California’s salmon population has declined so significantly over the past few years that regulators canceled the fishing season in 2023 and 2024.
This year, state estimates show that Chinook salmon numbers are still very low, and fishing is again banned or sharply restricted if not, to help fish stocks recover.
The Pacific Fisheries Management Council, a multi-state quasi-federal organization, is set to determine if the fishing season is limited or none after a series of meetings in April.
The newly released figure from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has the number of Chinook salmon running in the fall on the Sacramento River, which is nearly 166,000 fish this year, similar to the estimated 169,000 fish in 2023, starting from an estimated 214,000 preseason estimate last year.
These numbers represent a decline from much more salmon that circulated through the California rivers over a decade ago.
“It’s another bad year on top of us, and that’s a shame for everyone,” said Scott Altis, executive director of Golden State Salmon Asun, a nonprofit representing the fishing community. “Commercial and recreational fishing is struggling.”
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, Artis said. 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.
“They’re looking forward to seeing the city’s exploration,” said George Joe, a commercial fisherman at Pillar Point Harbor, Half Moon Bay.
Joue said he has three other types of fishing permits. Despite many fishing boats sitting at the port these days, Jew and other groups of fishermen have been busy hauling them in crab-filled traps.
Once that season is over, he expects little or no salmon fishing this year. “This port will die.”
Many people working in the fishing industry have blamed California water managers for the low number of salmon, saying that too much water is being sent to farms and cities, and that salmon need to survive by stealing the cold streams of rivers.
Artis said that while the severe droughts from 2020 to 22 contributed to the decline, it places much of the responsibility of Gavin Newsom’s administration for “poor water management.” These low currents and hot water temperatures during the drought are “killing salmon and killing the fisheries,” he said.
Coastal Fisheries was cancelled for the second consecutive year, one in 2008 and 2009. If fishing is cancelled in its third year, it will be the longest closure ever in California.
State biologists say the combination of factors such as dams that blocked spawning areas and global warming that intensifies drought and increases the temperature of the river has reduced salmon populations.
During the 2020-22 drought, water flowing from the dam was sometimes warmer and fatal for 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 fishing boat is docked at Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay. This year’s salmon fishing season, which normally starts in May, may be severely restricted. Or it could be cancelled for the third year in a row.
(Lauren Elliott/Los Angeles Times)
“The reality is that numbers still look bad,” said Charlton “Chuck” Bonham, director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, in a virtual briefing Tuesday.
Bonham said the newspaper administration’s ongoing efforts to help restore salmon populations include restoring tidal habitats, modernizing infrastructure, removing barriers to fish migration, and reintroducing salmon from traditional spawning areas from dams.
After the removal of a dam on the Klamath River near the California border last year, biologists discovered salmon far upstream in waters previously inaccessible for more than a century.
“I have great joy and excitement about some of the progress, and I have great uncertainty and sadness about the challenges that salmon can see,” Bonham said. He said the state’s initiative detailed in the Salmon Strategic Plan launched last year will provide “severe hope.”
Fisheries regulators will weigh alternatives in the coming weeks and decide whether it would be most wise to limit or close the fishing season again this year.
Salmon is not only a mainstay in commercial and recreational fishing, but also a central part of the native tribal culture that continues its own subsistence fishing tradition.
Fisheries rely on fall running Chinook, which moves upstream and appears from July to December.
Other salmon runs have even turned down the point that they are at risk of extinction. Chinook, which operates in Spring, is listed as being threatened under the Endangered Species Species Act, and Chinook, which operates in Winter, is endangered.
For decades, government-run hatch sites in Central Valley have been raising and releasing millions of salmon each year to help increase numbers.
Photos of Chinook salmon harvest years ago decorate the walls at a tackle shop at Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay.
(Lauren Elliott/Los Angeles Times)
The national manipulation hatch site has grown more salmon and has released about 30% more fish in the last three years than in the last few years, said Jay Rowan, chief of the Fisheries Division of Fish and Wildlife.
“A lot of people make a living from this fisheries,” Rowan said. “We certainly feel those people, and we want to do everything we can to bounce back this population.”
Natural cycles are also useful. Scientists say that wet winters after 2023 provide favorable conditions for salmon, and that most fish have a three-year life cycle, so the population could grow from around 2026. This is a pattern that has occurred in the past.
Commercial fisherman Joe said he would like to see the salmon fishing season resumed this year. However, if the season falls into strict restrictions, he said that perhaps most other boat captains will make you think twice about investing time and money for minimal profits.
Joue said he hopes more water will be given priority to maintain the salmon population. However, he said that in the political realm, the impact of salmon fisheries, which can generate an estimated $1.4 billion in revenue in a good year, is different compared to the agriculture industry, which generates more than $59 billion in revenue per year.
“Agriculture lobbyists are very powerful,” Joe said. “We have nothing compared to agriculture. …We have no voice.”
The fishing closures have been killed not only by commercial fishing fleets, but also by charter fishing boat operators and stores selling bait and tackle.
“Families just have a hard time interacting,” Altis said. “It just lasts until you get the salmon back or until you’ve completely eradicated the fishing industry.”
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