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Collapsing Sacramento River Salmon Fishery Leads to Talk of Salmon Season Closures

By Tom Chandler 3/8/2008

The news for the Sacramento River Chinook salmon fishery is grim. "How grim?" you ask?

This grim:

The grim reality of a collapsing salmon fishery will hit home over the next week as fishing interests, tribal representatives and conservation groups from three Western states hash out plans to protect the fish and, if possible, save their livelihoods.

"Could it possibly be worse?" asked Chuck Tracy, a member of the management council. "Not much."

That grim.

Last year's Fall run of Chinook to the Sacramento River watershed was the second lowest on record (88,000), and naturally, everyone's trotting out their own theory.

Sportsmen point to water diversions in the delta while scientests think unusual ocean conditions had something to do with it. The normal salmon season runs April to November, and we're hearing about the potential for a near-total closure.

Rather than wait, California politicos are already labeling the upcoming season a disaster, and asking for Federal aid.

(UPDATE: Damn -- somehow edited the next paragraph out in the original post. My bad) 
Complicating matters are two simple facts.

  • With only 2,000 jack salmon returning (young salmon returning early; counts have never been below 10,000), next year's run will likely be even worse

  • The Chinook are the only salmon run in California not listed under the ESA. They've long been the healthy, "workhorse" salmon run on the West Coast


Yeah. That grim. See you NOT fishing for salmon, Tom Chandler.
AuthorPicture

Tom Chandler

As the author of the decade leading fly fishing blog Trout Underground, Tom believes that fishing is not about measuring the experience but instead of about having fun. As a staunch environmentalist, he brings to the Yobi Community thought leadership on environmental and access issues facing us today.

