News

Coho salmon

According to a new study published in the journal Ecological Applications, coho salmon—a species of Pacific salmon—are facing immense pressures from stormwater runoff in the Puget Sound Basin of Washington State. Stormwater runoff can contain oil from cars, pesticides, dirt and debris, and can kill the salmon in a matter of hours. Researchers at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle and collaborators at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, local tribes, and the Wild Fish Conservancy helped collect the data for the study.

The study, which surveyed coho salmon mortality rates, did so at 51 spawning sites and “positively linked salmon die-offs to increased road density and traffic intensity.” The research also found “that contaminants in stormwater runoff from the regional transportation grid likely caused these mortality events.” Furthermore, the Herald Net said, “The results show that in an estimated 40 percent of their range in the Puget Sound Basin, 10 to 40 percent of coho salmon die before they can even spawn because of pollution.”

Read more here.