AP: Feds consider easing catch limits on Klamath salmon

Feds consider easing catch limits on Klamath salmon

September 22, 2006

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — David Bitts does not expect to be able to make a living next year fishing for salmon.

But he hopes that restrictions on catching struggling stocks from Northern California’s Klamath River can be eased a little bit, so that salmon fishermen, fishing gear stores, and ice suppliers can survive to better times.

“That basically means survival mode,” Bitts said Thursday while fixing his crab pots in his yard along the Mad River outside Eureka, Calif.

The Pacific Fishery Managment Council votes in November on a proposal to ease restrictions on catching Klamath River fish, which nearly shut down West Coast salmon fishing this year.

If the council adopts a more flexible approach to protecting Klamath fall chinook that spawn in the wild, it will not have to go through the last-minute emergency rule making to prevent salmon fishing from being completely shut down off Oregon and California that it went through this year.

“This year was very painful,” said Chuck Tracy, salmon biologist for the council based in Portland. “There was a lot of uncertainty. We didn’t know if we would have a season or not. This was just an attempt to put some reliability into the process.”

Salmon fishing seasons from Monterey Bay, Calif., to the Oregon-Washington border are set each year to minimize the harvest of Klamath River fall chinook, which have been struggling for years due to poor water quality and loss of habitat to irrigation, dams, logging and mining. As a result, ocean fishermen are not able to fully exploit plentiful stocks elsewhere, to avoid the possibility of injuring the Klamath population.

Under its salmon management plan, the council was faced this year with shutting down all salmon fishing — sport and commercial — along 700 miles of Oregon and California because fewer than 35,000 Klamath fall chinook returned to spawn in the wild for the third straight year.

The council adopted an emergency rule that allowed sport fishing to continue, along with drastically reduced commercial fishing from Cape Falcon, Ore., to Point Sur, Calif.

After finding that fishermen were landing only 12 percent of their normal harvest, losing $16 million, U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez last August declared the West Coast salmon fishery a failure, opening the way for federal aid to fishermen and related businesses.

If the more flexible process is adopted, fishermen will know better what to expect in the coming year, Tracy said. The council is considering allowing between 5 percent and 13 percent more harvest on four-year-old Klamath fish, which account for the bulk of the annual returns, as measured by a computer model.

Scott Boley, a salmon fisherman and seafood market owner from Gold Beach, Ore. and a former member of the council, said adopting the more flexible standard would help.

“It will not have any long-term adverse impacts on the stock,” Boley said. “It does give you some additional flexiblity to keep some fisheries going during this current crisis in the Klamath.

The Karuk Tribe, which harvests salmon after they swim up the Klamath River, opposes the change, said spokesman Craig Tucker.

“We think the current escapement (minimum of 35,000 fish) was established through good science” said Tucker. “We don’t want to see fishermen punished. Because it’s not overfishing that is the problem. But at the same time we can’t fish below the floor or there won’t be any fish in the future.”

Bitts said he welcomed easing catch restrictions, but worried they would not be able to return to their traditional March through October seasons as long as problems remain with the computer model that predicts when, where and how many Klamath fish will be caught in the ocean.

The model has been far off the mark the past three years, and rather than relying on the past 20 years of salmon returns, is now relying on the past three, when returns to the Klamath failed to meet the minimum, Tracy acknowledged.

There are signs that fewer juvenile salmon were infected with a deadly intestinal parasite this year during their spring migration down the Klamath River to the ocean, said Scott Foott, a fish pathologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The change may be related to more water in the river this year due to plentiful rains and snowpack.

In Salem, a subcommittee of the legislative Emergency Board on Thursday approved $500,000 more in aid to Oregon salmon fishermen, bringing the total to $1 million. The full board is expected to approve the appropriation Friday.

The money will provide direct cash assistance to salmon fishermen, said Sen. Joanne Verger, D-Coos Bay.