The end of all ocean salmon fishing in California has once again caused the fishery to be declared a federal disaster, opening the way for Congress to allocate aid to the industry and communities like Fort Bragg. California is seeking $208 million in disaster aid, Oregon $45 million and Washington $36 million.
Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez on May1 declared a commercial fishery failure for the West Coast salmon fishery.
The impact is already being felt in Noyo Harbor. A survey of the five recreational fishing boats found all were still operating, with sunset excursions, rock cod fishing and crabbing all planned. But all together, those trips don”t begin to equal the popularity of salmon fishing, the boat owners said.
The declaration stems from the sudden collapse of the chinook salmon run in California”s Sacramento River, where the salmon return to spawn. Coho salmon fishing is already banned in California.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists suggest that changes in ocean conditions, including unfavorable shifts in ocean temperature and food sources for juvenile salmon, likely caused poor survival of salmon that would have comprised this year”s fishery. Loss of freshwater habitat for salmon spawning, rearing, and migration to the ocean is a chronic problem that has made salmon populations more susceptible to the occasional poor ocean conditions. NOAA will undertake a thorough examination of the causes, a federal press release stated.
Only 60,000 chinook are expected to return to the Sacramento River this fall, about a third of the minimum set by fisheries managers for spawning the next generation. That compares with 775,000 that returned in 2002 when times were flush.
The failure of the class of 2008 to return to the Sacramento River system, by far the most important in California, has resulted in banning all salmon fishing in the ocean in California and all river fishing in the Sacramento River system.
Two years ago, when the fishery failed it was the Klamath River that caused the problem.
This year, chinook salmon fishing on the Klamath River in California and Oregon will be open as usual, with a larger than normal quota (22,500 fish) allocated for the 2008 season. The Klamath Tribal allocation is 27,000 fish. The decision was made by the Pacific Fishery Management Council during meetings last week in Seattle.
The federal agency in charge of salmon management estimated that the value of this year”s lost catch is $22 million and that direct income losses to sport and commercial fishing boats, processors, bait shops and other related businesses are $60 million in the three states.
Although there was fishing last year, the catch was very poor. Fishing cutbacks in 2006 because of the collapse of chinook run in the Klamath River, which straddles the Oregon-California line, caused a drop in catch value estimated at $16 million. Congress appropriated $60 million in disaster assistance that was distributed last year, the Associated Press reported.
Coho salmon stocks off Washington and northern Oregon, while in slightly better shape, are still far below normal, and there will be substantially curtailed commercial fishing off those areas as well. A small recreational fishery off Oregon”s northern coast and targeted hatchery-produced coho salmon will be allowed, the NOAA press release said.
Congressman Mike Thompson, who represents the coast, has been a leader in efforts to secure funding for the salmon industry. In the U.S. Senate, Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon said members of Congress from the West Coast hoped to attach a disaster aid measure to the supplemental war funding bill expected to make it to the Senate floor in coming weeks, but the amount remains to be worked out, the AP reported.
Smith added that the White House has opposed attaching extra measures to the bill, but he was confident that Congress would approve aid before the end of the session.
Under Section 312(a) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the Commerce Secretary can declare a commercial fishery failure if requested to do so by a governor, or at the secretary”s discretion. The secretary must determine that the commercial fishery failure resulted from a fishery resource disaster due to natural causes, man-made causes beyond the control of fishery managers, or undetermined causes.
