Pink Year

johnnyboy said:
A large pink year usually means pinks being seen colonizing new waters.

It looks like there are lots of pinks being spotted in the streams in the Lake Washington/Sammamish basin. I’ve seen photos and heard about sightings of a school of 100 of them there. They are being seen in the same places Chinook and Sockeye are often spotted.

I’ll go look in the spots where I think they are holding to go see for myself tomorrow. Looks like we may see a day where Lake Washington pink salmon fishing is a thing!
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Is there a risk they’d overlap enough in timeframe and spawning bed selection to compete with the existing chinook or sockeye?
 
NRC said:
Is there a risk they’d overlap enough in timeframe and spawning bed selection to compete with the existing chinook or sockeye?
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I don’t have a fish biology background like others on here do. But in theory I would think so, especially if the population of pinks is dense.

Pinks would have a lot of overlap in spawn timeframe with both species. From my observation, sockeye and chinook are in these streams from the first big fall rain until mid October, although Chinook will usually spawn slightly earlier than sockeye there. Peak chinook spawning is probably right now, with sockeye in another week or so depending on rain.
 
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Don't Sockeye spawn in lakes thus not competing for stream access for redds.?
 
Wetswinger said:
Don't Sockeye spawn in lakes thus not competing for stream access for redds.?
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They will successfully spawn in lakes if there is sufficient upwelling or wave action to keep enough DO and overall suitable water quality around the embryos. They commonly spawn in streams and rivers, too.

And yeah, the swarms of pinks, some large ones, are in some cases appearing to interfere or at least overlap with redds of some of these shrinking Puget Sound Chinook.
 
I would think the Chinook will keep the pinks out of their reds.
 
The interaction of pinks and Chinook during spawning is interesting. Pinks are mass spawners (often during large sections of stream bottom into one massive redd) and as such early in their spawning cycle they are disturbed to gravels. Often those patches of disturbed gravels are a Chinook redd. Typically, a female Chinook will continue to guard her redd site from other spawning salmon for up to 10 days. That guarding protects her eggs from disturbance during the embryos early develop where any justling can kill the embryo.

A number of times have observed a newly spawning Chinook being mobbed by numbers of pinks. Yes, she will defend that site from those pinks but the number of pinks result in constant interactions between them and the female Chinook. The end result is that the Chinook is soon exhausted reducing the guarding period to just 2 or 3 days. Do not know the biology impacts from the shorter guarding period but since it is not the norm it might be concerning.

Curt
 
Guess I'm not surprised to hear there might be pinks in the Lake Washington system. Pinks are clearly a climate change winner and with the explosion of pinks in central and south Sound it would be a natural for some to show up in the big lake. With pinks short generational time (2 years) they have shown the ability to adapt quickly to a new environment. How that might express itself in LW could be interesting, will they become a freshwater population (ala the Great Lakes) or will the fry be able to successfully find their way through the Lake?

With man's help pinks are spreading across the northern hemisphere landscape. Following the escape of just a 100 or so pinks in the Great Lakes basin in the mid 1950s they have spread across that basin and pinks are being reported at least occasionally in various Atlantic salmon rivers on east coast of Canada. Following the planting of pinks in the late 1950s on the Russian Kola peninsula they have not only establish local populations they have spread to Norway rivers where on at least on basin since 2001 folks have been taking actions (trapping etc.) to limit the pink abundance. Pinks have also been reported in Scotland, Ireland, England, Netherlands and France.

Curt
 
NRC said:
Is there a risk they’d overlap enough in timeframe and spawning bed selection to compete with the existing chinook or sockeye?
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Generally pink salmon spawning has not been much of a threat to Chinook salmon because of their size difference. Chinook dig deeper redds (~18") while pink salmon redds are often only ~6" deep. So even if pink salmon spawn directly on top of a Chinook redd - and they often do because the "pre-dug" gravel is easier for the smaller pink salmon female to move - the super-imposed pink redd does not disturb the more deeply buried Chinook salmon eggs. However, whith Chinook salmon maturing at a younger age (3 years) and smaller size (12 pounds and even less) the risk from pink salmon redd super-imposition increases. This is not a good thing.

For the most part, there is enough temporal separation between sockeye and pink salmon spawning times to significantly reduce competition between the species.

Pink salmon migrating into Lake Washington may be an interesting probe at colonization. However, pinks generally don't do well spawning upstream of lakes. The juvenile pink fry begin seaward emigration immediately upon emergence from the gravel. Their small size (~26 mm) makes them not very strong swimmers and vulnerable to virtually every possible predator. It will be an uphill battle for pink salmon to establish a run into Lake Washington, particularly when the species that migrate at much older and larger smolt sizes are having difficulty hanging on as populations.
 
Smalma said:
With man's help pinks are spreading across the northern hemisphere landscape.
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This is true in more ways than one.
"In aggregate, the evidence indicates that open-ocean marine carrying capacity in the northern North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea can be mediated by top-down forcing by pink salmon and by ocean heating, and that large-scale hatchery production (~40% of the total adult and immature salmon biomass) likely has unintended consequences for wild salmon, including Chinook salmon O. tshawytscha, and many other marine species." https://www.int-res.com/articles/feature/m719p001.pdf
Ruggerone GT, Springer AM, van Vliet GB, Connors B and others (2023) From diatoms to killer whales: impacts of pink salmon on North Pacific ecosystems. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 719:1-40. https://doi.org/10.3354/meps14402

Too many pink salmon got you down? I wonder what could be done to knock about 40% of the total adult and immature pink salmon biomass down? Hmmm... :unsure:
 
Saw a lonely pink at the locks a week ago, not sure I want to see the already fragile Chinook runs have even more problems. Some of the Kings in there were massive, several fish in the 20-30 range
 
Just saw one sad, beat up boot of a pink swimming along the Thea Foss shoreline today. Wonder if it was headed to the Puyallup or already flushed out. (Male)
 
Maybe they’ll start raising hatchery pinks on Lk WA rather than sockeye and there will actually be a fishery for folks who wish to participate.
The sockeye hatchery has become a joke and unless they come off the escapement number, I don’t see there being any recreational fishing for them ever again. 17 years and counting since the last one.
No doubt some fry are picked off in the lake by non native species, but every time I read an article and people mention the native cutthroat as being part of the problem it drives me crazy. Sure, blame native fish for what they do naturally. Shame on them for eating fry from an introduced salmon run.
SF
 
If this ends up being a problem come 2025 I wonder what a lake fishery for pinks would look like. I know the traditional humpy gear in the sound doesn't attract much attention from the other species, but I wonder if that would change in the lakes. I am wondering how a fishery could be designed to take the pinks out without affecting Kings
 
Stonedfish said:
Maybe they’ll start raising hatchery pinks on Lk WA rather than sockeye and there will actually be a fishery for folks who wish to participate.
The sockeye hatchery has become a joke and unless they come off the escapement number, I don’t see there being any recreational fishing for them ever again. 17 years and counting since the last one.
No doubt some fry are picked off in the lake by non native species, but every time I read an article and people mention the native cutthroat as being part of the problem it drives me crazy. Sure, blame native fish for what they do naturally. Shame on them for eating fry from an introduced salmon run.
SF
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I would rather see the resources spent on propping up an introduced run be spent on conserving native runs that have a chance of sustaining themselves in the foreseeable future
 
During a potential Lake Washington pink fishery, the more likely by-catch concern would be sockeye.

Of course, if the spawning pinks threaten to become established in the Cedar the co-managers could opt to remove much of the run at their sockeye weir.

Curt
 
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