The mystery of the shrinking fish: Alaska's salmon are getting smaller

[marmar]

The mystery of the shrinking fish: Alaska's salmon are getting smaller
A new study has found four species reduced in size, with climate change and competition from hatchery-raised cousins as possible factors

Nat Herz in Anchorage, Alaska
Tue 8 Sep 2020 05.30 EDT


(Guardian UK) The fishermen and women knew something was off with their catch. “At first, it was just a general comment by everybody: ‘The fish, yeah, I didn’t get any big ones this year,’” said Richard Burnham, who has commercially harvested salmon for four decades in the interior Alaska village of Kaltag.

Now, a new study has borne out those observations on a huge scale, documenting body size declines in fish across the entire state of Alaska in four different species of salmon: chinook, sockeye, silver and chum.

Alaska is “the last largely pristine North American salmon-producing region”, the authors write. Yet the size of the Yukon region chinooks – the largest of the four salmon species – has diminished the most, by 10% compared with those caught before 1990.

The bodies of commercially valuable sockeye shrank by 2% statewide, and silver salmon grew 3% physically smaller. ............(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/08/shrinking-salmon-alaska-fish

[OnlinePoker]

1. I seem to recall a study from years ago about the way we fish causing this

If I remember correctly, they said that we were keeping the large fish and throwing back the smaller ones. This was causing the smaller fish to have a better chance at reproducing and passing on the small-fish genes to the succeeding generations. Basically, man-made evolution.

[Boxerfan]

2. What mystery-There is a forest right there!

Warming streams & oceans. Degradation of every aspect of the environment they live in.

Stress causes populations to shrink & they are probably on the road to extinction. We are even starting drill the ANWR soon. Yipee!