California’s salmon population has dropped so dramatically over the past few years that regulators have canceled the fishing season again in 2023 and 2024.
This year, state estimates show that Chinook salmon populations are still so low that fishing can be banned again (or, if there is no limit) to help fish stocks recover.
The Pacific Fisheries Management Commission is a polymorphic, quasi-federal agency that is expected to decide in April whether there is a limited fishing season or no at all.
New release number Estimates from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife estimates that the number of Chinook salmon falling from the Sacramento River this year is nearly 166,000 fish this year, compared to last year’s preseason estimate of 214,000, similar to the 2023 estimate of 169,000 fish.
These figures are the decline of a large number of salmon circulating in the California rivers a decade or more ago.
Golden State Salmon Assn, a nonprofit that represents the fishing community. “It’s just another bad year for us, and it’s unfortunate for everyone,” said executive director Scott Artis. “The commercial and recreational fishing industry has been struggling.”
The fishing season usually ranges from May to October, and in recent years, the state’s commercial salmon fishing fleet has 460 ships. But recently there have been many owners and crew Turn to other jobs Make a living. Some people sell the boat.
“At the moment, many people are basically working on land because the fishery has just been destroyed,” said George Jue, a commercial fisherman at the pillar port of Half Moon Bay.
Jue said he has three other types of fishing licenses, which allows him to continue making a living by catching Dungeness Crab, Rock Crab and Rockfish. Even though many fishing boats have been idle in the harbor recently, Juyi and a group of other fishermen have been busy dragging traps filled with crabs.
Zhu said once that season is over, he expects little salmon fishing this year. “This port will die.”
Many people working in the fishing industry accused California water managers of low salmon populations, saying too much water was sent to farms and cities, depriving the rivers of the cold rivers needed to survive.
Artis said that despite the decline caused by severe drought from 2020-22, he also blamed “poverty water management” for the “water management poverty” of the Gavin Newsom State government, which he said has prioritized agricultural supplies while the starving rivers of living water rely on salmon. He said those low flows and warm water temperatures have been “killing salmon and killing the fishing industry” during the drought.
In 2008 and 2009, coastal fishing was cancelled for two consecutive years. If third year fishing is cancelled, it will be the longest closure in California ever.
National biologists say salmon populations have fallen Factor combinationsuch as dams that block spawning areas and global warming, Strengthen drought And it causes high river temperatures.
During the 2020-22 drought, the water from the dam sometimes becomes so warm that Deadly salmon eggs. Moreover, because salmon usually forages in the ocean for about three years and then return to their birth streams, the decrease in the number of juvenile fish that survived during the drought resulted in a decrease in adult fish population.
Fishing boats docked at the pillar Corner Harbor in Half Moon Bay. This year’s salmon fishing season usually starts in May and may be severely restricted or may be cancelled for the third consecutive year.
(Loren Elliott/Los Angeles Times)
“The reality is that the numbers are still bad,” Charlton “Chuck” Bonham, director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said in a virtual briefing Tuesday.
Bonham said the news agency is working on Help salmon population recovery include Restore tidal habitatmodernize infrastructure, eliminate obstacles that hinder fish migration and Reintroduce salmon in traditional spawning areas Upstream of the dam.
after Remove the dam Last year, on the Klamas River near the California-Orgon border, biologists had Spotted charcoal egg laying Previously in the upper reaches of waters that were not accessible more than a century ago.
“I’m very happy and excited about some of the progress, and I’m still feeling extremely uncertain and sad about the challenges we’re seeing with salmon,” Bonham said. He said the state’s initiatives are Salmon Strategic Plan Launched last year, it brought “a considerable amount of hope”.
Bonham said fisheries regulators will weigh alternatives in the coming weeks to determine whether it will limit the fishing season or shut it down again.
Salmon are not only the midstream stage of commercial and recreational fishing businesses, but also the core of Indigenous tribal cultures, which continue to be traditional Survival fishing.
The fishing industry depends on Chinook in the fall, which migrates upstream from July to December to laying eggs.
Other salmon running has dropped to the point where there is risk of extinction. Chinook in the spring It is classified as a threat under the Endangered Species Act, and Winter Chinook Endangered.
For decades, government-run hatcheries in the Central Valley have raised and released millions of salmon every year to help increase their numbers.
A few years ago, images of Chinook salmon harvests were decorated with a wall at a tackle shop in Pillar Point Harbour in Half Moon Bay.
(Loren Elliott/Los Angeles Times)
Jay Rowan, head of Fish and Wildlife Fisheries Department, said state-run hatcheries have been keeping more salmon, releasing 30% of the fish over the past three years.
“A lot of people make a living from this fishery,” Rowan said. “Of course we feel about those people, we want to do everything we can to make this population rebound.”
Natural cycles may also help. Scientists say the wet winter since 2023 Providing favorable conditions For salmon, since most fish have a three-year life cycle, this can increase the population from around 2026, a pattern that has happened in the past.
Business fisherman Jue said he hopes to see the salmon fishing season reopen this year. But if the season is strictly limited, he says that could make most other captains think twice before investing time and money to get the lowest profit.
Zhu said he hopes to see more water prioritize salmon populations. However, he noted in the political arena that the impact of the salmon fishing industry is estimated to generate $1.4 billion in revenue compared to the agricultural industry, while the agricultural industry earns more than $59 billion a year.
“Agriculture lobbyists are much stronger,” Jay said. “We have nothing compared to agriculture. …We have no voice.”
The closure of fishing not only caused losses to the commercial fishing fleet, but also Rent a fishing boatand shops selling baits and tackles.
“Families are having trouble making a living,” Artis said. “That will continue until we recover from salmon, or we eliminate the fishing industry altogether.”
