Yesterday morning I received a completely unexpected phone call from a VERY excited Michael Pollock of NOAA. He had read the good salmon news in Bloomberg and was thinking this could be a major change to California’s dwindling salmon population. He wanted to know who was tracking these sudden salmon and all the places they were showing up. He thought DNA samples would be helpful in figuring out what was triggering them to come back to rivers they hadn’t spawned in for a century.
It’s an interesting question. I mean, okay sure we are restoring creeks and repairing waterways and that’s very good. but how does a salmon way out at sea learn that and think “Hey this sounds like a great place to spawn. I know it was a hundred years ago that I visited that creek but it might just be time to go back to the old neighborhood.”
Was there a memo? Does it have something to do with the oceans warming? Does the amount of freshwater pouring into the creek from these freshened streams change the salinity content of the water and trigger some kind of biological response? Or is there some other explanation I can’t even imagine. Interesting puzzle for Dr. Pollock to figure out. I’m sure he’s up to the task. I sent the article to the beaver summit attendees and told them he was looking for collaborators to work on this. I’m sure he’ll find several.
In the meantime there’s a fine film from Connecticut I have been meaning to share. Enjoy!
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