Scientists revise spring chinook estimates

PORTLAND – Fisheries scientists, counting fewer fish than expected, have changed their official estimate of this year’s tardy run of spring chinook salmon in the Columbia River.

The previous estimate of 88,000 has been changed by a technical advisory committee to a range of 65,000 to 88,000, and the run will be managed on that basis, Craig Bartlett of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife said Tuesday.

For reasons that are not clear, the run is late in arriving at Bonneville Dam for the second year in a row.

While the run usually peaks in mid-April, the salmon did not begin arriving at Bonneville Dam in significant numbers until last week.

The reduced run has some fishermen worrying that the season, closed in April, will not reopen this year. Bartlett said Tuesday he had not been told what, if any, effect the new estimates would have on the closure.

Fish managers have not been able to explain the run’s three-week delay.

Preseason estimates for last year were for 254,100 salmon to make it past Bonneville Dam. Only 106,900 did so.

This year’s prediction of 88,000 is still a fairly healthy run if it shows up. In recent years, the run has been as low as 42,000 in 1999 and as high as 438,000 in 2001.

This year, the count is at about 36,000, almost 14,000 fewer than last year’s run at this time.

The 10-year average by this time of year, which includes some bumper runs, is about 112,000.

Bonneville Dam, the farthest downriver of the dams on the Columbia, is the first place the salmon are counted. The count is vital to determining the health of the run and can help in predicting the size of future runs.