This is episode 194, and you're listening to the Conservation and Science podcast,

where we take a deep dive into topics like ecology, conservation, and human wildlife interactions.

And I'm Tommy Serafinski, and I always strive to bring you diverse perspectives on every environmental story that I cover.

And you know what?

This episode is pretty special to me because our guest today is somewhat of a personal hero of mine.

Our guest is Jude Isabella, who is an author, a

leading Canadian nature journalist, and founder and editor in chief of Hawkeye magazine.

Of course, you might know that last year we were hit by the very sad news that Hawkeye Magazine is closing and everybody cried.

And it was very sad moment.

But there were a good news.

We were recording that episode late last year and we were just not in a position no.

More specifically, Jud was not in the position to share the good news.

But since we publishing this episode in January, the good news are already out.

Hawkeye magazine will continue.

Their team is joining with biographic.

And biographic is another, free, independent nature magazine.

So they will continue their work together. They joined forces, basically.

So I really look forward, for more articles and more excellent

nature journalism that is coming now under the banner of biographic.

This episode was inspired by the article that appeared in Hawkeye magazine titled Where the Rivers Around Pink.

And the article is about invasive pink salmon is a Pacific species of salmon

that is showing up in the quite big numbers right now in Norwegian rivers.

Subject is somewhat relevant because, pink salmon is also showing up in the Scottish river.

It is also showing up in Irish rivers.

So it is interesting to hear how Norwegians who, got there much earlier, than we are here, how they are dealing with this problem.

And maybe we need to ask ourselves the question whether this is a problem at all.

And obviously you should read the article. The link is in the description of the show, as always.

But in this episode, we not simply just reiterating what was already reading the article.

We diving deeper into certain aspects and certain issues described in the article.

And as always, in those cases, we getting into some stories that didn't quite make it into the article.

As you know, even if you have editorial freedom,

some stuff just not is not making into the pieces that you're writing because you try to make that piece focused and consistent.

So some stuff is not making into the article.

So in this episode, you will have an opportunity to hear about all the stories that, you cannot read in the article.

So I think this is enough of this introduction.

You have a pretty good idea of what we are going to talk about.

And, just a reminder, as always, look in the description of this show.

You have links there to my newsletter, and you have a link to the article that we are talking about where the rivers, rivers run pink.

And obviously you also have a links to my social media, although I'm using them

less not them, not the links, the social media I'm using less.

So anyway, folks, enjoy this episode. dude, welcome to the show.

It is absolute honor to have you here. Thank you for inviting me. It's an honor to be here.

Listen, before we before we jump into this subject of pink salmon,

you are the founder and editor in chief of Hawkeye magazine.

Can you.

I don't know whether, there are any listeners to this podcast. I don't know, Hawkeye magazine. Perhaps they are.

Can you tell us what inspired you to create Hawkeye Magazine

and more importantly, the current status where we are with Hawkeye Magazine?

Yes. And interestingly, what inspired Hawkeye magazine was a book I was writing about salmon,

Pacific salmon, on the coast of Canada.

I started that book maybe 2010, 2011.

I did a lot of, field trips with scientists from various universities on the coast of British Columbia.

And so I'd be out hiking along salmon streams and I'd be out with archeologists, sifting through fish bones.

I was everywhere on the coast.

And while I was while I was working on that book, I met the founders of the Tula Foundation, Eric Peterson

and Christina monk, and they were very interested in supporting journalism in general.

Eric, especially both of them, actually science journalism,

science, journalism and journalism in general is taking a real hit in Canada over the last couple decades with the internet.

And they were interested in starting something, that was focused on science, the environment, that kind of thing.

And they had just started the hack AI Institute as well,

and the Institute was busy starting to work with a lot of the scientists I was actually interviewing.

So that so it just kind of became this, synergistic kind of thing.

And Eric, one day we're chatting about,

journalism

in Canada and the closing of certain magazines and stuff, and he said, well, let's start our own rag.

I said, okay, you're serious.

And it just seemed like a good fit to

create a magazine that was focused on coasts and oceans, because that's what Hawkeye Institute did.

That was clearly a focus of, the Tula Foundation and nobody actually is on that beat or was on that beat.

And we are still the only ones, as far as I know, in journalism, independent journalism on that beat.

So Eric and Christina, when I put together a proposal with a friend of mine, Dave Garrison, who I had worked,

I've worked with now for over 20 years, we were I worked for him at another magazine years ago, starting like over 20 years ago.

And, we're we make a good team. We have a different skill set that works together very well.

And we put together this proposal, and they said, like, within hours, I said, yes, let's do it.

And they have been extremely supportive for ten years.

But the Tula Foundation needs to move forward. They need to be sustainable.

They have some other programs

that are super important, like one nobody knows about called Tula Salud, which is focused on mothers and babies in Guatemala.

It's been an incredible initiative since I think 2001 or so.

Their first one, they've made a huge impact on the health of that population in Guatemala, right?

I mean, it's pretty astonishing.

So they have things like that that need to keep moving forward and and be sustainable.

So that's why at the end of this year, they told us in June, we just can't keep going with this.

They they've been our sole funder again, incredibly generous.

Our independence.

They've been incredibly generous with independence, never interfered with anything we've done.

Just have been excited from the start about how we've built this publication into what it's become.

And we've had so much

success in terms of syndicating to some of those big legacy publications,

in terms of gathering readers in an audience, in terms of the stories we've done

and the scientists who want to be in our pages, who contact us and go, I'm trying so hard to get my research done.

So maybe it piqued your interest, that kind of thing.

So building on that momentum, we do have a plan for 2025 that I can't reveal yet, and I really wish I could.

