Coastal Cutthroat Trout as Sentinels of Lower Mainland Watershed ...

48at Hood Canal in Puget Sound (Big Beef Creek), averaging 100 and 400 smolts perstream, respectively. This contrasts with a marked declining trend in the LowerColumbia catch of cutthroat, as well as adults counted at a fishway at the Kalama River, atributary of the lower Columbia River (Figure 16).Figure 16. Trends in counts of adult wild sea-run cutthroat at Kalama Falls at theKalama River from 1976 to 1995, and estimated catches of sea-run cutthroat trout in thelower Columbia River from 1965 to 1995 (from Leider 1997).Alaska: In southeastern Alaska, some trend data is also available from early counts atPetersberg Creek, as well as at Lake Eva and Auke Creek. Populations appear stable toincreasing (Table 2). Catch trend data for management has been obtained from anglerssince 1990 for both southeast Alaska and Prince William Sound. An estimated 7,100coastal cutthroat were harvested in saltwater (22 %) and freshwater (78 %) in 1994 in 10fishery areas.General comments on US population trends: Overall, potential causes for the apparentdeclines to collapses in sea-run cutthroat abundances and catches in Oregon and southernWashington are uncertain, but are attributed to: (1) a decline in near-shore oceanproductivity; (2) impacts on genetics and fisheries from wide-spread use of hatchery searuncutthroat trout; and (3) a reduction of stream and estuary habitat resulting from landand water use activities (Anon 1997, Palmisano 1997). Although little can be done toalter ocean conditions, hatchery and land/water use practices are considered moremanageable. As a conservation measure, sea-run cutthroat stocking in Oregon wasphased down by 1995 and terminated by 1997. Since then restoration efforts have beenramped up by implementing the Oregon Plan for Salmonids and Streams (Satterthwaite2002).