the copper of separate
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: are managed separately with separate limits. But you're allowed twenty
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: five for the head of the household and ten that
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: this is an annual limit, and then ten fish for
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: each member of the household. Um so my family would
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: be allowed fifty five salmon from each of those rivers.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: That's far more than we need. But yeah, we are
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: so often we head out dipping that in and get
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: some fish. Yeah, like up to your ankle deep in
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: the boat fish. Yeah yeah, But it's I mean, it's
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: it's nice to be able to go out and one shot,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: get a whole bunch of salmon and you know, take
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: taking care of them, get him in the freezer and
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: be done with it, you know, and then can them
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: freeze him. Yeah, different people do different things with them.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: But do you still mess around with your steel canner? No? No,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: I haven't used that in years. I want to get
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: it out though. Yeah, you know, I'm telling about Johanni.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: He bought like a thing to make a like a
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: home job, to make steel cans instead of glass instead
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: of glass jars. Yeah. It just it just crimps the
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: lid on the can, That's what it does. And then
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: you still process it in a canner. You know. That
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: thing's pretty sweet. It is cool. I remember you made
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: me a teal duck in a can. Yeah. Alright, So
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: that's the sock I and the sock is the earliest.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: He runs quicker than anybody right in the spring. In
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: the summer, oh that that run timing all depends on
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: where you're at. Um, but around here, yeah, the King
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Salmon and sock I tend to be the earliest. June, um, yeah,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: even May for king salmon. In some places, Um, they're
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: they're starting yeah, um June July for ski around here.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: And then yeah, later in June and July that um,
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: pinks and chumps starts showing up. And then pretty much
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: probably everywhere in Alaska that the Coho or the silvers
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: are the tend to be the latest. Let's move on
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: to the next one. So we've covered pinks, pink zompies, chums, dogs,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: red sock eys. Uh, Coho silver that's the next one. Yeah,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: we'll save that. We'll save the king for last. Yeah.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: Um so yeah, Coho or silver. Um, they're cool salmon.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: The thing I like about them is that um there
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: and a sort of an aggressive and a sporty salmon.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: They like to chase f lies, and they like to
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: hit lures, and they run every little trickle. There's just
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: co everywhere. Um, and yeah, you can fish them just
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: about anywhere. They're they're they're and they're you know, a
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: great eating salmon. Um. They're they're kind of like, yeah,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: just like the every man sam. And you know they
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: run all over the place. Um. In terms of life history, uh,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: obviously an adromus spawn in so a little bit later
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: in the other they're more at least around here, they're
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: more of a fall spawner, uh September October. The eggs
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: over winning the gravel emerge in the spring. But unlike
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: all the others we've talked about up to this point,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: the Coho than spends two two years typically in Alaska
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: two years um rearing in a stream. They don't go
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: to a lake like the soccer go to see like
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: the pinks. How big about two hundred millimeters or something? Yeah?
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: Three three fish? Yeah yeah, And so in Alaska it
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: takes a couple of years to do that. Sometimes you'll
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: see him taking a little longer. A few of them
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: go out after one year, but most like you're looking
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: at a dinky little trout, but it's a co home yeah,
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: I mean yeah, if to the casual observer it would
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: look like a small rainbow trout or something. Yeah. Yeah,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: and then goes out to the ocean and lives out
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: in the ocean for how long? One year? That's it? Yeah?
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Oh really Yeah. So when you're catching twelve pounds silvers,
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: those are a year old? No, they're three years old? Yeah,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: one year? One year? Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. So he
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: spends way more of his life in fresh water than
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: he does in salt water. Yes, yeah, in Alaska, I
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: think further south, um, they they tend to more commonly
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: spend one year in freshwater. And that's a good eating fish,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: but not everybody admits how good they are. You say,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: not everybody. I feel like there's some guys that are
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: like kind of down on silver's. Some guys will only
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: eat a king. Yeah, there's like sock i king guys. Yeah,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: I was gonna ask the socks and the co host Roughly,
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: usually for for the average Alaskan that fishes, they considered
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: to be equals. Yeah. I think people sometimes do different
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: things with them too, like like sake hold up the
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: canning really well, you know, so a lot of people
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: home can um. I think the color on that the
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: sock is really appealing to you know, that's a really
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: pretty filet when you take it out of the freezer too.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: But there can't be as many um, there can't be
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: nearly as many tons of silver's harvested commercially. No as
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: saki no no and no soak i r um in in.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: In areas where you have rivers with lakes on them,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: these sort of lake systems and sakai are incredibly abundant.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: And those are those are you know, the big dollar
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: salmon fisheries in Alaska, the big dollar commercial salmon fisheries.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: Here are saki fisheries. Here's here's a quick one to
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: throw us off the sequence that we're going through. But
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: how many uh, how many years would you have to
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: go back to find a common ancestor and would you
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah, um oh, it's in the millions maybe,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: like I want say, six to maybe ten or fifteen
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: million years. I think like that those the five, the
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: five salmon that we're talking about had all differentiated by
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: about six million years ago. What the hell is that
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: fishes groove, man, I don't know. And then going further back,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: the the Atlantic salmon peeled off the Pacific salmon line
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: at there's a common ancestor there too, uh yeah, like
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: all the different weather changes and stuff that. Yeah, so well,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: I think you brought this up earlier. But you know,
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: there's uh, you know, a theory out there that you know,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: all that speciation in you know, where you have one
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: species of Atlantic salmon but five different Pacific salmon. That
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: has to do with all the topographical diversity around the
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: Pacific rim and the you know, the uplift of mountain
