Last year, California’s commercial and recreational fishing fleet, from the Central Coast to the Oregon border, landed about 300,000 salmon.
But this year salmon anglers won’t be fishing for salmon at all.
In response to crashing Chinook populations, a council of West Coast fishery managers plans to cancel this year’s salmon season in California, which will put hundreds of commercial fishermen and women out of work in Northern California and turn the summer into a bummer for thousands of recreational anglers.
Last year, the industry’s economic value was an estimated $460 million for fish sales and related businesses, including restaurants, tackle shops, private fishing guides, campgrounds and other services. Salmon season usually runs from May through October.
What’s ailing the fish, scientists and state officials say, is a variety of factors, primarily in the rivers where salmon spawn. Large volumes of water are diverted for use by farms and cities. Combined with drought, this causes low flows and high water temperatures, which can kill salmon eggs and young fish. Vast tracts of floodplains and wetlands, where small fish can find food and refuge, have also been lost to development and flood control projects.
As salmon populations have shrunk, California’s fishing fleet has shrunk, too. Nearly 5,000 commercial boats pursued California’s Chinook in the early 1980s. Now only 464 active boats are fishing commercially, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Plus, the state’s recreational anglers took about 98,000 trips last year and caught 89,000 salmon.
For many Californians, wild Chinook salmon is a rare treat. For members of California’s indigenous tribes, it is a core element of their culture and diet.
In the Klamath River basin, the Karuk, Hoopa and Yurok tribes fish for Chinook salmon for subsistence.
“The health of our people depends on having salmon,” said Bill Tripp, the Karuk Tribe’s director of natural resources and environmental policy. “Their survival in the basin is imperative. If they disappear, we could lose our ability to survive here.”