A grizzly bear in British Columbia. Its California cousin,
Ursus horribilis californicus, is long extinct.
(Photo: Charlesjsharp)

Earlier this month, California’s beleaguered salmon fishing industry finally got a break. After the catastrophic collapse of Central Valley’s fall Chinook run in 2008-2009, hundreds of thousands of fish may be on their way back to Sacramento riverbeds.

With a forecast of 820,000 Chinook now at sea, commercial salmon boats, rendered irrelevant for two straight seasons and set loose for just eight days in 2010, can return to business as usual this summer. And though the apparent rebound is good news for salmon, the fall Chinook’s future is far from secure.

The disheartening run of 2008 followed a lean spawning year (which biologists call “escapement,” after the number of fish that elude fishermen to reproduce), with just under 88,000 survivors returning to streams or hatcheries in 2007.

California has four seasonal salmon runs, each with distinct behavioral and genetic traits. Conservation biologists like to compare genetic diversity to a diversified stock portfolio. More diversity means a better chance of weathering tough times. (See, for example, "Irish potato famine.") And while the National Marine Fisheries Service cited poor ocean conditions as the “proximate cause” for the dismal runs (because freshwater habitat, though degraded, was no worse than usual), the agency also noted several other factors, including heavy reliance on hatchery fish, which homogenized the fall Chinook’s historically diverse genetic portfolio.

Fall Chinook once thrived in every major river in the Central Valley. Biologists suspect the runs rivaled the storied San Joaquin spring runs. Documents from 1870 unearthed by historian Paul Vandor described salmon returning in “such shoals” that “restful sleep was disturbed because myriads of them can be heard nightly splashing over the sand bars in the river opposite town.”

Chinook Salmon on the Lower Stanislaus River. (Photo: USFWS)

Spring run Chinook are long gone from the San Joaquin watershed. Just 3,802 fish made the Sacramento run in 2009.

Pacific fisheries managers monitor Chinook take to allow 122,000-180,000 fish to escape capture and swim upriver. In 2008, just 66,000 fish made it back. Fewer than 40,000 returned in 2009 (close to 54,000 counting hatchery fish), the worst run on record.

(The runs in 2010 barely made it above the minimum target, with close to 40,000 returning to hatcheries and about 86,000 returning to wild streams.)

This season’s good news notwithstanding, the grim returns of the past few years didn’t affect just fishermen and salmon consumers. Biologists have long known that ecosystems suffer when managers value economics over ecosystems and allow overfishing.

But cutting back on harvests to let more salmon spawn in rivers and creeks will not only help safeguard their ecological role, argues a study published last week in PLoS Biology, but will help commercial fishers and consumers by ensuring a future for salmon.

When salmon thrive, so does everything else, says Taal Levi, a PhD candidate in environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz, who led the study. “Abundance matters in ecosystems.”

The study supports a growing literature linking abundant salmon to positive ecological effects, Levi says. “It suggests we should be letting more salmon into rivers.”

Letting more salmon return to coastal streams
to spawn will benefit bears, ecosystems,
and eventually the offshore salmon catch.
(Photo: Jennifer Allen)

Salmon are the ultimate mobile nutrient-delivery system. They spread the wealth wherever they go, from streams to sea and back again. Healthy salmon runs boost primary productivity in coastal lakes (by providing nutrients for algae), fuel vegetative growth along streams, creating better habitat for salmon hatchlings and leading to higher densities of diverse insects and songbirds. They also feed all manner of predators and scavengers, from orcas to raptors and—in the places they still exist—grizzly bears.

Hundreds of thousands of salmon once injected massive seasonal pulses of nutrients from the sea to Pacific coastal and riparian ecosystems. Commercial harvests deprive ecosystems of this historic recharge. But restricting harvests cuts into fishery profits. Levi and his colleagues developed a model to help fishery managers weigh the costs and benefits to commercial fishers and ecosystems of allowing more spawning, using grizzly bears as a proxy for salmon’s ecosystem benefits.

Studies show that spawning and dead salmon are the single most important fall resource to grizzlies preparing for hibernation and cub-rearing on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. In this study, the authors show that grizzlies are good indicators of salmon’s ecosystem services because bear densities are so closely tied to salmon abundance.

The authors used fishing records to model increased escapement across various management options for six sockeye salmon stocks in Alaska and British Columbia to determine how bear numbers and income from fishing change with the number of fish harvested. For each stock, more spawning meant more bears. And for sockeye stocks that breed in streams alongside other salmon species, both long-term fishing yields and bears benefited from higher escapement.

