Pacific Fishery Management Council Abundance Report 2008

[CW]

Here's a link to a thorough document regarding salmon stocks for the West Coast, for those interested. C.W.

Preseason Report I Stock Abundance Analysis for 2008 Ocean Salmon Fisheries is available on the Council's website at:

http://www.pcouncil.org/salmon/salpreI08/salpreI08.html

[Sea Wolf]

CW and all-

Here's an article from the Contra Costa Times regarding the salmon fishing prospects for California, Oregon, and Washington: (This is what we're hearing in the news here, anyway.)

Ruling on Salmon ban due this week

By Mike Taugher/Contra Costa Times
Article Launched: 03/10/2008 06:41:54 AM PDT

A key federal advisory panel this week is expected to begin considering an unprecedented ban on salmon fishing in California in response to an alarming collapse of a signature fishery.
Salmon populations are depressed from the Bay Area to Washington state, but the problem is particularly acute for California's most productive run - the Sacramento River fall run, which produces more than 80 percent of the salmon caught off the California coast.

Not only did numbers plunge steeply and unexpectedly last year, but a key indicator suggests things could be much worse a year from now.

"The situation is unprecedented and off the charts," said Donald McIsaac, executive director of the Pacific Fishery Management Council.

Though many researchers are pointing the finger at adverse ocean conditions, McIsaac and others said fluctuations in the ocean's currents and surface temperatures alone do not explain the problems.

And that is focusing renewed attention on the Delta and California's water delivery system, which is already being blamed at least partially for the ongoing collapse of several other fish species.

"I don't think you can say it's just ocean," McIsaac said.

McIsaac cautioned that the cause of the salmon collapse remains a mystery and that researchers have a list of 46 potential factors to investigate.

That list includes everything from disease, hatchery problems and an increase in predators to water diversions and a possible connection between the salmon collapse and the Delta's ongoing ecological crisis.

"People will be looking at that," he said, adding, "There's no obvious single smoking gun."

The fishery management council, which meets through Friday in Sacramento, is expected to discuss the California salmon collapse on Tuesday with the goal of proposing three options for the fishing season by the end of the week. A final decision is expected during its April meeting in Seattle.

It is widely anticipated that one option will be closing the salmon season entirely, a drastic move that has never happened on the West Coast. The closest the council got was two years ago, when the commercial fishing season was cut by two-thirds to protect Klamath River salmon that had been battered by poor habitat and upstream water diversions.

"I don't know if they have any choices," said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "As some of my guys have said, even if they give us a season, so what? There's no fish to catch."

"This is the first time we've seen one of our strong stocks collapse," Grader added.

Last year, state economists estimated the economic impact of recreational and commercial salmon fishing in California was about $20 million, a major decline from an industry that produced $100 million in the late 1970s and more than $40 million in the late 1990s.

Meanwhile, the commercial salmon fleet in California, which 30 years ago numbered 4,500 boats, has dwindled to fewer than 600.

"We're not making a living. There's a lot of guys dropping out," said Larry Collins, a salmon and crab fisherman out of San Francisco who blames state water managers for his problems. "I'm struggling to make my payments."

So far, most of the blame for the salmon's collapse has been placed on ocean conditions. Specifically, the Pacific Ocean in 2002 entered a warm phase that delays the onset of current "upwelling" off the West Coast and starves the marine ecosystem of nutrients and food.

Up and down the coast, salmon stocks were depressed with runs doing worse the farther south one looked, said Allen Grover, a biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game.Since the Central Valley runs are the furthest south, it makes sense that they would appear the hardest hit, Grover said.

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which was discovered just 10 years ago, is a shifting ocean and atmospheric climate pattern that affects West Coast currents and salmon populations.

McIsaac and others say it is likely to be only part of the story for the Sacramento River fish, which, for example, took a sharper downturn than those in the Klamath River and last year's return on the Klamath was strong.

"It's not the same thing that happened on the Klamath River fish," McIsaac said.

Peter Moyle, a leading UC Davis expert on California's native fish, said a run of years with favorable ocean conditions might have masked problems upstream.

During good years in the ocean, baby salmon might have had a tough time as they swam downriver and through the Delta to rear and grow strong enough to survive in the ocean. But once they reached the open water, those survivors were able to thrive.

When ocean conditions soured though, salmon were hit with a double whammy.

"It's quite likely that when ocean conditions got worse, suddenly you got this massive collapse," Moyle said. "That suggests the ocean conditions could no longer compensate for conditions upstream."

Although Moyle cautioned there are numerous possible explanations for the decline in salmon, "You can't dismiss the problems in the Delta and the problems with the diversion of water."

The numbers of returning fall-run salmon in the Sacramento River last year -- fewer than 90,000 -- were the second-lowest ever. They represent a steep decline from recent years and wipe out gains made since the early 1990s, a span in which $1 billion was spent to improve conditions for Sacramento River salmon.

What's worse is the number of two-year-old salmon that returned last year -- just 2,000, or one-fourth the 8,000 jacks that preceded the disastrous 2007 return.

