A4
Opinion
wallowa.com
January 24, 2018
Wallowa County Chieftain
Snake River Chinook retain more ancestral genetics
G
enetic diversity is essential
to long-term adaptability
and survival of any species.
By that measure, upper Columbia
River Chinook salmon are in deep
trouble. A new study, published Jan.
10 finds that within the past century,
the Chinook salmon in the upper
Columbia River have lost almost 70
percent of their genetic variation.
But their Snake River cousins
have lost only about 30 percent of
their genetic variation, making Snake
River Chinook a potentially more
resilient fish.
Bobbi Johnson, a graduate student
at Washington State University, com-
pared the genetics (mostly mitochon-
drial DNA) from modern fish with
fish remains found at Native Ameri-
can sites. The ancient samples came
either from middens (places where
encampments piled food waste and
scraps) or were supplied to her by
the Colville, Nez Perce and other
tribes from their archival or heritage
materials.
Her 346 ancient samples from the
Columbia, Spokane and Snake Riv-
ers included a 7,627-year-old salmon
vertebrae found at an ancient fish-
ing encampment site the Colum-
bia at Kettle Falls, Wash. She also
used 7,200-year-old fish remains
from near Spokane Falls, and an esti-
mated 2,500- to 5,000-year-old fish
backbone from Granite Point on the
Snake.
Younger samples included a
1,450-year-old site at Harder on the
Snake, and a second, 1,150-year-
old site near Kettle Falls. All of the
ancient Columbia River samples
came from sites above Grand Coolee
GUEST
COLUMN
LEARN MORE
news.wsu.edu/2018/01/10/
chinook-salmon/
journals.plos.org/plosone/
article?id=10.1371/journal.
pone.0190059
Ellen Bishop
Dam, which ended salmon runs in the
600 miles of main-stem river above it.
Johnson also analyzed fin clips
of 379 contemporary Chinook from
the Columbia, and Snake. Her results
confirmed what biologists have
long suspected: The genetic diver-
sity of Chinook salmon has declined
significantly.
The research revealed other things
as well. Prior to European settle-
ment, spring, summer and fall runs of
Columbia River Chinook swan (and
spawned in) the entire river. Today,
the Columbia River Fall Chinook
spawns only in Hanford Reach.
The samples from Spokane Falls
came from six different lineages of
Chinook. Today, Chinook are extinct
in the Spokane River, blocked in
1911 by the construction of the Little
Falls Dam. Their ancient DNA held
far more genetic diversity than mod-
ern Chinook.
Most of Johnson’s study exam-
ined mitochondrial DNA. She and
her partners in the study tallied details
from the same segment of each fish’s
genetic code.
Haplotypes (groups of genes
passed down through generations)
figured prominently, as did determi-
nation of nucleotide diversity (an esti-
mate of overall genetic variation.)
While not a way of defining
“sub-species,” this information shows
Submitted photo
A spring Chinook salmon, also known as an Alaskan king salmon.
how closely related different indi-
viduals are. Present-day Columbia
River Chinook are sort of all mar-
ried to their second cousins. More
than 2/3 of their genetic diversity has
vanished.
Genetic lineages that were present
1,000 years ago are absent today. In
Snake River fish, the loss is less dev-
astating. Only about 1/3 of the gene
variations found in ancient samples
are missing today.
The vanished gene sequences
likely controlled a range of some-
times-subtle variations in physical
appearance (size, color) to behaviors
(the length of time at sea, the timing
of return). Now lost, these variations
cannot be recovered except through
mutation or genetic drift.
Why the difference between
Columbia and Snake River Chinook
diversity? Johnson has a few ideas.
First, there’s the possible influ-
ence of pre-Contact Native American
harvest. Both Snake River and Upper
Columbia River fish would have been
caught at about the same percentages
at Celilo Falls.
But the Columbia River fish were
subjected to another intense fishery
at Kettle Falls. It’s estimated that the
Colville tribe alone harvested almost
300,000 pounds of Chinook at Kettle
Falls (on the Columbia) each year.
The Snake River system has
no equivalent passage barrier/fish-
ing opportunity. Fish bearing the full
spectrum of genetic variation were
able to navigate the Snake River and
its tributaries to reach their spawning
grounds.
Johnson also believes it likely that
the Nez Perce and other tribes along
the Snake included a greater diver-
sity of other fish (sturgeon, suckers,
pikeminnows), thus lowering their
total catch of salmon and helping the
Chinook retain a greater amount of
genetic diversity. Ancient samples
from the Snake river included these
species of fish along with Chinook
and other salmon.
