2006 Salmon season may
be in jeopardy
By Joel Gallob Of the News-Times
February 24, 2006
There may be no salmon caught in the
2006 spring commercial and sport salmon season (which includes the summer),
both the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and several longtime central
coast fishermen say.
A "perfect storm" of factors - with Klamath River Chinook runs at
the center - may compel federal regulators at the Pacific Fisheries Management
Council to declare a zero catch of Chinook salmon this coming season for
nearly all the Oregon coast and the parts of the California coast that see
salmon. Since the Chinook are now a large majority of the Northwest coast
salmon season, and since they are sometimes caught along with coho when the
coho are fished, the depressed Klamath River Chinook runs may shut down the
season's coho fishing, too.
Lincoln County Commissioner and former commercial fishermen Terry Thompson
told the Port of Newport board Wednesday night "it looks like there will
be no salmon fishing at all from Cape Falcon south" this coming season.
Newport fishing boat owner Carl
Finley told the News-Times "there could be no Chinook fishing this year,
except in the fall."
Longtime fishermen and insurance agent Mike Becker was more pessimistic. He
said, "There's no way they can open a salmon fishery this year, except as
a political decision. It can't be done by the council."
Chris Olsen, manager/owner of Newport Marina Store and Charters, said the
charter boat industry is affected somewhat differently by events than the
commercial sector. "It's not realistic for us to fish 30, 40 or more
miles offshore. This year, if the ocean returns to normal conditions - and it
should, the ocean's been colder - we should see a better year. Last year, the
Columbia and Sacramento rivers were very good, but the fish weren't near the
shore, they were out further due to the ocean conditions. But," he
continued, "the Klamath is driving things down. That really affects the
salmon season directly. It looks disappointing; the outlook is dismal."
Eric Schindler, the Ocean Sampling Program Manager for ODFW's salmon team in
Newport, said Thursday, "The statement that we may not have a season is
accurate. We don't know exactly what may happen, but the preseason prediction
for escapement (for Klamath Chinook) is that even with no fishing on the ocean
or in-river there would not be enough fish to meet the conservation goal
floor" for that key river system. ("Escapement" refers to fish
that make it past predators and fishers to return to their home stream to
spawn.)
The factors
Several factors have come together to produce the conclusion there will be a
severely limited or no salmon season this year.
For one, the Klamath Fisheries Management Council this week decided to delay a
recommendation to the PFMC regarding what it thinks the federal regulators
should mandate for the upcoming salmon season, given there are not enough
Klamath salmon in the ocean to meet the minimum numbers required for a
successful next generation. That worry comes on top of a recent history of
poor years in that river system.
According to the PFMC's 2006 Preseason Report, the "conservation
objective" is at least 35,000 fall Chinook making it up the Klamath to
spawn. According to the Preseason Report, in 2006 only 18,700 Chinook are
expected to make it back up the Klamath to spawn. In 2005 there were 27,300.
In 2004, there were 24,100.
So, Becker, Thompson and Finley all say, this would be the third year in a row
in which the "escapement" of wild Klamath salmon will not meet the
35,000 minimum.
But, says ODFW's Schindler, a failure to meet the Klamath conservation
"floor" for three years would not determine this season's size or
existence, but rather, the 2007 season. "That would not make it happen
this year, it would be next year, because now it's an estimate of escapement,
and that's just an estimate. We have to have the season and see," he
explained.
But that estimate, by itself, is enough to be a huge brake on this year's
season.
To protect the Chinook in that one river, Schindler said, the federal
regulators may close everything from Cape Falcon (in northern Tillamook
County) down to Point Sur, south of Monterrey, California. The Klamath fish
don't usually show up north of Cape Falcon, he explained.
There is another factor impinging on the upcoming salmon season - what fishers
call the "credit card fish." Last year, West Coast fishermen hauled
up some 6,000 more Chinook than regulators had approved. That number will be
deducted from the 2006 season. So even a zero catch level this coming summer
would still leave the fishery shy of the minimum regulators say should have
been met last year, and way behind the conservation objective for the past
three years. With that, says Becker, the Science and Statistical team (SST)
that advises the PFMC "could not possibly open the fishery" this
year.
