The Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) at its meeting in Seattle on Thursday, April 10 voted to close recreational and commercial salmon fishing off the coast of California and most of Oregon this year. 

The fishery closure will extend from Cape Falcon in northern Oregon to the U.S.-Mexico border.  The only exception to the closure will be a 9,000 fish fishery for hatchery coho only off Central Oregon on holiday weekends.

“This is a disaster for West Coast salmon fisheries, under any standard,” said Council chairman Don Hansen. “There will be a huge impact on the people who fish for a living, those who eat wild-caught king salmon, those who enjoy recreational fishing, and the businesses and coastal communities dependent on these fisheries.”

This complete closure of fishing for chinook salmon will be the first since commercial fishing began in California in 1848. The decision was made because of the "unprecedented collapse" of Central Valley salmon stocks. The Sacramento River fall chinook population, until recently the most robust West Coast salmon run, was the driver of West Coast salmon fisheries. 

As recently as 2002, 775,000 adults returned to spawn. This year, even with all ocean salmon fishing closures, the return of fall run chinook to the Sacramento is projected to be only 54,000 fish. 

"It was a very emotional day," said Dan Wolford, PFMC member and Coastside Fishing Club science director. "Until the end, we were considering the possibility of doing a genetic stock assessment of chinook stocks to be conducted by commercial fishermen in a catch and release fishery. However, the Council determined that the hooking mortality caused to Central Valley chinooks wouldn't be justified, since every fish is important when the numbers of salmon are so low." 

The Council also voted against any option for a fishery in the Klamath Management Zone (KMZ) on California's North Coast because of the estimated mortality of Sacramento River salmon that would occur. "We could not even risk the estimated mortality of 34 Central Valley chinooks that would occur if this fishery was approved," noted Wolford. 

The Department of Fish and Game will also be recommending to the California Fish and Game Commission the closure of Central Valley rivers to any directed chinook salmon fishing this year, according to Wolford.  The recommendations went to the California Fish and Game Commission for a final decision via a process beginning on Tuesday, April 15, as this publication went to press.

Senator Patricia Wiggins (D – Santa Rosa), chair of the Joint Legislative Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture, responded to the Council’s recommendation.

“We are experiencing a grave crisis with regard to our salmon fishery, and the council’s recommendation reflects the urgent need to do something now to return the fishery to sustainability," Wiggins said. "We owe that to these magnificent fish and to the salmon industry itself, a $100 million industry comprised not just of fishermen, but of Native peoples, tackle shops, processors, ice suppliers, restaurants, and tourism as well.” 

Wiggins is the author of Senate Bill 562, which allocates nearly $5.3 million in Proposition 84 funds to the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG). The DFG will incorporate the funds into its coastal salmon and steelhead fishery restoration efforts. SB 562 would also enable the state to leverage up to $20 million in federal matching funds for salmon habitat restoration. 

After the decision was made, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a proclamation declaring a state of emergency in California and sent a letter to President Bush asking for his help in obtaining federal disaster assistance. He also signed SB 562 the same day.

“California’s salmon runs are a treasured state resource and provide significant contributions to our economy and our environment,” said Governor Schwarzenegger. “Today’s decision by the Pacific Fishery Management Council underscores our responsibility to quickly free up state and federal resources to help the fishing industry cope with the devastating economic impacts closing the season will have.”

Causes Of The Salmon Collapse

PFMC Executive Director Don McIsaac and NOAA Fisheries claim the cause of the Central Valley salmon collapse is of “mysterious” origns.

“The reason for the sudden decline of Sacramento River fish is a mystery at this time,” said McIsaac. “The only thing that can be done in the short term is to cut back the commercial and recreational fishing seasons to protect the remaining fish. The longer-term solution will involve a wide variety of people, agencies, and organizations. But for now, unfortunately, those involved in the salmon fisheries are paying the price.” 

However, a coalition of recreational and commercial fishermen, Indian Tribes and environmental groups, along with some prominent scientists, say the collapse of the Central Valley salmon stocks and the commercial and recreational salmon fisheries is a disaster that could have been prevented with proper management by the state and federal governments. 

Although Sacramento River chinook salmon suffer from an array of problems, the most significant are the massive export of water from the California Delta by the state and federal pumps and declining water quality. Meanwhile, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his corporate agribusiness and developer buddies are pushing for a peripheral canal and more dams that would allow the projects to export even more water in an estuary whose fisheries are already crashing. 

On the Sacramento, state and federal government water managers diverted and pumped an all time record high of 6.4 million acre feet of water from the delta in 2005, the same year juvenile salmon that would have returned as adults in 2007 were attempting to migrate through the delta and out to sea.

“What’s happened is no surprise given the massive water diversions from the Sacramento San Francisco Bay delta and the failure to address toxic discharges into this estuary, an ecosystem critical to the survival of the salmon run that drives our west coast fishery,” emphasized Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations (PCFFA). “It’s obvious that we’ve got to go to work to both save fishermen and fix the delta to bring back our fishery.”  

A delegation of seven commercial salmon fishermen from California, Oregon, and Washington recently traveled to Washington DC seeking relief for the West Coast salmon fishery. The fishermen asked for Congressional hearings to look into the root causes of the Pacific salmon crisis. Delegation participants included Bob Kemp, Paavo Carroll, Aaron Newman, Dave Bitts, Duncan McClean, Ron Richards, and Joel Kawahara.

“Congressional hearings are needed to focus on measures we need to fix our rivers and the California Delta so that we can again have fishermen on the water and locally caught king salmon in our markets,” said Grader.

Though the unprecedented closure is the immediate result of the collapse of Sacramento River salmon stocks, fishermen contend that West Coast salmon problems are “becoming chronic” and result in large a part from government mismanagement of the three big salmon-producing rivers: the Sacramento, Klamath, and Columbia. The crisis is coast wide, affecting fisheries and coastal communities from Washington to Oregon to California and even to Alaska.

“I first said that there is not one smoking gun but a lot of spent casings behind the salmon fishery collapse,” said Duncan McClean, a commercial fishermen from Half Moon Bay. “However, now it’s looking like a whole lot of smoking guns are responsible behind this disaster.”

For example, in 2006 commercial fishermen off the Oregon and southern Oregon Coast endured severe restrictions on salmon fishing, due to low numbers of fall run salmon expected to return to the Klamath River because of federal mismanagement of Klamath River, while the Sacramento River was regarded as relatively robust. This season the roles of the Klamath and Sacramento are reversed, with the Klamath River offering probably the only major river fishery in California, while the Sacramento River and its tributaries will probably be closed to all take of salmon.

“The salmon news comes as we await new or revised federal management plans or court rulings on existing plans for massive dam, diversion or irrigation projects on all three major salmon rivers,” according to a statement from Earthjustice and the PCFFA “Federal fishery experts are currently reviewing the affects on salmon of these federal projects and will issue new or revised ‘biological opinions’ for the Klamath and Columbia projects later this spring.

Environmental and fishing groups have challenged in court a federal and state plan to divert even more water from the California Delta because of the increased harm it will cause to protected runs of chinook salmon in the Central Valley. A ruling is expected anytime on this case.

“These salmon are recoverable if we make smart choices and make them soon,” said Earthjustice attorney Todd True. “The science tells us it’s not hopeless, but it is increasingly urgent to pay attention and change the way we’re managing these three rivers so all people can enjoy salmon again.”