Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project
It's been in the news a lot lately so this timely presention was all the more meaningful. Joe Williams introduced our speaker Mary Hermansky of the Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project (MBS&TP). Joined by Mary was Al Smith, Chariman, and Erik Sturm of the National Marine Fisheries Services. "Founded in 1976, the MBS&TP is a non-profit organization dedicated to the restoration and enhancement of the native salmon and steelhead populations of the greater Monterey Bay area."
The MBS&TP has established 3 major programs to accomplish it's mission. The programs focus on Coho Salmon and Steelhead, Chinook Salmon Enhancement and Salmon and Trout Education (STEP).
Ms. Hermansky discussed the evolution of MBS&TP from it's inception in 1979 by Dr. Tom Thompson with a public grant from the UC Sea Grants Program. They've grown from rearing 1400 fish with a few volunteers in that first year, to today's capacity of 200,000 per year with over 1.9 million silver salmon and steelhead released to date and over 620,000 Chinook (King) salmon reared and released.
Many questions were posed on the current "collapse" of the Salmon population. It's too early to know if this is just a recurrent phase in a natural cycle or something new related to climate change. Only time will tell. But, we're very lucky to have the MBS&TP actively monitoring and reacting to salmon population changes to keep us all accurately informed and to do whatever can be done to mitigate the problem.
Visit the MBS&TP's website at http://mbstp.org for more information on the organization and how you can get involved.