5 comments
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Charles: We don't know yet. According to this story, the council's meeting this week, and in fact, may be discussing the salmon issue today. The story suggests options might be presented by the end of the week, though it also offers up an April date for ratification. I will say this: it doesn't look good.
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what does king salmon on the sacramento river look like for sport fisfing this year. will we have a salmon sport fishing season?
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Yeah, I just wanted to present a different perspective than the either-or ones we always hear/read. I'm a both-and sort of guy and so is my brother-in-law. The part I have trouble with in his argument is the same one you do: give up on sustainable wild fisheries. But he tends to look 50-100 years down the road. And he doesn't see human nature and the rules of economics changing much. I'll also say ... more this: The ONLY part of the US that still has any significant wild fish populations is the mountain and coastal West. Y'all have LESS water than we do East of the Rockies...a LOT less (per square mile, per person, or whatever meaningful metric you want to use). But we still enjoy the heck out of our fishing. Most of us rarely give a thought to whether the fish we catch are truly "wild" or not. Our states and the federal gov't have been stocking EVERYTHING for so long that it simply doesn't come up. I've fished quite a bit in the Rockies, overseas, etc. And I can honestly say that I don't enjoy fishing any less in a typical stocked fishery than I do in a wild one. In fact, I don't even see much of a tactical difference; as many anglers claim there is and make a big deal about. There is a huge difference between a stocked river or lake and a "fish pond" put-n-take operation. The "fish ponds" are pretty boring unless you're teaching a newcomer to fish and need a lot of catching opportunity. They're also crowded. But the fish swimming in a remote stretch of river act the same way whether they are stocked or wild...as far as the fisherman is concerned. So I don't know what y'all are going to do out there. But I do know this: as your population density grows and land and water use demands escalate to levels similar to those East of the Rockies, you are going to have to accept SOME notions you don't currently like. Sportfishing simply doesn't have the political "umph" to win the war of economics. You will be FORCED to create some fall-back positions and hold them with all your might. You will likely have to decide whether you want wild fisheries you cannot fish (for awhile longer) or fisheries that you can fish...period. Does that mean we give up the wild fisheries fight? I don't think so. I see merit in preserving it to its dying gasp in order to SLOW its extinction. But it sort of stands to reason that, sooner or later, the whole freaking planet is going to be "farmed." That is...unless we change our morals with regard to population growth. I was watching a show on PBS the other night about terra-farming Mars. Companies and governments are spending GAZILLIONS on Ramp;D in that field already. People with that kind of jack didn't get it by squandering it on things they don't expect to happen. To me, natural resource conservation IS population control when you get right down to it. You talk about "hard choices." This is why my wife and I have no children.
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Ken: great comment! In this case, they're not talking about simply closing the sportfishing season -- they're talking about closing the commercial season along the entire coast (as they did after the disastrous Klamath salmon runs in 2006). Prior to this year's collapse of the Sacramento River Chinook runs, I would have suggested that everything was recoverable with some regulation and habitat restoration. ... more However, with much of this year's decline blamed on ocean conditions (possibly related to climate change), it's possible we *are* past the point of no return, though I don't necessarily agree with the idea that demand is forcing us into this corner. We can control harvests of wild fish, and if we do ban commercial fishing again, it's likely a majority of the commercial salmon fleet will disappear entirely. In other words, I might agree with your BIL, but from a different direction; if the lack of an upwelling current really is a facet of climate change, and it is responsible for the collapse in Chinook populations, then hey, I'd say the salmon are largely screwed as a viable commercial product (perhaps even as a population). Otherwise, I believe the situation is still wholly recoverable on land, but that some painful decisions need to be made. As for eco-sensitive fish farms, there's clearly vast room for improvement in how the current operations are run, but it's likely that a commercially successful farm would still impact wild fish. The idea that we'd remove pressure on wild stocks by farming more is an attractive thought, but given that aquaculture operations have been proven to hurt wild populations -- and for salmon to grow in cages they still need conditions similar to those that grow wild fish -- I don't know if you can truly place farm operations far enough "out of the way" so as not to damage wild populations. I tend to be suspicious of "A is in trouble, so A is gone, let's go to B" logic. It's true that A -- being salmon populations -- are in real trouble, but giving up on them is a little too convenient, and avoids the hard decisions that have to be made. It's a little like the water situation in the southern half of the state; water districts and cities are wringing their hands over getting enough water -- and coming up with some hugely damaging schemes to supply users. Of course, they're ignoring the demand side of the equation, which seems almost criminal once you learn that 70% of the water used in SoCal residences goes to landscaping and swimming pools. The solution is obvious, but the fix requires change, and humans aren't too good at that. Again, thanks for the thoughtful comment. These are not simple topics, and "thoughtful" is generally the first casualty of any environmental discussion nowadays.
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I've got a very eco-conscious b-law who has been researching saltwater fish and anadromous salmon for the past several years from a commercial perspective. And we were discussing the collapsing salmon populations and what that means for the future the other day. I haven't made up my mind yet, but he said some things that I know have some merit. Basically, his position is that we are beyond the point ... more of no return in regard to salmon. Long term, he is convinced that our need for fish will NOT go down and that it will continue to rise rapidly...mostly due to population growth. At the same time, habitat is reduced in many cases. On the inevitability of his argument, I have to concede the point. Unlike sportsmen and environmentalists, my b-law sees the best way to protect wild fisheries...especially anadromous freshwater river fisheries (salmon)...is through fish farming in the most eco-sensitive way possible. His argument is: fill the commercial fishing need with farm-raised fish, and the commercial fishing trawlers disappear. With the commercial fishing trawlers gone, wild salmon populations should rebound in time if the river fishing (mostly sport fishing and some NA subsistence fishing) is managed properly. Of course, access to spawning grounds is still an issue for us land-lubbers to work on. Dam removal and fish ladders should be the focus of the land-based environmental groups in his opinion. It is worth noting that he is NOT a fish farmer. It is also worth noting that he has been highly successful in the global food processing and distribution industry (meat). He became interested in eco-friendly fish farming as a possible solution to a big problem he has seen growing for quite some time. And what he is actually doing is trying to refine the process to find the optimum balance between economic cost-benefit and minimal ecological impact. The point being to make it attractive economically and environmentally so that it becomes "the rage" and people eat AND the wild fish are protected. What we are seeing now with the collapsing anadromous fish populations around the northern hemisphere is really just the tip of the iceberg. And closing sportfishing seasons isn't going to turn the tide. Commercial fishing is the unsustainable part of the equation in almost every case. And sport anglers can be regulated to catch-n-release or minimal creel limits. A fishing trawler (or fleet of them) has to have a minimum catch just to break even. For it to be profitable, the numbers are simply no longer ecologically sustainable.
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