Maybe later I can contact you and tell you what it is, but we're off to yeah, we're in talks

and it looks like we have we had a plan A, B and C, and it looks like plan A is going to go ahead for January.

So you know fingers I'll fingers all toes are crossed.

And we hope fingers crossed because you know both I and some people I follow on on Twitter was like,

oh my God, no, no, it is closing because we saw like a tweet from Hawkeye magazine that we no longer keep going.

Oh, no. It was like a very sad moment.

But I'm glad that it seems like some good news are coming.

And maybe by the time this this episode is out, those news will be out as well.

In which case I will probably, add some extra information to the to the episode.

Excellent. Fantastic. Okay, good.

Thank you for that introduction.

Now, I think that all people know, and I also noticed that the website hacker magazine will be still maintained.

So definitely whoever listening to that, and if you're not familiar with Hawkeye Magazine, go in there.

And there was like a tons and tons and tons of interesting articles,

with, with videos embedded and stuff like that.

And today we are here to specifically talk about the issue that was described

in detail in one of the articles and how they magazine, and that is the pink salmon in Norwegian Rivers.

Tell me, like what?

What, drew your interest to this particular topic?

Well, as you know, I wrote a book about salmon called Salmon The Scientific Memoir, which is about Pacific salmon,

off the coast of North America. You know, Russia, Japan.

And I been so, you know, I, I'm interested in salmon.

And I happened to see,

scientific publication, sign and scientific paper

about foxes eating salmon, pink salmon carcasses in Norway's eastern province, Finnmark.

And I thought, well, that's interesting because I've written about wolves on the coast here eating salmon.

I think the first time I wrote about it was over 20 years ago for a kids magazine, I, I, I edited.

So I was like, okay, this is interesting.

This is potentially ecologically huge, right?

So I knew it would be a good news story.

So I contacted the scientist Kathy Dunlop in Norway at the, at the Marine Brain Institute there.

And I had a great conversation with her and I thought and she told me a lot of the background.

And so her paper was about, I think it was a 2021 paper.

And Norway had experienced this influx of pink salmon 2017.

So I got this background from her and I thought, okay, this is more than a news piece. This is a feature.

And I put together,

a proposal

to my editorial team and with a photographer videographer, Kat Pine,

who's on our staff and to propose to go to Finnmark and check out what was happening there.

How long you guys been there? We were there for three weeks. Okay.

A good chunk of time to see what was going on.

And talked to a lot of people so much did not get in that article.

I can, I can imagine, but when I was reading that article, it was like, wow, it felt like you were there at least six months.

Thank you, thank you.

It was it was so, so much to tell us.

I just I just want to like, how how did it feel, how you, like, painted the picture, you know, like

when you were standing there on the on the on the, at the Grand, say, Jacobson River.

I hope I pronounce that correctly. Yeah. Right.

So it's a border between Norway in Russia who, like, was a dodgy, like, was it beautiful?

Like, how did that how what did you feel there?

It was beautiful.

It was. It's interesting because you go up this dirt road and on the.

And on one side. So the river is on the, on the left side.

If you're going up the dirt road, towards some of the sites, the, the sites where they snorkel and where they do the first kind of,

sampling and then they work their way down the river toward the estuary and on the right side is a fence.

It's all fence there.

And I thought, well, that's really interesting.

That's fence there and it's fence there.

So that the reindeer, because the reindeer are domesticated, the Sami and the Sami heard them.

So the reindeer don't go into Russia because that's not allowed. Right.

But is it, is it the reindeer not allowed?

Or that the people then going to pick their reindeer or not allowed?

Both. I both know, but he's allowed. But they don't even want domesticated animals.

Fair enough. You know, wandering over.

So I thought, well, that's really interesting.

And then you have this whole other area, it's not really huge, huge strip of land.

But it's, it's, it's, you know, there's birch trees, there's ferns, there's heathers.

It's very green.

I mean, I was there in July, the the river was a little bit low then, but but still it, it as I said in the article, it just uses life.

It pulses life because there's just not a lot of people there.

A lot of people fish the grunter.

Jack himself and I ran into fishers coming to do that, to fly fish.

But there's nobody on the other side there.

There's Russian soldier border guards there, and occasionally we saw a few on quads and,

and, presumably peering at us.

But it was I don't want to say it was surreal because it's just a beautiful part of it's a beautiful ecosystem.

And when you're there with the fish, there were so many fish when we first got there, but a lot more when I was there.

Three weeks later, the fish, you know, the moose, the birds.

It was, you know, the burbling of the water, the the smell of the air, you know, with the birch sap dripping, that sweet, sweet smell.

It's like you're just ensconced in, Mother nature's arms.

In a way, it's really quite beautiful.

I didn't feel that it. Oh, my God, the Russians are over there. I didn't feel that way, actually, at all.

But it is interesting because there's that juxtaposition fence.

Norwegian showed soldiers a Norwegian police escort who's actually just an intern.

She was a sweet young woman. So it's kind of like.

And I swear, all the Norwegian soldiers must get some kind of training about dealing with tourists or civilians or whatever.

So they're, you know, they're very lovely and sweet and chatty and happy to have their pictures taken.

So but at the same time,

you know, they're at this border, which probably has a lot of tension that I didn't feel because I was writing about fish.

Unlike Ben Taub.

I don't know if you saw that article in The New Yorker was writing about Russian espionage in Finnmark. Exactly where I was.

Yeah. Well, that's that's no doubt.

There's that many layers of things that are going on that that sort of outsiders are not aware or at least not immediately aware

that there was a one thing I just when you, when you, said about the anglers who go fishing there

and my immediate thought was and I think it was a piece in the, in the article was a part of it.

