Red Lodge Clearinghouse

In response to a report late last month indicating that the number of Sacramento fall chinook salmon would be near the low end of the spawning goal of 2008 even if all ocean and freshwater fisheries are closed, government fishery managers last week took steps toward an unprecedented total ban on salmon fishing this year off the California and Oregon coasts.

"The status of the Sacramento fall chinook has suddenly collapsed to an unprecedented low level," said Donald Hansen, chairman of the Pacific Fishery Management Council, in a statement. "The effect on California and Oregon salmon fisheries is a disaster by any definition."

The decline is sparking widespread concern: Sacramento River salmon are typically one of the healthiest and most abundant stocks on the West Coast, and the primary source for commercial and recreational fisheries. "These fish are the basis for the fisheries of California and Oregon; they're really the driver," said Jennifer Gilden, a spokeswoman for the council, which announced last week that it had voted to consider three options for how to proceed, with choices ranging from allowing severely restricted recreational fishing to shutting the season down entirely.

The announcement came after the council projected the chinook's returns to be 58,200 under the option that closes all salmon fishing, and 52,300 under an option that allows small fisheries in specific areas. The minimum conservation goal is 122,000 to 180,000 spawning adult salmon. As recently as 2002, 775,000 adults returned to spawn.

A total ban would have widespread negative implications on the regional $150 million fishery, which normally opens May 1. Many who rely on the salmon for their livelihood argue a total ban does not address the underlying problems facing the fish, and so it is not an effective long-term approach.

"A complete, total closure is, to us, the least desired management tool," said Charles Hudson, a spokesman for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. "We are part of the salmon economy in the Northwest. There is an interconnectedness, from the headwaters of the tributaries to the ocean. The economy is linked to the salmon in many ways, so we need holistic approaches to management.

"We need to find ways to maximize survival in every aspect of a salmon's lifecycle," Hudson added. "We can't simply throw up our hands and say 'The ocean's not cooperating, so we give up.' That's not acceptable. Banning fishing is like holding our breath and hoping that solves the problem. But it's going to make fishing communities go extinct and have limited benefits to the fish itself. Banning fishing has something of a placebo effect if it's not dealing with the other things fish need to survive."

Management tools Hudson suggests are managing the water quality and quantity in the tributaries to help get the salmon down river, caring for estuaries by minimizing or dredging rivers for navigation in the most responsible ways possible, and limiting or curtailing development in the waterways.

Hudson also stressed the importance of understanding the oceans, including stronger knowledge of dead zones, weather cycles, available nutrients and predator/prey relationships.

The council agrees that understanding ocean behavior is critical to future regulations. While the causes of the collapse are unknown, the signs point to poor ocean conditions, the council says, possibly caused by global warming, which leads to a collapse in the salmon's food chain.

Scientists believe that as land heats up, winds grow stronger and more persistent, causing an upwelling of nutrient-rich waters from the deep. This produces a surplus of phytoplankton that is not consumed and dies, drifting down to the seafloor to rot (Greenwire, Feb. 15). Such a shift in the aquatic food chain may have damaged the chinook and other salmon populations.

The fishing industry is still reeling from a disastrous fishing season in 2006, when Klamath River fall chinook returns were below their spawning goal for the third consecutive year. The council then implemented a ban in an effort to help the depleting stocks, which Gilden said was the largest ban thus far, reducing the season to about one-tenth of normal.

But the proposed total ban for 2008 is even greater in scope because of how important these fish are to the wider economy and fisheries, Gilden said.

The council will make a final recommendation to federal regulators next month when it meets in Seattle, after hearings in coastal communities. In addition, it has requested that federal scientists research 46 possible factors that may be causing the decline, including ocean and freshwater conditions, unusual contact with predators and prey, and human-caused effects such as pollution, construction, habitat loss or changes in hatchery operations.

Sea lions pose a problem

An increasing number of predators -- particularly sea lions -- has caused further concern over the fate of the Northwest salmon, leading federal fisheries managers to announce this week it will allow Washington, Oregon and Idaho to trap, and if necessary, kill, California sea lions that are eating thousands of salmon at Bonneville Dam each year before the fish are able to move up the Columbia River to spawn.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration decided Tuesday that individual sea lions known to have returned for consecutive years and to voraciously eat fish in the Bonneville Dam area can be caught if other management tools, including the use of firecrackers to distract the animal from the fish, fail and the sea lions are still devouring the fish stocks.

The order says sea lions captured in traps must be held for at least 48 hours to try to find a home in captivity before it can be euthanized.

State and federal biologists conservatively estimate sea lions ate at least 4 percent of returning adult fish at Bonneville in 2007 -- nearly 3,900 fish -- up from an estimated half percent just six years ago.

While the number of sea lions -- a protected species -- has skyrocketed, from roughly 1,000 animals in the 1930s to 238,000 today, the salmon are still struggling.

Hudson, with the Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, said sea lions have grown more aggressive as they learn how to navigate the fish ladders, "knocking the heck out the fish as the fish are delayed seeking the entrance [into the fish ladder]."

The fight to protect salmon from sea lions has been an "epic effort," Hudson said, joining farmers, commercial fishers and river users together to bring salmon back. There has been a "sense of outrage" that fisheries managers have not been able to adequately manage their stocks by guarding against predators such as sea lions. Such predation could undermine all the efforts to protect the stocks, including repairing habitat, reforming hatcheries and hydropower practices to allow greater salmon survival, he said.

But Gilden said that sea lions have not decimated the salmon population in the same way that dams have. "Four percent of fish in a small run seems significant, but when you look at the impact of dams, it's much larger, so it seems a shame that sea lions are paying the price," she said.

But Hudson said the goal was not to kill the sea lions, but rather to protect the salmon. In light of that, NOAA's recent announcement aims to trap and relocate the sea lions so they no longer hurt the salmon population, he said.