NEWPORT, Ore. -- Just two years ago, Don Snow boated a chinook salmon that
dressed out at 48 pounds 6 ounces - the biggest he's ever caught in the lower 48
states.
Commercial fishermen were feeling
good about salmon in 2004. As a result of aggressive marketing, prices for
chinook caught by trolling the Pacific were up after years of being driven down
by more plentiful farmed fish.
Those good times have gone bust
this year. The third straight season of poor chinook returns to
Because there is no way to
harvest plentiful stocks from other watersheds without killing Klamath fish,
fans of wild salmon expect to have a tough time getting troll-caught chinook,
and salmon fishermen like Snow will be scrambling to keep their boats.
The problems affecting salmon in
the
"For so many years we were told nobody
wants your product, they just want it cheap," Snow said. "We finally
turn the tide, and now this.
"I'm sure
if we have a zero season or a severely restricted season, some people will go
broke, and it doesn't really need to be," he said. "We need proper
science and agreements with water users for habitat."
The Pacific Fishery Management
Council makes its final decision the first week of April. If it shuts down sport
and commercial salmon fishing from
The 668,000 chinook or king
salmon caught by some 1,200 active West Coast trollers last year account for
less than 1 percent of U.S. consumption. But it is the filet mignon of salmon,
prized for superior taste and texture as well as heart-healthy oils.
The demand for wild salmon has
encouraged fishermen to boost their prices by handling their fish carefully -
bleeding them before putting them on ice, avoiding bruising, and sometimes
flash-freezing them at sea.
Some will still be caught off
southeast
Mark Newell, a salmon fisherman
and wholesaler who serves on the Oregon Salmon Commission said the $3.18 per
pound he was paying fishermen last year is likely to go over $4 this year if
there is any fishing allowed.
"They're saying next year
doesn't look any better than this year," said Newell. "If you lose
this for two years, you'll lose a lot of these fishermen."
Commercial salmon landings last
year were worth $13 million in
By the time that money runs
through restaurants, seafood markets, and gear stores, the overall losses from
closing the season will be more like $150 million, said Glen Spain of the
Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, which represents
California salmon fishermen.
That money depends on healthy
salmon in the
Cutting through the Cascade and
Siskiyou mountains in southern Oregon and Northern California, the Klamath was
traditionally the third-biggest producer of salmon on the West Coast, after the
Columbia and Sacramento, which this year expect healthier returns than the
Klamath.
During the gold rush of the
1850s, the Klamath suffered the ravages of hydraulic mining. In 1917, the first
of a series of hydroelectric dams blocked hundreds of miles of spawning habitat.
Political and legal wrangling continue over how much water goes to irrigating
180,000 acres of potatoes, hay, mint, grain and cattle pasture in the Klamath
Reclamation Project and how much goes down the river for salmon.
In 2001 those farmers paid the
price. Drought forced the federal government to cut back irrigation so there
would be enough water for coho salmon, a threatened species that shares the
Klamath with chinook. An
The Bush administration threw its
support behind farmers, and in 2002 Interior Secretary Gale Norton and
Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman made a special trip to turn the valves that
restored full irrigation. That September, low warm water led to the deaths of
some 70,000 adult chinook returning to the Klamath to spawn, according to the
California Department of Fish and Game.
The fish kill meant thousands of
fish would not be spawned to return this year.
"The fix is obvious. It is
the political will that is not," said
The Oregon Natural Resources
Council, a conservation group, figures the Bush administration has put $100
million into the Klamath to boost flows for fish, help struggling farmers, and
improve fish habitat, but problems remain.
Four dams block salmon from
hundreds of miles of habitat upstream. Their reservoirs warm the water, which
carries high levels of agricultural runoff. Young fish migrating to the ocean
run a gauntlet of parasites whose impacts are poorly understood, but may be
exacerbated by the poor water quality and the lack of high flows.
The dams are up for relicensing
this year by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which will decide whether
they need to be modified or removed to restore salmon access to hundreds of
miles of habitat. Indian tribes, fishermen and conservation groups would like to
see them removed, but the
Bob Kemp, who bought his first
salmon boat in 1973, is planning to fill a cooler with crab and beer and head to
the
"I'm determined not to get
angry," said Kemp. "And I'm not going to give up."
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On the Net:
Pacific Fishery Management
Council: http://www.pcouncil.org/
Pacific Coast Federation of
Fishermen's Associations: http://www.pcffa.org/
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Source: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420AP_WST_Shrinking_Salmon.html