Like if you if your hook or your lure get entangled in on the Russians, that's does go.

Oh my god, my expensive lure.

Yeah.

And it's interesting I knew that because one of the scientists I was in the field with,

he had been there fishing with his son a number of years ago, and that happened to his son, you know, he was fly fishing.

His lure went flying, and then they're just horrified because here's this fishing line in the heather on the other side of the border.

And it's like, I think they eventually got it out.

But he was interesting because he said, I didn't know what to do. You can't go and get it. You can't.

You can't go past that border.

And the thing is that border changes because the border is where the river is the deepest.

And every five years I think they kind of re survey it.

And then the GPS points change.

Oh okay. That's a that's interesting. Yeah. Okay.

Let's get into the thick of it.

So the whole story begins with Soviet Union I think in 1956 they brought the, pink salmon.

Not many good things came out of Soviet Union. That's one of them. It's not a political podcast, but.

So. So,

could you tell us, like, what was the motivation, like, why why they brought a Pacific species into into the White Sea?

Well, you know, you you can't really blame the Soviets because Canada was doing it and the U.S.

was doing it as well. And, you know, Japan was heavy into hatcheries and stuff like that.

I mean, Canada in the U.S.

worked really hard to send Pacific salmon into other ecosystems.

I think there's actually a viable Chinook run in New Zealand.

There's some viable runs in Chile.

So it's been it was something people were scientists all over were moving fish around, especially salmon, because they were so prolific.

Right. They were a great resource at that time.

We didn't have a lot of those catastrophic failures of salmon runs. Right.

There was these massive biomass just coming up rivers providing food for people.

So in their head it's just like more fish for people, more food source.

So Canada and the US did the same.

There are, there's Pacific salmon in the Great Lakes, for instance.

There's a few populations there that have done quite well,

but with but in the US and Canada, they were also bringing fish from the east coast to the West coast, right like, and bivalves and whatever.

This was something everybody was doing, not just the Soviets.

So for the Soviets, it was a food source.

It was a potentially really good food source.

And they tried and this is in a remote area, probably poor probably, and was already suffering

some ecosystem degradation from, you know, from mismanagement over the years from industrialization, like,

you know, as happened post, you know, 1850s era post industrialization, trawling, all that kind of stuff.

We started mucking about with fisheries a very long time ago.

So you know, rightfully they were like, okay, can we can we provide this food source?

And they I think their original stocks came from Sakhalin Islands

and, they played with those for a while, and they never really had a lot of luck.

And it wasn't until 1985 where they took some fish from, I think it's called the Ola River, and it's on the mainland, in, eastern Russia.

And they managed to create a self-sustaining population for the white Sea.

And really, they were spectacularly successful.

So in a way, you know, they were successful in a way other countries weren't.

The Soviet scientists and, you know, I, I kind of thought this was I actually started writing the article and I had this in and I cut it out.

I was astonished at how much I could find out about what was going on with the Soviets.

But a lot of those scientists, the fishery scientists, published with other Western scientists.

This is kind of once the Soviet Union fell.

But they they were quite upfront.

I thought about the history of their bid to create this self-sustaining population.

And they also said maybe it wasn't a good idea.

So, you know, I think science was foremost in there for the scientists.

I think it was foremost in their mind.

And when you think of fishery scientists in Russia,

when I was working on my salmon book, I had quite a few email exchanges with them, and they were very it was lovely.

They didn't really want to talk on zoom. I think they were more comfortable with English written English, and they were quite upfront.

And for this article, I tried really hard to contact some of the names on on those papers and I couldn't get through, at all.

I try to bunch of different venues, but you know, they Norway and Russia, they cooperate on the cod fishery

quite closely, and they still do.

And I think that's, you know, to the scientists credit, it is it is it is very difficult, right.

When a situation like that breaks out, it's. Yeah.

So how how did that happen.

That does the salmon ended up in in Norway so that the Soviets were

wildly successful with the White Sea, even though they still do have Atlantic salmon rivers there.

But they they did create some very healthy runs in the White Sea from what I understand.

And I'm getting that from a Norwegian scientist

who spent time working on his masters in the Kola Peninsula, on some of the rivers there, and through some of the papers that I've been,

I've read and that you find in Google Scholar and, you know, different publication in different publications.

And naturally, the White Sea, you know, empties into the Arctic Ocean.

It's a gateway to the Barents Sea, which is off the Norwegian, you know, northeast coast and pink salmon stray.

They are well known for straying.

So they will repopulate streams not not their own.

They will populate streams, not their own. If the opportunity presents itself.

And you know, this isn't fair to say, but I've had some scientists, salmon scientists say they're like the rats of the ocean.

They're just.

It's nuts, all right?

They're just adaptable and successful.

And and strain really helps their movement into new habitat.

So they probably followed the food and into the Barents Sea.

And, you know, maybe there is more food because it's fewer Atlantic salmon or other fish.

I'm not really sure.

I don't think people really know except to say that there's something there for them to eat, but they are successful.

And then when it comes time to spawn, they've got to find a river. So.

And Norway, that area of Norway and Finnmark has a lot of rivers, right?

They're not dammed or anything that is, free flowing. Some of them are big.

A lot of them are not that big.

But there's a lot.

And and that's what makes Norway special for, fishermen. Right.

Is that they have so many rivers to choose from in terms of fishing.

So it was inevitable that pink salmon would land themselves and in Finnmark.

And the first one was actually spotted in 1960.

So they, they've had these pinks for a very long time.

They were just new, a nuisance. They didn't overwhelm the ecosystem, at least not in their mind.

