Spring Fishery Update No. 1, 05/07/12
May 9th, 2012
On Monday, May 7, 2012, after cancelling a scheduled Joint State Hearing to update information concerning spring fisheries, the US v. Oregon Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) released Spring Fishery Update No. 1, outlining both what was known, and what is not yet certain about the spring Chinook run. The upriver spring Chinook run has been seriously under-performing, especially when compared to the rosy scenario of the preseason forecast. Though it seems likely the upriver spring Chinook run will be smaller than the preseason forecast, on Monday, May 7 it simply was too soon to tell how much smaller it would be.
However, the outlook for the upriver spring Chinook run appears to be improving in the last three days. On Sunday, May 6, 2012, about 6,000 upriver spring Chinook passed over Bonneville Dam. On Monday, May 7, a little over 9,000 upriver spring Chinook passed over Bonneville. On Tuesday, May 8, 12,000 upriver spring Chinook passed over Bonneville. It is expected that by May 12, TAC will release a preliminary upriver spring Chinook run-size update. What will it be? What does your crystal ball tell you? Stay tuned to find out.
Spring Fishery Update No. 1 is appended as a PDF file.
