Where did all the salmon go?

They expected 8.7 million sockeye salmon to return to the Fraser River this summer. Only 600,000 turned up. Only 7% of what was expected. It's the third year of low returns.

What's happened to all the salmon?

There seems to be a confluence of factors: sea lice from fish farmed salmon, warming oceans, pollution, lack of food.

A federal government study has been announced, but it'll be a long time before we know if they can turn up anything new.

The news of the BC salmon's demise reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend who works at a fish farm on Vancouver Island. He was telling me that every now and then they get these pockets of "dead ocean", water that has no oxygen in it, that comes in and wipes out all the salmon. Tons and tons of fish all dead in one go.

Apparently these events are occurring more often and there's nothing they can do about preventing them. Whether dead ocean is related to the falling numbers in the Fraser River sockeye salmon runs is another question - it's probably a contributory factor. But it makes you realise how quickly tens of thousands of fish can die.