So I kind of think Norway was maybe a little complacent, but a lot of countries are complacent when it comes to that.

Right?

Like it wasn't really a big deal until climate change really kind of reared its ugly head.

Right.

I was actually forgot to ask you earlier why pink salmon rather than Atlantic salmon?

Like, what are the,

benefits of, of of bringing pink salmon over Atlantic salmon?

I mean, for, you know, these Soviet scientists, are they growing quicker or, like, what's the story?

Yeah, they grow, pink salmon. Are very successful hatchery fish.

They have a two year life cycle.

You can let them go fairly soon into the environment, get their biomass out in the ocean, and then they come back.

They're not huge.

They're the smallest of the, Pacific salmon.

But, you know, I mean, Alaska sends out so many hatchery pink, it's amazing.

And I, I actually just got a, email from a hatchery manager on the northern coast of BC,

and he asked me about if Atlantic salmon eat pink salmon fry in the rivers.

And it's a part I actually cut out of the article because I just had only so much room,

and I want to keep people's attention, but I was glad he asked me that and why he asked me that was because they have a pink hatchery

where he is, because they see it as the base of a food chain for the bigger salmon, for Chinook and coho and stuff like that.

And fry and I, I honestly had never heard that.

Even though I've written about salmon, I've written about pink pink salmon.

And I thought, oh, I like obviously I knew that other fish eat other fish eggs and stuff like that,

but I never thought of it as the base of a food chain for the, you know, for the five species of of salmon and or Pacific salmon. And,

the only thing I could tell them was, from what I understood from the research

I've seen, is that they Atlantic salmon do eat pink salmon eggs.

So do brown trout, and so do flounder, actually.

But the pink salmon in turn actually eat midge larva and mayfly larva, which is what the Atlantic salmon eat.

So in any case, why pink salmon?

They're a good bet. Gotcha, gotcha.

And you mentioned like some countries are complacent.

You know, like for listeners like we have like Ireland,

Inland Fisheries Ireland have an announcement because, pink salmon is starts showing up in Ireland as well.

And obviously like always in those cases like, hey report that don't release that fish.

And you know, so I don't know how many listeners heard about that, but it's not entirely what we talking about.

It's not entirely,

disconnected from the realities of what's going on in Ireland

because they are showing up in Ireland as well, and I presume also in the UK, rivers and so on.

In Scotland, they are they're they're showing up in Scotland and they're also showing up in Newfoundland.

Oh, in Canada. Wow.

No. So there is another article I'm actually going to write because I could have gone two ways with this article.

It was like this ecological change in Norway, which I find always fascinating.

And then you have to decide as a population, how are you, your community, how am I going to deal with this?

Because there's no way you're going to get rid of all these fish, right? What? What does this mean for us?

But the other part of it, and that's the article and follow up article going to do is Norway is kind of the bulwark, the vanguard.

It they are,

Canada.

And I think the UK have come on board in this past June talking to Norwegian officials, going, okay, you've got to start this.

And we, you know, we want to help you.

So there is this feeling that what goes on in Norway is going to determine what happens to the North Atlantic as a whole, right.

So that and that will be another article I do.

And it's this particular river I visited which again, didn't make it into this article I wrote.

It's called the Tana River and it's a very big river, and it flows from Finland through Norway to the Barents.

And the Finns are just kind of freaked out by what's happening there.

They had a huge fence across it, and the researcher I talked to said that fence was a bust.

It's not worth it. And so but in any case, Finland doesn't want,

pinks in the Baltic.

Right. These these countries are a little freaked out.

This is so this is so interesting. And so.

And I think it was in 2017, 2016 when the it was like not 1 or 2 years, of those pink salmon.

Then they just start showing up in numbers.

Can you tell us about that? Like what? What happened that all of a sudden.

Well, you kind of like a preempted that already with, with climate change like the US usually all those changes are climate change.

But any any more details on that, what people are doing like, because they, they, they, they try to eradicate them as well when it's.

So if you can just give us a little bit more details around that.

What happened around the time when they started showing up in numbers like huge numbers.

So there were favorable ocean conditions, right.

Courtesy climate change.

That probably means there was just a lot of food for pinks.

And they ended up, you know, one river had 8 in 2015 and they end up with thousands in 2017.

So it was a huge change.

This this freaked people out.

They, they I don't think at that moment they were doing a whole lot. Right.

This was they were flabbergasted by what happened.

What they did was they were worried, I think probably about contamination from the pink salmon carcasses that were found.

It's not like it is here in BC where there is like they just litter a stream, but there was enough to make community people concerned.

And there's a lot of hunting and fishing associations there.

And they, they're, very integral to that ecosystem in terms of caring for it.

Right.

You get this idea that people are the local people are very committed to their rivers and streams and ecosystem.

They're hunters or fishers, that kind of thing.

So they organized, themselves into groups to clean the carcasses out of these rivers.

And by then I, you know, they're debating what to do, talking to different government officials and stuff like that.

2019 comes along, there's even more.

And, now everyone's like, oh, geez.

And I'm trying to remember when the first traps started.

They were definitely up in 2021. That might have been up in 2019 as well.

Some of the hunting and fishing associations got together and decided, okay, we've got to do something here. And

eventually the Norwegian government kicked in funds

in 2021, 2023 and, lent some government officials to help organize and that kind of thing.

And so these organizations in 2023, there is seasonal help

who people who were hired at the traps because before it was volunteer work, they were gathering

the fish that was going to sled dog owners to feed their dogs, but there was too many fish and then not enough dogs.

So it was more ad hoc.

So it was a bit more organized, I believe, from what I could tell in 2023 and from chatting with some of the officials

and, people were hired on on that on a for a few weeks in July, June, July, part of August.

