A researcher has commented that this past Wednesday his team has discovered that a local freshwater salmon species classified as extinct by the government about seven decades ago, still lives on in Lake Saiko.

Tetsuji Nakabo, Kyoto University professor, commented that he took a look at nine fish from the lake and discovered that they were strikingly similar – in fact the same as – the “kunimasu” or “black kokanee” species of salmon.

If this find is confirmed, it will be the very first time a fish species in Japan which has been classified as extinct has been found living still, the Environment Ministry explained. The ministry has commented it is going to do its best to verify the claims of Nakabo and review its classification of the salmon.

The salmon, a landlocked sockeye, had been seen earlier on only in Lake Tazwa, and was believed to have died off due to an inflow of toxic water sometime in the 1940’s.

However, Nakabo explained there are records which show the salmon’s eggs were taken to other lakes, including Lake Saiko and Lake Biwa, to help improve stocks about half a decade earlier than when they supposedly went extinct.

The species “likely propagated from the eggs from that time,” Nakabo explained.

This discovery came in February, after Nakabo asked fish expert Sakana-kun to show a likeness of the extinct fish.

Sakana-kun requested samples of “himemasu” – a fish similar to that of the “kunimasu” – and discovered they were very similar, and just possibly the same!

The Salmon runs in British Columbia are known to fluctuate, with good years being followed by poorer ones. Since the mid-1990s, most years have however been bad and many explanations for this situation have been offered, from El Nino and too warm streams, to over-fishing and habitat destruction. It is of course tempting for the fishing industry to place the blame solely on natural phenomena like El Nino, but it is hard to turn a blind eye on the immense amounts of salmon caught from the rivers of British Columbia each year.

Take for instance Fraser River, the longest river in British Columbia with a total length of 1,375 km (870 mi) and a drainage area of roughly 220,000 km² (85,000 sq mi). This is a heavily exploited river and the lower reaches are especially affected by habitat destruction brought on by agricultural, industrial and urban developments. The last great salmon run in this river took place as far back as 1913, when an estimated 38 million sockeye salmons returned to spawn. Out of those 38 millions, no less than 32 millions were caught and utilized as food fish. Four years later, the run had been diminished to a mere 8 million sockeyes, but this didn’t stop the government from allowing 7.3 millions of them to be caught. In 2008, an estimated 1.6 million sockeye salmon returned to Fraser River, but despite the extremely low figure the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans allowed commercial, sport and native fishermen to continue their fishing activities. Since the early 1900s, about 40 to 70 per cent of any given run has normally been allowed to be taken in nets.

Regular salmon

Biologists keeping track of the sockeye salmon populations in central Idaho (Sawtooth Mountains) have good news to report. More sockeye than in any other year in the last two decades have made their way pass the eight dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers and returned to idaho. 507 fish have been counted so far. That might not sound much but considering that the number has been in the single digits each of the last five years and that only 16 wild sockeye returned between 1991 and 1998 it is a large improvement. It might however be too early to start celebrating as 257 sockeye returned in 2000 followed by a number of bad years.

The improvement is believed to be due to the fact that 180,000 smolts were released in Idaho lakes in 2006. Some of the returning fish are likely artificially spawned at the Eagle Fish Hatchery in Southwestern Idaho as part of a program to help boost the sockeye populations around the Sawtooth Mountains.

The 507 returning fish might be a better number than in many years but it is still no where near the historical levels of Sockeye salmon that once wandered the 900 miles from the Pacific Ocean to Idaho lakes like Redfish, Pettit and Alturas. As many as 35,000 sockeye used to return each year. The population decline is believed to be primarily due to four dams along the lower Snake River in Eastern Washington.