PFMC Votes for a Token Salmon Season – A Sober Debate in the Fishing Community
Posted April 16, 2010 in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Yesterday, the Pacific Fisheries Management Council voted to allow an extraordinarily limited fishing season in California this year. (The National Marine Fisheries Service will make a final decision within a month.) In the Bay Area, for example, the entire commercial salmon season will likely be limited to 8 days in July. Restrictions are somewhat lower in the Northern part of the state – away from the troubled Bay-Delta. But the total catch state-wide will probably be only 15 percent of a normal season.
You can read the reactions of the fishing community here. This community deserves a great deal of credit. As this Los Angeles Times story reports, testimony from the fishing community was split between support for a limited season and those who advocated extending the closure to a third consecutive year. This is a remarkably sober and responsible discussion among fishermen. The current projections of 245,000 adult Sacramento River fish in the ocean suggest that a limited fishery could be appropriate. But last year, population projections overestimated by a factor of three the final returning population of 39,000 fish. The salmon fishing community has shown that they support strong, science-based limits on their fishery, even when they are not responsible for current disastrously low population levels. These folks are independent fishermen and women, debating whether to severely limit their businesses this year, or shut them down all together. It’s not an easy conversation.
In my 26 years of work on Bay-Delta issues, I can’t recall a similar public debate among water users, in which some users argued publicly that the science suggests they should take less water in the current year, to ensure a healthy environment for the future. In fact, when the National Research Council concluded that the existing Biological Opinions protecting Delta fish, including salmon, are based on sound science, many water users simply ignored the results and continued their legal attacks.
In this debate, it’s pretty clear who has the high ground.
In a noteworthy irony, news of this limited season came on the same day that the Bureau of Reclamation announced that recent rainfall has allowed them to increase projected water deliveries. Note that M&I contractors north of the Delta, agricultural water service contractors north of the Delta, Friant class 1 contractors, Eastside division contractors, Sacramento Valley water rights holders and San Joaquin Valley exchange contractors all anticipate receiving 100% deliveries this year. The junior water contractors South of the Delta are projected to receive 30% of their unrealistic contract totals.
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Mike Wade — Apr 19 2010 05:56 PM
The National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences in its recent report concluded that actions taken to protect the Delta fishery were “justifiable” according to the existing studies. However, critics of the Delta pumps fail to acknowledge that the Council also said there are more stressors in the Delta affecting fish populations than just the pumps and more study is needed. That is exactly what the Council is undertaking by studying these other stressors, which include hungry striped bass that like to eat smaller fish such as juvenile salmon. The Academy’s next report is due next year. Mike Wade/California Farm Water Coalition