And depending on the river, the trap it might be a weir might be a trap, they might just be netting.

But you would have a team of people come.

And part of the whole thing to with Norway is they have rules.

And those rules are you've got to do it humanely, quickly.

And let's try not to, even though they don't want a self-sustaining pink salmon fishery.

They didn't want to necessarily waste the food.

So there were a couple of fishing fish processing companies who came in and and processed the fish.

I don't know how successful they were, flogging that fish to consumers.

I mean, I think, so dog owners probably got some two, but, very organized, you know, humanely whack, kill, done.

Get into a barrel with, ice, and off you go to the fish processing plant.

So, I think

it was well organized and effective, you know, for particular streams.

Not perfect by any means, but definitely a lot of work, a lot of focus. So,

Yeah, it was I'd never seen, never seen like, this one.

River.

The which one?

The Knighton.

It was the first one we saw. And I couldn't believe the amount of pink salmon coming in.

And they were coming up a fish ladder, and they were grabbing them, hitting, you know, cocking them.

They were dead in an instant, and they were packaged and it or, you know, put into the ice fill barrels,

and it was just like I said, 450 fish in, in, in an hour

because I asked, I said, maybe just processed and put in these barrels and you count the barrels and how many fish per barrel.

So it was fascinating and obviously so, so that was like an initial response right from the Norwegian government.

They invested a lot of money into the program of eradication and trying to clean up things.

Right.

And I presume I'm getting like it was a little bit too late

because they started doing that when there was like a thousands of the fish not ate.

What people don't know, too, is that there's also a bag net fishery in the bays and the fjords and stuff, and they caught 100,000 fish in 2023.

Wow. Yeah. So there was also that going on. And that didn't make it into my article.

But I'm so glad we getting all those, all those extra things, that, that people could learn.

And definitely you should read the article.

The article will be link in the show notes. So

what's the like?

How successful was the program of eradication?

Well, if you talk to some of the government officials, it was good enough.

Like for them, they want to control the pink salmon. They're not going to eradicate them. They know that.

So for most of the rivers where I was in very fjord,

I think the €5 million spent not just something mark, but elsewhere, but still that money spent.

I think the idea is that it's well spent and they're going to keep doing it.

They're just not going to give up.

They're going to continue to try to control

the pink salmon population again, with support from other countries in the North Atlantic that are worried about that.

You know, the thing is, pinks are a food source.

They are delicious.

And I would have to say that the pinks I had in Norway were more delicious than the pinks I've had on the BC coast.

They they were plumper, richer, just shinier.

And I had this again, didn't quite make it into the article I had.

I did mention I had some sashimi prepared by a Thai fly fisher who caught his first salmon, and

it was a Pacific salmon, not and lactic salmon, which he came from Thailand to, to get right and led Dick salmon.

It was delicious.

But then I also had a salmon patty at one of these little concessions that they have along their fishing rivers,

and that's open in the summer. And it was delicious. It wasn't fishy at all. It was lovely.

And when I asked the people at the concession about this pink

salmon and and selling it, he said, well, it's just a cheap fish, so I can make this great patty.

It's a good price, right?

They didn't pay a lot for it.

And then I was at this Italian restaurant at Veran Garbutt and they were from Italy.

And I had the lunch special, which was linguine with, pink salmon cream sauce.

It was fabulous. It was really good.

And I actually talked to the cook to the chef and I said, this was lovely.

How did you. It's not fishy at all in my experience with pink spinach been a little fishy.

And he said, well,

I caught up with brandy and I don't, I don't know if it's because he cut it with brandy or just it was an incredibly fresh fish.

And I said, did you?

But who supplied you the fish?

She goes, well, our our supplier, he gave it to them.

Gifted it to them. Right.

Like see if you could do something with this.

But a lot of the scientists I interviewed, they fish and they fish for pinks and they put

they processed the fish and they have it all winter.

Is there any exit strategy or are they going to be locked in into controlling the situation forever and ever until they cannot control?

Because, you know, like obviously this is a topic we talk about on the podcast quite often about, you know,

predator control and especially in the ecosystems that are, well,

depleted or

suboptimal, which is not I'm not saying that that what it is, is such, but it seems like.

Yeah.

Is there an exit strategy or is it like, yeah, we're going to be controlling those pink salmon forever.

I asked this one, scientists, who, is on one of the rivers they're working

and he's been doing he's been on that river for a number of seasons, and he's a fly fisherman, too.

And I said, what will you be doing in 2029?

He said, well, I hope not.

This,

and, you know, are you going to have a real job because he's doing his graduate work in fisheries,

but still, you know, he from that area fishes that area.

And, I think they know they're they have to be in it for the long haul.

And if they're not in it for the long haul, then, you know, the pinks will create a new habitat for themselves.

Although we have to also keep in mind, as we can't predict the future and we don't know if there's something that naturally occurring

that would stop the pinks. Right?

I had I had some people, one scientist thought that the populations might be crashing in the colo in the 2022, 22.

I don't know if that's true, but and it's hard to said it's been hard to get that information, but it would be interesting to know

what's going on in the Colo right now because they I think there are pretty high numbers up until recently. So

I, you know,

something that could happen with climate change, climate change related that isn't good for the pink salmon either.

They're very thermal tolerant compared to other Pacific salmon.

But, you know, every animal has its, you know, has its limit.

So the numbers that are there because that's not the habitat that they supposed to be. Right.

They're invasive species is the numbers that use that, that are present higher

than would be natural where we'd naturally occurring in their habitat or is it roughly the same?

They're they're not as it's funny because a lot of the scientists said, what does it look like in BC rivers?

