It's going to be interesting (I fear not in a good way), to see what effect the reduced salmon numbers are going to have on the resident trout/bug populations over time. If a butterfly fluttering it's wings can cause a hurricane, what happens when you remove a couple million thrashing salmon tails.
In alot of respects, one might view a salmon as a semi truck, filled with biomass, making a delivery from the big lakes to consumers upstream. They provided tons (literally) of food in the form of roe and flesh to the resident populations every fall. That gave all the residents a chance to fatten up for the cold winter ahead.
If over time there aren't so many, if any, semi trucks delivering the bacon, it could mean lean times for river residents getting ready for winter.
I hope not, but of course, we'll see (whether we want to or not).
p.s. As I think about it, the big lake sourced feed bag continued well into the spring/early summer with massive numbers of hatching fry.
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