Coho Salmon
Oncorhynchus kisutch

The Coho was listed threatened on October 31,1996. The current estimated population is less than 6,000. The species trend is unknown. In the 1940s, estimated abundance of naturally spawning adult Coho Salmons in the central California coast ranged from 50,000 to 125,000. Today, the estimation of naturally reproducing Coho Salmon is less than 6,000 and most of them are of non-native origin (from hatcheries).

But going further back, what were Coho salmon populations in Santa Cruz County like in, say, 1912?

0.

That is because the Coho Salmon is non-native to Santa Cruz County, was not present anywhere south of San Francisco, and thrives only up north towards Washington and British Columbia.

Early scientific fish surveys in the Central Coast prior to heavy hatchery stocking beginning a century ago report no coho salmon south of San Francisco. Stanford Scientist, David Starr Jordan, in 1898, states that coho are found from San Francisco north. A second scientific study in 1912 confirms the absence of coho from Santa Cruz Mountains streams at that time. No credible scientific or historic evidence other than occasional, isolated anecdotal stories refutes this record.

Massive numbers of hatchery coho have been continuously planted in Santa Cruz Mountains streams since the early 1900s making subsequent population reports meaningless and contributing to the myth of large, native populations. The laymen's difficulty in distinguishing between steelhead and coho also probably contributed to misinformation.

Geomorphologists, climatologists, and hydrologists believe that Santa Cruz Mountains streams are very hostile to permanent colonies of coho salmon. Due to their rigid life cycle (unlike steelhead and other salmonids), coho cannot interbreed between generations. This, and the lack of other adaptive options make the survival of each generation an important element for permanent populations. Droughts, floods, sand bar opening failure and other natural events will frequently extirpate a generation and makes permanent colonies of coho, with their very limited survival options, improbable.

The plight of coho salmon in Santa Cruz County is a manufactured plight. They were brought here by a government program from Washington state, hatched and released into the wild, and have been competing with the native steelhead salmon for food and spawning grounds ever since, kept barely alive as a species here only thanks to human-operated fish hatcheries for 100 years.

Didn't know that, did you.

Read the complete scientific study yourself:

www.ccfassociation.org/cohohistoryintroduction.htm

Jen