It takes it.

They they're not at the same numbers. No.

I mean, when you see a huge, healthy pink run in BC and Alaska,

Washington state, the Pacific Northwest, it's just there's nothing like it.

There's it's it's mind boggling, right? There's millions of fish.

So here they're they're just looking at thousands and some of those,

streams and rivers that I was out or on the smaller side so they could only, only, they're adaptive.

Their their capacity is only so much.

Anyway, somewhere like the Tanner River is really big.

That's a big river that would have if pinks made that into their habitat.

That could be a huge, huge run for sure. Yeah.

And the grants of the grants is pretty big like that could be there was hundreds.

Well, there were thousands there when I was there. Gregor, who was counting that day, he counted.

Oh, he counted thousands.

And he counted so many red, so many nests, and he counted hardly any Atlantic.

And speaking about Atlantic salmon, they are in an precarious situation, as far as I can tell.

So I presume that can't be good for Atlantic salmon, can you?

Can you tell us, like, what are you what are your thoughts is like, well, it's like really

you know, not specific question is more like an open question because I am wondering on

the one hand is Atlantic salmon as good as done given climate change, pink salmon showing up, everything else that's going on?

Yeah. Is there a hope? You know I don't know as much about Atlantic salmon as I do about Pacific.

And I do know Pacific are an incredibly adaptive, resilient species.

And and I kind of think cell models in general are, you know, Brown trout and probably Atlantic salmon as well.

So I never, you know, you never say never or like we just don't know.

We don't have a crystal ball. There are some stronghold for Atlantic salmon for sure.

And they have been battered by, you know, development, industrialization and climate change as well.

So they're one of many species that I don't I don't know that I'd say they're on the ropes, but maybe need a helping hand.

Right.

In terms of

maybe we shouldn't fish for them in certain places, maybe it should be catch release, which is a whole other can of worms catch release.

But, people love that fish.

And I know there's a lot of efforts to keep populations as healthy as possible, so.

And I don't know that we can say pinks will be the end of Atlantic.

I don't think that's necessarily true. They could very well.

And this is one of the things the Russian scientists said in some of their earlier papers was it could be that pinks fill a different niche.

In some ways they're they do eat some of the same food coming out of the, nest as they're heading to the Barrens.

But mostly pinks feed on their yolk sac before, you know, on the way to the ocean.

They don't necessarily usurp some of that food that Atlantic salmon are looking for.

And maybe some do, but not all. Probably depends on the stream.

So yeah, I, I think with continued efforts the Atlantic's have a chance for sure.

But I think we have to knowingly think of how to keep populations healthy.

And that's keeping habitats healthy.

So even if you have a habitat that's healthy for pink salmon, it's healthy for Atlantic salmon.

The question is whether the pink salmon makes that habitat uninhabitable or unhealthy for for Atlantic salmon.

Right.

It was a I think in, in the, in the piece was, a part where you said that they were more aggressive in, in Norway towards other fish.

Yeah. But that's also when the waters low. Right.

So when the water is high, they're fine. It's when the waters.

I'm trying to remember what Paul said under a certain level.

Then they get kind of bitey and aggressive, which would scare, Atlantic salmon.

This is his high, his eyewitness account. Right.

So there's nothing scientific? No, not necessarily evidence based.

Although this is a scientist who watches a lot of fish. So what he says is, is worth listening to.

But, yeah, he said it looked like the Atlantic's got a little scared of the behavior of pinks.

And the ecology of fear is a whole other study of, you know, in scientific literature.

And we know that fear changes animals behaviors.

So there is that. But again, it comes down to the water levels.

There is also, like Gregor was saying, that the pink salmon might create better habitat for Atlantic salmon as well, and other salmon.

It also when they dig their reds like so somewhere like the Tana River, which when I've circled that it was ahead of it.

I didn't see all. I think maybe I saw one fish,

and I think I saw wine bottle and a beer can

and the bottom of the river was very sandy, just kind of barren in a way.

And I'm not sure Gregor was talking about the Tana or some other rivers, but he said in some places

where there haven't been, it hasn't been a huge Atlantic salmon population where it's declined.

Then the river becomes like almost like concrete in a way, the riverbed.

And because you don't have those fish digging up the the bottom for their nests, for their reds

and the he and his partner have snorkel, then they've seen the pink salmon churn up that bottom.

They're very good diggers, very good diggers.

And what they do is they recreate the salmon habitat that the Atlantic salmon are used to.

So they think that that kind of behavior actually helps out the Atlantic salmon.

That's not all streams. Some streams are very rocky.

And the the pink salmon are a threat to freshwater mussels, actually, in those cases,

because they're digging up these rocks and stuff and it's amazing the size of the rock.

They can move what they're digging.

And that's not good for freshwater mussels, but in these other streams, it might actually be good for Atlantic's.

Well, that's very that's very interesting.

Is there a lot of, scientific research going on,

right now on this particular issue?

And is there I would imagine there's a lot of potential for scientific research on what how pinks are affecting Atlantic.

Yeah.

How they're how yeah, how they're interacting with the environment and how they're changing the environment.

And all those things.

Honestly, what I've put in the article,

there's probably new papers this, these past few months and I kind of have an alert and I'm looking.

So there's been more about the the food web.

There's a Finnish scientist who does a lot on the food web, and what they eat, what pinks eat.

Well, the Atlantic sea, you know, you know, that kind of thing.

So, Yeah, there's.

And I'm pretty sure what I have is kind of the latest.

Yeah, but, I mean, like, is there an opportunity, like a for scientists to, you know, who are interested in that?

Because, I suppose my question is like, how hungry is the science for for more research

and more scientists who are willing to go and validate those, you know, observations?

