Declining size of Chinook salmon

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Published:

New paper on declining Chinook size and age:

Jan Ohlberger recently led this cool paper on long term declines in the size at age of Chinook salmon, paper here. We found that both hatchery and wild Chinook are becoming both smaller and younger, with many of the oldest age fish disappearing from most of the coast. At the same time, size at age of some of the smallest fish (e.g. age 2 Chinook) has increased. Mechanisms that may be responsible for these changes include environmental change, fishing practices, hatchery releases, and predation.

Here’s a roundup of some great coverage:

University of Washington here
Seattle Times here
UW Daily here
KUOW here
Daily Astorian here
King 5 here