Conservation and economic interests conflicted only where grizzlies are threatened and eat primarily sockeye, because reducing harvests would cut into profits. But the tradeoffs would be clear, and managers could estimate the costs of protecting salmon runs and endangered bears. It’s conceivable that managers could even find ways to help fisheries recoup their losses in the name of conservation.

The fishing industry in California doesn’t dominate the state economy as it does in Alaska. But Levi argues that having more salmon in streams would also have economic benefits from better wildlife viewing opportunities.

Increased salmon abundance would surely help California’s bald eagles. “We don’t have abundant bald eagle populations anymore but we have a nesting pair at Pinto Lake in Watsonville,” Levi says. (There’s another pair in San Mateo now.) More salmon would be a boon to the state’s recovering eagle population.

More salmon would also increase black bear populations, he says, which is good for both hunters and wildlife observers.

Black bears often move in when grizzlies go extinct, serving a similar ecological role. In fact, biologists say, black bears eat more salmon than grizzlies because they’re more widely distributed.

But there’s no reason that restoring California’s salmon runs couldn’t go hand in hand with restoring the state’s grizzly population, Levi says: California and Oregon have millions of acres of contiguous protected land, more than enough to support grizzlies.

In the 1970s, grizzlies survived on only 4 million acres in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, he points out. Protected areas in six national forests from Klamath to Mendocino provide nearly 9 million acres of contiguous habitat, not counting available habitat along the coast range from Humboldt down to Point Reyes.

Grizzly bear (Photo: Eric Sambol/www.raincoast.org)

Grizzlies once inhabited nearly every part of the state. In the 1800s, there were so many in the Santa Cruz Mountains where Levi lives that a Spanish missionary said they prowled about “in herds like hogs on a farm.”

Even as late as the 1850s, grizzlies roamed San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties. By the 1870s, they were gone because, as legendary naturalist Joseph Grinnell wrote, “Great numbers of people…have been alert to seize any and every opportunity to kill bears.”

Levi admits the prospect for reintroducing grizzlies could be “politically insurmountable,” but adds wistfully, “this would be ambitious wildlife conservation.”

“It is not at all crazy to think that grizzlies could have a viable population in California," he says. "The question is just whether we want them back.”

Pepin is famous for going to work after just 9 weeks of training, finding 52 scats in a single day.

This candidate must:

• Follow orders
• Be rough, energetic and adventurous
• Travel around the world
• Find things that are nearly impossible to see
• Be willing to ride in the back of a truck and wear a collar
• Run long distances
• Be a fast learner
• Be obsessed with toys
• Be willing to sniff poop
• Get compensated in rope-tugging with benefits such as scratches and belly rubs
• Come from a background of animal shelter living

Yes, the only qualified species is: Dog.

The Job: Working Dog for Conservation.

I saw these dogs in action at the Wildlife Conservation Network (WCN) Expo in San Francisco in October. The organization, Working Dogs for Conservation and their dog demo with Pepin took center stage during lunch. While Pepin was inside the building schmoozing with the likes of Dr. Jane Goodall, her trainers hid scat in a giant, wide open field area. Once the crowd gathered, Pepin was taken outside, given directions and once released, blasted with determination and blatant glee out into the field. Within 3 minutes she had located the scat and sat proudly next to it, indicating to her trainer that she had done her job; a job that would have taken a human hours.

Being able to find scat helps humans track down various species in the wild and provides needed species conservation information. Deployed conservation dogs have increased scat sample collection rates and have discovered samples that are smaller and more cryptic than people alone are capable of detecting. The working dogs for conservation have found scat of moose, snow leopard, grizzly bear, wolf and cougar, to name a few. The dogs have also been trained to find plants and lost pets and people.

Partnering with dogs is nothing new. Humans have been using the 220 million scent-sensitive cells available for canine olfaction for centuries. These animals are truly man's best friend, but perhaps they are becoming nature's best friend, as well. They certainly deserve to hold this most unusual job.

37.762611 -122.409719

Once upon a time in the far away land of Hong Kong, a woman named Jill Robinson discovered that beautiful moon bears where being held captive in tiny cages in China and farmed (through their bellies) as a living source for bear bile, which is used in traditional medicines. She decided to do something heroic about the issue and founded the Animals Asia Foundation. Animals Asia became a thriving organization, dedicated to ending cruelty and restoring respect for all animals in Asia.