I think there's a lot there. Absolutely. There's all hands on deck to a certain extent.

I know in 2021, a researcher from Alaska was there with Cathy Dunlop and her group

looking at the different salmon streams and what was happening there and giving his opinion, you know, you know, being an a Pacific salmon

expert about what was happening and what they might expect, or, you know, how it might be different from from their native habitat.

So, yeah, there's a lot of opportunity for sure.

And I think there's lots of graduate students working on a lot of different papers.

So I listen to a master's thesis defense, and it was about whether pink salmon were with their carcasses.

That's a question. That's a question the Russian scientists had years ago. And some of their papers

do the pink salmon carcasses leak some kind of toxic bacteria or whatever?

Do they somehow impact the health?

The water, the water in, in different rivers and streams.

So that's there. And I listen to hers. And she actually was inconclusive. Her findings.

And I went out with another PhD candidate who was looking at along the lines

of what Kathy Dunlap was looking at, but in Finland about how the salmon carcasses feed

the riverbanks, you know, inland from there, they have a lot to draw on because researchers in Canada have done a lot of that research before.

Right. The salmon trees whole issue came.

That was first brought to light and I think the 1990s by marine ecologists.

And, I was out in the field, actually was one of them whose theory that was.

So they have a lot to draw on. And they know what to look for. Right?

So I think a lot of graduate students are on board, and they've got some great projects to work on,

I would imagine, because it's like a real life experiment, like a real life laboratory to to see what's what's get what's going on.

Okay, Jude, listen, let's let's just now rolled up into the, well, sort of conclusion, but also in a way most interesting aspect of it,

it seems to the I, we, we had an episode about novel ecosystems is episode 184 for people, interested.

Is this what we observing there?

Sort of like a novel ecosystem that is being created and

because the feeling I've got is that usually.

And that was like an initial, move by Norwegian government like, oh, let's.

Well, I don't know, because you said, like, we're not going to eradicate them, but if we can, let's eradicate them.

I spoke about, for example, sika deer in Ireland, where there's a lot of ecologists who would like gladly eradicate

every single one of them, do have an ecosystem pure and how it's supposed to be.

And then, I spoke with the scientist about this concept of novel ecosystems, which is essentially, look, ecosystems are never stable.

They're always changing.

And maybe we as humans are, you know, helping those species to move around a little bit more than they would otherwise.

But then at some point, they're creating this novel ecosystem.

Now, I also, and this is also from episode 984, is that that we've got to be careful with that

because sometimes though change those changes are, you know, without a doubt, bad.

But then the policymakers can go, Novel ecosystem. Right.

It's all good. So,

I'm curious your comments on this.

Like how much?

Because it seems from what we spoke here is that pink salmon is there to stay.

How how does it look like this novel ecosystem is this is it all bad?

Because again, I hear like, oh, you know, people are eating them and they're quite good and they're cheap and there's a lot of them.

And they might have not only bad impacts on it.

So how that situation, you know, if you just step back and right.

They're invasive species. Those like but overall like how does it look for you.

Is it like are we dealing with effectively a novel ecosystem, which is interesting and not necessarily bad?

Or is it part of you that, you know, if you had the time machine,

you would sort out that problem?

Okay, so that is a really good question.

And I think we have to think about pink salmon to as humans have helped them.

Absolutely. But you know there again Pacific salmon are resilient.

They're adaptive. And pinks are really really resilient really tapped.

Like I said they've got their thermal tolerance is pretty good compared to the others.

Their other cousins. So they've gone from the Pacific up to the Arctic.

And they're, you know, so they're they're moving anyway, regardless of what we do because of climate change.

Well, I guess we do climate change, but in any case, they will, you know, life life wins like they seek life.

That's what they do.

And yes, the Russians brought them from the Pacific to the Kola Peninsula and they strayed.

I don't really believe in time machines because you don't.

I can never like again.

I always say you can't really predict the future.

You can imagine the future and use your knowledge to,

you know, put forth some kind of hypothesis or theory, but that's all it ever is.

So I think, yeah, pink salmon, they're there to stay and you can control them.

But they have made a home and they are part of the ecosystem.

The thing is, in Norway and that area of Norway, there's another example of of that.

There's the I think it's the king crab which also came from Russia, which Russians also brought to from one place to another.

And they came into Norway and the Norwegians.

And it was a big deal because these crabs, you know, they just totally changed, the ecosystem of the ocean floor.

But the Barents Sea there. But you know what? Nobody did anything. And they became an incredibly lucrative fishery.

It is a very important fishery now, king crabs.

And now their numbers are starting to crash and people are getting worried about it.

So there is a case of this is a novel ecosystem.

They let it go and it's, it's a lucrative, regulated fishery.

The Norwegians don't want that to happen with the pink salmon.

And I don't know how long they can hold off for. Right.

So, you know, give it another ten years, see what happens.

But again, Mother Nature has a way of telling us

where things are going to go, like know our best intentions.

So it might be that pinks find another way or that pinks find a barrier, that comes with a changing climate or, you know, something else.

But overall it is there.

Is there, perception that there are threat to Atlantic salmon?

Yeah, I think overall, yeah, I think generally people think that because if you go to a river, you can take as many pinks as you want, right.

And there's certain it doesn't. You can just fish for them. Take them. Please. Go.

But for Atlantics and stuff, that's all more regulated and and where you can fish for them, how many you can take?

Well, that kind of thing.

One of the best rivers that the king of Norway fishes on the alter River, which still has a good Atlantic salmon run.

You have to win a lottery to fish it.