Once Europeans arrived, they
tended to target the large Chinook
that were bound for the upper Colum-
bia, thus further depleting the fish’s
genetic pool. More contemporary fac-
tors in the loss of diversity include the
introduction of millions of hatchery
fish and the overall challenges of nav-
igating today’s oceans.
Whatever the reasons, Snake River
Chinook have retained a greater per-
centage of their genetic diversity than
their upper Columbia cousins. They
are, potentially, more resilient fish.
And that is good news for us and for
the fish.
Ellen Morris Bishop holds a doc-
torate in geology and specializes in
the exotic terranes of the Northwest.
Pacific Northwest landscapes –– their
geologic history and ecosystems ––
are her specialty.
I hope I’m never So who really is the national champion?
‘nonessential’
P
POLITICAL
I
’ve lived through a couple
of government shutdowns
over the years.
There’s always talk of
“nonessential” government
functions being impacted.
Heaven knows, if Kim Jong
Un sends a nuclear missile
our way, we want the person-
nel that track those things on
duty.
way to reach the “younger
generation” and expose them
to the newspaper.
We’ve come full cir-
cle. Our print demographic
–– older women –– is now
the median Facebook demo-
graphic. So where do we go
to reach those younger folks
we were told were so import-
ant to our future existence as
newspapers?
In order of use,
Instagram, Snap-
chat and Twitter. I
have never ventured
into the Instagram
or Snapchat world.
I have tweeted but it
never seemed like the way to
reach people with an import-
ant message.
Around three quarters of
American teens age 13-17
use Instagram and Snap-
chat equally. Facebook is still
in the running along with
Twitter.
I couldn’t find a con-
vincing statistic to report
on whether social media
use as a whole is decreas-
ing, increasing or stagnant. I
do know there is a counter-
culture of young people who
are unplugging and reverting
back to reading books printed
on paper. Imagine that.
I guess it’s true that the
more things change, the more
they stay the same.
WAHL TO WALL
Paul Wahl
Which begs the question,
“Why does the federal gov-
ernment have nonessential
employees and who says they
are nonessential?”
It’s a lot more clear from
a private sector standpoint. I
can’t think of one person at
the Chieftain who could be
considered nonessential. Each
one is vital to the process of
producing and distributing a
weekly newspaper.
Let’s hope the latest silly
season in Washington, D.C.,
has passed by the time you
read this.
REMEMBER WHEN
Facebook was for young peo-
ple? I do.
Oh those silly young folks
posting about what they had
for lunch and and adding vid-
eos of their friends acting
giddy.
Fast-forward 15 years and
the young people have moved
on to other platforms.
This fact hit home with me
rather dramatically a while
back when I checked to see
how the various posts on the
Chieftain Facebook page were
doing.
Several times I came
across this message: “Your
video is popular with women
ages 65+.” They call it “the
graying of Facebook.”
I remember when newspa-
pers first began using Face-
book as a way to communi-
cate with the community. We
were told it was of utmost
importance because it was a
KUDOS TO everyone
who had a part in the Eagle
Camp Extreme Dog Race last
week, whether participant or
spectator. It certainly brought
life to our corner of the world
during an otherwise rather
gray period weather-wise.
Everywhere you went in
the county you saw signs
welcoming the mushers and
everyone else affiliated with
the competition. I’d venture
to say most of them had a ter-
rific time.
I was particularly thrilled
to watch potential journalists
in action during the vet check
in Enterprise. Young people
with pencils and notebooks
asking insightful questions of
the mushers. May your tribe
increase.
op quiz: What unconventional
opinion do Wesley Colley, Scott
Frost, Rick Scott and John
McColgan have in common?
Before you venture a guess, let me
hazard one: You probably have no idea
who most of those people are. Right?
Good, score one point for me.
In fact, as I write this column, I take
some delight in the notion that at this
very moment, I might be the only per-
son in the universe who knows who all
four of them are, let alone what singular
belief we hold in common.
Okay, time’s up. What all the afore-
mentioned gentlemen, myself included,
share is that we believe the University
of Central Florida deserves to be rec-
ognized as the 2017 College Football
National Champion.
Using both my ESP and my ESPN, I
assume that if you are even a casual fan
of college football, you are now saying
to yourself, “What is he talking about?
Alabama won the National Champion-
ship in the game against Georgia, after
beating Clemson to get there on New
Year’s Day.” Kindly score one more
point for me for my guess.
Before I begin to decipher the myster-
ies of this curious football column, let me
turn back the clock 20 years to review
how national champions have tradition-
ally been crowned in college football.
Prior to 1998, champions were deter-
mined by national polls completed by
college coaches or by news outlets such
as the Associated Press and USA Today.
While there was usually a champion by
consensus, sometimes there were split
decisions among the judges.