For many moon bears, their stories have a happy ending. Jill and the AAF crew have rescued 500 bears, releasing them into their idyllic sanctuary in Chengdu China. Newly rescued moon bears tentatively step on fresh grass, slowly learn to climb, socialize, scamper through bamboo, wrestle and eat honey, finally becoming a real bear.

Of course, the bears can't go from cages to sanctuary directly; they must endure urgent veterinary care and often surgery to remove the bile equipment from their bodies. Bears must be anaesthetized to receive this care and it is important that they stay warm and comfortable during the process. Just as with humans, the bears' extremities are the first things to get cold and that is where knitters on the West Coast of the United States, worlds away, come in. They must knit giant bear mittens!

The Oakland Zoo is hoping to have some mittens knitted in order to hand them directly to Jill Robinson on May 21, when she speaks at the Oakland Zoo. We will have a knitting party at the zoo on Friday, May 9, from 1pm-3pm. However, mittens can be turned in to the Oakland Zoo at anytime and mailed to China in the hopes that the thousands of moon bears still in captivity will need them soon.

The mitten pattern allows for several weights of yarn and includes instructions for knitting in the round with one circular, two circulars, double-pointed needles, or knitting flat. Finished mittens are about 7" wide (14" circumference) with a 12" foot and 6" cuff. The pattern is intended to be beginner level, but if you have any questions about the techniques mentioned, you might find the website knittinghelp.com helpful.

Click here for the pattern and try it yourself:

bearbooties.pdf

The Oakland Zoo will be working with Article Pract in Oakland on more mittens for bears.

Find out more about Moon Bears and their plight, and meet Jill Robinson on Wednesday, May 21 at 6:30 for the lecture entitle, "From Prison to Paradise: Rescuing the Endangered Asian Moon Bear. Bring the family to Bear Day at the Oakland Zoo on Saturday, May 17.

Some of this information is thanks to Twisted, the Knit Shop in Oregon who is helping the Oregon zoo knit mittens.


Amy Gotliffe is Conservation Manager at The Oakland Zoo.

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Ting explores Halloween enrichment. No, that is
not a real giant candy corn.

If I were to take you on a tour of our animals with a focus on where they came from, you would be amazed. Our tigers came from a circus, our juvenile lions from an illegal situation in Texas, our rabbits from a humane society, our pot bellied pigs from a family discarding a pet. Each tells a story of animal welfare or conservation – and it is this aspect of the Oakland Zoo that I am most proud of. In many ways, we are a sanctuary.

Ting naps in straw atop her tree house,
her huge, green and peaceful enclosure
in background. One of the most telling stories is that of Ting Ting, our Sun Bear from Borneo. Ting had not had an easy life. She was captured by poachers as a cub in her native country of Malaysia on the island of Borneo. They likely killed her mother to sell parts of her body on the black market and captured the young cub to sell as a pet. If so, she likely spent the first few years of her life in various homes, alone, in small enclosures and without appropriate food and care. Eventually Ting was confiscated by government officials when she was approximately three years old. She was put into an over crowded rescue facility where she spent the next six years. Like many wild animals, once in captivity, Ting had lost her natural fear of people and had not developed the necessary skills a bear needs to survive. Ting was too dangerous and ill-prepared to return to the wild. Due to the stress of these poor captive environments Ting developed stereotypic (abnormal repetitive behavior) pacing. This behavior develops to alleviate stress but typically continues as a habit even when the stress is gone.

In 1996 and again in 2000, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums coordinated two importations for a total of 20 Malaysian Sun Bears of the Bornean subspecies to help relieve the over crowded conditions of the rescue facility and to maintain our captive population. Ting Ting was sent to the San Diego Zoo in 2000 where she lived for six years, before she came to her home with us at the Oakland Zoo at the end of 2006. We plan on seeing her through to the end of her life, giving her tree houses to nap in, enrichment to play with, honey to eat, a pool to catch fish in, room to roam in her giant enclosure and eventually, a friend. It has been a long journey for Ting and we are glad she is home for good. We hope her story inspires guests to find out more about Sunbears and explore other conservation issues, as well as look at the role of zoos with fresh eyes.

To hear more about the plight of Sunbears and biodiversity in all of Borneo, please join us for a lecture on December 12th with Cynthia Ong and Heather Pierson of LEAP (www.leapspiral.org). Check www.oaklandzoo.org for details.

Amy Gotliffe is Conservation Manager at The Oakland Zoo. Cathy Keyes, Sunbear Keeper also contributed to this post.

latitude: 37.7502, longitude: -122.148