Jon Anderson wrote -

>I got the following message from USFWS biologist in Newport, Oregon =
>about the dismal nesting year and adult mortality the Oregon nesting =
>Common Murre population was hit with this summer. Hopefully, this =
>one-year event will not cause the 1/4 to 1/2 million bird population any =
>major long-term decline.
>
>Roy indicated that murres were streaming North past the Columbia River =
>mouth, and I am hoping (for personal interest as well as for =
>'professional' interest) that the Coastal observers among us can keep =
>the list posted on the status of murres moving along the coast into the =
>Strait of Juan de Fuca and around the San Juans. Thanks.

Those with Web access should go to the AltaVista server
(http://www.altavista.digital.com) and search on the keywords:

weather salmon "North Pacific High"

This will bring up several hits re. how the large-scale climatology of the North Pacific
ocean/atmosphere system has been changing since the 1970s and its concomitant effects on
the creatures which depend on the ocean for their survival. Most of the articles deal
with the mass movement of salmon northward from Canadian to Alaskan waters in response
to the falloff in nutrient levels in inshore Canadian waters (in large part due to
diminished flows on the Fraser River). Also, the northward intrusion of predators such
as mackerel have had a profound effect. The one-day catch of 4,000,000 Sockeye salmon in
Bristol Bay, Alaska earlier this year was an eye-opener for many fisheries scientists.
It seems that rather than dying off, many of the Canadian runs remained north. This is a
double-edged sword - heartening to know that there are still sockeye out there; but
disgruntling to some to have the realization that we are all still very much governed by
the larger forces of nature hammered home in such a fashion. Especially when the
fisheries have become such a political football on both sides of the border - now seen
as the mere tilting at the windmills owned by old Mother Nature herself.

- Jack
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*Jack Bowling *
*Prince George, BC *
*jcbowling at mindlink.bc.ca *
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