So beginning in 1998 and continu-
ing through 2013, the Bowl Champion-
ship Series was employed to determine
in a head-to-head contest, which of the
nation’s two front-runners would emerge
as the national champion.
While polls were still used to winnow
the field down to two teams, computer
analytics were also introduced by math-
ematicians and scientists in an effort to
reduce the element of human bias in the
decision-making.
One of the contributors from the sci-
entific community was astrophysicist
Wesley N. Colley from the University of
Alabama (in Huntsville, not Tuskaloosa).
In 2001, he developed a rating system
based primarily on wins and losses while
also factoring in strength of schedule, but
with no reliance on considerations such
as margin of victory or conference mem-
bership or region of the country.
His computer model, known as the
Colley Matrix, continues to rate all NCAA
Division 1 football teams, with weekly
updates based on the records of all teams.
Whether human polls or computer
models, there was still considerable
PHILOSOPHY
John McColgan
Prior to 1998, champions
were determined by
national polls completed
by college coaches or
by news outlets such as
the Associated Press and
USA Today. While there
was usually a champion
by consensus, sometimes
there were split decisions
among the judges.”
debate over whether the top two teams
were being correctly chosen each year
to compete in the BCS title game. In
2011, for instance, I argued in a Chief-
tain column that Oklahoma State should
have been one of the teams in the title
game instead of Alabama, but an all SEC
championship game between LSU and
Alabama was what many disgruntled
college football fans had to settle for.
Demands for a playoff system, along
with support for it from a popular Pres-
ident Obama, eventually swayed the
college football powers to develop a
four-team playoff, which we have seen
employed since 2014. A seven mem-
ber committee now chooses which teams
emerge as the final four, and most years,
most fans seemed to agree that the com-
mittee probably got their selection just
about right.
But not this year. Following Ala-
bama’s loss to Auburn in the rivalry
game known as the Ironbowl, previously
undefeated Alabama dropped from 1 to 5
in the College Football Playoff rankings,
while 2-loss Auburn vaulted past unde-
feated Wisconsin and UCF all the way
to a No. 2 ranking, right behind 1-loss
Clemson.
The committee appeared to be prac-
tically falling over itself to insure that
there would be at least one SEC team in
the final four, and the expectation was
that Auburn, which had already beaten
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Georgia, would do so again in the SEC
Championship game.
But when Georgia won that game, the
rankings of 1-loss conference winners
Clemson, Oklahoma and Georgia were
all set at 1, 2 and 3, and most observ-
ers expected the winner of the Big 10
championship (either Wisconsin or Ohio
State) to emerge at the 4 spot.
But when 2-loss Ohio State beat Wis-
consin, the door was left open to allow
a third place SEC team, Alabama, back
into the playoff picture in the No. 4 rank-
ing. Meanwhile a still undefeated Amer-
ican Athletic Conference Champion,
UCF, was largely ignored by the commit-
tee, posting a final ranking of No. 12.
But some surprising things happened
in the bowl games this year. The vaunted
SEC finished with an unimpressive bowl
season record of 5-6, despite Georgia and
Alabama closing out the playoff champi-
onship game. Meanwhile the underrated
Big 10 kicked butt and took names, fin-
ishing their bowl season with a remark-
able 7-1 record. And even the lowly
AAC posted a better bowl record than
the SEC, finishing their games at 4-3.
But most significantly, in the Peach
Bowl, UCF beat Auburn, thereby capping
their season as the nation’s only unde-
feated Division 1 team, and beating the
one team – Auburn – who had already
beaten both the teams, Alabama and
Georgia, that ended up in the title game.
So the very next day, UCF coach
Scott Frost began proclaiming proudly to
anyone who would listen that his unde-
feated team had been shafted by the play-
off committee. The university president
followed Frost’s lead, and a banner was
unfurled over their stadium proclaiming
UCF as the national champion.
The university even agreed to pay all
coaches and assistants national cham-
pionship bonuses. A block party and a
parade were held in downtown Orlando,
and the UCF student body celebrated at
Disney World.
On Jan. 8, the same day that Alabama
beat Georgia in the national title game,
the Florida state legislature recognized
UCF as the college football National
Champion. Gov. Rick Scott signed the
proclamation into law.
On Jan. 9, the Colley Matrix system
released final rankings for the 2017 sea-
son, vindicating UCF by listing them
as No. 1 and Alabama as No. 2. All of
us fans who love rooting for underdogs
can celebrate UCF’s spotless season,
while also hoping that it might lead col-
lege football’s governing honchos to give
more credit to smaller conferences and to
expand their playoff berths to eight teams.
Let the Knights roll back the Tide!
John McColgan writes from his home
in Joseph.
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