SULTAN — Hundreds of dead pink salmon were rotting in rows along the shores of the Sultan River.
To some visitors at Osprey Park, the dead fish can seem a grim sight, but to officials, they are one more reminder of a banner year for the pinks.
In September, biologists with the Snohomish County PUD began counting salmon as they returned to the river to spawn and die. They now project a return of 150,000 to 200,000 salmon to the Sultan River, more than they’ve seen since at least the 1970s.
“You hear old-timers talk about being able to walk across on the backs of the fish,” said Keith Binkley, a fisheries biologist with the PUD. “It’s as close to that as I can imagine.”
About 5.2 million pink salmon are expected to return to the Puget Sound area this season, with nearly 2.3 million coming to the Snohomish River Basin, according to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. Both figures are about double the average for the past decade.
PUD officials point to the higher counts specifically in the Sultan River as a sign of success for the Henry M. Jackson Hydroelectric Project.
Before the project, sudden rushes of water from the Culmback Dam, licensed in 1961 to collect water for Everett, would wash away unhatched salmon eggs. Pink salmon counts recorded about 5,000 fish on the river, according to the PUD.
As part of the project, the flow of water was regulated. Counts of pink salmon began to climb and are on pace to break the 100,000 mark four out of five times in the past decade, according to the PUD.
While the PUD ties the climbing population to the project, a state official said he can’t corroborate that.
“They may be doing a lot of positive things to ensure they have a minimal effect, but any alteration of the habitat is going to have an effect on the salmon spawning success,” said Jeromy Jording, a state commercial fishery manager.
Jording and the PUD agree that favorable ocean conditions are one of the factors driving the population boom.
The pink salmon spend most of their lives in seawater, only living in fresh water at the beginning and end of their two-year life cycles.
A class from Monroe’s Sky Valley Education Center was learning about that very process along the Sultan River banks on Tuesday.
Some students poked at the dead salmon on shore. Others watched as the fish swam with their dorsal fins exposed.
Michael Torres Finley, 11, said he had seen hundreds of salmon. One in particular made an impression.
The fish swam to shore and its mouth opened and closed, as if it was saying its last words, the sixth-grader said.
“I don’t think I want to eat salmon anymore,” he said. “Not because I’ve seen dead fish all over the place. Just because I feel really bad for them.”
Andy Rathbun: 425-339-3455, arathbun@heraldnet.com
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