By Pat Ratliff
Klamath Courier
April 12, 2006
What do loggers, miners, farmers and now salmon fishermen have in common?
If you're waiting for a joke as the answer, you won't find it here; this is
much too serious and devastating to joke about. The answer is that all
of these groups of people have had their lives and livelihoods ruined by
mismanagement of Federal programs run amok.
Last Thursday, the Pacific Fishery Management Council, (PFMC), ignoring
scientific facts, common sense and concern for the welfare of salmon
fishermen, and the communities they live in voted to sharply reduce, and in
many locations, close totally the 2006 Chinook salmon fishing season.
We're not talking saving a species here, Chinook Salmon aren't even
endangered. We're talking about an arbitrary number of fish that
someone decided needed to head up the river this year to spawn.
The higher up muckety-mucks of the Pacific Fishery Management Council have
somehow decided that 35,000 fish, by their estimate, need to return up the
river to spawn naturally. They have no way of actually counting the
fish, so are more than happy to use estimates and scientific (sic) models to
TRY and predict how many fish will return. By their estimate, 29,000
fish will return. 35,000 fish minus 29,000 fish equals 6,000 fish,
let's keep that magic number in mind as we wade through the federal BS.
6000 fish, by government guesses, are going to destroy lives and towns up
and down the Oregon and California coast.
With very high numbers of returning fish in other rivers this year, common
sense would tell us that, because not all hatchery fish are marked, it's
very easy for many fish to not be counted, or counted for the wrong rivers
fishery.
According to coastal fishermen, fish from hatcheries on other rivers have
been used to supplement the breeding stock of Klamath River hatcheries time
and time again. As these and all other fish intermingle, and return to
spawn in Klamath, as they have for generations, the very idea of a
"natural Klamath River fish" becomes a non-issue, there simply is
no such thing. Scientists, DNA or anyone or any thing else cannot tell
the difference between the fish, rightfully so, because there is no
difference. Going to the Sacramento or other rivers having record runs
this year to collect 6,000 fish to add to the numbers of spawning fish in
the Klamath would be both fairly simple and very cost effective compared to
the devastation of shutting down the fisheries, but we're talking common
sense, not "scientific management".
Section 16 U.S.C. 1082(13) of the Magnuson Act requires the Council to
develop management plans and plan amendments based on equal consideration of
all members of a fishery or stock of fish, but the Council is doing no such
thing. Large numbers of hatchery fish are not being counted in the
totals. "Klamath River fall Chinook that will spawn
naturally" is a sub-entity not recognized nor authorized by the
Magnuson Act.
But wait, there's more, sadly, much, much more.
In 1991 and 1992, fish counts went drastically below the arbitrary 35,000
number, to 12,000 fish. Yet in the returning runs from those years,
record numbers of salmon came back up the river. So much for the
federally mandated arbitrary 35,000 fish number I'd say. In fact, I'll
say more; it's beginning to seem like those idiots in the PFMC are
supporting an unscientific agenda and those pushing that agenda, at the
expense of a small group of unorganized people, for the political power and
money (lots and lots of money) associated with it. Here is where you
are reminded of the loggers, miners and farmers, and the devastation of
their lives.
Let's talk sea lions. By varied estimates there are
between 300-700 sea lions at the mouth of the Klamath River. Using the
smaller 300 sea lion count, during a 90 day season, and eating one fish per
day, those sea lions would eat 27,000 fish, each and every one headed
straight for the Klamath River. We've all seen the videos of the sea
lions at the Ballard Locks eating many fish a day, or to be more exact,
catching a salmon, taking one bite out of its stomach and then throwing it
away to catch another. Remember, each returning female Chinook salmon
will be carrying 3500-5000 eggs. Each female Chinook eaten by a sea
lion is a loss of up to 5000 young fish to begin the long journey downstream
to the ocean, yet nothing is being done about the sea lions in the Klamath
River.