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: ranges and things segregated habitats and created opportunities for divergent
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: evolution and ye like those fish can go and experience
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: so many different kinds of yeah, yeah, but then you
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: know around the sort of the Atlanta the Atlantic rim.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: You never get that term, but um, yeah, just just
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: doesn't have the you know, the all the mount uplift
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: and the potential for habitat frank it's a little more homogeous. Yeah,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: that's the thinking on that. Anyway. That's interesting. So the
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: last one, did we give the did we give the
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: silver cohorts? Due? Um? I think so. Yeah, you kind
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: of finished on just saying how we kind of got
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: all excited when we realized that he's he's only he's
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: going out on the ocean three inches and the year
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: later he comes back as a twelve fift. Yeah, they
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: grow fast and it's really interesting, like you know how
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: you know, we catch silvers around the cabin and the
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: salt water and that's like some of my favorite fishing ever.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: You know, I absolutely love it. Um. But those fish
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: are packing on like a pound a week when they're
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: sort of in the inshore, like on the last bit
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: of their sort of pret pre spawn migration as they're
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: moving to those channels in Southeast Alaska and presumably other places.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: You know, as they're nearing maturity, they're feeding like crazy
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: and just packing on weight. You know, we haven't touched
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: on the different fish. Um. Do they tend to harget
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: different stuff out in the ocean. Yeah, there, Yeah, there's
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: a I know a little bit about that. Um. Chinooks
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: hammon tend tend to be a little higher on the
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: food web. They're eating more fish, fewer invertebrates. Um Saki
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: tend to be um consuming more invertebrates, less fish. Um.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: I think I think pink and Chalmer are a little lower,
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: you know, a little more invertebrate in their diet, less fish,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: and like kings will go out and eat squid and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: I think I think all of them would eat a
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: squid given the opportunity. I mean, they're all generalists, but
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: they you know, they they have their own sort of preferences. Okay,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: so kings chinooks? What the hell is the word chinook?
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: It's gonna be a native work? Oh yeah, from where?
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Is coho native word? You think? I
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: don't know. It's a good question. Silver, Like when you
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: talk about a coho or silver, the silver has to
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: refer or to the side of that fish. Yeah, I
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: can't imagine that. I mean, it looks like it's chrome. Yeah, yeah,
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: like made out of chrome, made out of stainless steel,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: devil dip chrome um so chinook probably a native word
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: king being he is the big bad mofo of king salmon,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: the bad mofol the salmon world. So what's their basic rundown? Uh,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: quite similar to that of the co hoo. They'll hang
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: out in the freshwater. Yeah here, Uh, most of the
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: king salmon in Alaska spend a year in fresh water
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: and then several years in salt water. Is how that goes.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: That's why it gets so big. Yep, they'll go out
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: for several years. Three four is pretty common. Five uh,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: certainly happens. So when someone catches a giant is it
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: is it likely that that just meant he was out longer,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: he was doing the right thing and not make a mistake.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: It's a little bit of both. But yeah, I think
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: like a really hog king salmon, it's has been out
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: there a while, four or five years. But then that's
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: what earlier you kind of mentioned this like the sort
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: of paradox. So that means that there was a handful
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: of times when his body felt that it wasn't quite ready,
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: it wasn't right. It wasn't getting it wasn't getting what
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: it needs, and so postpones that spawning run but then
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: turns into some fifty sixty pound fish. That's exactly right. Yeah,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: if he was really kicking ass, he would have came back.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: He would have went to see and came back that
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: summer as a jack. If they're really growing fast, sometimes
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: they don't even need a river. So does a jack
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: die when it spawns? Every sam we've talked about dies
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: when it spawns. Yes, yes, Pacific salmon. Well, it's a
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: little scrolling because of the steel head here, which is
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: sort of technically a Pacific salmon, but that that that
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: that's the only one that that that will live to
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: spawn again. And a steel head is a rainbow trout.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: I mean this is a layman's it's a rainbow trout
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: that goes to the ocean for some of it's an
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: anadromous rainbow trout. Yeah, it's the same genus as the
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: Pacific salmon, but it rain But a steel head can
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: spawn multiple times, yes, yeah, but Pacific salmon always spawning
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: after they die. Atlantics can go back to the ocean. Yes, yes,
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: there's not a death sentence to spawn. No, No, I
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: mean a lot of do die. What is the advantage
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: of the dying? So the advantage of the dying is
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: it's it's a trade off. They're basically committing all of
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: their resources to one reproductive event so they can make
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: more eggs, bigger eggs, they can defend their nests. They're
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: just plowing it onto one event at the expense of
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: any future potential spawning. Going for broke. They're just going
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: for broke, exactly right in an evolutionary sense. Yeah, And
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: if like that works for them, why did it not work?
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: It's just like I wanted to be like, why did
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: it not work for steelhead? Yeah? I just yeah, they're
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: operating in a different A good time machine question would
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: be to go back more towards that, like the common
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: ancestor and what was that fish's groove? Yeah, what's the
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: ancestral trade there? Yeah? Was the whole dying thing later
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: like something that came around later or have they been
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: doing that the dying trick for a long time? That's
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: a good question. Are the Atlantic salmon do they have
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: traits more similar to that initial like before that the
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: split of the species in that that they can spawn
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: multiple times and that they didn't have the like you said, Yeah,
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: that's a good question, And I mean, like there are
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure something you can derive from the fossil record,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: like you know, things about the new Mine is the baby,
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: you know, So there's not a lot of salmon fossils
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: to begin with. So um, yeah, somebody might know the
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: answer to that, but it's not me. Why do uh,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: why do you damn? Why are damns so bad for fish? Uh?
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: Quite a the impact the habitat in a lot of ways,
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: But the most obvious is that they blocked migration that
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: is the most upstream and downstream, and they convert a
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: big chunk of river to a pond, you know, and
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: all the and um, and you get a whole set
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: of predators that tend to live in those ponds. Right.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: And then when you when you have juvenile fish on
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: their seaward migration and they're used to sort of riding
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: the spring melt plume out to the ocean and they're
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: making that journey not trip. And also they hit a
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: lake you know that really slows things down. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: follow while line and pike, minnows and all kinds of
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: their fish that that weren't originally there that want to
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: eat you. Yeah, and then you got turbans to content
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: contend with, and you know, the impacts of which mechanically
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: killed the fish. I mean like meaning like smack them
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: in the head. Well it's you know, uh yeah, they're
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: not it's not plenty of fish pass room and live.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: But but and this is more Pacific Northwest type stuff
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: and it's not really my you know, my area. But
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: um you guys don't have any major um, you don't
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: have any major No, we don't have big hydro projects here. No,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: this one that's kicked around once in a while unless
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: you's sitting the river, but um no, it's not. Um yeah,
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: we're sort of lagging behind you guys. I'm hoping you
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: don't catch Yeah. But like, so, why are kings? Okay,
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: the is the future bright for pink salmon? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: you know pink salmon being so short lived there, you know,
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: they're quite adaptable, they're look a little bit weedy, you know,
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: they're uh, I don't think anyone's numbers are really high
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: right now. But why are kings then, Like, why are
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: kings so screwed? Like what is their achilles? Heel. So, yeah,
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: like you never hear any good news about kings. Yeah,
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: it's like like river system. At the river system, it's
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: like there's fewer, they're not as big, fewer, they're not
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: as big. Yeah. Yeah, so the king Samon had been
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: trending downward in size for decades, decades, decades. Yeah, and
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: do you feel that it's human causes this size? Selective
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: harvest probably plays a role in that. Yeah, there the
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: there there's a fair bit of speculation about what's driving that.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: It's probably not any one thing, um, but people have
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: been harvesting salmon for a long time and and it's
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: it's non random, um. And so yeah, selectively high resting
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: larger individuals is you know it's gonna drive down size. Yeah,
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: so that's probably part of it. Changes in ocean productivity, uh,
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: food resources at sea, that sort of things probably also
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: plays a role. So like general general overfishing in the
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: seas could be could could not not I mean not
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: overfing overfishing service separate issue. You know that's taking somebody
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: that they can't replace themselves, right or or but this
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: is this is sort of fishing in a non random way, right,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: You're you're you're selectively harvesting the larger or faster growing individuals,
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: and you're sort of left with the but but what
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: about the food aspect if so? Um, yeah, king salmon.
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier that they feed a little bit more coastally.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: They're a little bit more of a cold adapted salmon.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: They're in deeper water, thre colder water. Um, they're speeding
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: in a sort of a different food web than the
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: other salmon. They tend to be more the surface, more offshore.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: And yes, it's it's possible that, um, the changing climate
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: patterns and ocean circulation patterns have affected their food resources
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: in a way that hasn't impact of the resources of
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: the other species in my right, and saying that they're
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: just kind of screwed, is that not? Is that true
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: or not true? I don't know. I mean there's a
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: long history of salmon, you know, having problems and bouncing back,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: you know, And um, what's an example of salmon the
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: head of problem and bounce back? Oh there, you know,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: any look at any run within Alaska. There there are
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: periods of low productivity and periods of high productivity. It
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: happens in lots of places. Um, So you think that
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: the problem with kings that like if you just sort
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: of like I, I go beyond casual, but you know,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: I take in news about fish. I haven't selected for
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: my personal news feed the fisheries. I'm always reading like
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: really bad stuff about kings. Could it wind up being
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: there in ten years? Were like, man, did we have
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: a rough stretch? Yes? Really, it very well could. Yeah. Yeah,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: I mean it's probably related to ocean conditions. And you
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: know that there are these regime shifts and things that
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: occur that can't begin to understand the physics behind them.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: But there are these regime shift to change in the ocean,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: and it's like throwing a switch and all of a
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: sudden things just turn around. It's it's possible that could happen,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: or it's possible that I mean like El Nino La
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: Nina type activity exactly exactly, or or it's possible that's
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: that somehow we've you know, affected the fish of their
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: habitat in a way that it's not they're not compatible
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: with it anymore. The only time will tell um. But
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: go ahead, no, uh, finish up. I can say there
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: there are you know, certain examples of fish having you know,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: potentially prolonged periods of low productivity that all of a
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: sudden something changes and they turned it around. You know,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: Alaska has here, we have the benefit that are that
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: are you know, are sort of freshwater river habitat is
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: really intact. It's the most of it is is in
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: a really good condition, and um that that gives them
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of resilience, um that they don't have in
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: other places. You mentioned something to me before that I've
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: mentioned a couple of times that you're talking about it.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: We're talking about conservation, wildlife, conservation, and you were you
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: were saying, how just speaking of general sense, not applied
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: to any particular species. If you're saying the conservation is
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: such a different thing in the Lower forty eight, where
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: you guys have been a recovery mode for so long. Yeah,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: and Alaska it's more like like you're not really in
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: a recovery mode. You're in almost in a descriptive mode
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: up here, Yeah, and a conserving mode. We're trying to
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: learn from the lessons of Lower forty eight, like what
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: exactly did those guys do there to screw their salmon
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: up so bad? And how can we avoid making the
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: same mistakes? Yeah, Yeah, Um, it's interesting to a lot
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: of conservation efforts here too, and I think it's I
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: think it's a worthwhile endeavor. But they're trying to like
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: foster a relationship between Alaskans and salmon, or or to
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: strengthen that relationship, to make like salmon like a real
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: sort of um, cultural touchstone here so that people are
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: more inclined to want to protect everybody. Yeah, exactly, exactly, Yeah, Yeah,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: I think that's effort well spent, just to increase the
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: cultural awareness, cultural value, yep, to make it be that
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: this more valuable than everybody cares, more valuable than gold,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: or more valuable than yeah exactly. Yeah. And part of
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: that just pointing out how economically and culturally they are important.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: And part of it is trying to you know, strengthen
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: relationships that people have. And there's a lot of were
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: moving in and out of the last all the time,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: and you know, huge part of our population somewhat transient,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: but getting those people connected to salmon. What was it
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: that caused, um, what was the thinking that led people
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: to want to start beginning to introduce salmon into the
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: Great Lakes where we grew up. Oh so, in terms
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: of the steel head. I think that was largely a
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: sport fish. That was the first of the salmon to
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: be introduced, and that was late eighteen hundreds. Well, they
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: tried steel head first, to my knowledge, they may have
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: tried other salmon that didn't take, but steel head head
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: were introduced and they got him to go quickly from
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: California steel head stock and they introduced him in the
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: late eighteen hundreds. And yeah, and there was a lot
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: of kind of hatch reproduction keeping that propped up. But
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: I think that there are some self supporting populations there.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: But the Pacific salmon um chinook salmon were introduced what
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: late sixties, Yeah, I don't Yeah, the chronology it was weird.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: It's that really the main point I wanted to ask
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: you about. But uh, but yeah, the motivation was that, um,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: you know, the Great Lakes had been sort of taken
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: over by one wave after another of invasive species, and um,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: the al wife was one that was introduced via the
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: sort of one and shipping canal that came in from
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: the Atlantic Coast into the Great Lakes, and its population
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: that exploded by the I guess late sixties, maybe early seventies,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: and the state of Michigan. To my knowledge, stock that
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: shinook salmon in an attempt to get something to eat
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: all those ol wives up. Um do you remember that
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: wives and weird kids? Oh yeah, I remember that. Like
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: just carpeting the beaches was like national news stories. And
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: I know that they tried multiple times to get various
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: fish going. But but like, um, so they established a
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: pink population the Great Lakes. Yeah, and that was accidental. Uh.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: All the pinks and the great salmon and the Great
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: Lakes came from un accidental stocking at I think it
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: was from an Ontario hatchery um on Lake the Lake
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: Huron side. And I think they were holding pink salmon
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: at a hatchery because they were trying to introduce introduce
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: if I have this right, they were trying to introduce
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: a population on the Canadian Atlantic somewhere and they were
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: holding them on a hatchery in the Great Lakes. And
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: some escape somehow, and that was all took. They just
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: adapted very very quickly to in the northern waters more. Yeah,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: the northern maybe half of the Great Lakes. There a
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: lot they you know, they moved, you know, from from
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: their point of the least that they were establishing runs
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: in nearby streams, you know, pretty quickly, and they spread
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: around the upper Great Lakes. Does it make sense now
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: that so so they have you know, they got chinooks
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: or kings in the Great Lakes. There co hos in
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: the Great Lakes. There's yeah, and there's rain or steel
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: hitting the Great Lakes. Does it make sense that they
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: were that? Would you look now knowing you know, no
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: one's like, oh, yeah, of course sock ey's and chums
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: aren't gonna work in the Great Lakes, you know, No,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: I think I think that's kind of hard to predict.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: It's sometimes they take and sometimes they don't, And there's
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: just a bit of a history of people trying to
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: move salmon around, you know. Um, But yeah, I don't
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: know if anyone would be like guess as to whether
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: or not they would take or not. But yeah, those
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: are I know, sok I have been tried in the
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: Great Lakes. They didn't take coho. I'm not even sure
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: that they're self sustaining anywhere there, I think so, But man,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: that's the haven't that's another world. There's a book that
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: I have called Fishing the Great Lakes, and it's an
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: environmental history of the Great Lakes, and it gets into
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: the collapse of the native fisheries and then just that
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: long history of people trying to make up for it.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: But rather than fixing, you know, and sometimes the problems
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: are unfixable, but like, rather than fixing the problem, let's
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: just see if there's some other thing that might like
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: it here as we do whatever, and like interesting things that,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: you know, the logging boom where they were, you know,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: logging off the Great Lake States and rafting all those
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: logs out in the Great Lakes and the bays and
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: estuary areas or it's not use it's not saltwater, but
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: the river and all the bark when you're floating logs,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: the bark eventually falls away from the tree, and that
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: you have spawning areas that were covered in twelve fifteen
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: feet of bark, destroying fisheries, and then over fishing destroying fisheries,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: and later people being like, well, let's try maybe a
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: salmon like it. I don't know, you know, and not
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: to the point where they introduced the common carp l
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: wives smell. Carp was intentional, the cart was intentional. Brown trout,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: rainbow trout almost like like in some ways, like some
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: of the biggest like ticket fish items in the Great Lakes,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: And I don't know how widely understood it is by
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: people that live in those areas, the extent to which
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: their lakes have become sort of an experimental aquarium. Yeah,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know if people make like a value judgment
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: about it. We sure didn't growing up. I mean, the
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: coolest fish you could catch is a big king. Yeah.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: I was gonna say, it's when we when we talked
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: to who do we talk to about that? About how Um,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: it's just like the baseline that you're used to, the shifting,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: shifting baselines. That's what you came into, and so it's fine.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: But yeah, but if you were out trolling for kings
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: and he caught a Laker, people be like, oh Laker, greaseball. Yeah, greaseball.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: So that's like the native fish which kind of like
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: built this state, man and there was like a thriving
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: commercial industry around that fish and all this history and
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: the Native Americans that lived here like lived off that
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: fish and relied on it, and it becomes where it
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: comes up. You're like, I was hoping for the one
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: that came on a t okay and got dumped up.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: I was hoping for the one that got jumped out
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: of a barrel. You know. I was talking to some
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: biologists from the Great Lakes recently and it was I
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: was I was pleasantly surprised learned that the stars have
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: sort of realigned for Lake Trout and they're having a
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: bit of a comeback now, the native Lake Trout and
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: the Great Lakes. That was nice to hear. Perception wise,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: population wise. I think perception wise too, I think they're
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: a little more valued now than they used to be.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: What others If kings are down right now, pinks are
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: up right now? Everything everything? Yeah, yeah, yeah, numbers are great,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: like the populations are. So it might not be that
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: we just broke something that we won't be able to fix.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: It might be like kings, I mean some rivers we
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: just broke, right Oh yeah, like I mean yeah, a
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: lot a lot of them, Columbia, Sacramento, just that this broke.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: Is there a way? I know this isn't your business,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: but like, do you think that there's a way that
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: uh to turn around some of the broke systems, particularly
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: like some of the rivers that are so busted in California? Man,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: I there's a whole lot of people working on that. Uh,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: he's talking to one of them, because up here, man,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: it's like there, like it seems to be like a
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: general optimism about salmon. Well, I mean, yeah, they I
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: mean they're they're there, they're at at historic sort of
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: a high point, and they're abundance right now. Um, the
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: last couple of decades have been great for salmon in general,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: with the exception of Chinook having sort of a ten
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: year slump and productivity. Yeah, let's say something happened and
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: the ocean's got a just whatever, the ocean's got a
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: degree or too warmer. Would that shift open up a
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: lot of habitat to salmon that they're not currently using
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: because it's too cold, Like, would you take with the
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: whole show just kind of move north or the reasons
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: that it wouldn't work like that. That's an oceanographer. Um no,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: I I think there are fish running rivers further north now,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: like into art of Alaska and presumably art of Canada.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: Um that maybe didn't have runs in the past. Yep.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: But see that gets another question I want to ask you,
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: but expound on that for a minute. And you know,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: fisher salmon are certainly you know, moving further north in
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: the Bearing Sea and beyond. But um, yeah, I don't
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: think you can assume that that that you know, just
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: just giving the shape of that basin, right, you're losing.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: If you just shift the entire envelope of salmon for
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: the north, you have a lot less habitat to work with. Oh,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: I mean because it shrinks as it gets north. Yeah yeah,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: um so I'm just yeah, but the idea that they shift,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: like like you could have a northern river that right
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: now doesn't get fish and it's just too cold or whatever.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: So let's say there was this idea that like the
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: river would have fish turn up in it. That brings
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: up a really interesting question is that their fidelities at
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: their homes stream must not be entirely strict. It's not absolute, no,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: because how would have fish ever find a new river
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: if he has to go back to where he was born?
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: I mean go back fifteen thousand years and you know
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: most of Alaska salmon habitats under ice. Yeah, so what
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: accounts for that? That's a good point. So during like
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: you know, the all the different glacial periods, Yeah, there
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: was no salmon run because it was just yeah, yeah, So,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, built into their sort of life
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: history is a certain propensity for a small number of
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: individuals to go to the wrong river. What percent do
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: they know? It's small. It's small, and it varies by species,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: and it varies by it's it's it's sort of it's
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: an adaptive trade. It's sort of bread into the system.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: You know. Oh, it's great that some of them would
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: make a mistake. Oh yeah, yeah, it makes perfect sense.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: It allows for a little genetic mixing among population and
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: allows for colonization a new habitats. So yeah, it's built
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: into their life history. Do you remember in Sioux Sat Marie. Um, So,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna paint this picture for for the listeners. In
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: Sue Saint Marie, Michigan, you have a the St. Mary's
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: River drains Lake Superior and it falls I think two
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: or eighteen feet or something. Something follows some number of
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: feet more than ten through the Sioux Rapids and in
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: the St. Mary's River flows down. After drain, Lake Superior
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: flows down the St. Mary's River and flows into Lake Huron.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: In Sue St. Read there's a there's a hydro electric
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: project where they cut a channel to funnel. Some of
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: that water that's coming down the St. Mary's to flow
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: through a hydro electric canal that then goes out and
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: and pushes a bunch of electric turbans. So it's like
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: they chiseled off a branch of the stream to power
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: and hydro electric dam. It goes from above, the falls,
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: loops around, it dumps, and below they're capitalizing on that
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: whatever it is, fourteen to eighteen twenty, whatever hell number
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: feed is. It capitalizes on that fall to get a
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: good head of water going to push to turn the
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: turbans and a dam and this damn has a bunch
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: of turbans. But some of the terms that were given
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: over to a fish lab. You know where I'm going
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: with this, And all the turbans or tunnels would have names,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: and there's one through whatever to hell, and they would
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: rear atlantics as a part of this experimental project to
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: like establish Atlantics in the Great Lakes. They would rear
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: Atlantics in a certain in a certain tunnel, like it's
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: number one. He's on the end of the building. Yeah,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: And you could go there and we would go there
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: to fish whitefish, and you could go and look and
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: you could just see the Atlantics that were returning, and
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: they would return to the fish lab. Do you remember this, Yeah,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: they returned to that tunnel. I mean they go they
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: nose into a lot of those tunnels, but they were
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: like the one that they were coming from. You would
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: look in the like wait that they'd be like ten
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: and that one three in the next one. Yeah, and
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: then maybe like one in the next one, and you
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: can sort of see like how good they were hitting
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: the right spot whatever they were smelling or keying it's scent. Yeah,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: and then there was some other ones who were like
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: close but not quite yeah yeah, shifting around down there. Um. Yeah,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: these are separated by yards. Yeah, yeah, yeah, No, that
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: that they Ah, there's a a window of time when
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: those sam and or young were they sort of memorize
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: or imprint the scent of their stream and that's all.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: That's the last, you know, bit of migrating they do.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: They're doing it by their nose. What's the first bit
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: of migrating they do. I was sort of like, I
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: don't understand biologically how it works, but it's sort of
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: like a um they're triangulating their position based on like
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: sun angle and magnetism and things like that. So they
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: have sort of a I think of it was like
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: a mental map, and they're using that to get in
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: the rough vicinity and then at some point their nose
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: more or less takes over. So if you went on
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: the high is it believe that if you went on
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: the high seas? Okay, you have a you have a
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: salmon that came out of a specific river, So it
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: came out of the Kenai River and he's out on
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: the high season, and you wouldn't caught him in blindfolded
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: him and then helly, helly lifted him two miles and
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: put him back in the ocean. Do you feel like
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: he'd turned up with the same river? Oh, because it
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: can't be backtracking. Where did you catch him? I'm just saying,
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: you pick him out of the high seas somewhere and
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: blind in the middle of the ocean, and oh, but
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: then you un blindfold them, you have no problem. So
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: it's not like it's not like he remembers his route. No, No,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: it's something else. No, he has like he has some
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: way of fixing his position on a mental map. Yeah. Man,
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: we are we studying that right now. How they there's
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: a lot of work has been done on this. Yeah,
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: I read about the magnetism stuff and yeah, it's fascinating, man,
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: you know. And then they work on it with turtles
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: a lot. Okay, how do those turtles know to find
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: that beach? You know? On the scent? And there were
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: some cool studies done in the Great Lakes back I
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: want to sixties or maybe seventies, probably when they were
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: first introducing salmon there um. But they held these young
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: salmon um in a they I think they held them
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: in a stream and they dripped some certain chemical in
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: that stream, and though salmon imprinted on that smell, and
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: they released those salmon and then roam around the Great
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: Lakes for a couple of years, and when they're salmon
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: were maturing and coming back, they went like a few
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: miles down the beach and dripped that same chemical into
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: the wrong stream, and all of salmon went to the
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: wrong stream where the chemicals being dripped. So when they're
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: closing in, they're closing in, they just pick up that
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: scent and follow it in. Yeah, blows your mind. Yeah,
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: how it can be so unique each area, you know. Oh,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: but you figure all the different ions, you know, dissolved,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: all the different types of ions from all the different
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: rocks and soil and everything in that water. It's like
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: they had this whole portfolio of concentrations and like they
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: just learned that smell. You know, Can you real quick
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: talk about uh, this is the last thing I have
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: you explained. Can you talk about the function of moving
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: marine resources? How salmon is a is a mechanism that
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: moves marine resources in land. Yeah. Yeah, they're um a
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: sort of vector to move um energy and nutrients up
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: rivers um. Like we said earlier, in in high latitudes,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: fresh waters are much less productive than ocean waters. And
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: salmon did this cool trick where they go out to
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: the sea and it's not intentional, it's just to buy
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: product of their life history. But they go out to
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: sea and they they put on a bunch of weight
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: and then they swim you know, upstream and and and
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: bring with them all of this fat and protein and
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: phosphorus and nitrogen and all the different forms of fertilizer
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: that the fish that rear in those streams and insects
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: and the algae, and so they're sort of fertilizing that stream,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: feeding bears, feeding birds. Yeah yeah, and that that that
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: river is you know, it's flowing is taking spending all
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: this time taking nutrients from the landscape and bringing them
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: out to the ocean and then salm and sort of
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: reverse that flow once a year and and bring in
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: you know, in cases with big runs, many many tons
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: of nutrients back to the land. Um. Yeah. And it's
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: definitely it's it has a lot of um sort of
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: feedbacks within the within the ecosystem in terms of feeding.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: So do you feel like there's probably places where if
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: you eliminated the salmon, you could you would you could
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: feasibly trigger a sort of ecological collapse. Um, yeah, it would.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: You know, it would certainly be bad for you know,
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: large mobile consumers that move around and eat salmon, like
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: bears and you know, eagles another another scavin Jery Yeah. Um.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: And it's some of the work that I've been involved
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: with the showing that um juvenile salmon that are exposed
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: to um large volumes of salmon eggs and other types
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: of resources will grow faster than those that don't have
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: access to as much you know, salmon eggs and flesh
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: and other marine resources. And there's a whole the juveniles
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: are eating, the are directly feeding off the growing the
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: carcasses of the growing Yeah, the carcasses and the eggs,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: you know. And yeah, there's been a whole lot of
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: work in different places around Alaska looking at different aspects
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: of this. But um, oh, like for instance, out in
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: Bristol Bay and southwest Alaska, where you know, there are
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: trophy rainbow populations out there that are um fished by
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: anglers from all over the world, you know, from the
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: state at high end lodges, and it's a it's one
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: of Alaska's sort of premier trophy sport fisheries. But um
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: those trophy rainbow trout out there get you know, a
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: huge fraction of their their annual nutritional intake just by
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: eating salmon eggs. It's a a huge diet item for them.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: And it comes to a pretty short period of time.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: You know, it's our late summer early falls are getting
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: most of their caloric intake for the whole year. Yeah,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: just chill out. This chill out, water gets cold or
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: metabolism slows down and they just kind of hang on
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: to that wait, you know, until the next year. Get
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: more questions when those salmon are out in the ocean.
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: I believe there's a term for this for two different
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: types of fish out in the ocean, ones that are
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: just like constantly moving and constantly eating, versus one that
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: actually has a resting time. Do you understand my question? Yeah,
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: kind of changes the flesh too, right, the type of flesh. Yeah,
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: but salmon are all on the same page with Yeah,
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: what's that called like a I mean, yeah, I get
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: cruising pelagic fish. They're mobile, they're always swimming. They never
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: go down to the bottom and sit there. No, they're
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: not gonna go down like a halibit or rock fish
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: and hang out on the bottom. Yeah, but they're they're
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: a roving epiplagic predator. He's just eating just constantly. I mean,
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: it's just like that's just slack off at certain times.
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean they're they're you know, they're they're
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: a yeah, an actively swimming mobile fish. They never sleep
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: like how we perceive of sleep. Huh. Mask Oh, I
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: thought you were making a statement because this is something
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: I've never really looked into. Yeah, but I mean they
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: never go they can't go like lay down. I guess
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: you're right. Yeah, you're like what we used to go
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: as kids, gigging frogs. I shouldn't say this because now
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: we didn't know what. You're not supposed to do it,
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: but you can't do it the harder. You're not supposed
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: to gig frogs and missig with artificial light. But we'll
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: go out with artificial lights. Remember to look for bullfrogs
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: and crayfish. That's perfect legal. We'd go out to do
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: that and you'd catch bluegirls were like that blue is
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: a sleepy you cast blueos just like completely zoned out.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: You almost like walk up and grabl Yeah, you know.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: I around the shack. I have seen salmon where they're
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: sitting at the surface still with their fins out of
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: the water. Sometimes I don't maybe that's sleeping, yeah, but
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: they are. They tend to use the top of the water,
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: the light, the lit version of the water. Oh yeah,
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: even when they're out at in the middle of the ocean. Yeah,
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: they're just using the top of the water column. Yeah,
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: not down deep dirt. Final questions. I got a couple
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: actually lay it on me man um so finn in
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: I did. I did a little person in years ago,
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: and we'd always set around in a finning group and jumpers,
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: And what's the purpose of both of those when they're
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: kind of like close to it. Oh, like, what are
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: they accomplishing with that behavior when they're all pooled up
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: with their fins out of the water, and what are
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: they do when they jump? Yeah, Like I've heard various
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: opinions of what they're trying to do. Yeah, I don't
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: even have one. Yeah behavior, you know one of the
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: things people says. I mean, how do you answer that question?
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: I guess yeah, yeah, No, it's cool to be around
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: at when like when you really know that there's it's
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: cool to be around all that life. You know, you
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: can just look out there and see salmon fen sticking
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: up at the water and his jumpers everywhere, and there's
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: you know, it's way larger below. Yeah. Yeah, that's a
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: good point. But is that them just like the flow? Yeah,
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: So there's not a good theory about why somebody might
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: have one. I just don't. Yeah, it's not a test
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: that theory. Yeah, it's I think it's a difficult one
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: to test. And then the other one I really want
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: to ask about the bourbon leech, but that when it
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: makes sense, a bourbon with a parasite do look like
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: a leech? Probably was okay? Cool? And then one more
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: and this one's a little more philosophical. There may not
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: be an answer to it. But just because you've had
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: such a I mean as a fish biologists, that intimate
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: relationship with each species, do you find yourself prone to
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: be particular to one of those five that we talked
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: about in your region of study? There's that not a
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: fair question, no, I yeah, I mean professionally, I really
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: like ho ho because they're just everywhere, and they're abundant,
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: and they live in fresh water a long time and
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: I work in fresh water, and um, yeah, I think
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: they're super cool fish, but um cool, and and that's
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: prioritized over like the angling of them or eating of them.
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: It's like their activity as as all it all works together,
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: you know. I got a thing for coh and part
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: of yeah, exactly exactly, it's all it's all what I
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: root for man, Yeah, Angland and my professional life. I'll
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: sort of get intertwined, you know. Um. But yeah, I really,
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: I really do have a thing for I really love
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: cut and kings too. Um. I'm fascinated by them and
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: it's just a huge accomplishment to me to catch on
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: those thing, especially out in saltwater. I love it. Um,
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: here's my hes that cool on you. Yeah, it's great,
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: cause I got one last thing I forgot to ask about.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: This is gonna suffice as my concluder, and you can
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: do a concluder if you want. You told me an
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: interesting thing one time where you're saying that, um, it's
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: possible to have or it's maybe possible. It's an idea
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: that could be entertained. That's possible to have too many
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: fish go up a river. Yeah, because you would think
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: like the more fish the better, like bring them on,
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: bring them on up the river. But there's a point
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: at which you might get like, um, diminishing returns. Can
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: you can talk about that for a minute. This is
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: more of a theoretical concept or if it has like
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: like no, no, it has some applicable, it has some application,
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: and there's probably there some data behind it. Um. But
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: you know in terms of the bears and the eagles,
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: you know there can't be too many salmon. Um. But yeah,
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: so that's actually a really big can of worms. He
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: just opens on it. I start with this, but um,
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: can I tell you what I understood you to be saying? No, no, yeah,
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: go ahead, go ahead, Okay, we were out one time.
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know you. I was just hanging around with
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: you and we were doing some work and we were
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: out checking mental traps. I think you were like we
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: were out checking mento traps because you were out trapping
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: baby co hos in the river, remember this, And you
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: were looking at things of like how, how what's the
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: density and what's the tolerance of competition of co host
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: when we're spending all this time, when they're spending these
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: two years in the stream where they were born. And
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: you were saying that you're telling this idea that, um,
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: it could be that you could have less cohoes, less
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: cohole babies in the river, but they're all so much
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: more healthier because they're not suffering from too much competition.
