[env-trinity] Alternatives for Salmon Catch

[Byron]

Fishing Ban Is Among 3 Options Panel Is Considering to Save Klamath Salmon

Los Angeles Times - 3/9/06

By Eric Bailey, Times Staff Writer

SACRAMENTO - Facing a salmon shortage on the ailing Klamath River, a fishing
advisory board Wednesday sketched out ways to slash this year's West Coast
salmon catch that range from cutting the season by more than half to
adopting an outright ban.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council asked its staff to return Friday with
a review of three potential options, all of them met with dismay by
fishermen already hard-hit by a shortened 2005 season.
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"Last season was the most restrictive on record," said Duncan MacLean,
president of the Half Moon Bay Fishermen's Marketing Assn. "This year we're
hoping we just have some sort of season. But it's not going to be easy
pulling a rabbit out of that hat." 

During an average year, salmon fishing in California and Oregon is a
$150-million industry. The commercial mainstay is the silver-sided Chinook
that return each fall from the sea to spawn. Experts say a commercial ban
could put struggling coastal fishing fleets financially underwater. 

The fishery council, which acts as an advisory board for federal regulators
who will decide the fate of this year's salmon season, is meeting in Seattle
this week and expects by Friday to complete three options for public review
during the coming month. 

On Tuesday, an official with the National Marine Fisheries Service - the
agency involved in the final decision - told the council there appeared to
be few options other than a ban.

Fishermen, however, say they hope a compromise can be reached that will
allow a short season. 

A ban, the most onerous proposal the council is considering, would cancel
the salmon season from near Oregon's northern boundary to Point Sur, just
south of Carmel.

A typical season runs about six months, beginning in the spring.

The council also is considering allowing commercial fishing boats to put to
sea about as often as they did last year, when the fleets were left at the
dock for the late spring and early summer months that are considered best.

In between is a third option, which would likely allow fishermen on the
water roughly half as long as they were in 2005.

The trouble lies with the Klamath River, which rises from the snowmelt of
the Cascade Range and empties into the ocean north of Eureka, Calif. 

During spring 2002 and again the next year, upward of 80% of the juvenile
fish returning to sea from the Klamath River succumbed to a parasite
scientists blame on a combination of low river flows, pollution and
overheated water.

"Simply put," said MacLean, "the river is killing its young."

Environmentalists have blamed the current troubles on the Bush
administration, which in recent years has allowed larger irrigation
diversions from the Klamath for upriver farmers.

 

 

Byron Leydecker

Chair, Friends of Trinity River

Advisor, California Trout, Inc

PO Box 2327

Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327

415 383 4810 ph

415 383 9562 fx

bwl3 at comcast.net

bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org

http://www.fotr.org

http:www.caltrout.org 

 

 

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