Sea lions are threatened, but not endangered. Fisheries managers and
others are allowed to harass the destructive pinnipeds by a number of ways
to get them to leave an area, either temporarily or permanently. In
extreme cases they are allowed to shoot certain animals.
In the Columbia River, San Francisco Bay and Ballard, Washington, programs
to deal with flourishing numbers of wasteful and destructive sea lions are
in place, yet fisheries management has scarcely acknowledged the fact the
sea lions are even at the mouth of the Klamath River, let alone destroying a
huge number of returning Klamath River salmon. Simply harassing or
moving temporarily 67 of those sea lions would bring the numbers of
returning salmon over the 35,000 number, at a much smaller cost than any
other option, and would seem to be a simple fix to the arbitrary 35,000
returning fish problem causing the shutoff of the fishing season this year.
Acclimation sites, pens downriver which hatchery fish are trucked to, then
raised until they are older before release is a proven method to enlarge the
number of small fish escaping mortality and would act in exactly the same
context as having higher numbers of returning fish this year.
Apparently, this concept is beyond the comprehension of PFMC members,
despite continued successful use on the Columbia River and many other
locations worldwide.
The Daniels Creek Hatchery in the Coos River System is a great example of
small, privately funded independent hatcheries providing millions of fish to
a fishery. They take eggs from government hatcheries and place them in
small hatch boxes. Since 1991, the Daniels Creek Hatchery has released
over 10,000,000 (that's with an M - million) disease free fish with private
donations, costing the government nothing. Again, the concept of
federal agencies and scientists learning from the public seems to be lost.
Compared to emergency remedies enacted this year, this is again an extremely
cheap fix, having the result of more young salmon entering the ocean next
spring, which is the supposed purpose of the arbitrary 35,000 fish mark.
None of these fixes are proposed to fix any long term problems in the
Klamath River, although they would certainly help.
While the scientists and council muckety-mucks are spouting mouthfuls about
long term fixes, they are ignoring the short term, one year destruction of
people and livelihoods of the Oregon and Northern California coasts.
Whatever the long term problems, it boils down to this; if the arbitrary
35,000 returning fish numbers were met, the fishermen could fish during this
plentiful year of fish.
Each of these fixes could push either the returning number past 35,000 fish,
or return enough small fish next spring to be an equivalent. Using all
of these fixes, in combination could return a lot more than a
"minimum" of fish to the sea, in a very cost effective manner,
certainly much less than the millions certain to be spent presently.
All of these fixes could be done this year, requiring a certain amount of
work and planning by federal agencies (OK, I'll admit it; there's the weak
link in the plan), and at the same time permit a full fishing season.
No one is talking extinction of a species or anything like that. The
fishing season isn't being shut down to protect a species. The fishing
season is being shut down because a government agency wants 6,000 more fish
coming up a river. As explained earlier, with many fewer fish coming
up the river in 1991 and 1992, record runs still resulted, demonstrating the
inaccurate science of the arbitrary 35,000 fish number.
One more small suggestion and then I'll be done, for now.
I'd like to suggest that when the immediate needs of relief to the fishermen
and communities, fish management, and governmental "blaming it on
everyone but themselves" is done with, an immediate investigation of
NOAA, the PFMC and anyone else contributing to this fraud upon the public
begin. I believe NOAA and their agencies have proven themselves
incapable of managing the fishery, among other things, and management needs
to be transferred to some other entity.
I also believe its high time governmental workers be held
fully accountable for their actions. This problem isn't the result of
a huge series of innocent actions, but the result of years of mismanagement
and downright fraud. Jail time and huge personal fines are certainly
needed and appropriate.
OK, I do have one joke.
One NOAA official said to the other, "Should we try moving some of the
sea lions away from the returning fish and count ALL the fish returning up
the Klamath River?"
The other NOAA official replies, "Don't bother me now, I'm trying to
shut off water to 1400 farm families in the Klamath Basin."
Sorry, guess it wasn't that funny after all.
Permission to post from the publisher.
