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Downloaded from
YTS.MX
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(suspensefull music)
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- [Gabriel] In the North Atlantic and the great rivers
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that pour into it, there is a legendary fish
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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX
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whose future is now on the brink.
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The Atlantic salmon.
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It travels thousands of miles from river to sea,
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facing great risks and then returning back again.
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- There's something very special about the salmon.
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It's homing to its place of its birth.
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- [Gabriel] Once salmon leave the streams of their birth,
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they live a phantom, unknown life at sea.
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Magically they reappear some years later,
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called back to the very river where they were born.
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Whole communities once flourished
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on this bounty from the sea,
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but now something mysterious
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and deadly is happening to them.
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- We know that we send out a lot of smolts to sea each year
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and they're just not coming back.
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- This is my way of life, it's my family's way of life,
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and it's part of the fabric of Scotland,
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and you know, we want it to continue
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for many generations to come.
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- [Gabriel] Somewhere on the salmon's epic journey,
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these remarkable fish are now dying in huge numbers.
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- There's a mystery of smolts either not coming back,
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and it's very important to understand
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where this mortality is occurring.
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- [Gabriel] In the last 30 years, returning populations
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of wild Atlantic salmon have dropped by 70%.
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To save these salmon, first we must find out
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what is happening to them.
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For some, the problem is clear.
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- Principally, the problem is that we have been killing
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too many fish for too long.
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Government and scientists don't accept it,
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they don't recognize it.
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- [Gabriel] Others believe there's more to understand.
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- The ocean's really a big unknown for salmon.
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We have these big picture ideas of what goes on,
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but we really don't know any of the details.
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- I just implore anyone
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that can influence what's going on at sea to do so.
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Pick up that ball and run with it.
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- [Gabriel] With livelihoods at stake,
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and a natural wonder in danger of vanishing,
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now scientific detectives race to solve the mystery,
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and for the first time ever,
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an international team heads out into the North Atlantic
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to find why the wild Atlantic salmon is lost at sea.
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(dramatic music)
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Our relationship with salmon is ancient and powerful.
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The oldest known image of one is carved 25,000 years ago
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on the ceiling of a cave in France.
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The Romans when they invaded northern Europe
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marveled at its acrobatics
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and called it salar from the Latin saliere, the leaper.
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Standing stones carved with its image
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are one of the few remnants that an ancient people,
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the Picts, left behind over 1000 years ago.
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- We're here at Glamis in the precincts of the Kirk,
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and here next to me is the great Glamis stone,
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which is world famous,
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largely because of this etched salmon,
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wild Atlantic salmon.
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Now this was probably carved by a Pictish engraver
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about 12 to 1300 years ago.
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The Picts were here in Scotland in the seventh,
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eighth, and ninth centuries,
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and their culture focused on the natural environment
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in a very special way.
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If you look above the salmon,
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you'll see what people, I think incorrectly,
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describe as a serpent.
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I don't think it's a serpent at all,
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I think it's an eel.
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And the thing about the eel and the salmon
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is that both migrate.
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They're fish that cross human boundaries.
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They're fish that pay no attention to political frontiers.
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They travel the oceans, the eels as we know
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go to the Sargasso Sea to spawn
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and where their young are born and then they come back,
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and the salmon come here, and they spawn,
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and then the small fish go to sea to get big.
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So this sense of the community based culture
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attributing to these remarkable animals
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an almost mystical sense of wisdom and understanding
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which they themselves were unable to grasp.
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- [Gabriel] For millennia, around the North Atlantic,
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people awaited the annual return of the great fish.
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In Ireland and Scotland, the salmon fishery
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was a way of life.
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It fed whole communities.
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The ancient fishing village of Claddagh
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at the mouth of Galway Bay in the west of Ireland
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dates to pre-Christian times,
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and so valued were the fish to the town of Galway
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that a watchtower was built in the mid-1800s
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to announce the return of the salmon to the Corrib River.
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Salmon not only filled stomachs, it fed dreams.
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Taking this great fish on a gossamer line
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was soon a lifetime's thrill.
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Upper classes embraced a new sport
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and great estates flourished.
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Here in the heart of Scotland, salmon angling was born.
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Fishing the wide Spey river required its own rules.
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A custom fly rod and a unique cast
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to reach pools where the great fish, fresh from the sea,
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had gathered.
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- My family has run and owned and organized fishing here
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for centuries, not just decades,
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and my children have caught their first fish on the river.
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I could show you the point where everyone
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caught their first salmon, it's an iconic moment.
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- [Gabriel] 20 years ago, as many as 3000 salmon were taken
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on this stretch of river.
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Today, catches are now less than 1000.
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- The fish are no longer there,
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and it's gone from harvesting a surplus
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to worrying about whether there are any fish at all.
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The local economy is massively influenced
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by what goes on in this river.
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And even in the best of days,
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it can be quite an elusive salmon,
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but at the moment it's particularly elusive.
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- Good luck, I'll see you a few more years.
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(laughs)
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- [Gabriel] On both sides of the Atlantic,
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great salmon rivers are losing their fish.
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In the late 1800s a daughter of Queen Victoria
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and her husband the Governor General of Canada
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came to the Grand Cascapedia,
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bringing the sport of salmon angling across the Atlantic.
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The river teemed.
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Soon dignitaries and tycoons were attracted
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to this beautiful, remote area,
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for some of the largest of the species came to this river.
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But that was over a century ago, and much has changed.
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On the great fishing rivers all around the Atlantic rim,
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salmon are disappearing fast.
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In the last two decades, some new unknown disaster
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has emerged.
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Somewhere on the journey between
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young salmon heading out to sea
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and adults returning to spawn
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their numbers are being decimated.
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For scientists, the race is on to find the cause,
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but if they fail, this magnificent creature
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may soon be gone.
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- We had a recent, massive decline in the return rates
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of wild Atlantic salmon from the ocean to the rivers,
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and the key is to find out where and when
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the mortality is occurring
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that is causing the salmon to decline.
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Right now I must admit I'm totally flummoxed.
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- Over the course of all the different environments
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and over the course of the life cycle of the salmon,
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there's a lot of different threats
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that can be impacting its productivity.
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A wide range of things are happening
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in the fresh water side.
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In the ocean, salmon are dying in the ocean
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at relatively high rates,
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higher rates than we've seen prior, and we don't know why.
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- [Gabriel] But today, researchers are tracking salmon
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at every stage of their remarkable life's journey.
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The many thousand mile migration
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from river to sea and back again.
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It's a challenging journey of discovery.
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Salmon evolved in the ocean,
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and for millennia, this was their home.
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Their life in rivers began after the last ice age,
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when huge glaciers and sheets of ice
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covered much of the northern hemisphere.
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And when the Earth warmed, the ice started to melt.
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As the glaciers retreated, they gouged out the earth,
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causing deep trenches that turned into rivers.
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One of the first fish to colonize these new cold rivers
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was the Arctic chard, a close relative of the salmon.
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They still thrive in the Arctic today.
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As the ice retreated, ancestral salmon
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pioneered new rivers all over the North Atlantic,
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safe havens to lay their eggs.
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Over time they adapted to each river
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as a genetically distinct population,
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and today, no two rivers
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hold the exact same genetic strain of salmon.
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(serene music)
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In a clear, protected stream, buried in the gravel,
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are salmon eggs.
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This is where life begins.
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It is now early spring and the eggs are hatching.
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Less than 1% of these eggs will survive
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to make their way to the sea.
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These newborns remain in their rocky nest
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for up to 12 weeks.
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Once they have consumed their surrounding egg sacks,
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they are ready for the next chapter of their lives.
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Feeding voraciously on microscopic life.
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Within a few months, they are transformed
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with distinct markings to help them blend in with the river.
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They dart up to the surface to catch a variety of insects.
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They will remain in the rivers for one to six years,
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preparing themselves for the next stage.
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They take their cue in part from water temperature.
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When warm enough, they set off downstream
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on the great journey to the sea.
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This is where the mystery starts.
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On the River Finn in Ireland,
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biologist Art Niven and his team monitor the juveniles.
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A low level pulse of electricity
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temporarily stuns any fish,
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allow the scientists to count them.
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- We conduct a program,
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an annual program during the summer months
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of electrofishing to collect the juvenile fish,
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and we can look at their age class and their age structures,
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and we then release these fish alive back into the river,
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so it vies us a unique opportunity
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to have a snapshot to see the health
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of the juvenile populations within the river at that time.
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We also monitor the chemical water quality.
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We collect water samples in a bottle
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and take them back to our own laboratory for analysis.
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- [Gabriel] Art and his colleagues
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have found the river is healthy,
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with an abundance of youngsters.
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An extraordinary transformation is happening
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in rivers and streams each spring.
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Juvenile salmon are growing into what is known as smolts.
