March 2, 2006
Redding Searchlight Editorial
Klamath Basin farmers, who saw their
incomes dry up along with irrigation water a few years ago in the name of
salmon preservation, might take a grim satisfaction in seeing downstream
fishing fleets in the same boat.
Fishing regulators are weighing a complete ban on salmon
fishing this season off the coast of Oregon and Northern California, following
a tightly restricted 2005 season. Last year's limits cost the industry tens of
millions of dollars and even forced the organizers of the annual "World's
Largest Salmon Barbecue" in Fort Bragg to import 3,000 pounds of fish
from Alaska.
The reason for the restrictions is simple. Few salmon are
spawning in the Klamath River. If the trolling nets don't leave enough fish to
head upstream and reproduce, in the long run the salmon season would be shut
down permanently because there would be nothing left to catch.
Oddly enough, the devastatingly skimpy runs on the Klamath
come at the same time the Sacramento River's salmon are dramatically
rebounding. Nearly 400,000 chinook spawned in the Sacramento in 2005, so
overall ocean stocks should be healthy this year. Fishery managers still must
guard, though, against inadvertently sweeping up the dwindling Klamath fish
along with the abundant Sacramento salmon.
It's absurd and no doubt frustrating to those who draw their
wages from the ocean, but there's an upside to the whole mess for landlubbers.
If the Sacramento River produces a huge run of salmon and
the ocean boats don't scoop them up, that will leave all the more fish to
eventually return and be hooked in the fishing holes of Shasta and Tehama
counties. It would at least be gracious to invite a friend from the coast.
Source: http://www1.redding.com/redd/op_editorials/article/0,2232,REDD_18098