Fish Need Good Habitat

“Each fish occupies its preferred niche in the ecosystem. The environmental conditions of that space define the fish’s preference at each life stage….water temperature, depth, salinity, flow, bottom type, prey availability, annual cycles and much more.” To understand, protect and restore habitat can be a very complicated task. Basically, salmon and trout need cool, clean water, access to habitat, areas to spawn and holding and rearing habitat with good cover and a mix of water depths and velocities to meet the needs of each species and life stage.Over the last 150 years there has been a steady decline in river habitat. According to a report by the Heinz Center (2012), “In comparison to other sensitive ecosystems, including deserts, coastal marine environments and forests, freshwater environments are the most t in North America.” Much of this is from a range of development activities like road building, city building, logging, grazing, dam building, agriculture development including irrigation withdrawals and a host of other things. In the Columbia River basin alone, nearly half of the historic habitat, accessible to salmon and steelhead, has been blocked by dam building of all sorts. Of the remaining accessible habitat, much has been degraded and simplified and has a reduced ability to support healthy fish populations. Of course, other factors like harvest, also have had a role in affecting fish numbers as well. When you think about it, we are damn lucky that salmon, steelhead and resident trout are pretty tough characters and have been able to hang on despite the many abuses. READ ON….