The credit card fish, agreed Schindler, "are a part of the problem,
another reason why it will be even more difficult to justify a season."
There are, on the other hand, hatchery fish, but it is the wild fish state and
federal regulators are concerned with conserving.
Why Klamath?
Last year, it was also the Klamath that defined the boundaries of a restricted
Oregon Coast Chinook fishery. In 2005 predictions said there would not be
enough returning three-year-old fish to allow for a normal season, and a
severely constrained catch was the result.
Schindler described the "on-again, off-again" fishery last year:
Newport saw 10 days open in April, 15 open in May, and all of June open; a
closure in all of July and August; three weeks open in September, and all of
October open. Fisheries in Coos Bay and southern Oregon saw a somewhat
different, but equally erratic season in 2005.
September was strong enough to partially make up for the closures, but 2005
was still a difficult, hectic and reduced season - driven by low numbers of
returning three-year-old Klamath Chinook.
This year's driver will be the returning four-year-old Klamath Chinook.
"This year we're as sure as we can be there will be less than last year,
probably a lot less," said Schindler.
Further, he said, across the region, "for almost every Chinook run the
numbers are nearly all down, and none are up in a run with a reliable
predictor. It's not all doom and gloom but there are no rosy spots."
But the Klamath is the center of the storm, with the class of 2002 at the very
heart.
Why 2002?
In 2002, the Klamath River suffered a broad die-off of fish. The mortality was
estimated at 34,056, the largest known single fish die-off ever in the United
States. But, according to a California Department of Fish and Game final
report issued in 2004, the actual number was at least twice as large.
The chief cause of death was a disease caused by pathogenic bacteria, whose
natural presence in the population was exacerbated by an unusually high number
of fish - mostly Chinook - in the Klamath at the end of that August and early
September. It might have been a really good year for the Klamath Chinook. But
the federal Interior Department decided to use that drought summer's water,
such as it was, for farm irrigation rather than to keep the fish wet and cool.
Biologist David Vogel, of the Klamath Water Users Association, disputes the
idea it was the allocation of water to the farmers that year that caused the
die-off. He asserts the number of salmon returning at Iron Gate Hatchery on
the Klamath River in 2002 was the third highest on record, and most of the
fish that died were Trinity River fish. (The Trinity is the major tributary of
the Klamath.)
But according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife study, "Klamath River Fish
Die-off, September 2002: Causative Factors of Mortality," diversions to
irrigate the Klamath Basin farms determine flow levels at Iron Gate Dam.
"The fish die-off in 2002 coincided with low total basin discharge and
the lowest discharge at Iron Gate (in) years with large run sizes. Also, in
2002, the proportion of total flow contributed by Iron Gate was the
lowest" among recent low-water years with high salmon numbers. Thus, the
report found, "2002 featured a unique combination of low discharges
(especially from Iron Gate Dam) and high run size."
Klamath farmers, fearing the drought combined with water allocations for the
fish would produce a disaster for them, mounted protests that garnered
national attention. Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR) intervened to urge allocating
more water to the farmers, and Interior Secretary Gale Norton - pressed,
according to a Wall Street Journal report, by White House adviser Karl Rove to
do as Smith asked - overruled the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which had
wanted the water for the fish.
The Klamath is so important, explains Schindler, because for decades it was
the third most productive of the U.S. West Coast rivers, only behind the
Columbia and Sacramento rivers. For years it produced more than a million
Chinook a year, he said - more, adds Becker, than Oregon's Rogue and Umpqua
rivers combined. Now its Chinook are counted in a few tens of thousands, and
protecting those fish has become a guiding principle for West Coast salmon
management.
"It's not going to be pleasant," said Schindler.
Joel Gallob is a reporter for the News-Times. He can be reached at 265-8571,
ext. 223 or joel.gallob@lee.net