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Their bodies are becoming streamlined
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for long distance travel,
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and their coats are turning silver,
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camouflage for life at sea.
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Until recently, no one knew their fate from this point on.
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On the far side of the Atlantic in Canada,
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some young fish are about to encounter
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this ingenious device.
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A smolt wheel.
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As the wheel turns, passing fish are trapped inside.
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Biologist Jonathan Carr of the Atlantic Salmon Federation
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inserts an acoustic tag in a fish.
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As they pass receivers placed downstream,
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they emit a ping that identifies each individual fish
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by a number, thus allowing the biologists
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to determine how many are making it downriver,
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into the estuary, and beyond.
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- These are the type of receivers we put out,
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so as a fish is swimming by with one of these tags,
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the receiver will pick up the signal
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and record right down to the second
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that this fish moved by and the tag ID
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to basically cover the width of the river
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so that we know exactly when the fish is moving by.
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- [Gabriel] Jonathan has tagged 40 fish today.
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The next day he heads downstream
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to the mouth of the Cascapedia
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to check the acoustic receivers.
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00:14:32,816 --> 00:14:34,237
- It tells on the side of the screen here,
263
00:14:34,237 --> 00:14:36,927
39 out of 40 fish gone by this unit.
264
00:14:38,031 --> 00:14:39,478
Pretty good information.
265
00:14:40,668 --> 00:14:42,059
Most of them made it out.
266
00:14:42,059 --> 00:14:44,499
Some of these fish, after release it only took
267
00:14:44,499 --> 00:14:45,560
a matter of one to two hours
268
00:14:45,560 --> 00:14:47,400
before they reached this point.
269
00:14:47,400 --> 00:14:50,131
And the release site was about 10 kilometers,
270
00:14:50,131 --> 00:14:52,341
so these guys are moving pretty fast.
271
00:14:52,341 --> 00:14:55,900
- [Gabriel] So far, numbers are reassuringly high,
272
00:14:55,900 --> 00:15:00,513
indicating that the real dangers lie elsewhere.
273
00:15:02,484 --> 00:15:05,074
But on the nearby Miramichi River
274
00:15:05,074 --> 00:15:07,785
young fish are under attack by a new predator.
275
00:15:09,260 --> 00:15:12,116
Once protected, the striped bass population
276
00:15:12,116 --> 00:15:14,747
has recently exploded.
277
00:15:14,747 --> 00:15:17,217
Huge numbers of these voracious predators
278
00:15:17,217 --> 00:15:19,348
spawn in the Miramichi Bay
279
00:15:19,348 --> 00:15:22,611
just as the young salmon are heading to sea.
280
00:15:22,611 --> 00:15:26,140
(suspenseful music)
281
00:15:26,140 --> 00:15:28,080
They don't stand a chance.
282
00:15:32,011 --> 00:15:35,792
Across the Atlantic, warming seas lure southern fish
283
00:15:35,792 --> 00:15:39,083
such as the striped bass to northern waters.
284
00:15:39,083 --> 00:15:40,353
Another challenge.
285
00:15:47,275 --> 00:15:49,516
Acoustic receivers tell us that only
286
00:15:49,516 --> 00:15:53,617
three out of 10 young fish survive the Miramichi
287
00:15:53,617 --> 00:15:55,797
and make it past the striped bass
288
00:15:55,797 --> 00:15:58,618
and into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
289
00:15:58,618 --> 00:16:03,029
But on the Cascapedia, only 250 kilometers to the north,
290
00:16:03,029 --> 00:16:05,830
there are no spawning striped bass
291
00:16:05,830 --> 00:16:09,331
and fully eight out of 10 survive.
292
00:16:10,341 --> 00:16:12,441
Farther out, the next set of receivers
293
00:16:12,441 --> 00:16:15,082
tells us that only 50% of adult salmon
294
00:16:15,082 --> 00:16:18,493
that have already spawned and are returning to sea
295
00:16:18,493 --> 00:16:21,484
make it out of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
296
00:16:21,484 --> 00:16:23,094
This is an ominous sign.
297
00:16:25,004 --> 00:16:28,945
Biologists know that 25% are being eaten by predators,
298
00:16:30,036 --> 00:16:32,696
but they don't know what is happening to the rest.
299
00:16:33,857 --> 00:16:36,907
Scientists haven't yet been bale to verify
300
00:16:36,907 --> 00:16:40,148
how many of the young make it into the ocean.
301
00:16:44,489 --> 00:16:47,850
The survivors are now ready for the estuary,
302
00:16:47,850 --> 00:16:52,381
a zone where fresh water and salt water mix.
303
00:16:52,381 --> 00:16:54,682
In this disorienting world,
304
00:16:54,682 --> 00:16:57,643
their bodies complete the final change
305
00:16:57,643 --> 00:16:59,603
for life in salt water.
306
00:17:04,034 --> 00:17:07,925
But now, they encounter yet another new threat.
307
00:17:09,726 --> 00:17:11,766
The Bay of Fundy, one of the most
308
00:17:11,766 --> 00:17:14,367
concentrated fish farm sites in the world.
309
00:17:15,387 --> 00:17:17,978
For a young salmon on its way to sea,
310
00:17:17,978 --> 00:17:20,378
these fish farms can be deadly.
311
00:17:27,249 --> 00:17:29,421
Food pellets sprayed into pens
312
00:17:29,421 --> 00:17:32,621
rain onto the sea floor and mix with fish waste.
313
00:17:39,843 --> 00:17:43,854
Caged fish are checked regularly for parasitic sea lice,
314
00:17:43,854 --> 00:17:46,145
which they can attract in large numbers.
315
00:17:47,315 --> 00:17:50,056
These parasites occur naturally in the wild
316
00:17:50,056 --> 00:17:52,426
but proliferate around fish farms.
317
00:17:53,287 --> 00:17:55,907
They can savage populations of sea trout
318
00:17:55,907 --> 00:17:57,748
and migrating wild salmon.
319
00:17:58,928 --> 00:18:01,889
- Wherever open net and salmon aquaculture is practiced,
320
00:18:01,889 --> 00:18:03,899
wherever there is large concentrations
321
00:18:03,899 --> 00:18:05,680
of these salmon farms,
322
00:18:05,680 --> 00:18:07,900
wild Atlantic salmon are in serious trouble.
323
00:18:07,900 --> 00:18:09,711
The industry grew and grew and grew,
324
00:18:09,711 --> 00:18:11,631
and all of the wild salmon routes
325
00:18:11,631 --> 00:18:13,902
that flow into the Bay of Fundy,
326
00:18:13,902 --> 00:18:16,702
the wild ones decline, decline to the point that now
327
00:18:16,702 --> 00:18:18,933
where once there were 40,000 wild salmon
328
00:18:18,933 --> 00:18:21,224
coming back to those 30 great little rivers,
329
00:18:21,224 --> 00:18:22,264
big salmon included,
330
00:18:22,264 --> 00:18:24,154
now there's just a few hundred.
331
00:18:24,154 --> 00:18:26,185
Probably the most significant threat
332
00:18:26,185 --> 00:18:27,705
open net and salmon aquaculture
333
00:18:27,705 --> 00:18:29,526
is when farm salmon escape,
334
00:18:29,526 --> 00:18:31,456
and they escape in the tens of thousands,
335
00:18:31,456 --> 00:18:34,057
sometimes hundreds of thousands, every single year,
336
00:18:34,057 --> 00:18:35,557
and the ones that survive,
337
00:18:35,557 --> 00:18:37,128
when they get the urge to spawn,
338
00:18:37,128 --> 00:18:39,258
they're running up wild salmon rivers
339
00:18:39,258 --> 00:18:41,689
and interbreeding with wild fish,
340
00:18:41,689 --> 00:18:44,145
and just after a couple of generations,
341
00:18:44,145 --> 00:18:48,090
you've got a hybrid, and the survival of those hybrids
342
00:18:48,090 --> 00:18:49,431
are very very poor.
343
00:18:49,431 --> 00:18:51,771
I mean, genetic changes are forever.
344
00:18:55,722 --> 00:18:58,403
- [Gabriel] When Jonathan Carr isn't tagging fish,
345
00:18:58,403 --> 00:19:01,104
he's checking for escaped farm salmon.
346
00:19:08,235 --> 00:19:11,771
Scales show growth patterns which instantly identify
347
00:19:11,771 --> 00:19:13,105
a farmed salmon.
348
00:19:14,732 --> 00:19:16,982
- Hey Graham, look at that.
349
00:19:21,740 --> 00:19:24,925
Graham, is it looking like a wild salmon or a farm salmon?
350
00:19:24,925 --> 00:19:27,400
- Definitely an aquaculture salmon based on the scales.
