You are here: Home › News & Features › Upcoming Events
NCCOS-supported Research Provides Web Forecast of Coho and Chinook Salmon for Fishery Managers
Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC) program researchers, sponsored in part by the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), posted on the website of the Northwest Fisheries Science Center (a partner in the research) a forecast which predicts low returns of hatchery coho salmon in 2006 and spring Chinook salmon in 2007. The website provides a graphical representation of ocean conditions in a "red-yellow-green" format to indicate whether ocean conditions were favorable, neutral, or unfavorable for salmon returns. Returns in 2006 and 2007 are expected to be less than normal, based on ocean conditions during 2004 and 2005 when the juvenile fish would have been growing at sea.
Since 1997, researchers supported under the GLOBEC program have been monitoring the coastal ocean environment off Washington and Oregon and how it affects the abundance, growth, distribution and survival of juvenile salmon. Information from GLOBEC program research was used to develop ocean indices to assess conditions in the Northern California Current ecosystem, and to predict changes in adult salmon populations from the Columbia River basin and coho salmon from the Oregon coast. Click here to view the forecast. For more information, please contact Elizabeth.Turner@noaa.gov