Salmon and trout traveling through rivers across the western United States are being met with lethal conditions courtesy of drought and record-breaking hot weather, according to a recent survey from the Wild Fish Conservancy.
Nearly 75 percent of the 54 rivers surveyed in Oregon, California and Washington reported high temperatures of 70 degrees or more. Mix those spiked temperatures with low river flows due to the recent winter’s dismal snowpack and arrive at a worst case scenario for wild salmon and trout stocks, remarked Oregon Climate Center Associate Director Kathie Dello.
"This is the worst case scenario playing out right now, a warm winter and then a warm and dry summer," Dello told the Associated Press.
And with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) calling for more warm and dry weather in all three states, the issue doesn’t look to be letting up anytime soon. In June, when record heatwaves hit the relative locales, Oregon’s Willamette and Clackamas rivers experienced dead salmon by the dozens, reported KPTV.
“I've never seen or heard about the water being this warm. I've never seen dead fish ever here," area fisherman Jeremy Say told KPTV.
In response to such dire circumstances, two federal fish hatcheries in Washington released 6 million juvenile salmon two weeks earlier than planned in the hopes that they would have a better shot now rather than when the waters grow warmer. As of right now, the rivers are at low levels that the state doesn’t typically expect until September or so, said department drought coordinator Teresa Scott.
“This is such a huge magnitude compared to previous droughts,” Scott told the AP. “Records available from before don’t come close to preparing us for what we are encountering this year.”