351
00:19:29,681 --> 00:19:32,591
- [Gabriel] Salmon aquaculture began in the 1960s,
352
00:19:32,591 --> 00:19:35,102
with only a few commercial farms.
353
00:19:35,102 --> 00:19:37,703
But today this industry is producing
354
00:19:37,703 --> 00:19:42,704
an estimated 530 million farmed fish annually
355
00:19:42,954 --> 00:19:45,075
compared to a dwindling population
356
00:19:45,075 --> 00:19:47,775
of only three million wild salmon
357
00:19:47,775 --> 00:19:50,746
throughout the entire North Atlantic.
358
00:19:50,746 --> 00:19:54,137
- Solutions would be to regulate the industry more strictly,
359
00:19:54,137 --> 00:19:57,718
make sure that there is reporting, enforcement,
360
00:19:57,718 --> 00:20:00,393
and make sure that we have the very best practices.
361
00:20:00,393 --> 00:20:03,099
The ultimate solution is closed containment.
362
00:20:03,099 --> 00:20:05,350
And whether closed containment on land
363
00:20:05,350 --> 00:20:07,820
or closed containment in the ocean
364
00:20:07,820 --> 00:20:10,911
so that the fish simply can't escape.
365
00:20:10,911 --> 00:20:13,112
It's a better operation for the industry
366
00:20:13,112 --> 00:20:14,852
as well as for the environment and wild salmon
367
00:20:14,852 --> 00:20:17,433
because the farmer controls his environment.
368
00:20:17,433 --> 00:20:18,563
If there is disease,
369
00:20:18,563 --> 00:20:20,373
there's no disease spread.
370
00:20:20,373 --> 00:20:22,544
Everything is self-contained, no escape.
371
00:20:25,745 --> 00:20:27,485
- [Gabriel] On both sides of the Atlantic,
372
00:20:27,485 --> 00:20:30,986
the survivors now head into the open ocean.
373
00:20:30,986 --> 00:20:33,917
An ancient genetic code compels the salmon
374
00:20:33,917 --> 00:20:36,147
to migrate to the ocean,
375
00:20:36,147 --> 00:20:40,018
turning north towards their distant feeding grounds.
376
00:20:40,018 --> 00:20:43,159
They travel near the surface with other schooling fish,
377
00:20:43,159 --> 00:20:44,879
including herring and mackerel.
378
00:20:46,310 --> 00:20:48,620
Along the way, dangers abound.
379
00:20:49,731 --> 00:20:52,651
Attacks come from below and above.
380
00:20:52,651 --> 00:20:54,362
Easily spotted near the surface,
381
00:20:54,362 --> 00:20:56,532
they're vulnerable to diving birds,
382
00:20:56,532 --> 00:20:58,074
voracious blue fin tuna,
383
00:20:58,074 --> 00:21:00,053
and giants from the deep.
384
00:21:01,984 --> 00:21:04,254
But the presence of predators alone
385
00:21:04,254 --> 00:21:06,405
cannot account for millions of salmon
386
00:21:06,405 --> 00:21:07,875
disappearing each year.
387
00:21:09,356 --> 00:21:12,646
There is something fundamentally different
388
00:21:12,646 --> 00:21:14,427
in the ocean today.
389
00:21:18,188 --> 00:21:20,218
The Celtic Explorer is setting out
390
00:21:20,218 --> 00:21:22,099
from the west coast of Ireland
391
00:21:22,099 --> 00:21:23,979
into the North Atlantic
392
00:21:23,979 --> 00:21:27,440
on the final journey of a three year research mission.
393
00:21:27,440 --> 00:21:32,441
SalSea, Salmon at Sea, is the most ambitious program
394
00:21:32,892 --> 00:21:35,862
ever launched to study wild Atlantic salmon.
395
00:21:38,721 --> 00:21:41,724
The scientists must discover their age old
396
00:21:41,724 --> 00:21:45,535
migration pathways up to the Arctic feeding grounds
397
00:21:45,535 --> 00:21:48,745
and find clues about what is happening to them
398
00:21:48,745 --> 00:21:50,066
along the way.
399
00:21:50,066 --> 00:21:53,027
- There are very few fish that roam as far and as wide
400
00:21:53,027 --> 00:21:54,457
as the Atlantic salmon.
401
00:21:54,457 --> 00:21:57,838
It ranges from the very edge of the ice fields
402
00:21:57,838 --> 00:22:00,909
right down to the orange groves of northern Portugal.
403
00:22:02,119 --> 00:22:03,719
- [Gabriel] Finding these tiny salmon
404
00:22:03,719 --> 00:22:06,240
in the surface layers of the ocean
405
00:22:06,240 --> 00:22:08,218
is a daunting task,
406
00:22:08,218 --> 00:22:11,791
but the team has vital intelligence from which to work
407
00:22:11,791 --> 00:22:13,312
based on known currents
408
00:22:13,312 --> 00:22:16,162
and the expected migration speed of the fish.
409
00:22:21,324 --> 00:22:24,234
- We wanted to know how fast the fish went
410
00:22:24,234 --> 00:22:26,825
and we wanted to know the direction they went in
411
00:22:26,825 --> 00:22:29,706
and what currents they used when they were moving north
412
00:22:29,706 --> 00:22:31,146
through the Atlantic.
413
00:22:31,146 --> 00:22:34,057
And these models have done an incredible job for us,
414
00:22:34,057 --> 00:22:35,507
because not alone have they told us
415
00:22:35,507 --> 00:22:37,298
the answers to those questions,
416
00:22:37,298 --> 00:22:38,978
but they have delineated,
417
00:22:38,978 --> 00:22:41,737
they have actually described for us and mapped for us
418
00:22:41,737 --> 00:22:44,769
individual corridors where very large numbers
419
00:22:44,769 --> 00:22:46,460
of salmon congregate.
420
00:22:46,460 --> 00:22:48,040
- [Gabriel] Before SalSea,
421
00:22:48,040 --> 00:22:51,621
almost no one had studied wild salmon in the ocean before.
422
00:22:52,531 --> 00:22:55,922
Far out to sea, the Celtic Explorer is on its mission
423
00:22:55,922 --> 00:22:57,773
to find the migration path.
424
00:22:58,696 --> 00:23:01,794
They follow the continental shelf edge north,
425
00:23:01,794 --> 00:23:05,995
where there are strong currents and a gathering of sea life.
426
00:23:05,995 --> 00:23:09,866
Searching for these small fish in a vast ocean
427
00:23:09,866 --> 00:23:13,437
is something that has never been attempted before.
428
00:23:13,437 --> 00:23:16,467
- People have told us, well, salmon smolt at sea,
429
00:23:16,467 --> 00:23:17,888
they've never seen them.
430
00:23:17,888 --> 00:23:19,938
Even though I spent six years in the Arctic,
431
00:23:19,938 --> 00:23:21,259
I've never seen salmon smolt,
432
00:23:21,259 --> 00:23:23,919
so hopefully this is going to be something exciting.
433
00:23:27,590 --> 00:23:29,411
- [Gabriel] At regular intervals they sample
434
00:23:29,411 --> 00:23:32,361
near-surface ocean temperature and salinity.
435
00:23:35,472 --> 00:23:38,413
The plankton net collects available food,
436
00:23:38,413 --> 00:23:41,264
vital for baby salmon to continue their journey.
437
00:23:41,264 --> 00:23:43,084
- The growth pattern of these fish
438
00:23:43,084 --> 00:23:45,635
can actually tell us how well these fish are doing.
439
00:23:46,780 --> 00:23:48,695
- [Gabriel] The surface trawl is hauled in
440
00:23:48,695 --> 00:23:50,166
after hours of fishing.
441
00:23:53,317 --> 00:23:54,150
- The main thing is gonna be
442
00:23:54,150 --> 00:23:55,367
the fish coming through the hopper.
443
00:23:55,367 --> 00:23:57,688
When they start coming in, they're gonna come in
444
00:23:57,688 --> 00:23:58,838
pretty fast and furious.
445
00:23:58,838 --> 00:24:00,959
So we need to sort them very quickly.
446
00:24:06,450 --> 00:24:09,061
- [Gabriel] The first trawls are loaded with mackerel.
447
00:24:10,261 --> 00:24:11,421
Where are the smolts?
448
00:24:35,877 --> 00:24:39,038
Trawl after trawl brings in thousands of mackerel.
449
00:24:45,050 --> 00:24:49,641
At last, deep among the great mass of mackerel,
450
00:24:49,641 --> 00:24:52,541
they find a few young salmon.
451
00:24:54,172 --> 00:24:56,763
They are immediately transferred to the lab below.
452
00:24:57,613 --> 00:25:00,784
A clip from each fin provides vital DNA.