There is some good news, however, in that the Pacific entered a cold phase last year, said Bill Peterson, an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Peterson is persuaded that the ocean conditions and the poor upwelling in recent years is the most likely cause of the salmon's decline.

"The salmon guys, they look to the freshwater for all the answers," he said.

In 2005, for example, upwelling was badly disrupted and that resulted in widespread deaths of sea birds and other problems.

"At the time, we said there are going to be problems with salmon in two years, and here we are," he said.

Peterson added, though, that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation appears to be changing, possibly in response to a warming climate. The shifts have become more frequent and its effects on upwelling may be more severe.

"What we're wondering is whether last summer is the first of what we're going to see," he said.

"We're getting really strong winds late in the upwelling season. If that's the case, that doesn't seem to be a good thing for salmon."

At a meeting last week in Santa Rosa, a few hundred salmon fishermen and a few fisherwomen showed up to prepare for this week's meetings in Sacramento. Many expressed uncertainty about their future but no doubt about what is causing their problems -- water deliveries out of the Delta.

Several speakers urged the commercial fishermen, recreational anglers, ocean fishers and river guides in the audience to stop battling over access to fish and instead unite against the water agencies they see as the bigger threat to the salmon because of the large amounts of water they pump out of the Delta.

"If we want to get our fisheries back, that's where the battle is," said Grader. "You can't continue taking 6 or 7 million acre-feet out of the estuary and expect it to survive."

Dave Sereni Sr., a recreational fisherman from Santa Rosa, drew a comparison between the salmon collapses on the Sacramento River and the Klamath rivers by blaming both on upstream water users.

"The same exact thing that happened in the Klamath is happening in the Delta," said Sereni. "I'm not opposed to them closing, but if they're going to do that they need to address the main problems."

Grader said the National Marine Fisheries Service, which regulates water diversions to protect salmon, has been too lax and he urged members of the fishery management council, which sets fishing limits, to demand better protection for salmon.

"I'm asking this agency to become vertebrates. Grow a friggin' backbone," Grader said. "These years and years of silence are not enough. That's what we expect next week from you in Sacramento."

[CW]

Thanks Joe,

lot's of perspectives in that article. Here's a link to an article describing the Yakima Nation's expanding of their subsistence fishery for the first time to areas below Bonneville Dam on the Columbia. Can you imagine using a 26 ft. diameter hoop net and hauling it up from a wooden platform? C.W.
http://www.columbian.com/sports/localNews/2008/03/03132008_Tribe-to-fish-downstream-of-Bonneville-Dam.cfm

[Sea Wolf]

CW-

I don't think I could have ever handled a 26 foot diameter net, even without fish in it!

Too bad thee are so many people with investments in salmon fishing commercially, sport fishing charters, private sportfishing, and tribal fishing rights, etc.

There just doesn't seem anywhere enough to go around anymore, for all the reasons mentioned.

Gary Johnson (one of our C-Brats), once proposed that it would take maybe a ten year hiatus from salmon fishing to allow all the salmon runs to recover as much as they can under the current conditions.

I know I'd be willing to give up fishing for any threatened species of fish if it would recover that much.

I hope our California experience doesn't continue to move northward as time goes on.

Sure would like to see the abundance of salmon here in the river we had back in the early-mid 1950's when I was a kid!

Joe.

[CW]

Here's an article out of Canada about an incidental bycatch (oops method) of 130,000 chinook in the commercial pollock fishery. When so many are doing so much to help salmon all over, and fighting vehemently over those we are allocated.... it pisses me off to see the greed of a few go totally unpunished and nothing is done to right the situation in the foreseeable future. C.W.

FISHING U.S. boats catch 130,000 chinook - by mistake About half of those salmon would have ended up in Canadian rivers

------------------------------------------------------------------------
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TERRI THEODORE The Canadian Press VANCOUVER American fishing boats with massive nets dredging the bottom of the Bering Sea for pollock accidentally caught 130,000 prized chinook salmon last year.

About half of those salmon would have ended up in Canadian rivers.

It came in the same year that fish escapement levels were hardly reached in the Yukon River, well known for its chinook fishery.

Canadian commercial fishermen weren't allowed to take any chinook from the river and native bands pulled just 5,000 fish for a food fishery.

The record accidental catch, or bycatch, has alarmed fisheries experts, environmentalists, government officials and even pollock trawlers, who say a bycatch cap would devastate their fishery.

DNA analysis shows about 20 per cent of the chinook caught up in the football-field-sized nets were bound for the Yukon River, which runs through both Alaska and Yukon Territory.

Another 40 per cent of those salmon were destined for rivers in British Columbia and the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

The U.S. North Pacific Fisheries Management Council is looking over several options to prevent such a massive bycatch again, but it will be two years before new rules are implemented.

"And in the meantime nobody's watching the fish," Gerry Couture said in frustration.

Mr. Couture, a Canadian member of the Yukon Salmon Committee in the Yukon River Panel, said the process to save chinook is moving with glacial speed.

Chinook, also known as king, are the giants of the salmon world and can reach weights equal to an average seven-year-old child.

They are the fish you often see in pictures where a beaming sport fisherman is using both hands to hold up his catch, after fighting to get the fish in the boat.

