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DFG Finishes Releasing 20.2 Million Central Valley Salmon into San Pablo Bay

by Dan Bacher
June 22, 2008. Sacramento- The California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) has completed placing 20.2 million young chinook salmon from Central Valley rivers in acclimation pens for release into San Pablo Bay.

"The number released is the most ever by any state agency on the West Coast for a single stock of salmon in one year," according to a DFG press release on June 19. "The young salmon were released this spring into San Pablo Bay and are expected to return to the Sacramento River system in two to four years."

On June 17, the last tanker load of 250,000 tiny fall run Central Valley chinook salmon - called "smolts" - was released into the acclimation pens of the Fishery Foundation of California in San Pablo Bay and towed out into the bay and released in the out-going tide.

Ramping up the effort to raise, transport and acclimate 20.2 million smolts was an all-hands effort involving three major hatcheries and acclimation pens operated by the Fishery Foundation, said Neil Manji, DFG Fisheries Branch Chief. We put in nearly twice the normal amount of smolts into the acclimation pens with the goal of increasing both their survival and the return of adult salmon.

The successful release of salmon into the acclimation pens this year was the result of intense political pressure by Assemblyman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), Nels Johnson, outdoor columnist for the Marin Independent Journal, and the Allied Fishing Groups to stop the DFG from dumping salmon directly into the bay, where the stunned fish were quickly eaten by predatory birds and fish. The DFG, after having put salmon smolts into acclimation pens for years, dropped the ball when the fish weren't put into the pens two years in a row, 2005 and 2006.

The DFGs increased effort occurs in the context of the collapse of the fall run of Sacramento River king salmon stocks. The collapse resulted in the unprecedented closure of all commercial and recreational ocean salmon seasons off California and most of Oregon and the closure of most Central Valley river salmon seasons.

Although the Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations have blamed the collapse on "ocean conditions," recreational fishing groups, commercial fishermen, environmentalists, tribal leaders and prominent scientists point to the key role that increased water exports from the California Delta and declining water quality have played in the unprecedented decline. The failure of the DFG to put the fish into the pens two years in a role is also believed to be an important factor in the collapse.

Fishing groups and the Fishery Foundation are optimistic that the acclimation program will dramatically improve salmon survival rates. "An exceptional coordination effort combined with improved net pen design enabled us to successfully receive 100 percent of the fish in acclimation pens this season," said Biologist Kari Burr, Project Manager for The Fishery Foundation of California. "We hope for excellent survival rates this year.

The acclimation pens provide safe haven for the 3 to 5-inch long salmon when they are flushed out of the tanker trucks into the bay waters. The salmon will adjust to their new surroundings inside the safety of the net pens as they are towed out into the bay for final release.

The acclimation net pen program is paid for out of the Bay Delta Sports Fishing Enhancement Stamp purchased by recreational anglers fishing Bay-Delta waters. The acclimation was done by The Fishery Foundation of California at a cost of $98,000 this year. A new net pen was donated by Bodega Bay Fishermans Marketing Association and modified by the Fishery Foundation.

The salmon smolts were raised in hatcheries managed by the DFG on major Central Valley rivers. The hatcheries were constructed to replace the loss of salmon due to dams. Key hatcheries rearing the salmon smolts include the Nimbus Salmon Hatchery on the American River, the Mokelumne River Hatchery and the Feather River Hatchery.

Rearing and moving fish is expensive and intensive, said Bob Burks, Nimbus Salmon Hatchery Manager in Rancho Cordova. Gas costs alone nearly doubled. We rent tanker trucks at $500 a week and filling those big gas tanks cost over $500 each. It costs $1,250 a week just for pallets of ice to cool the waters inside the transport tanks when the fish are transported from Nimbus.

In previous years only one site was used for release of 8-12 million smolts. The addition of a second site made additional releases possible on different tides and decreased potential losses to predatory fish and birds, according to the DFG.

The federal Coleman Fish Hatchery also, for the first time in decades, put 1.4 million salmon smolts this spring into the acclimation pens in an attempt to increase salmon survival rates. Unfortunately, 75,000 of these fish died in a truck en route to the bay on May 19, but the oxygenatization problem that resulted in the fish dying was resolved for later truckloads of salmon.

A number of organizations, including the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Allied Fishing Groups, Water4Fish, the Coastside Fishing Club, the Golden Gate Fishermen's Association and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, supported Coleman Hatchery's experimental salmon release program.

The need to truck salmon downriver is a sad commentary on the deplorable condition of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Because of reverse flows caused by export pumping for the state and federal water projects, millions of salmon have been killed in the South Delta pumps over the years. In addition to the salmon lost to the pumps themselves, powerful reverse flows cause salmon to become disoriented and die in the Delta's back sloughs.

More recently, the collapse of the Delta food chain, largely the result of increased pumping, is believed to provide increasingly hostile conditions for salmon migrating through the Delta. Fish that are not killed in the pumps or due to stranding may be starving from lack of food as they make their way through the estuary.