453
00:25:03,244 --> 00:25:04,624
- These are very precious fish,
454
00:25:04,624 --> 00:25:06,735
so really I think this is where the genetics
455
00:25:06,735 --> 00:25:08,195
comes into its own.
456
00:25:08,195 --> 00:25:09,496
Because they're so precious,
457
00:25:09,496 --> 00:25:11,306
we want to get as much information as we can
458
00:25:11,306 --> 00:25:12,837
from those fish.
459
00:25:12,837 --> 00:25:15,127
This technology, this technique, the genetics,
460
00:25:15,127 --> 00:25:17,478
will allow us to determine the river of origin.
461
00:25:18,358 --> 00:25:20,699
- [Gabriel] The DNA samples will allow them
462
00:25:20,699 --> 00:25:22,819
to trace the migration routes of salmon
463
00:25:22,819 --> 00:25:24,129
from different rivers.
464
00:25:24,129 --> 00:25:26,430
- When salmon go to sea, they have a great ability
465
00:25:26,430 --> 00:25:28,544
to lay down in their scales
466
00:25:28,544 --> 00:25:31,171
the history of their journey at sea.
467
00:25:31,171 --> 00:25:33,232
And it's very much like the rings on a tree
468
00:25:33,232 --> 00:25:34,952
but much more sophisticated,
469
00:25:34,952 --> 00:25:36,993
because not alone does it tell us
470
00:25:36,993 --> 00:25:38,353
where the fish went at sea
471
00:25:38,353 --> 00:25:40,854
in terms of the chemical composition of the scale
472
00:25:40,854 --> 00:25:43,514
but it also tells us how fast they grew at sea.
473
00:25:44,434 --> 00:25:46,515
- [Gabriel] Scale samples from each fish
474
00:25:46,515 --> 00:25:49,786
will be compared with samples taken decades earlier
475
00:25:49,786 --> 00:25:53,237
to see if marine growth has declined and why.
476
00:25:59,118 --> 00:26:00,398
We can look at their life histories
477
00:26:00,398 --> 00:26:01,969
in the period from when they left the river
478
00:26:01,969 --> 00:26:04,039
to the period that they arrived at the feeding grounds,
479
00:26:04,039 --> 00:26:05,450
What was the quality of the environment?
480
00:26:05,450 --> 00:26:07,230
So I think these are the kind of little
481
00:26:07,230 --> 00:26:09,311
pieces of the jigsaw that we're starting to learn now
482
00:26:09,311 --> 00:26:12,431
that will be incredibly valuable as we go forward.
483
00:26:12,431 --> 00:26:15,142
It allows then to say something about
484
00:26:15,142 --> 00:26:17,633
the conditions that are in those locations.
485
00:26:17,633 --> 00:26:19,789
The plankton, the quality of the feeding.
486
00:26:19,789 --> 00:26:21,964
More importantly, the quality of the fish.
487
00:26:21,964 --> 00:26:23,734
Are the fish full?
488
00:26:23,734 --> 00:26:24,945
Are they starving?
489
00:26:24,945 --> 00:26:26,635
What's their condition?
490
00:26:26,635 --> 00:26:29,206
- [Gabriel] After days of trawling and sampling,
491
00:26:29,206 --> 00:26:32,967
the team has found hundreds of juvenile salmon.
492
00:26:33,967 --> 00:26:36,457
Scientists can now begin to piece together
493
00:26:36,457 --> 00:26:39,558
the journey to their North Atlantic feeding grounds.
494
00:26:40,849 --> 00:26:43,635
Salmon from southern rivers leave first.
495
00:26:43,635 --> 00:26:47,710
They are joined by other populations, river by river,
496
00:26:47,710 --> 00:26:49,621
as they head north.
497
00:26:49,621 --> 00:26:52,218
They arrive at the first feeding grounds.
498
00:26:52,218 --> 00:26:56,593
Some salmon will return to their natal rivers after a year.
499
00:26:56,593 --> 00:26:58,663
Others will continue the journey
500
00:26:58,663 --> 00:27:01,074
to the feeding grounds off west Greenland.
501
00:27:03,128 --> 00:27:06,478
One of the Celtic Explorer's key findings
502
00:27:06,478 --> 00:27:09,136
is that many of the fish they sampled
503
00:27:09,136 --> 00:27:11,656
were thin and undernourished.
504
00:27:12,657 --> 00:27:15,227
The cause was distressingly clear.
505
00:27:16,608 --> 00:27:20,376
In some areas Celtic Explorer's special plankton net
506
00:27:20,376 --> 00:27:22,439
came up completely empty,
507
00:27:23,659 --> 00:27:27,720
and the conclusion is simple and alarming.
508
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:30,041
- There's probably large scale climate forcing
509
00:27:30,041 --> 00:27:31,681
mechanisms that are occurring.
510
00:27:31,681 --> 00:27:34,052
Well documented changes occurring in the ocean
511
00:27:34,052 --> 00:27:35,342
and the environment.
512
00:27:35,342 --> 00:27:38,193
Temperatures are getting warm, it's changing current flows,
513
00:27:38,193 --> 00:27:40,634
it's changing prey distribution.
514
00:27:40,634 --> 00:27:42,724
- [Gabriel] The seas are changing.
515
00:27:42,724 --> 00:27:46,435
The SalSea project tells us that salmon must adapt
516
00:27:46,435 --> 00:27:48,365
if they are to survive.
517
00:27:48,365 --> 00:27:51,586
They have already survived two ice ages,
518
00:27:51,586 --> 00:27:53,947
but can they now adapt as fast
519
00:27:53,947 --> 00:27:56,067
as the changing world they inhabit?
520
00:28:01,259 --> 00:28:03,759
SalSea discovered an unexpected threat
521
00:28:03,759 --> 00:28:06,000
facing European salmon.
522
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:09,191
Commercial fishing trawlers targeting mackerel
523
00:28:09,191 --> 00:28:13,162
were right in the migration path of the young salmon.
524
00:28:13,162 --> 00:28:15,332
The discovery that the trawlers were active
525
00:28:15,332 --> 00:28:19,363
in these migration corridors underscores the urgent need
526
00:28:19,363 --> 00:28:21,504
to create protective seasons
527
00:28:21,504 --> 00:28:25,205
during which trawling would be prohibited in these waters.
528
00:28:27,855 --> 00:28:32,857
Yet facing brutal odds, some salmon do reach journey's end.
529
00:28:34,017 --> 00:28:38,048
Here, they encounter a very different world.
530
00:28:39,008 --> 00:28:39,841
Greenland.
531
00:28:43,889 --> 00:28:45,670
After a grueling journey,
532
00:28:45,670 --> 00:28:48,370
the salmon that have made it this far
533
00:28:48,370 --> 00:28:51,251
at last find a safe haven.
534
00:28:53,233 --> 00:28:55,816
(serene music)
535
00:28:57,683 --> 00:29:01,564
These cold waters are incredibly fertile,
536
00:29:01,564 --> 00:29:06,565
and they feast on capelin, fish rich in oil and protein.
537
00:29:08,105 --> 00:29:11,416
The salmon will feed here for two to four years,
538
00:29:11,416 --> 00:29:14,067
sometimes growing to immense size.
539
00:29:16,888 --> 00:29:20,539
For thousands of years, this was where they thrived.
540
00:29:22,629 --> 00:29:25,570
But then, just 50 years ago,
541
00:29:25,570 --> 00:29:29,641
a small band of fishermen netting off west Greenland
542
00:29:29,641 --> 00:29:31,631
made a startling discovery
543
00:29:31,631 --> 00:29:35,672
when they came upon the salmon's secret feeding grounds.
544
00:29:35,672 --> 00:29:38,693
And word traveled fast, and soon fishing ships
545
00:29:38,693 --> 00:29:41,014
from all over Europe converged here.
546
00:29:42,174 --> 00:29:45,235
This remarkable footage, taken by angler
547
00:29:45,235 --> 00:29:49,736
and conservationist Lee Wulff, documents the tragic tale.
548
00:29:51,616 --> 00:29:54,427
- [Lee] This is a 20 knot ship, about 200 tons.
549
00:29:55,307 --> 00:29:58,888
In her hold, she has 36,000 salmon
550
00:29:58,888 --> 00:30:01,289
taken in a little over a month of fishing here.
551
00:30:04,159 --> 00:30:09,161
Yard by yard, the 18 miles of continuous net comes aboard,
552
00:30:10,081 --> 00:30:12,752
and with it come the salmon.
553
00:30:12,752 --> 00:30:15,612
- [Gabriel] In 1971, their catches peeked
554
00:30:15,612 --> 00:30:17,963
at nearly 800,000 salmon,
555
00:30:19,083 --> 00:30:22,174
and this set the salmon on a downward spiral.
556
00:30:23,324 --> 00:30:27,105
Scientists calculated that in 1972 alone
557
00:30:27,105 --> 00:30:30,336
netters removed one third of all salmon
558
00:30:30,336 --> 00:30:32,006
swimming off west Greenland.
559
00:30:33,317 --> 00:30:36,968
Fortunately the crisis was recognized.
560
00:30:36,968 --> 00:30:39,428
The following year an embargo was established
561
00:30:39,428 --> 00:30:41,779
on international boats.
562
00:30:41,779 --> 00:30:44,019
10 years later the North Atlantic Salmon
563
00:30:44,019 --> 00:30:46,690
Conservation Organization was formed
564
00:30:46,690 --> 00:30:49,691
as a formal international treaty organization
565
00:30:49,691 --> 00:30:52,311
to protect the Atlantic salmon.
566
00:30:52,311 --> 00:30:55,862
By the late 1980s, quotas were established,
567
00:30:55,862 --> 00:30:59,553
and a decade later, Greenland has agreed not to export
568
00:30:59,553 --> 00:31:01,144
any salmon.
569
00:31:01,144 --> 00:31:04,645
It was a vital step in saving the species.
570
00:31:06,195 --> 00:31:08,456
- Described by some as a United Nations
571
00:31:08,456 --> 00:31:10,066
for the Atlantic salmon,
572
00:31:10,066 --> 00:31:13,427
NASCO houses members of most North Atlantic governments
573
00:31:13,427 --> 00:31:15,947
with salmon interests, and additionally,
574
00:31:15,947 --> 00:31:18,268
about 40 non-government organizations
575
00:31:18,268 --> 00:31:20,499
from countries all around the North Atlantic.
576
00:31:20,499 --> 00:31:22,909
One of the immediate benefits of the NASCO treaty
577
00:31:22,909 --> 00:31:25,270
was that it established an enormous protected zone
578
00:31:25,270 --> 00:31:27,820
free of fisheries for salmon in the North Atlantic.
579
00:31:28,831 --> 00:31:31,061
- Greenland is the principal feeding area.
580
00:31:31,061 --> 00:31:33,462
The fishery is a problem because it harvests salmon
581
00:31:33,462 --> 00:31:35,052
from all rivers.
582
00:31:35,052 --> 00:31:36,553
The fishery of Greenland was where
583
00:31:36,553 --> 00:31:40,153
all of the Atlantic salmon from eastern Canada and the US
584
00:31:40,153 --> 00:31:42,814
congregate for a couple or three years to feed,
585
00:31:42,814 --> 00:31:44,865
so that's the principal feeding area.
586
00:31:44,865 --> 00:31:45,975
It's a mixed stock fishery,
587
00:31:45,975 --> 00:31:47,965
so you have Atlantic salmon
588
00:31:47,965 --> 00:31:49,675
from a whole bunch of different rivers
589
00:31:49,675 --> 00:31:50,896
both sides of the Atlantic mingling the ocean
590
00:31:50,896 --> 00:31:53,429
and there's no way for the Greenlanders
591
00:31:53,429 --> 00:31:55,190
when they put a net in the ocean
592
00:31:55,190 --> 00:31:58,478
to just focus their fishing pressure on a healthy population
593
00:31:58,478 --> 00:32:00,038
as opposed to pulling up the nets
594
00:32:00,038 --> 00:32:02,444
and maybe they have a few salmon
595
00:32:02,444 --> 00:32:03,869
from the St. John River, which is threatened,
596
00:32:04,718 --> 00:32:06,809
or the Penobscot River in Maine, which is threatened.
597
00:32:06,809 --> 00:32:09,291
If they're going to have a fishery at any sustainable level,
598
00:32:09,291 --> 00:32:11,881
you gotta think about the future of the species,
599
00:32:11,881 --> 00:32:14,162
and I think they've realized over the last number of years
600
00:32:14,162 --> 00:32:15,732
they've seen fewer and fewer fish,
601
00:32:15,732 --> 00:32:18,337
their quotas negotiated by NASCO have been reduced
602
00:32:18,337 --> 00:32:20,704
year after year after year.
603
00:32:20,704 --> 00:32:22,904
The scientific advice is there should be no fisheries,
604
00:32:22,904 --> 00:32:25,146
so even a very small fishery is problematic
605
00:32:25,146 --> 00:32:29,356
for a lot of our salmons runs here in eastern Canada.
606
00:32:29,356 --> 00:32:31,676
- [Gabriel] The Greenland quotas were a sensitive issue
607
00:32:31,676 --> 00:32:33,264
for local fishermen.
608
00:32:33,264 --> 00:32:36,598
Conservationist Orri Vigfusson,
609
00:32:36,598 --> 00:32:39,798
in partnership with the Atlantic Salmon Federation,
610
00:32:39,798 --> 00:32:41,912
began working with local fishermen
611
00:32:41,912 --> 00:32:44,800
in order to reduce catches of salmon.
612
00:32:47,779 --> 00:32:51,951
- 22 years ago set up the North Atlantic Salmon Fund
613
00:32:51,951 --> 00:32:55,952
for the sole purpose of conserving salmon
614
00:32:55,952 --> 00:32:58,903
the fastest and the most effective way,
615
00:32:58,903 --> 00:33:02,174
i.e. using commerce to do this.
616
00:33:02,174 --> 00:33:06,225
Actually to pay fishermen not to fish.
617
00:33:06,225 --> 00:33:09,046
I buy back their fishing rights.
618
00:33:09,046 --> 00:33:12,557
I have raised millions and millions of dollars this way,
619
00:33:12,557 --> 00:33:14,317
mostly from the private sector.
620
00:33:16,538 --> 00:33:19,798
We've been very successful in brokering
621
00:33:19,798 --> 00:33:22,769
commercial agreements with the fishermen
622
00:33:22,769 --> 00:33:27,770
who have voluntarily agreed not to harvest the salmon
623
00:33:28,301 --> 00:33:31,931
in return for development of other employment,
624
00:33:31,931 --> 00:33:35,252
other fisheries that are sustainable.
625
00:33:35,252 --> 00:33:36,723
- [Gabriel] Some small scale fishing
626
00:33:36,723 --> 00:33:38,173
does still happen here.
627
00:33:39,403 --> 00:33:42,684
Greenlander Johannes Heiland is a traditional fisherman.
628
00:33:43,754 --> 00:33:46,626
Today he will stay close to his island shore
629
00:33:46,626 --> 00:33:48,946
and will fish for salmon.
630
00:33:48,946 --> 00:33:52,917
His catch will only be sold in local markets.
631
00:33:54,728 --> 00:33:57,729
(suspenseful music)
632
00:34:29,656 --> 00:34:33,116
Close by, other fishermen net cod,
633
00:34:33,116 --> 00:34:35,446
a fish that has recently rebounded.
634
00:34:41,919 --> 00:34:46,130
These men are the face of Greenland fishing today.
635
00:34:55,571 --> 00:34:58,063
The SalSea program has helped us to understand
636
00:34:58,063 --> 00:35:01,544
the migration paths to Greenland.
637
00:35:01,544 --> 00:35:05,085
But we still know very little about the return journey.
638
00:35:06,355 --> 00:35:08,996
Marine biologist Tim Sheehan and his colleague
639
00:35:08,996 --> 00:35:13,367
Rasmus Nygard are trying the near impossible.
640
00:35:13,367 --> 00:35:15,937
To hook a large salmon in the ocean,
641
00:35:15,937 --> 00:35:20,619
reel it in safely, and fit it with a satellite transmitter,
642
00:35:20,619 --> 00:35:22,969
then set it free.
643
00:35:22,969 --> 00:35:27,040
This is the first attempt to track the salmon migration
644
00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:28,611
from Greenland waters.
645
00:35:39,708 --> 00:35:40,934
(laughs)
646
00:35:40,934 --> 00:35:42,964
- The ocean's really a big unknown for salmon,
647
00:35:42,964 --> 00:35:45,615
and we know these kinda general trends, where they go,
648
00:35:45,615 --> 00:35:47,365
they're feeding off of the coast of Greenland,
649
00:35:47,365 --> 00:35:49,406
they're feeding in the Norwegian sea.
650
00:35:49,406 --> 00:35:51,616
We have these kind of big picture ideas of what goes on,
651
00:35:51,616 --> 00:35:53,577
but we really don't know any of the details.
652
00:35:53,577 --> 00:35:56,178
These different research activities that we're undertaking,
653
00:35:56,178 --> 00:35:58,168
we're really trying to fill in a lot of those pieces
654
00:35:58,168 --> 00:36:01,119
and give us a much better idea as to what's going on
655
00:36:01,119 --> 00:36:03,289
not only in fresh water but also in the ocean
656
00:36:03,289 --> 00:36:04,840
during the salmon's life cycle.
657
00:36:09,271 --> 00:36:11,291
These tags will give us a better idea
658
00:36:11,291 --> 00:36:14,852
as to the routes that they're taking to migrate home,
659
00:36:14,852 --> 00:36:17,613
and by tagging them at Greenland before they go home
660
00:36:17,613 --> 00:36:19,873
we can look at that second half of the migration.
661
00:36:19,873 --> 00:36:21,964
- [Gabriel] The pop-off tag has been designed
662
00:36:21,964 --> 00:36:25,135
to stay attached to the fish for eight months.
663
00:36:26,045 --> 00:36:28,276
After that time, the tag is released
664
00:36:28,276 --> 00:36:30,796
and floats to the surface,
665
00:36:30,796 --> 00:36:32,657
and the information it carries
666
00:36:32,657 --> 00:36:35,547
is downloaded from a passing satellite.
667
00:36:35,547 --> 00:36:37,588
Now for the first time,
668
00:36:37,588 --> 00:36:40,079
Tim is able to trace the beginning
669
00:36:40,079 --> 00:36:43,429
of the salmon's journey back from Greenland.
670
00:36:43,429 --> 00:36:46,120
It is an important step in this new track.
671
00:36:47,530 --> 00:36:49,901
Remarkably the fish dove far deeper
672
00:36:49,901 --> 00:36:54,902
than anyone predicted, some 700 meters into the dark abyss.
673
00:36:56,163 --> 00:36:58,173
- This is the first time that this has been done.
674
00:36:58,173 --> 00:37:00,124
First look into the environmental conditions
675
00:37:00,124 --> 00:37:01,394
that salmon are experiencing
676
00:37:01,394 --> 00:37:03,424
as they're off the coast of Greenland
677
00:37:03,424 --> 00:37:05,295
and as they begin their migration home.
678
00:37:05,295 --> 00:37:07,855
We can start looking at some of the oceanographic conditions
679
00:37:07,855 --> 00:37:10,636
and in those areas at that time, what has changed.
680
00:37:10,636 --> 00:37:12,637
Start forming hypotheses as to what could be
681
00:37:12,637 --> 00:37:15,497
driving the mortality that we're seeing in the ocean.
682
00:37:15,497 --> 00:37:17,828
- [Gabriel] The truth is, we still know very little
683
00:37:17,828 --> 00:37:20,479
about the salmon's journey home.
684
00:37:20,479 --> 00:37:23,079
But we do know that the number of salmon
685
00:37:23,079 --> 00:37:24,610
returning to their rivers after
686
00:37:24,610 --> 00:37:27,510
their great North Atlantic migration
687
00:37:27,510 --> 00:37:32,512
has dropped by 70% in the last three decades.
688
00:37:36,403 --> 00:37:39,063
It is now springtime.
689
00:37:39,063 --> 00:37:42,014
The great salmon that have spent years at sea
690
00:37:42,014 --> 00:37:44,775
now return to the rivers of their birth,
691
00:37:44,775 --> 00:37:48,326
guided in part by the distinctive scent of its waters.
692
00:37:49,316 --> 00:37:52,707
Now full grown, instinct drives them
693
00:37:52,707 --> 00:37:54,557
to fresh water to spawn.
694
00:37:56,568 --> 00:37:59,078
But this journey too is far from easy.
695
00:38:00,079 --> 00:38:02,969
In Scotland a resident pod of dolphins
696
00:38:02,969 --> 00:38:05,160
awaits their annual windfall.
697
00:38:06,566 --> 00:38:08,581
The strong currents in the Moray Firth
698
00:38:08,581 --> 00:38:11,431
virtually deliver the salmon straight to them.
699
00:38:12,372 --> 00:38:15,332
Some are taken, but many escape.
700
00:38:17,303 --> 00:38:19,843
All around in North Atlantic coastlines,
701
00:38:19,843 --> 00:38:21,704
the great salmon runs have begun.
702
00:38:22,984 --> 00:38:24,915
A small commercial fishery operates
703
00:38:24,915 --> 00:38:26,925
in Montrose Bay, Scotland,
704
00:38:26,925 --> 00:38:29,946
a fourth generation family business.
705
00:38:29,946 --> 00:38:33,427
George Puller is part of a deeply rooted Scottish tradition.
706
00:38:38,878 --> 00:38:43,149
- Our family business was established in the late 1960s
707
00:38:43,149 --> 00:38:45,560
by my father and grandfather.
708
00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:48,901
At one time, there used to be netting stations
709
00:38:48,901 --> 00:38:51,942
throughout Scotland almost on every part of the coastline,
710
00:38:51,942 --> 00:38:53,862
but what has happened was in the late '80s,
711
00:38:53,862 --> 00:38:57,483
the fish farms reduced the price of the wild salmon so much
712
00:38:57,483 --> 00:39:00,604
because the customers didn't really recognize the difference
713
00:39:00,604 --> 00:39:02,784
between a wild salmon and a farm salmon.
714
00:39:03,995 --> 00:39:07,425
Since then the wild salmon has rallied in price,
715
00:39:07,425 --> 00:39:09,306
but the netting effort now
716
00:39:09,306 --> 00:39:12,977
is only about 5% of what it was in 1952.
717
00:39:12,977 --> 00:39:15,307
So there's only a handful of people left in Scotland
718
00:39:15,307 --> 00:39:16,508
to do this kind of work.
719
00:39:18,458 --> 00:39:20,919
- [Gabriel] For centuries these small scale fisheries
720
00:39:20,919 --> 00:39:22,029
were sustainable.
721
00:39:23,049 --> 00:39:25,530
Now along with the declining runs,
722
00:39:25,530 --> 00:39:26,980
their numbers have plummeted.
723
00:39:32,362 --> 00:39:35,963
George and his family face a challenging future.
724
00:39:39,629 --> 00:39:43,087
- Our fishery here started in the early 1800s,
725
00:39:43,087 --> 00:39:45,835
and it's part of the fabric of Scotland,
726
00:39:45,835 --> 00:39:48,272
and you know, we want it to continue
727
00:39:48,272 --> 00:39:49,722
for many generations to come.
728
00:39:51,006 --> 00:39:52,217
- [Gabriel] The Scottish government felt
729
00:39:52,217 --> 00:39:54,687
the threat to the salmon was so severe
730
00:39:54,687 --> 00:39:57,274
it recently placed a three year moratorium
731
00:39:57,274 --> 00:40:00,939
on any taking of wild salmon in coastal waters.
732
00:40:04,450 --> 00:40:07,630
Small fisheries are not the only communities to suffer
733
00:40:07,630 --> 00:40:09,481
as salmon stocks decline.
734
00:40:10,631 --> 00:40:13,262
Upriver the fabled sport of salmon angling
735
00:40:13,262 --> 00:40:14,562
is changing too.
736
00:40:23,444 --> 00:40:27,032
Angling for salmon is not only the fabric of Scotland,
737
00:40:27,032 --> 00:40:31,446
it is the heart of life on the rivers of Ireland and Norway,
738
00:40:31,446 --> 00:40:33,737
Iceland, eastern Canada.
739
00:40:35,798 --> 00:40:38,418
This is no overnight sport,
740
00:40:38,418 --> 00:40:42,209
but learned with lessons accumulated over a lifetime.
741
00:41:17,478 --> 00:41:20,899
Atlantic salmon are already extinct
742
00:41:20,899 --> 00:41:22,749
in more than 300 rivers.
743
00:41:28,611 --> 00:41:31,962
Far up river the journey is almost over.
744
00:41:31,962 --> 00:41:34,562
Researchers are tracking how many have survived.
745
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:39,704
The waters of the Miramichi River in Canada
746
00:41:39,704 --> 00:41:43,554
were famous for enormous runs of Atlantic salmon.
747
00:41:43,554 --> 00:41:45,565
Just a few decades ago,
748
00:41:45,565 --> 00:41:49,426
25% of all salmon bound for North America
749
00:41:49,426 --> 00:41:52,557
came to this one river alone.
750
00:41:52,557 --> 00:41:57,078
100 kilometers upriver, Mark Hambrook and fellow biologists
751
00:41:57,078 --> 00:42:00,449
are netting a protected pool in autumn
752
00:42:00,449 --> 00:42:02,229
to count the returning fish.
753
00:42:06,300 --> 00:42:09,091
The salmon have lost their silvery sheen
754
00:42:09,091 --> 00:42:12,642
and changed into their striking spawning colors.
755
00:42:12,642 --> 00:42:14,962
The russets and browns of autumn.
756
00:42:16,483 --> 00:42:18,353
Among the few that return,
757
00:42:18,353 --> 00:42:21,764
they are finding a wide variety of ages.
758
00:42:21,764 --> 00:42:24,015
Some left for only one year.
759
00:42:24,015 --> 00:42:26,295
Others stayed away for up to four years.
760
00:42:27,585 --> 00:42:30,396
By spreading the risk over many ages,
761
00:42:30,396 --> 00:42:32,327
nature ensures the species
762
00:42:32,327 --> 00:42:35,027
is never brought down by one generation.
763
00:42:35,868 --> 00:42:40,869
However, every year, fewer and fewer return.
764
00:42:41,389 --> 00:42:44,060
These are the fortunate ones.
765
00:42:44,060 --> 00:42:48,421
The concern is about those many others lost at sea.
766
00:42:49,951 --> 00:42:52,022
Where once a half million adult salmon
767
00:42:52,022 --> 00:42:54,262
came here to spawn each year,
768
00:42:54,262 --> 00:42:57,603
now they number less than 40,000.
769
00:42:58,798 --> 00:43:01,994
This is a monumental decline.
770
00:43:08,536 --> 00:43:09,616
- Wild male salmon.
771
00:43:14,917 --> 00:43:18,328
So many set out, so few return.
772
00:43:19,268 --> 00:43:22,759
But we now know more about the salmon's incredible journey
773
00:43:22,759 --> 00:43:23,960
than ever before.
774
00:43:24,820 --> 00:43:27,050
As the investigators compile the data
775
00:43:27,050 --> 00:43:29,061
and share their discoveries,
776
00:43:29,061 --> 00:43:32,612
a complex and alarming picture emerges.
777
00:43:32,612 --> 00:43:37,143
Young fish are leaving the rivers earlier than ever before,
778
00:43:37,143 --> 00:43:39,624
triggered by warming waters.
779
00:43:39,624 --> 00:43:42,614
Salmon are cold water fish.
780
00:43:43,464 --> 00:43:46,545
- As the smolts grow, and as they grow faster,
781
00:43:46,545 --> 00:43:48,306
they reach the smolt stage,
782
00:43:48,306 --> 00:43:49,966
the stage when they can go to sea,
783
00:43:49,966 --> 00:43:51,136
they reach that earlier.
784
00:43:51,136 --> 00:43:54,487
Sometimes a year earlier than they did previously.
785
00:43:54,487 --> 00:43:59,028
The fish are then small fish, but still ready to go to sea.
786
00:43:59,028 --> 00:44:01,399
But those small fish, once they go to sea,
787
00:44:01,399 --> 00:44:04,890
are much less fit, and really the survival rate
788
00:44:04,890 --> 00:44:07,070
of these smaller fish when they go to sea
789
00:44:07,070 --> 00:44:09,581
is a lot poorer than the bigger, older fish
790
00:44:09,581 --> 00:44:11,742
that we had in the past.
791
00:44:11,742 --> 00:44:12,582
- [Gabriel] They are challenged
792
00:44:12,582 --> 00:44:14,862
even before they make it to sea.
793
00:44:14,862 --> 00:44:17,063
Once at sea, the young salmon are unable
794
00:44:17,063 --> 00:44:20,604
to find the food they need to grow and survive.
795
00:44:20,604 --> 00:44:23,545
The plankton and larval fishes have moved north
796
00:44:23,545 --> 00:44:25,667
due to the warming waters,
797
00:44:25,667 --> 00:44:28,916
and salmon from southern rivers have to travel farther
798
00:44:28,916 --> 00:44:31,406
and are weakened by the lack of food
799
00:44:31,406 --> 00:44:34,647
and are more susceptible to predators.
800
00:44:34,647 --> 00:44:36,818
Even adult salmon are finding it hard
801
00:44:36,818 --> 00:44:40,249
to find their preferred food in a changing ocean,
802
00:44:40,249 --> 00:44:42,629
and when they return, many are not
803
00:44:42,629 --> 00:44:45,740
in optimum condition for spawning.
804
00:44:45,740 --> 00:44:47,981
These findings are all linked.
805
00:44:47,981 --> 00:44:50,721
The Atlantic Ocean is changing fast,
806
00:44:50,721 --> 00:44:54,132
and maybe faster than salmon can adapt.
807
00:44:54,132 --> 00:44:56,253
The salmon are getting lost
808
00:44:56,253 --> 00:44:59,253
in the wrong place at the wrong time,
809
00:44:59,253 --> 00:45:00,844
failing to find food
810
00:45:00,844 --> 00:45:03,605
or encountering enemies they never knew.
811
00:45:03,605 --> 00:45:06,985
Warming water lies at the heart of the mystery.
812
00:45:08,046 --> 00:45:11,106
- What we now know is that climate change has impacted
813
00:45:11,106 --> 00:45:14,790
directly and very severely on Atlantic salmon at sea.
814
00:45:14,790 --> 00:45:16,968
Really the way it has done this
815
00:45:17,817 --> 00:45:20,249
is through the temperature changes that have happened
816
00:45:20,249 --> 00:45:21,729
in the surface of the oceans.
817
00:45:22,926 --> 00:45:24,410
As a result of these temperature changes,
818
00:45:24,410 --> 00:45:27,751
we find that the plankton is actually moving north.
819
00:45:27,751 --> 00:45:30,131
Species of plankton that are comfortable
820
00:45:30,131 --> 00:45:32,322
in water that is reasonably cool
821
00:45:32,322 --> 00:45:35,172
now find conditions to be entirely unsuitable,
822
00:45:35,172 --> 00:45:38,053
and each year they're moving further and further
823
00:45:38,053 --> 00:45:39,313
and further north.
824
00:45:39,313 --> 00:45:42,154
What we do know is that conditions are changing,
825
00:45:42,154 --> 00:45:45,135
and always when you get a big change in an ocean
826
00:45:45,135 --> 00:45:48,226
you're going to see an increase in terms of mortality,
827
00:45:48,226 --> 00:45:51,497
as the fish changes and as the fish adapts.
828
00:45:51,497 --> 00:45:55,347
20, 30 years ago, there would've been in the region
829
00:45:55,347 --> 00:45:58,119
of seven or eight million Atlantic salmon at sea.
830
00:45:58,119 --> 00:46:00,979
That's now down to about three million,
831
00:46:00,979 --> 00:46:03,650
and as far as we can see it's continuing to drop.
832
00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:07,300
- [Gabriel] Changing ocean conditions will require
833
00:46:07,300 --> 00:46:10,281
international cooperation to protect the salmon.
834
00:46:11,562 --> 00:46:13,732
We must also turn to fresh water
835
00:46:13,732 --> 00:46:16,733
to make sure we have clean rivers and estuaries,
836
00:46:16,733 --> 00:46:19,964
unobstructed passage, good spawning beds,
837
00:46:19,964 --> 00:46:22,564
and healthy nurseries for the young
838
00:46:22,564 --> 00:46:27,115
to send as many salmon out to sea as possible.
839
00:46:27,115 --> 00:46:29,226
As the salmon are adapting and changing
840
00:46:29,226 --> 00:46:31,196
to the new ocean conditions
841
00:46:31,196 --> 00:46:33,757
we must reduce man-made pressure
842
00:46:33,757 --> 00:46:36,318
to give them time to adapt.
843
00:46:36,318 --> 00:46:40,459
One solution is to create protected migration corridors
844
00:46:40,459 --> 00:46:42,769
from the remotest spawning beds
845
00:46:42,769 --> 00:46:45,650
all the way up to the Arctic feeding grounds.
846
00:46:50,371 --> 00:46:53,272
But there are some stories of hope.
847
00:46:53,272 --> 00:46:55,673
People who are fighting for the species
848
00:46:55,673 --> 00:46:57,673
and making a difference.
849
00:46:59,635 --> 00:47:04,115
The Penobscot River in Maine was once a great salmon river
850
00:47:04,115 --> 00:47:07,065
until dams blocked the way for migrating fish.
851
00:47:09,096 --> 00:47:11,827
- I'm looking at a broken river that we've had here.
852
00:47:11,827 --> 00:47:14,887
You know, for over 100 years we've had this dam
853
00:47:14,887 --> 00:47:16,838
and then several other dams above it.
854
00:47:16,838 --> 00:47:18,648
You know, we've tried to build hatcheries
855
00:47:18,648 --> 00:47:20,749
to put fish in above these dams,
856
00:47:20,749 --> 00:47:23,019
but we've never really addressed the problem
857
00:47:23,019 --> 00:47:25,310
that there are just too many dams in this river,
858
00:47:25,310 --> 00:47:26,630
and the Veazie Dam here,
859
00:47:26,630 --> 00:47:28,311
this dam is at the head of the tide.
860
00:47:28,311 --> 00:47:30,371
100% of the spawning grounds
861
00:47:30,371 --> 00:47:32,212
for species like Atlantic salmon
862
00:47:32,212 --> 00:47:34,692
are all above this dam.
