Dwindling salmon could lead to Pacific fishing ban

SAN FRANCISCO – The stunning collapse of one of the West Coast’s biggest wild salmon runs has prompted even fishermen to call for an unprecedented shutdown of the Pacific salmon fishery this year.

“There’s likely no fish, so what are you going to be fishing for?” said Duncan MacLean, a fisherman from Half Moon Bay, Calif. “I have no problem sitting out to rebuild this resource if that’s what’s necessary.”

The Pacific Fishery Management Council meets in Seattle this week and will likely impose the most severe restrictions ever on West Coast salmon fishing to protect California’s dwindling chinook stocks.

The council, which regulates Pacific Coast fisheries, will choose between three management options at their meetings: the closure of salmon fishing off the coast of California and Oregon; extremely limited fishing; or catch-and-release fishing for scientific research.

A decision is expected April 10.

The council is also expected to set strict limits on salmon fishing off the coast of Washington to protect the state’s declining chinook and coho stocks.

For consumers, it will be hard to find any chinook, also known as king salmon, which is prized by anglers, seafood connoisseurs and upscale restaurants. There should still be abundant supplies of farm-raised salmon and wild sockeye from Alaska, but prices could be higher.

Biologists and others are trying to figure out what caused the salmon collapse.

There are many potential factors because wild salmon are born in streams and rivers, migrate to the ocean when they’re juveniles and spend two to four years there before returning to spawn in the areas where they were born.

The council has asked scientists to research 46 possible causes, including water diversions, habitat destruction, dam operations, agricultural pollution, marine predators and ocean conditions.

Many scientists point to unusual weather patterns that disrupted the marine food chain along the Pacific Coast in 2005, when thousands of seabirds washed up dead or starving because they couldn’t find enough to eat.

Many fishermen and environmentalists believe the main problem lies in California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which juvenile salmon must swim through to get to the ocean. They say too much water is being diverted to farms and water districts in the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.

They want the state and federal government to limit pumping from the delta, which disorients migrating salmon and kills young fish that get sucked into the powerful pumps. They’re also calling for a reduction in agricultural runoff and the restoration of salmon habitat in the rivers.