The return of sockeye salmon in western Canada’s Fraser River watershed in the summer and fall of 2010—indeed the biggest run in 97 years—still has fishers, researchers and fishery managers baffled. No one seems to be able to say for sure what caused the massive 2010 run, but most agree that it probably had to do with the very favorable water conditions that were present in 2008 when the sockeyes were juveniles.
Roberta Hamme, a researcher with Canada’s University of Victoria, suggests that the ash fall from the eruption of Alaska’s Kasatochi volcano in 2008 may be one reason for the huge 2010 run. What was particularly striking about 2010’s mammoth run was the contrast against 2009, when the Fraser River sockeye run was a disaster by all accounts.
Environmentalists are now optimistic the huge 2010 sockeye run is a sign of better times ahead. Perhaps improved logging practices, a resurgence in organic farming, new protections for upstream habitat or restrained commercial fishing catch limits — or some combination thereof — has begun to make a difference in salmon survival.
