An apparent drop in the number of king salmon spawning in the Kelsall River is likely the result of years of clearcut logging in the drainage, and the area should be taken out of state plans for future harvest, according to Lynn Canal Conservation.

State studies have shown the Kelsall produces half of all king salmon that return to the Chilkat River.

State biologists say they’re concerned about the declining numbers, but the data on hand aren’t enough to draw conclusions. Foresters who manage timber in the Kelsall say the local environmental group is using broad strokes to make a point, and basing its judgment on forest models that don’t match up with local conditions.

Eric Holle, vice-president of Lynn Canal Conservation, said numbers compiled by the state since 1991 show an ominous decline in king numbers in the Kelsall.

The figures – obtained this week from the Department of Fish and Game – show the state found 507 large kings there in 1991. Although numbers fluctuate, they dropped below 400 after 1998 and below 300 after 1996, to 150 or fewer the past three years and to 43 this year.

“This year’s return is dismal. There’s no change in that trend. I expect it to hit zero by 2014 or 2015,” Holle said.

Holle said he can’t prove the drop in numbers is from logging – he says that would be like proving a person’s cancer was caused by one, specific event – but said the loss of habitat on the river is consistent with rivers in the Pacific Northwest where timber was overharvested.

Storm runoff in clearcuts creates a quick release of water that washes out logjams that serve as king spawning and rearing pools, he said. “You lose meanders and you get a straight river course with channelization,” he said. Holle also said he witnessed meanders disappear while working on the river for 10 years as a Fish and Game employee.

Holle points out that no similar drop in king numbers has been seen on the Tahini River, an unlogged Chilkat River tributary upstream from the Kelsall that is the other major producer of Chilkat kings.

(State telemetry studies in 1991, 1992 and 2005 found half of Chilkat kings spawn in the Kelsall, one-third spawn in the Tahini and most of the remainder return to Little Boulder and Big Boulder creeks.)

“You can’t attribute the difference to something that’s happening in the open ocean or Duck Hess’ jetboats, because that would affect the Tahini, too,” Holle said. Relying on the Tahini to support the entire run is risky, he said. “You don’t want to have all your fish eggs in one basket, so to speak.”

Fish and Game sport fish biologist Rich Chapell said he’s concerned by the numbers. “There’s a real lack of king salmon spawning in the Kelsall. For optimum production, it seems the Kelsall numbers are down compared to the Tahini. I’m scratching my head. It used to be the biggest producer (of kings) and it hasn’t been in recent years.”

But Chapell said the annual counts, data that’s unpublished and hasn’t been peer reviewed, don’t amount to a study. “I can’t infer any meaningful trends from that. It’s nothing I could publish and defend, but it does concern me.”

Fish and Game doesn’t break out individual tributaries in its estimation of the health of the Chilkat king run. The overall run has met the escapement goal range of between 1,850 and 3,600 kings in recent years with the exception of 2007 at 1,442. The total return this year just met the goal, at 1,852 kings.

Since 1991, the Chilkat king run has averaged 4,107 fish, but for the past 10 years the run has averaged 3,459 fish compared to an average of 4,724 between 1991 and 2000.

The strength of the overall run “has been better,” Chapell said. If numbers drop below the escapement range, the state’s Chilkat king management plan calls for reducing sport fish bag limits and delaying commercial fishing on the Chilkat side.

Such a drop, however, doesn’t necessarily bring money to study the issue, he said. “There’s been no study designed to ask the question, ‘Is the number of spawners in the Kelsall declining?’ So we don’t have the ability to answer that question.”

Chapell said a study of the habitat quality in the Kelsall and habitat utilization would be very useful, possibly including review of historic aerial photos to look at habitat over time. To him, the river’s habitat looks okay and includes some braided, slower-moving sections that spawning fish like. “I’ve looked at several parts of it this year and it seemed fine for king salmon spawning, but I wasn’t here in the 1990s during the boom years to see what it looked like then.”

Chapell said he wouldn’t predict spawning kings would disappear from the Kelsall, and forester Roy Josephson said he doesn’t think that will happen. Josephson and forester Greg Palmieri say the recent apparent decline in spawners may be due to a severe flood in November 2005 that also washed out most roads around Haines.

The foresters see the quality of the river’s fish habitat as cyclical, waxing and waning over time with different events. They also point out only 250,000 board feet – about 25 acres – have been cut in the drainage since 1995, the year of the last large timber sale there.

While “channelization” of rivers is seen as detrimental to spawning of king salmon, which seek out slow water and pools to lay their eggs, such channels evolve, Palmieri said. “They’re constantly changing. They can make new habitat, as well as take habitat away.”

There’s been no logging within 300 feet of the Kelsall since the 1970s and 75 percent of forest stands there are at least 40 years old, Josephson said. “There’s not the runoff we get with young clearcuts.”

Palmieri said clearcuts down south were generally stripped of large vegetation, making those areas more prone to runoff. Defect in the local forest means logs and woody debris are left on the ground, which tends to inhibit runoff, he said.

Palmieri said he wouldn’t argue that logging isn’t having an impact on the Kelsall, but he said he doesn’t believe it’s as dramatic as Holle makes it out to be. “I don’t think the science supports that. You can use other information to make inferences about what’s going on here, but to make some of the conclusions (Holle) is making is stretching it.”

“There are lots of variables in fish returns. If fish couldn’t adapt to changing conditions, they wouldn’t be around today. It doesn’t surprise me that they would spawn in one area and then not spawn there and spawn somewhere else,” Palmieri said.

Holle said resource managers should base decisions on the best available scientific evidence. “The best and only evidence indicates serious declines in Kelsall River king salmon and their spawning habitat… The precautionary principle should apply here – commodity extraction should never take precedence over the health of biological systems.”

Josephson voiced optimism about the Kelsall. “The stream is beginning to meander again, so the kings should be beginning to return.”