[env-trinity] Article on NMFS

[Dan Bacher]

Byron

The refusal of NOAA to declare a fishery disaster is just one more  
nail in the coffin of the salmon fishery! Just when you think that  
the Bush regime can't stoop lower, it does!

Anyway, here's the press release on today's rally.

Dan



P R E S S   R E L E A S E

Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA)
and the
Small Boat Commercial Salmon Fishermen’s Association (SBCSFA)

For Immediate Release: April 5, 2006

For more information:
Mike Hudson, President SBCSFA, (510) 528-6575 (h), (510) 407-0046,  
Email: mike at sbcsfa.com
Zeke Grader, Executive Director PCFFA (415) 561-5080 x224; Cell:  
(415) 606-5140

What:
Commercial FISHERMEN Rally and speak at final PFMC public input  
meeting about the 2006 Salmon Season
       Fishermen stage rally at Pacific Fisheries Management Council  
(PFMC) Meeting, ask Council to adopt emergency regulations that would  
provide for a meaningful salmon season while minimizing fishery  
impacts on Klamath salmon stocks

      Where:
                Doubletree Hotel
                   2001 Point West Way
                   Sacramento, CA
      When:
                Thursday, April 6, 12 noon

Sacramento, CA - Despite large over-all numbers of fall chinook  
salmon, particularly the very large runs coming back to the  
Sacramento River, the Pacific Fisheries Management Council (PFMC),  
meeting in Sacramento this week, is considering a total ban on ocean  
commercial salmon fishing for 2006 from south to Point Sur to  
Oregon’s Cape Falcon, nearly 700 miles of coastline, including what  
were once the most important salmon ports outside of Alaska.

Yet many fishermen’s groups say such a draconian step of banning all  
fishing is unwarranted, and would cause enormous economic damage  
while providing very little conservation benefit.

“We are asking the Council to adopt an emergency rule that would  
enable the fleet to go fishing in places were Klamath salmon are very  
rare, places where some fishing could legitimately be done without  
having any real impact on the survival of Klamath Salmon stocks” said  
Zeke Grader, Executive Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of  
Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA)

Dave Goldenberg of the California Salmon Council stated “The current  
management system mandates that 35,000 wild Salmon return to spawn in  
the Klamath River every year. However, this is a goal not to prevent  
extinction, but to ensure maximum productivity of the stock. The  
Klamath fall chinook are not listed as endangered or threatened under  
the Endangered Species Act.”  Thus there may be some flexibility in  
applying this standard.

“The Klamath River has proven times and times again that record  
numbers of offspring result from years with low returns of adult  
spawners”, said longtime fisherman Sunny Maahs, “In 1992 only 12,000  
adult Salmon came back to the river. The offspring of these 12,000  
Salmon produced a near-record run of Salmon in 1995.”

Dave Bitts, another longtime salmon fisherman, a member of the  
Klamath Fisheries Management Council and PCFFA’s expert on the  
Klamath, agrees with Maahs’ testimony and adds, “Through the  
emergency rule, we would tap into 10% of the available biomass of  
this year’s salmon run with very little Klamath impact. The easy  
question to ask is: Is saving an extra 3,000 Klamath salmon worth  
putting the whole coast out of business? – The answer is NO.”

Most fisheries experts agree that over-fishing is simply not the  
problem in the Klamath. Ocean and in-river salmon harvests have long  
been tightly regulated. The problems, they say, are all within the  
Klamath River.  Years of artificially low flows and the effects of  
warm water reservoirs behind several fish-blocking dams have  
encouraged fish parasites to spread throughout the middle part of the  
river, killing off the juvenile salmon in spring 2003 right after low  
flows had already killed off 79,000 adult spawners in fall 2002 in a  
massive fish kill.  The salmon thus suffered a “double whammy” from  
these two back-to-back losses that have greatly reduced this year’s  
returning adults – which are primarily the few remaining survivors  
from the fish kills of fall 2002 and spring 2004.  Neither problem  
was caused by fishing.

After the fish kill in fall 2002, the Pacific Fisheries Management  
Council (PFMC) itself predicted that, as a result of this lost  
reproductive potential, the numbers of returning fish would be way  
down during 2005, 2006 and 2007. This prediction is now coming true.

Last year these Klamath declines triggered severe fishing  
restrictions closing half the season that cost the California and  
Oregon economies over $50 million in economic losses. If the season  
is cancelled altogether this year, the additional losses could exceed  
$150 million.

“Mother Nature has provided plenty of rain this year to flush  
pollutants and parasites out of the river,” said Mike Hudson,  
President of the Small Boat Commercial Salmon Fishermen’s  
Association. “A federal Judge has recently decided that the Bush  
Administration’s plan for Salmon recovery was severely flawed, and  
ordered immediate water releases to the Klamath.  All this will help  
Klamath salmon survive in future years.  Furthermore, the federal  
agencies are now mandating fish passage at all Klamath dams, which  
will make hundreds of miles of lost spawning grounds available to the  
salmon once again. We are finally on the right track.  For that they  
should cut us at least a little slack.”

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