863
00:47:34,692 --> 00:47:36,203
These dams on the main stem river
864
00:47:36,203 --> 00:47:38,193
were built back in the 1930s,
865
00:47:38,193 --> 00:47:41,314
so since that time, salmon have come to these dams
866
00:47:41,314 --> 00:47:43,325
and not been able to get any farther
867
00:47:43,325 --> 00:47:44,595
to their spawning grounds.
868
00:47:44,595 --> 00:47:46,595
Over time we've built fish ladders
869
00:47:46,595 --> 00:47:48,456
that largely haven't worked.
870
00:47:48,456 --> 00:47:51,026
We've had two studies in the last decade that have said
871
00:47:51,026 --> 00:47:53,187
if we're gonna restore Atlantic salmon
872
00:47:53,187 --> 00:47:55,638
on these big rivers in Maine like the Penobscot,
873
00:47:55,638 --> 00:47:58,758
we have to reduce the number of dams.
874
00:47:58,758 --> 00:48:01,349
And the Penobscot project does that.
875
00:48:01,349 --> 00:48:04,460
This project will remove two big main stem dams
876
00:48:04,460 --> 00:48:05,830
and bypass a third dam.
877
00:48:05,830 --> 00:48:07,581
So we're addressing the root of the problem
878
00:48:07,581 --> 00:48:10,771
for the first time in this river in 183 years.
879
00:48:15,396 --> 00:48:18,233
- [Gabriel] In recent years, heroic measures were taken
880
00:48:18,233 --> 00:48:19,354
to rescue salmon.
881
00:48:25,655 --> 00:48:28,986
Lift them over the dam and release them upstream.
882
00:48:46,660 --> 00:48:49,661
These are some of the last remaining Atlantic salmon
883
00:48:49,661 --> 00:48:51,121
in the United States.
884
00:48:52,392 --> 00:48:55,883
But today, this river is about to be restored.
885
00:48:55,883 --> 00:48:58,493
The Penobscot River Restoration Trust
886
00:48:58,493 --> 00:49:01,214
was formed to buy three dams on the river,
887
00:49:01,214 --> 00:49:05,465
remove two of them, and build a fish pass around the third.
888
00:49:05,465 --> 00:49:08,106
The first to go was the Great Works Dam,
889
00:49:08,106 --> 00:49:11,116
and then the Veazie Dam was breached.
890
00:49:11,116 --> 00:49:15,167
It opened up more than 1000 miles of spawning habitat.
891
00:49:16,068 --> 00:49:17,787
(applauding)
892
00:49:17,787 --> 00:49:20,349
- So today we celebrate
893
00:49:20,349 --> 00:49:24,190
the taking down of this great dam behind us,
894
00:49:24,190 --> 00:49:27,337
but you'll be seeing a whole new river here within one year.
895
00:49:27,337 --> 00:49:29,681
And when you see projects like this taking place
896
00:49:29,681 --> 00:49:33,252
on the Penobscot River, it inspires people to do even more.
897
00:49:36,023 --> 00:49:38,013
- [Gabriel] And when a dam was removed in the nearby
898
00:49:38,013 --> 00:49:42,274
Kennebec River in Maine, fisheries biologist Nate Gray
899
00:49:42,274 --> 00:49:46,785
witnessed just how soon life returned.
900
00:49:46,785 --> 00:49:49,416
- Because of the work that we've done here,
901
00:49:49,416 --> 00:49:51,417
it's revitalized this river.
902
00:49:51,417 --> 00:49:54,362
The river is a living, breathing creature.
903
00:49:54,362 --> 00:49:57,408
The river herring here are the prime driver
904
00:49:57,408 --> 00:50:00,969
of the marine and freshwater ecosystem interface.
905
00:50:00,969 --> 00:50:03,240
The river herring are the base of that food chain.
906
00:50:03,240 --> 00:50:05,020
The salmon smolt out migration
907
00:50:05,020 --> 00:50:08,421
almost perfectly coincides and overlaps with
908
00:50:08,421 --> 00:50:11,912
the influx of this huge biomass
909
00:50:11,912 --> 00:50:13,742
of river herring going upriver.
910
00:50:13,742 --> 00:50:15,881
So you have the smolts dropping out
911
00:50:15,881 --> 00:50:17,427
trying to get out to the ocean
912
00:50:17,427 --> 00:50:18,260
and then you have the river herring
913
00:50:19,193 --> 00:50:20,026
pouring in at the same time,
914
00:50:20,026 --> 00:50:22,404
and any predators like cod or haddock or you know,
915
00:50:22,404 --> 00:50:24,735
halibut that are hanging out at the river mouth
916
00:50:24,735 --> 00:50:26,705
are much less likely to eat a salmon smolt
917
00:50:26,705 --> 00:50:28,656
because there's so many river herrings.
918
00:50:29,984 --> 00:50:33,307
And the restoration of these keystone species
919
00:50:33,307 --> 00:50:35,047
could very well be the tipping point
920
00:50:35,047 --> 00:50:36,898
for salmon coming back to this river.
921
00:50:44,760 --> 00:50:46,840
- [Gabriel] In Iceland, there's another story
922
00:50:46,840 --> 00:50:48,741
where humans are making a difference.
923
00:50:53,082 --> 00:50:56,713
This ancient landscape, little touched by time,
924
00:50:56,713 --> 00:50:58,593
is a haven for salmon.
925
00:51:09,443 --> 00:51:10,776
But there are rivers with obstacles
926
00:51:10,776 --> 00:51:12,567
too high for them to overcome.
927
00:51:21,470 --> 00:51:24,480
One man decided to help nature along.
928
00:51:33,472 --> 00:51:36,233
- Yeah, we are now on the River Tungufljót.
929
00:51:36,233 --> 00:51:38,533
It never had any salmon in the past
930
00:51:38,533 --> 00:51:40,964
because you can see this big waterfall here,
931
00:51:40,964 --> 00:51:42,064
it's a huge waterfall,
932
00:51:43,014 --> 00:51:46,765
and the salmon were never able to run the falls,
933
00:51:46,765 --> 00:51:49,516
they are simply just too high for the fish.
934
00:51:49,516 --> 00:51:53,487
So what I did, I leased the river for a long period of time
935
00:51:53,487 --> 00:51:58,488
and I decided to make a fish ladder into the waterfall
936
00:51:58,648 --> 00:52:01,309
to enable the fish to go through the falls
937
00:52:01,309 --> 00:52:02,739
after the spawning ground.
938
00:52:05,280 --> 00:52:06,760
So we built the salmon ladder,
939
00:52:06,760 --> 00:52:09,261
but of course there were no salmon to run the ladder
940
00:52:09,261 --> 00:52:11,442
because they had never been here.
941
00:52:11,442 --> 00:52:15,303
So I got some salmon start from the neighbor rivers.
942
00:52:16,433 --> 00:52:18,913
So we released these 10,000 smolts
943
00:52:18,913 --> 00:52:21,924
and a year later, we got 60 salmon back,
944
00:52:21,924 --> 00:52:23,875
which I thought was quite unique.
945
00:52:23,875 --> 00:52:27,176
That was the first salmon ever running this river.
946
00:52:27,176 --> 00:52:29,486
And we took all the 60 fish
947
00:52:29,486 --> 00:52:32,182
and we brought them up to the fish hatchery
948
00:52:32,182 --> 00:52:36,828
and we nursed the eggs and we got another 60,000 smolts
949
00:52:36,828 --> 00:52:38,298
from these fish.
950
00:52:38,298 --> 00:52:41,519
And we released 60,000 smolts
951
00:52:41,519 --> 00:52:46,520
and then we landed 2800 on this river, Tungufljót.
952
00:52:47,431 --> 00:52:50,891
So all of a sudden we have a new salmon river in Iceland.
953
00:52:57,123 --> 00:53:00,854
It's quite unique what is possible to do with nature
954
00:53:00,854 --> 00:53:03,085
if you help a little bit.
955
00:53:26,720 --> 00:53:29,941
- [Gabriel] And so the great journey ends where it began.
956
00:53:38,283 --> 00:53:40,894
It has extended over thousands of miles
957
00:53:41,854 --> 00:53:45,285
and encountered every conceivable risk.
958
00:53:45,285 --> 00:53:49,276
What has made it possible was a heroic will,
959
00:53:49,276 --> 00:53:52,027
the primal need to reproduce
960
00:53:52,027 --> 00:53:54,727
and pass on its genetic inheritance.
961
00:54:04,538 --> 00:54:05,890
But the question remains.
962
00:54:09,941 --> 00:54:13,732
Will one of the oldest journeys soon come to an end?
963
00:54:18,223 --> 00:54:20,764
Or will the Atlantic salmon endure
964
00:54:22,164 --> 00:54:25,565
to inspire generations still to come?
965
00:54:38,725 --> 00:54:41,559
(accordion music)
72761
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