The first "fish toss" is Monday on the North Santiam and Little North Fork Santiam rivers, and with it comes a warning for dog owners.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife annually collects carcasses of spring Chinook salmon from its fish-collection sites and hatcheries and drops or pitches them back into the rivers from which they came.
The nutrient-enrichment program, as the toss is more formally known, is an effort to mimic what happens with native Chinook that spawn and die in the wild. Their carcasses provide nourishment for the insect larvae, smaller fish and other aquatic critters on which the dead salmon's progeny and other creatures will feed.
Lurking in the dead salmon, though, can be a parasitic flatworm Nanophyetus salmincola. And on the worm is a bacteria, Neorickettsia helmint, that can cause sickness or even death if untreated in dogs that have eaten infected salmon.
"It's ubiquitous of all salmon in the Pacific Northwest," Karen Hans said about the worm and the bacteria.
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