CSPA Advisory - 1.30.08
Fall Run Salmon Decline Catastrophic!
During this past fall there was a great deal of speculation among anglers over the absolutely dismal salmon season and the lack of information on the status of the adult salmon return from the ocean. That has suddenly changed according to an article by Dan Bacher. Dan has quoted the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC - regulates fishing in federal waters) tentative data which demonstrates an catastrophic decline in the fall run Chinook salmon fishery. This run has been the mainstay of California’s and Southern Oregon’s salmon anglers and commercial fishermen until now.
If this data is data is verified during upcoming PFMC meetings, commercial and recreational salmon fishing in California could be closed or severely restricted in 2008 as implied by an internal PFMC memo that quotes their Executive Director Donald McIsaac as saying
... “[t]he magnitude of the low abundance, should it be confirmed in verification efforts now underway, is such that the opening of all ... fisheries impacting this important salmon stock will be questioned in the upcoming Council process to set 2008 ocean salmon seasons. This is particularly disconcerting in that this stock has consistently been the healthy ‘work horse’ target stock for salmon fisheries off California and most of Oregon.”
“It is important to note that the current information needs to be verified and validated,” explained McIssac. “However, it is typical that the estimates at this stage do not vary much from the finalized values.”
Should fisheries need to be shut down to protect the survival of the fall run, it will bring to a close an area when anadromous species such as salmon, steelhead, striped bass and sturgeon were the premier Northern California fisheries. The economic repercussions on the recreational and commercial fishing industries will be devastating to those who activities provide the goods and services that assist the angling public’s ability to undertake their ‘right to fish’.
Here’s what we know for now. The adult fall run salmon spawning escapement (the fish that returned to the Central Valley rivers) was estimated to be 90,000 fish. Compare this to the 275,000 that returned to spawn the previous year! The Sacramento River system returns were 88,000 fish, while the San Joaquin River system returns were only 2,000 adult fall run salmon. The adult escapement for this fall run in 2007 failed to meet the management goal set by the PFMC for the first time in 15 years and for only the second time in 35 years. This escapement goal is a management tool set to ensure the fall run’s viability. Failure to meet this goal can result in various outcomes depending on the extent of the failure and the projected stock condition as anticipated by the federal and state fishery managers.
Given the importance of this fishery to both California and Oregon, I expect a significant reduction in the salmon fishing season along with harvest curtailments. Which takes us to the reasons for the decline of the fall run. The scientists will say they’re not sure; it could be due to a number of factors or perhaps a complex interaction of those factors. More studies are needed.
There are a number of potentially important reasons for the decline, including:
• The changing conditions in the ocean that may cause that environment to be unable to sustain the number young fish to maturity necessary for spawning.
• The huge problems with the decline of the Delta’s ability to sustain a food web needed by young salmon that migrate down the tributaries into the Delta on the way to the sea. If the fish don’t find enough food on their way through the Delta, you don’t have to worry about their potential difficulties surviving in the ocean.
• You might recall we have another Delta problem. Many of the young fish are carried across the Delta instead of making it into San Francisco Bay due to the water export impacts of the State and Federal Projects. Many of these fish don’t make it to the pumping facilities because they die along the way. Starvation and predation by a number of species that like the interior Delta channels take a toll, but science has never quantified the full extent of that impact.
• Then there are the losses of those fish that are not salvaged by what are euphemistically called the water projects fish screens (they are louvered panels not positive plate screens). Don’t forget the losses that occur during the salvage effort.
• Another problem are the non-native invasive species that have so significantly changed the estuary’s food productivity and how that food is consumed, like new types of phytoplankton, zooplankton and the overbite clam.
• Toxic pollution compounds many of these problems as hundreds of miles of Delta waterways our seriously out of compliance with the Clean Water Act and other state water quality laws. This can be very detrimental to the food web and its ability to produce the food where and when needed by fish including salmon.
• The recent decline of the delta smelt and other pelagic species coincides with significant increases in exports from Delta by the state and federally operated water projects. Annual exports increased by 25 percent from 1994 -1998 and from 2001-2006, draining the Delta of more than 1 million acre-feet of additional water than used to be exported.
• Annual exports in 2005 and 2006 were the first and third highest export levels on record. Wintertime exports have increased by 49 percent from 1994-1998 and from 2001-2006. Springtime exports have increased by 30 percent. Delta smelt and salmon smolts are particularly vulnerable during winter and spring, when juvenile fish move downstream to rearing habitat in the Delta.
Cutting to the chase, I’m betting on the fall run salmon being victims of impacts associated with the ever increasing export of water that deprives the Bay-Delta ecosystem of roughly half of the fresh water that used to flow through the system naturally. The Delta food web disaster has resulted in record low numbers of Delta smelt, longfin smelt, juvenile striped bass and threadfin shad in the Delta since 2005. During that year an unprecedented 6.4 million-acre feet of water was exported out of the Delta by the state and federal governments.
Maybe Bob Dylan was right when he said you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Just maybe you don’t have to be a biologist to know which way the water flows. It was a wise man that said in California it flowed uphill to money.
If you haven’t done so, help us fight back for the fish and the estuary by signing up as a CSPA member and get your friends that fish to do the same. If enough people sign up it will help level the playing field.
John Beuttler, Conservation Director
California Sportfishing Protection Alliance
1360 Neilson Street,
Berkeley, CA 94792
