Endangered sockeye salmon are returning to Stanley in encouraging numbers. On Thursday alone, 29 fish returned to the Stanley basin, and so far this year, 142 sockeye have reached Stanley, and many more are expected.

To put that in perspective, in 2007 only four fish returned to the Stanley Basin, and a total of 40 sockeye had returned over the previous five years.

Fisheries managers are optimistic because a large run has crossed Lower Granite Dam, which is the last dam the fish cross before reaching Idaho.
Through Thursday, 1,191 sockeye had crossed Lower Granite, and the 10-year average at Lower Granite is 158 sockeye.

Some of those fish probably won't make it all the way to Stanley, but using average conversion rates between the Lower Granite and Stanley, this year's sockeye run could be the best in decades.

It's another seeming paradox in Idaho's salmon/steelhead situation. Sockeye, which is the smallest fish in terms of total population and individual size (they average a few pounds each) should have the most difficulty making the trip from Idaho's high country to the Pacific and back. It's also a species whose entire population was put on life support when so few fish returned that some of their offspring had to be hand raised to adulthood to ensure the basic genetics survived.

But for the second year, they're defying the odds and conventional wisdom and returning in large numbers.

The reasons are both mathematical and the mysterious. Fish and Game has released more smolts in recent years, and more smolts typically means more adults returning. But they've also gotten a mysterious boost from Mother Nature that is hard to explain and even harder to quantify.

It shows the resilience of these remarkable fish. If river systems are managed in a way that makes their perilous trips back and forth to the ocean manageable, they can do amazing things.