Climate Change Driven Drought Impacts on Chinook Salmon Spawning and Spawning Habitats In recent years, we have come together as a society to face the difficult fact that our earth’s climate is changing, and not for the better. Now more than ever, we have seen increases and spikes in wildfires, drought, changes in species distribution, pollution, critical endangerment for species, and even extinction across the globe. As of today, we are seeing a disappearance of roughly 40% of salmon from their original spawning habitats spanning the Pacific Northwest (Tonina et al., 2022). The Chinook Salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, is an anadromous keystone species that is native to the Pacific Northwest, where climate change driven drought has particularly
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A main portion of the current research available on this topic pertains to increased water temperatures due to increased atmospheric temperatures and the effect this has on the water that the Chinook use to travel to their spawning habitats (Tonina et al., 2022). Since Chinook’s are cold-water fish, water temperatures above 73 degrees to 77 degrees F (23-25 C) can be fatal because cold water holds more oxygen and eggs will emerge at certain temperatures. Higher temperatures can cause Chinook salmon fry to emerge earlier when there is not enough food supply, and anything above 52 degrees F can and will cause genetic abnormalities and death (Water Quality Program, CRO 2000). We know that the rate at which a salmon embryo develops is closely linked to the water temperature, and that even minute changes in water temperature can have an effect on when those salmon (the fry) will spawn down the road in their lives (Crozier et al.,
A main portion of the current research available on this topic pertains to increased water temperatures due to increased atmospheric temperatures and the effect this has on the water that the Chinook use to travel to their spawning habitats (Tonina et al., 2022). Since Chinook’s are cold-water fish, water temperatures above 73 degrees to 77 degrees F (23-25 C) can be fatal because cold water holds more oxygen and eggs will emerge at certain temperatures. Higher temperatures can cause Chinook salmon fry to emerge earlier when there is not enough food supply, and anything above 52 degrees F can and will cause genetic abnormalities and death (Water Quality Program, CRO 2000). We know that the rate at which a salmon embryo develops is closely linked to the water temperature, and that even minute changes in water temperature can have an effect on when those salmon (the fry) will spawn down the road in their lives (Crozier et al.,