Fisheries regulators on Tuesday called for the closure of commercial salmon fishing along California’s coast for the third consecutive year, an unprecedented year, to help reduce the population of Chinook salmon.
The Pacific Fisheries Management Council, an organization established by the Council that manages marine fishing along the West Coast, voted 13-1 to recommend a ban on all commercial salmon fishing from California.
As part of the vote held at a conference in San Jose, the council called for the first time since 2022 to allow limited recreational salmon fishing.
The halt of fishing over the past two years has resulted in significant income losses for people in the fishing industry, but some salmon boat skippers agree that the closure needs to be extended.
“We need to do everything we can to save the seeds,” said Kevin Butler, a commercial fisherman at Santa Cruz.
Santa Cruz commercial fisherman Kevin Butler continues to fish halibut and ring cods, earning much less than he caught salmon.
(Nick Cooley/For the era)
Fishing seasons usually take place between May and October, and in recent years the state’s commercial salmon fishing fleet has counted around 460 vessels. However, many boat owners and crews have recently turned their eyes to other jobs to achieve their goals. Some people have put boats on sale.
Butler said the salmon had previously represented about three-quarters of his income. He continues to fish and earn money for halibut and ring cods.
“All fishermen have sacrificed everything for two years,” Butler said. He said that being unable to catch salmon means “emphasizing everything, your family relationship.”
“If a large portion of your income has disappeared, what would you do? Do you go find a new career? Well, that’s tough for a fisherman. We’ve fished for the rest of our lives,” he said. “This is life, this is love.”
The severe droughts from 2020-22 contributed to the decline, but fishing workers must survive by denounceing California water managers and low salmon numbers policies, saying that they are pumping water to farms and cities, and taking away enough cold water during salmon.
“It’s a water management issue,” Butler said. He denounced Gavin Newsom’s administration, saying the state prioritizes $59 billion in agricultural industry water supply over salmon damage.
The fishing boat departs from Santa Cruz Harbour.
(Nick Cooley/For the era)
Biologists say the combination of factors including dams that blocked spawning areas, loss of habitat in the important flood plains, and global warming that intensifies drought and increases river temperatures has led to a decline in salmon populations.
During the drought of 2020-22, the water flowing from the dam was sometimes warmer, and was fatal for the salmon eggs. And as salmon usually feed the ocean for about three years, then returned to the rivers of Natal, the number of juvenile fish surviving during the drought decreased, resulting in a decrease in the number of adult fish populations.
The state’s policy of pumping heavily from the river “beating hardworking men and women trying to kill the entire salmon run and make a living from fishing.” “This closed commercial and token recreational fishing season is a human tragedy and an economic and environmental disaster.”
He said his group wanted “a little cold water left in our river and left for baby salmon, so that they could survive and return as adults.”
State officials said in addition to drought and global warming, salmon populations are struggling due to issues with wildfires, poor river conditions, algae blooming conditions and salmon thiamine deficiency associated with changes in marine diet.
“Salmon populations are still recovering from severe droughts and other climate challenges and have yet to benefit from the wet winters and other actions taken to increase the population.” “After years of closure for salmon fishing, limited opportunities for recreational salmon fishing bring hope. But we know that this news is hardly safe for California’s commercial salmon fishing.”
In 2008 and 2009, coastal salmon fishing was banned once in a row two years ago. This is the first time the commercial season has been cancelled for the third year in a row.
The Pacific Fisheries Management Council cited the latest state estimates showing that the number of Chinook salmon running in the fall on the Sacramento River is very low. This year, an estimated 166,000 fish have fallen from an estimated 214,000 preseason estimate last year, similar to an estimated 169,000 fish in 2023.
These figures represent a drop from far more salmon over the years that flooded along California’s Pacific coast in the early 2000s.
“They’re doing this,” said Andrew Rippel, director of Auburn University’s Fisheries School and former director of the UC Davis Basin Science Center. “It’s really sad. I think it’s an indicator of how we’ve managed our resources over time and how we’re failing with salmon.”
The fishing closure was not only a commercial fishing fleet, but also to the operators of charter fishing boats that were unable to catch salmon in 2023 and 2024. Under the council’s decision, recreational anglers are permitted to limit marine fishing under the two-winded national expansion quota in the summer and fall.
State regulators have also set rules for inland recreational fishing on the river, with the California Fish and Games Committee meeting this month and May to determine this season.
Before the shutdown, Jared Davis had won many sports fishing tours leading revenue from Sosarito in the 56-foot boat salty lady. Recently, he has been turning to other types of cruises, leading whale surveillance tours and hosting burials scattered with ashes in the ocean.
“It hurts to have salmon fishing closed. It definitely hurts,” Davis said. “I just paid taxes and in the last few years my deckhand has made more than I did.”
He said he supports planned regulations, but views it as a conservative approach to helping population recovery.
Fisheries rely on fall running Chinook, which moves upstream and appears from July to December.
Other salmon runs suffer from a more severe decline. Chinook, which operates in Spring, is listed as being threatened under the Endangered Species Species Act, and Chinook, which operates in Winter, is endangered.
The pattern that emerged in continuous droughts is a long-term “step” reduction in salmon and other species decrease in dry years and slightly better in wet times, but the numbers have not returned to their previous ones.
Since fish have a life cycle of 3 years, the population should improve somewhat next year, due to the boost they receive during the historic wet winter of 2023, Ripel said, but in the long run, fish are still struggling.
Changes that will help salmon include having large flows in the river at the right time to support fish, and opening more flood plain habitats to support recovery, Ripel said.
For decades, government-run hatch sites in Central Valley have been raising and releasing millions of salmon each year to help increase numbers.
State officials say the newspaper administration’s ongoing efforts to help salmon populations recover include restoring tide habitats, modernizing infrastructure, removing barriers to fish migration, and reintroducing salmon from traditional spawning areas from dams.
A stack of crab pots sits at Santa Cruz Harbour.
(Nick Cooley/For the era)
Despite these efforts, the situation facing California salmon remains very disastrous, Ripel said the agency should take more opportunities to prevent fish from making even greater declines.
“It’s a big emergency,” he said. “At this point, we need to try a big experiment.”
Ripel said he feels people’s livelihoods have been disrupted by the closure of fishing.
“It’s always been a California lifestyle and it’s incredibly at risk,” he said.
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