Chum around Hay River
Salmon make appearance uncommonly far south
Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Published Monday, December 15, 2014
HAY RIVER
More information has surfaced – literally – in support of the belief/suspicion that chum salmon are populating the Hay River.
In September, Kevin Low and another person pulled a net in the East Channel of the river.
"And lo and behold, one of these salmon had made it all the way up the Mackenzie and through the Great Slave Lake and into the Hay River," said Low.
It was the first time he'd seen a salmon in the river.
"I'm 39 years old and I've heard speculation as to them coming up the river," he said.
Low also said his father is marine biologist George Low, who is retired from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO).
His father told him there were some salmon in the river, he said. "And then luckily I was pulling a net and I got to witness this."
Dr. Jim Reist, a research scientist who works on Arctic fishes for DFO in Winnipeg, is aware of previous reports of chum salmon in the Hay River.
"We know that there are actually natal populations in the drainages of the upper Mackenzie River, probably in the Slave River area, perhaps in the Liard River, as well," he said. "We don't know exactly where they spawn in those locations."
The evidence for a salmon population in the Hay River is a little less certain, said Reist. "There's been no consistent reporting of salmon in the Hay River in spawning condition and upstream in the Hay River. However, it's possible that they are there as well and we simply don't know."
When asked whether he thought there are chum salmon in the Hay River, Low simply replied, ""I caught that one in the river."
As for whether there are salmon spawning in the river, he said the fish he caught was a female that contained BB-sized eggs.
Reist said it is not certain, but salmon born in the Mackenzie watershed presumably enter the Beaufort Sea and migrate into the North Pacific Ocean, the Bering Sea or perhaps the southern part of the Chukchi Sea, and spend two to four years in the marine environment before coming back into the river system to reproduce.
Reist explained the species may have been in the Mackenzie system for hundreds or thousands of years, perhaps even as far back as the retreat of the glaciers.
"It's a situation where they're relatively uncommon or infrequent, and so the population size itself is relatively low," he said, adding they are rarely caught because they are probably moving and spawning near freeze-up, when people are typically not fishing.
Reist said there is some evidence that the population us increasing or fluctuating from year to year, since people are seeing them more often.
There are sporadic reports of salmon in the Hay River, he said.
"It's every couple of years. It depends on where the local guys are fishing and whether they catch the salmon in their nets when they're setting them out for whitefish."
Reist explained the speculation is that chum salmon are uncommon in the Mackenzie system because the Beaufort Sea and Chukchi Sea are relatively inhospitable environments for salmon, particularly in winter.
"The possibility of them coming back is fairly low," he said.
On the other hand, the fish might also spend their years at sea in the northern part of the Bering Sea south of the Bering Strait, or they might have overwintering habitat in the Beaufort or the Chukchi.
Reist said a "pure guess" would be that there are about a couple of hundred salmon in each river system connected to the Mackenzie.
"If it was any less than that, I doubt that we would see many returning fish. Any more than that, we should see larger numbers of returning fish," he said.
