ROUNSEFELL: COMMENTS ON DECLINE OF KARLUK SALMON RUNS 



years of the fishery there were no early or late 

 runs, Van Cleve and Bevan also state, 



.... even though Thompson's analysis of the catch 

 in his 1950 paper was based upon that of a single can- 

 nery [the actual cannery was not named although the 

 Alaska Packers Association operated three canneries 

 at Karluk and usually did not operate them all for the 

 entire season] . it agreed with this earlier observation 

 [referring to Rutter's statement concerning lack of a 

 large early run in 1903, even though Rutter also said 

 that the Karluk is said to have two runs] and proved 

 that the spring and fall peaks evident in 1921 were 

 artifaets. [Italics mine.] 



My Figure 2 clearly shows that over a 30-yr 

 period the existence of spring, summer, and fall 

 runs was not an artifact, even though the catch 

 was taken from almost exactly the same portion 

 of the seasonal runs as in the earlier years. Why 

 then do they assume that the seasonal runs 

 differed between the two periods? And if, as 

 they state, the midseason fish were so badly de- 

 pleted by fishing in the earlier years, how was 

 this midseason run, which by their reasoning 

 should have been wiped out, still furnishing 

 the largest share of the catch? It would appear 

 from the actual data on hand that the only 

 "artifact" is their hypothetical large midseason 

 loin. 



On the point of the weir at the foot of Karluk 

 Lake obstructing the downstream migration 

 onto river spawning areas of some adults in 

 occasional years, I agree with Van Cleve and 

 Bevan that this is undesirable. I went through 

 the same problem in Maine where the hatchery 

 ))ersonnel insisted on fish tight weirs below 

 every lake before planting landlocked salmon. 

 They mistakenly thought that the salmon were 

 escaping when they dropped downstream to 

 spawn, often in the only spawning area avail- 

 able. I do not agree that the weir has been any 

 serious obstacle to upstream migrating salmon, 

 but in Karluk with the often enormous pink 

 salmon runs it is difficult to maintain a weir 

 downstream because of the dead carcasses of 

 spawned-out salmon. 



This habit of late-running sockeye salmon 

 spawning in an outlet river is well known. The 

 very late salmon may seldom reach the lake. 

 In some rivers the earlier portion of the late 

 spawners may enter the lake until their gonads 



are ready for spawning and then drop down- 

 stream, but I note that even Van Cleve and 

 Bevan do not claim that this is an annual oc- 

 currence at Karluk, being able to cite but one 

 instance. There is no good reason, however, 

 why the Karluk weir cannot be easily converted 

 into an upstream and downstream weir. 



I do not agree that obtaining most of the es- 

 capement in midseason is the panacea. To begin 

 with it appears that the main river spawners 

 (contrary to Van Cleve and Bevan) are recruited 

 chiefly from rather late-running fish. Secondly, 

 the large pink salmon runs in the even years 

 will continue to handicap the even-year river 

 spawners more than those in Karluk Lake trib- 

 utaries. In their Table 3 Van Cleve and Bevan 

 show a table from Burgner et al. (1969) that 

 shows only 126,000 redd sites in the main 

 river. When such a spawning area is also used 

 by thousands of pink salmon on the even years 

 (Bevan in his 1956 survey shows 700,000 

 spawning pink salmon actually observed) the 

 competition between pink salmon and late- 

 running sockeye salmon in the main river is 

 obvious. In earlier years the pink salmon runs 

 varied greatly in numbers since insufficient 

 harvesting when the runs were large caused cata- 

 clysmic declines in following cycles. Under 

 present conditions of better harvesting of pink 

 salmon runs it would appear unwise to count 

 on good sockeye production from the main 

 river in most even years. 



I did point out (Rounsefell, 1958) that after 

 the weir was moved to the lake outlet in 1945 

 it was discovered that some pink salmon passed 

 into the lake every year, varying from less than 

 a hundred to 16,000 in odd years, and from 

 37,000 to 87,000 in even years. 



Van Cleve and Bevan minimized the spawn- 

 ing areas in Karluk Lake and its tributaries 

 while maximizing the spawning areas below the 

 lake. Thus the table of Burgner et al. (1969) 

 is presented without adequate explanation. 

 Burgner et al. show: 



Total 



34.91 



174,000 



657 



