Salmon and Rain

Aug 10, 2012

Frank_Maunderer

There's a huge positive correlation between precipitation in year n and salmon returns in year n+1. It seems odd; the correlation should be from year n and the return of year n fish, but that doesn't hold as well as the above.
It probably makes no difference though. Today's fish are all hothouse raised, and the river that fish successfully populated for millions of years is now too dangerous for fish to swim in! They have to be barged or trucked.
Sad fact is, there's a major industry whose health depends on keeping an endangered species (i.e. WILD salmon) endangered. One way to assure that happens is to overwhelm the wild population with gigantic releases of hatchery fish.
Stocking millions of predatory invasive bass in the delta helps to cull the few remaining salmon as well.