Salmon-counting technicians predict grizzly bears

In the middle of the fast-flowing Chilkoot River, an Alaska state employee sits in a small spot on top of a narrow fence-like structure, peering at the rushing water.

Eagles watch from the trees above as the river roars around nearby boulders, and the worker has his back turned to a female grizzly bear stalking him a few dozen feet away.

The bear cautiously walked upstream toward the man, approaching a low metal fence across the river; only this fence separated the bear from the man. Suddenly, the worker jumped up, turned and strode toward the bear, yelling and stomping on the metal platform. The bear stopped and stared. After some more yelling, the worker blew an air horn, hitting the bear with a loud bang. The bear turned and let itself go with the current, drifting downstream.

Employees will return to work.

This is a typical day at a salmon weir in southeast Alaska. Common in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, weirs are man-made barriers that allow migrating salmon to pass through a single opening while technicians stand there for weeks or months, counting the returning fish. Weirs are essential tools for accurately counting Alaska’s important salmon runs.

It also creates ideal fishing grounds for bears.

The technicians who operate them count thousands of fish a day, while also fending off grizzly and black bears that get too close.

“It takes a special kind of person,” said Shelby Fleming, a salmon research biologist in Haines for the Alaska Department of Fish and Wildlife, “to have that calm, contemplative side, and also to know bear behavior and bear threatening behavior.”

The salmon run, the annual fish migration from the ocean back to freshwater spawning grounds, supports Alaska’s multi-billion dollar commercial fishing industry, employing thousands of workers on boats and in processing centers, and is essential to many residents whose livelihoods depend on wild foods and to Alaska Native people who maintain cultural and spiritual ties to the salmon.

“We all depend on salmon,” said Justin Priest, the wildlife service’s southeast Alaska salmon research leader. “Economically, subsistence, culturally, we are salmon people.”

But salmon runs are unpredictable and threatened by climate change, ocean conditions, and overfishing. Sustainable fisheries management depends on accurate, real-time data. When salmon numbers are low, states can close or limit fishing to ensure enough salmon reach spawning grounds and reproduce. When harvests are plentiful, larger catches can be made.

In many watersheds, these decisions rest with seasonal weir engineers who spend long days in the middle of rivers and streams. Wildlife officials sometimes use aerial surveys and sonar scans to track salmon returns, but nothing compares to the precision of human eyes watching from a weir.

Technicians count each fish that passes by and classify them by species, and periodically scoop up individual salmon with nets to record their weight, length and sex, and take samples of their scales to determine their age.

“There are so many (barrier) crews across the state between April and July that it’s like an army,” Priest said. “We rely on our technicians, and they’re great people, from 18-year-olds who are new to the job, to technicians who’ve been doing seasonal work their whole lives.”

Weirs have been around for thousands of years, with many indigenous peoples using stakes or poles to guide fish into traps where they were caught.

“The barrage was a governance tool, an assertion that the village had control over the river,” said Will Atlas, senior salmon basin scientist at the Wild Salmon Center, a North Pacific river conservation group. “The barrage has a profound effect on fishery management decisions.”

Today, barrages are used for research, to collect fish for aquaculture operations, and for traditional fishing. Barrages have been installed by federal agencies, Native American tribes, and state wildlife managers from California to Idaho to Michigan. Alaska operates the largest barrage program, according to Atlas.

Alaska also uses counting towers, which are platforms placed over clear, shallow streams where technicians can conduct regular counts to estimate salmon totals. The state operates 43 barrages and towers, most of which are staffed by two to four technicians during the season.

Salmon runs vary widely from year to year, and wildlife officials may need to rely more heavily on weirs to make decisions, especially as ocean conditions change with climate change.

“Salmon returns are becoming harder to predict as the ocean and climate become more unpredictable,” Atlas says. “In-season management is truly the paradigm of the future in decision-making. To regenerate returns, we need to ensure that enough fish reach the spawning grounds each generation.”

Alaska wildlife officials closed the Chilkoot River to sockeye salmon fishing in July after worryingly low numbers of returning fish, but a late return of sockeye salmon in late summer meant the river was reopened for fishing again.

“We all have a deep interest in ensuring sustainable salmon populations into the future,” said Priest, the state researcher, “and that starts with the work of our barrage engineers.”

Priest said the weir engineer job has long been a coveted one and “the most fun job you can get paid to do.” Many of the state’s wildlife conservation officials started their careers working on the weirs. But rising housing and food prices in many rural communities have made it harder to recruit. At the same time, fewer applicants seem willing to leave their modern comforts for work in remote areas.

But those who worked on the weir say it was a special job.

“You can watch the first fish go through the barrier and the last fish go through,” Atlas said by phone from a damming site on the Coie River in British Columbia, Canada. “Our lives so rarely revolve around natural cycles and patterns anymore, so that human insight remains incredibly valuable.”

Atlas is working with the Heiltsuk people, the indigenous people of the region, on a project to revive traditional weir construction methods while incorporating modern technology. Foreseeing the growing need for weirs and the challenges faced by weir workers, the Atlas group developed a new approach.

Instead of technicians, the Wild Salmon Centre is installing underwater cameras linked to an artificial intelligence program at the weirs. The “Salmon Vision” technology counts the fish and identifies their species and sex. The centre hopes the technology will supplement existing salmon research, especially as more First Nations try to set up weirs and reassert sovereignty over fisheries management. The program primarily partners with First Nations in Canada.

And yet much of the key data that informs salmon management comes from seasonal workers sitting in the middle of the river clicking away at hand-held counters.

And watch out for grizzly bears.

2024 State Newsroom. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.