So people are so invested in their identity with Atlantic salmon that yeah, anything that they see

that might usurp that they'll see is a threat. So I think your average person is going to think that.

But I think and I think a lot of scientists though are like, let's see.

And two of the scientists I was in the field with, they said, you know, this will be really actually three

separately said this,

you know, it would be because their job was to to try to control and stop them.

But each of them said, you know, I kind of wish I could just study it because this is a really interesting scientific event going on.

And ecological change that would be fun to just track and and understand and just keep an open mind about.

So I have all these scientists who are doing that.

They're just like, okay, I'm not going to go in there with a preconceived notion. Let's see what's happening.

And that's like Kathy Dunlap and, and some of the people she works with, it's like, let's just before we make these grand statements,

let's see what happens.

And I think she's right. It's going to depend on the stream, and it's going to be ten times a year.

And the conditions and all that kind of stuff.

And then there's other people who are, you know, on board with this is a threat.

But I don't know that they're right.

Interesting.

Right.

In certain circumstances,

I can imagine that some people were listening to that and they they going to be they not going to be happy about that.

What do they what they hear now.

And I'm going to follow up on with the question, so do you think that those pink salmon showing up in Irish rivers

in the Scottish river, do we should we be open minded about them as well and not necessarily do like is such a big deal of that.

Or do you think that because they're just showing up is like, well, don't go there, just get rid of them while you can?

So I don't live there.

Yeah, I you know, I know, but I hate to ask that. Right.

I know and I, you know, I mean, people are very attached to their landscape and, and but as you've mentioned, landscapes are very dynamic.

Seascapes are dynamic.

And but but we know a landscape from our own lifetime, which is a very, very, very short amount of time.

And if I think it's like in Finnmark, if people feel it's a threat

and they think they can do something about it, and like I said, they try to use that.

I mean, they're eating these fish.

It's not like they're just, you know, they're not totally wasted, which is is good.

I think if that's something you want to do for however long that you think you can keep it up, you know, go ahead.

But I think eventually it's something we'll give.

And it might not be pink salmon, it might be another fish, you know, it might be another species.

So, so and we have to keep in mind as well Atlantic salmon

in Norway and Finnmark, you know, at the beginning of the Holocene when the glaciers

are starting to recede, water starting to flow, you see Atlantic salmon start moving north.

Right? It's an ecological change.

And people followed them because fish means power, fish means food, fish, you know, you follow the fish.

So we have done that before and things have changed before and they'll change again.

The thing is, they change so quickly now and not everybody or everything can adapt.

And that's the scary thing, right?

So if I think if Irish people want to protect their streams from Atlantic, if they have good plastic runs, well go ahead.

But you will be doing it for a long time overall after you've been there for three weeks, writing

this article, has what you witnessed there changed your views

on pink salmon on invasive species, on efforts to eradicate them?

I think like a lot of people, and this isn't just that trip, but over the years,

I've come to the conclusion we're we're we're well, we're worrywart and we fratelli.

And there's a reason to do that environmentally.

Things are not,

can be can be not very hopeful.

But, you know, being there, I think particularly in Finnmark, really cemented for me that

people care about their environment.

They care about the creatures that surround them.

They care about their seascapes, their landscapes.

And sometimes that's just enough, you know what I mean?

That sense of hope and something you hold dear and maybe this isn't an animal.

You want it,

and it might end up being the animal you have or the the nature you have.

Right.

And isn't that the most important thing, in a way, is that these landscapes and seascapes stay natural,

and maybe not the way we imagine them to be, but they maybe they're healthy for other organisms, right?

And they remain healthy for us.

So I kind of thought when I was in that little tent along and grunts of Jacob self, that this was a pretty special part of the world.

And there other special parts of the world

where there's lots of life, there is there's people who appreciate that nature, there's people who care so deeply.

And that, to me is the most important thing.

Folks listening to that, just remember to you can always subscribe to my newsletter.

The link is as, as well as links to the articles, in the show notes.

Jude, to wrap this up, you obviously you come across as massively, optimistic person.

So I, I gotta ask the question that I usually ask at the end of the, of the episodes, what is what are your predictions

for the future of the natural world and specifically coastal landscape, coastal ecosystems, marine ecosystems.

If you look at you into your crystal ball, what do you see in that time frame of, I don't know, ten, 30, 5000 years?

I spend a lot of time chatting with scientists who work so hard on things

like marine protected areas on, you know, fishery, pop fish populations.

You know, any kind of protected area.

I just, I see so many of them.

And then I, you know, you find out that their tentacles are wide, are long, and they reach and they have the ears of people

we wouldn't think they do. Right.

So I'll give you an example.

Jane, the the chairman of the bench, can't remember Jane's last name.

Well, she's awesome.

She was the head of the, of NOAA for the U.S under the Obama administration.

And, you know, if people like her are in these positions, have been in these positions of powers, power, who have had tremendous influence.

And I just think if people keep the pressure up, that we will save more of the, the natural world, which is incredibly,

when once you give it a chance, it's prolific, it's, dynamic.

It's giving.

It's like, again, life seeks a place to be.

And I just think that when those people I know, those people are out there and I know they're putting the pressure on

and they just have to keep doing it, and we have to support them.

And how to support them is reading about their work right, supporting their work.

And I you know, I'm going to say supporting environmental journalism

because that's, an important part of the solution is to know what's going on and then choose the Jane Goodall I chatted with once.

You know, Jane Goodall said, choose one thing you can't save the world.

Choose the thing you care about.

And if everybody chooses the thing they care about, then change happens and change will happen.

In ten years.

Very smart, very wise words.

Dude, it was absolutely fantastic conversation.

Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for inviting me. I really enjoyed it. I love talking about fish.