Record-breaking El Niño could gut California’s crab and salmon fleets
As the chances of a ‘super’ El Niño continue to rise — now 81%, according to federal scientists — researchers are looking back to 2015 and 2016, when a Pacific heat wave combined with a strong El Niño threw some of the West Coast’s most important commercial fishing fleets into turmoil. … Salmon also suffered [in 2016], partly because drought had affected inland rivers, where Chinook and Coho migrate to spawn, eggs hatch, and salmon fry swim back downstream to the ocean. But warmer oceans are also often bereft of the high-energy prey these juvenile salmon need for rapid growth when they reach the saltwater. … [T]he upcoming El Niño is likely to be a mixed bag for California’s salmon. If the system brings a lot of rain, which can happen during an El Niño, that big water will benefit salmon who are in their river stages. But the warm ocean water will be a blow to juvenile salmon, and that won’t show up until two or three years later.
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