Nowhere to Run

California's chinook salmon population near "unprecedented collapse"

Posted at 6:48 AM on 30 Jan 2008

The number of chinook salmon returning from the Pacific Ocean to California's Sacramento River is near record lows and points to an "unprecedented collapse," according to fisheries managers. In 2007, only about 90,000 adult chinook returned to the Sacramento River, down from about 277,000 in 2006 and a high of over 800,000 in 2002. Even more troubling, juvenile chinook salmon numbers last year hit a new low with only about 2,000 of them returning. Counts of young salmon typically foreshadow adult numbers in later years, so for now the outlook is particularly bleak. The executive director of the Pacific Fishery Management Council summarized the situation as a possible "unprecedented collapse" and hinted to fellow councilors that they'll be considering harsh restrictions on salmon fishing this year because of it -- possibly an outright ban. The council meets to discuss the issue in March; a final decision will be made in April.

sources: Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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Comments: (5 comments)

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limit over fishing

limit (over) fishing, or ban it for a period. Just don't go around killing other animals that live off eating the Samlon. Example sea loins! remember humans have thousands of choices of what to eat, other animals don't!

I only have this one life, so I am going to try my very best to make a positive change. --- The Happy & Healthy Vegan ---

by javaearth at 7:52 AM on 30 Jan 2008

Don't worry, it's only a fish

A population of animals declines by 90% over a five year period and they might 'possibly' consider an outright ban?

Would you ever see such greed and stupidity with any animal other than fish?

by Blueplanet at 10:45 AM on 30 Jan 2008

"unprecedented" decline?

not exactly unprecedented. Read King of Fish by David Montgomery. He chronicles the woeful mismanagement and collapse of salmon fisheries first in the European Atlantic, then in the British colonies and early USA along the eastern seaboard...and then in the Pacific Northwest. They all had few things in common: dams, deforestation, and overfishing (all kinds). They also a something else in common: a lack of will to seriously deal with the causes, lack of enforcement when there were laws to protect salmon, lots of fingerpointing, political influence of the industries that are creating the causes of decline, and some seriously half-baked fixes (like hatcheries) that don't deal with causes. Darwin in his day noted the gravity of the situation in England - he wrote of the confluence of causes for a collapse, only to watch it happen. That same confluence of causes is here, on our West Coast. That it may be accelerated by water pumping is one more reason for us to remove dams, limit fishing, restrict water consumption, and put serious money and aggressive effort into restoring salmon runs. Or someday we'll have fished so far down the foodchain we'll be grilling goldfish, and I don't mean the crackers.

by jishica at 9:20 PM on 30 Jan 2008

Jishica

"Someday we'll be fishing so far down the foodchain......" Here in the UK (we don't have an Alaska) we are moving down the fish foodchain faster than the fish can be marketed to us. Wild salmon have all but gone, cod and haddock are now a luxury, and sea bass, herring and mackerel are fast becoming a treat.
Your Alaskan pollack and previously lobster-bait fish such as gurnard are now being sold to us as the 'sustainable' alternative. But how can species like pollack sustainably fill the gap that so many other once plentiful fish filled? The answer is they can't and as you rightly say we will just chomp our way down the foodchain 'til there's nothing left.

by Blueplanet at 4:42 AM on 31 Jan 2008
[ Parent ]

Overfishing Not The Problem

Commercial salmon fishing is almost exclusively done by small fishing boats, so this is clearly not the reason for the collapse. The main reasons are dam(n)s and pumping water from rivers by and for agribusiness, and these are the two things that need to be eliminated, or at least drastically reduced. See this article from the San Francisco Chronicle (ignore the lies by Bush administration officials who act as apologists for agribusiness): http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/ ...

by Wolverine at 12:07 PM on 04 Feb 2008

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