Pollock are small, sedate and plentiful, and often used in fish sticks or fast-food fish sandwiches. The billion-dollar Bering Sea pollock fishery is the largest in the world.

The bycatch issue has been a problem for years but never have so many chinook been caught up in the nets as in 2007.

Jon Warrenchuk, a marine scientist with the American marine advocacy group Oceana, said the failure to cut the bycatch is a failure in regulation.

"Salmon is so important to many people up and down the Pacific Coast,"
he said from his office in Juneau, Alaska. "It's boggling to me that there's no ceiling limit." And while some native bands aren't even allowed to catch their full chinook quota for sustenance, pollock fishermen are either throwing away the bycatch or donating the fish to food banks because they aren't allowed to sell it.

About 90 per cent of the 130,000 chinook bycatch was picked up by trawl ers, while the remainder was captured by all other fisheries in the Bering Sea.

"I know the numbers look very bad," admitted Stephanie Madsen, executive director of At Sea Processors Association, which represents seven pollock-processing companies.

She said the industry agrees the bycatch in 2007 was unacceptable but they're not sure how to avoid the salmon, which seem to be following the pollock or vice versa.

Ms. Madsen said rolling closings haven't worked because they close one spot where the bycatch is high, only to find a high bycatch in the next place they throw their nets.

"We're struggling right now to figure out how to stay out of their way,"
she said.

Each of the four options going to the fishery management council is complicated, but break down into a hard-cap closing that would stop the fishery once a certain number of chinook are caught; a trigger cap that would set off a time-area closing; fixed closings that stop the fishery at a certain time; or keeping the status quo.

The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans likes the idea of a solid cap and has informed the council it wants that cap set at 37,000 chinook.

The figure momentarily left Ms. Madsen speechless.

She said such a cap on the industry would be devastating.

"It would be a dramatic impact, dramatic," she repeated.

"If you made us live with that cap, in two years without any new tools, I can't even fathom the impact." But the industry did live with a similar cap until 2002, and every year since the cap was lifted the bycatch has jumped.

Ms. Madsen denied the pollock fishery needs to "strain more water"
through its nets to catch more pollock, adding science shows the stock isn't in trouble.

Frank Quinn, with the Department of Fisheries, agreed the industry has been trying to avoid the chinook.

"So it isn't as if there's been a blatant disregard," he said.

While the bycatch doesn' t seem to be harming endangered chinook runs, Mr.
Quinn said 130,000 salmon are still a drain on the resource.

"We're seeing results in the river and that's the reason we're taking the steps that we are to have this addressed," he said.

For Mr. Couture - who likens managing a salmon run to shovelling smoke with a pitchfork - the bycatch is an issue that can be solved, unlike disease or warmer water.

"It's another cup full, you might say, in the bucket of low returns."
Mr. Warrenchuk agreed the problem must be addressed.

"To really bring these salmon back you have to address all sources of mortality including pollock bycatch in the Bering Sea," he said.

"That's something you can do something about very easily."

[CW]

This just in from a friend (Steve Watrous) who participates in all of the salmon season setting meetings of the west coast. C.W.

PFMC (Seattle)
5:39 PM
April 10, 2008

I apologize for not sending out a report earlier but things have been at a stalemate and I wasn’t sure who was going to blink. There were fisheries proposed that didn’t have a chance of surviving and some that weren’t on the table until late that did make it. I will send out the formal news release as soon as I get it, probably in the next 24 hours.

Here is what was adopted.

LEADBETTER POINT TO CAPE FALCON (Columbia River Subarea, Area 1)

June 1 through earlier of June 28 or a subarea guideline of 5,300 Chinook. Seven days per week, Chinook only, one fish per day.

June 29 through earlier of September 30 or 10,180 marked Coho subarea quota with any remainder of the 5,300 Chinook subarea guideline from the June Chinook directed fishery. Sunday through Thursday. All salmon, two fish per day, no more than one of which can be a Chinook.

As a point of reference, last year’s quota, in Area 1, was 71,450 marked Coho or approximately seven times the 10,180 we get this year. The majority of the fish we catch are reflected in what is called the Oregon Production Index (OPI). In 2007 the OPI was 593,600 coho and this year it is predicted at 216,100. My best guess is that we might get three weeks in August, four if we are lucky and the fishing is poor.

Buoy 10 is scheduled to open August 1 and run through Labor Day. Two fish per day only one of which may be a Chinook. All retained coho must be marked. Expect coho fishing to be poor once again this year. Chinook fishing should be better. Total Fall Chinook to the mouth of The Columbia is predicted to be 366,500 compared to a preseason 2007 forecast of 339,960. Although this doesn’t appear to be much of an increase two factors make the picture brighter. Actual postseason returns in 2007 were only 213,860, a little over half of what is predicted to return this year. Spring Creek fish (BPH) have rebounded and are almost 25% of the total run. These fish are the best “biters” in the fishery. If you add in their Lower River Hatchery (LRH) brothers the total Tule return is roughly 40% of the run. My best guess is that Buoy 10 should run its course without any early closures this year.

[Doryman]

Here's another article on the season: