Some salmon fishing canceled

SEATAC – West Coast fisheries managers voted Thursday to cancel all commercial salmon fishing off the California and Oregon coasts this year.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council decided to allow limited recreational coho fishing on holiday weekends off the Oregon coast, but no recreational fishing off California after several members of the panel argued that every salmon counts.

Scientists and government officials are expecting this year’s West Coast salmon season to be one of the worst in history because of the collapse of Sacramento River chinook, one of the West Coast’s biggest wild salmon runs.

Although commercial salmon fishing off the Washington coast is scheduled to begin May 1, fisheries managers do not predict a good season off either the north or south Pacific coasts.

“For the entire West Coast, this is the worst in history,” Don McIsaac, executive director of the Pacific Fishery Management Council, said before several close votes led to the fisheries plan for 2008.

The council’s decision still must be confirmed by NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal agency in charge of salmon management.

Even before the vote, however, officials were on to the next step: disaster relief for fishermen, said Mariam McCall, an attorney with the fisheries service.

The governors of Washington, Oregon and California have already signed letters seeking a disaster declaration. Congress will be asked to make a fast decision on money to alleviate the suffering of fishermen and any other impacts of the cutback, said Brian Gorman, an NOAA Fisheries spokesman.

Scientists are studying the causes of the Sacramento River chinook collapse, with possible factors from ocean conditions and habitat destruction to dam operations and agricultural pollution. But the panel struck down a proposal to allow limited fishing for scientific purposes.

In 2006, the salmon season extending from Cape Falcon, Ore., about 30 miles south of the mouth of the Columbia River, to the Mexican border also was severely restricted. Congress granted disaster relief totaling $62 million for fishermen in Oregon and California, Gorman said.

Although the nature of the problem is different this year, the effect will be at least as broadly felt, McCall said.

“This is such a difficult situation,” she said.

In 2007, average quotas for the southern coast were allowed, while fishing was restricted north of Cape Falcon to the Canadian border.

The Sacramento River chinook run is usually one of the most productive on the coast, but counts last fall found a record low number of chinook returning to California’s Central Valley.

Consumers can expect to have a hard time finding chinook at stores later this year, but they will still be able to buy farm-raised salmon and wild sockeye from Alaska.