The Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC) recently released information on the 2017 ocean conditions that greeted out-migrating juvenile salmon off the coast of Oregon and Washington this year. The NWFSC has been studying the ecology of juvenile salmon entering the ocean for the last 20 years, documenting environmental conditions such as sea surface temperatures and salinity, and biological factors such as food supply. Their findings show ocean conditions were particularly poor beginning in 2014, and worsened in 2015 and 2016.

Now the early indications for 2017 are looking just as bad. Juvenile salmon surveys conducted this June by NOAA Fisheries off the Pacific Northwest resulted in "the fewest juvenile salmon of any of the last 20 years," suggesting that many of the salmon in the region that out-migrated to the ocean this year did not survive. 

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