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: And you could have just like trying an idea out
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: and maybe like sending out fifty that are super fit
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: and had like a great resource of food could in
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: the end be better than emaciated. Weren't they weren't doing good? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: so yeah you'd want it with a better healthier return. Yes, yes, so, um,
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: you know, a river of any size has a finite
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: amount of spawning and rearing habitat um. And so when
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: you get to a point where there are. If you
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: have exceptionally large run and lots and lots and lots
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: of spawners, you get a new position where you have
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: a wave of fish come in, they start building dusts,
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: they spawn there, and then the next wave of fish
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: comes in, digsolo's nuts up, lays more nuts on top
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: of them. Right, And so only the last batch of
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: fish that spawn they're are gonna really have any output. Right,
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: you had a lot of excess, I mean, so they
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: could excavate and destroy each other's nests. Yeah. Yeah, And
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: in the in the trade they call it nests superimposition.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: They're just building nuts on top of other nests. And
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: the thought is that those you could have harvested a
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: lot of those fish without having any negative impact on
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: the return. But the same thing plays out too in
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: the rearing habitat, especially for those fish, the species that
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: rear in fresh water. Right. So so if you have
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: way too many and they start with the word term
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: too many, I'm already seeing how where I messed it up.
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: So if you have a really really large sock I
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: run and you have a lot of spawners that are
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: all producing fry that then migrating to a rearing lake,
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: and the lake has this sort of the scenario that
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: you're describing with the code, and many go. You have
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: a you know, a huge biomass, a huge number of
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: juveniles there, and the per capita food resources that are low,
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: and there's a lot of competition, and you know that
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: those space can't all get big, right, So yeah, there's
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of how salm and are managed in
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: Alaska and elsewhere. They they take a lot of a
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: long time series of data where for a given river
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: um they observe how many salmon are going in the
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: river to spawn, and then from that given brood year,
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: in subsequent years, how many salmon come back. And they
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: so over every spawning run they calculate how many subsequent
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: returns were produced, and over a long period of time,
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: you can sort of develop this empirical lationship between the
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: number of spawners that you let into a river and
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: the number of salmon to come back later from the spawners.
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: At least in theory, you'll see sort of you know,
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: that relationship. If you picture graph with you know, the
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: number of spawners on the X axis. You know, had
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: low numbers of spawners, you can get a lot of
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: returns right, but that levels off eventually. You can at
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: some point, you can put more spawners into the system,
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: but you don't get back a lot of fish because
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: of competition for nests and competition for food and that
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: sort of thing. So you might be looking at a
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: river thinking, we're gonna have let's just use simple numbers,
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: a hundred fish are gonna um come back up here
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: next year, and we might be able to harvest half
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: of all the fish to come up, and you're still
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: gonna have a hundred comeback or some such. Yeah, And
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: that's that's a good rule of thumb actually, Like and
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: most of Alaska's fish or east I think over the
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: long term, um about you know, maybe forty six of
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: the returning adults and these things only spawn one so
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: they're they're being harvested before they ever have a chance
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: to spawn. But every every single year, every single run
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: you know about you know, roughly half give or take
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: of the population is killed before as a chance to spawn. Um.
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: But that's sort of a testament to the productivity of
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: these fish because this has been going on, you know,
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: in Alaska for over a hundred years in most places,
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: and those fishes keep coming back and coming back and there.
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: You know, they're at um. You know, populations are for
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: the most part doing great, you know, so I'm so
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: happy to hear the salmon are doing all right generally. Yeah. Yeah,
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest is a bit of another story, but it's
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: a totally different story. Wasn't there a closure on king
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: fishing to retain the Oh, there's a lot of that
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: going around. Yeah, I mean should remember specifically when we
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: were out at you because they couldn't tell because there's
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: kings up here that belonged down there. Yeah, it was
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: something I don't want them getting there's so few down there.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: They didn't want whatever ones might happen to be running
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: around up here getting killed when they might be turning
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: up down there later. Getting that right, well, they The
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: sport and commercial seasons were closed for king salmon in
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: Southeast Alaska starting in August last year. UM. There are
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: a handful of the trans boundary rivers in Southeast Alaska,
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: like the Keene and the Taku. When the eunuch Um
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: rivers that drain from British Columbia into mainland Southeast Alaska, UM,
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: the king salmon runs and all those rivers are in
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: pretty bad shape right now, and so they closed the
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: fisheries in southeast maximize return. Yes, yes, and a lot
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: of those a lot of fish feeds sort of locally.
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: So you know, even by the time August came around
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: last year, most of that year spawners were already or
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: if not all of them already in the river. But
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: I think that they were closing that to preserve you know,
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: immature fish eating in that um sort of coastal southeast.
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: And then that alludes to that sort of Canada US
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: interplay of salmon management. Yeah, there are some there are
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: some treaties on those rivers too. I believe like just
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: because it flows out in your country doesn't mean that
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: you can run the show. Yeah, you can run the
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: show when we need to our fish, to have our
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: fish across the border and come back. There's a lot
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: of habitat in Canada. Yeah, all right. Do you have
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: any lot of things that you wanted to wedge in
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: that we didn't get to Um No, I had a
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: had a list, but we got to them. Yeah. Really,
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: where's your list on my head? And you guys are good? Yeah,
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: I'm ready for a taco fish taco kind of tacos.
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: We have uh moves. But we do have some a
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: little bit of halibut and rock fish we can heat
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: up though, left over from a couple of nights ago.
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: No salmon, nope, man, I got very little I have
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: left in the freezer. Man, I'd like to have that
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: stuff gone. To get it gone. Man. Yeah, you can
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: sit on a piece of deer meat for a couple
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: of years, but same, I like to get in and out. Yes, yes,
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: all right, thanks for joining.