Latest News

The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper, highlights Kintama’s latest paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  Mark Hume, author of the news article, has been writing a series of articles in the Globe and Mail around salmon issues in British Columbia, why the Fraser River salmon return in 2009 was so poor, and the Cohen Commission (Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River). The Globe article can be found here, and a synopsis of the study highlighting the major findings can be found here.

A new report published in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences by Kintama’s staff (& 7 other co-authors) was released the week of May 9th, detailing the movements and survival of 4 species and 3,500 salmon smolts. A synopsis of the study highlighting the major findings can be found here.

Kintama has started the spring field season with several innovative new developments. First, outer coast arrays off the coasts of Oregon, Washington, and the West coast of Vancouver Island have been newly refurbished and are being extended off-shelf to waters up to half a kilometer deep (1650 feet). Extending these lines will test our refined deployment methods and work to establish the offshore limit of the juvenile Chinook salmon migration.

Kintama recovered 23 of POST’s permanent VR3 receivers from the Northern Strait of Georgia array. These units have been shipped to VEMCO for servicing and upgrading after nearly 5 years of continuous service in the sea. To ensure continuous coverage during the refurbishing period, Kintama deployed its custom fully recoverable acoustic VR2 receiver assemblies in the same locations, allowing the 2011 field season to operate without a reduction in efficiency.

In collaboration with Dr Scott Hinch (UBC), Kintama has rolled out a 69/180 KHz dual frequency sub-array in the Fraser River, replacing our previous monitoring 69 KHz telemetry array. The system will be used to simultaneously measure the survival of V7 (69 KHz) and V6 (180 KHz) acoustically tagged Chilko Lake sockeye smolts and allowing a comparison of survival of smolts below the previous size threshold of 130mm for V7 tags. Funding for this project is funding provided by the Pacific Salmon Foundation

New data presented by Kintama shows that acoustic tagging did not distort the survival of tagged salmon smolts. A comparison of Kintama’s tagging studies in BC (2004-2009), and the Columbia River (2006-2010), showed that there was no change in the metrics of size distribution of acoustic-tagged smolts that were released and subsequently survived to reach distant parts of the POST array. This is excellent evidence that over the size range of smolts tagged (≥13 cm FL) the tag burden does not seriously affect survival and that smolts of different sizes have similar survivals in the first 1-2 months of life after release.

Kintama Research Services is proud to introduce a redesigned floatation collar for VEMCO’s VR3 and VR4 remotely operated telemetry receivers. It provides the same protection, ruggedness and ease of use as our original collars, while maintaining optimal receiver orientation without shadowing the receiver towers or communication modem. An Incorporated cable conduit accommodates cable up to 3/8” diameter while providing protection and strain relief to the underwater connector available on VEMCO’s new VR4 dual frequency receiver.

For more information please contact Kintama

David Welch, Kintama’s President & CEO, was interviewed for a Nanaimo, BC newspaper article, voicing his concerns over Pacific salmon management and emphasizing the major difference between this year’s record-breaking sockeye run and last year’s poor returns.

Read the full article here: Nanaimo News Bulletin 3 Sept 2010

David Welch submitted a document to the Cohen Commission containing an analysis of where the 2009 Fraser River sockeye run failure likely occurred.  The submission is titled: “Location & Timing Of Poor Marine Survival Causing The 2009 Fraser Sockeye Failure: Elevated Smolt Mortality After Migration Through Discovery Passage & Queen Charlotte Strait.”  The Commission is a federally appointed inquiry into the decline of Fraser River sockeye.

The Columbia River study, continued now for four years, shows no significant difference in survival between Chinook smolts travelling through either 4 or 8 Columbia River dams.  The addition of an early release group of barged smolts in 2009 indicated no difference in survival despite the length of time between the first and last release groups (approximately 1 month), but some behavioral variations were observed.

Read the report here.