King County (WA) Freshwater Salmon Run Now Extinct

Sims says kokanee run extinct; Lake Sammamish fish never protected

A once-abundant run of freshwater salmon has apparently gone extinct in Lake Sammamish, King County Executive Ron Sims announced yesterday.

For three straight years, biologists studying kokanee salmon in the Eastside lake could not find a single fish going upstream to spawn in Issaquah Creek, the run's only spawning ground. The last sighting of an early-run kokanee was in 2000, when only two were seen. The slide into oblivion has been precipitous since 1975, when an estimated 15,000 kokanee went upstream.

Kokanee are in the same species as ocean-going sockeye salmon but live entirely in freshwater, hatching in the gravel beds of a creek, migrating to a lake and then returning to the creek to spawn. Late-running kokanee remain in Lake Sammamish, but their numbers are also declining, and Sims warned that a variety of agencies must act fast or the late run "will suffer the same fate as the early run."

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Reasons for the kokanee's demise, scientists said, may include higher water temperatures due to global warming; siltation, low water levels and excessive runoff due to suburban development and road building; past pollution from the county's Cedar Hills Landfill; and past practices at the Issaquah Fish Hatchery."

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