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From Alastair BlandCalmness
This story was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.
Faced with the prolonged collapse of Chinook Salmon, employees today closed the fishing season of commercial salmon in California for an unprecedented third consecutive year.
According to the decision of the Inter -State Fishing Agency, California will be allowed to fish for salmon recreation only for short windows of time this spring. This will be the first year when every Chinook sports fishing has been allowed since 2022.
Today’s decision of the Pacific Fishing Council means that no salmon caught by California can be sold to consumers and restaurants at least another year. Oregon and Washington will remain fishing for commercial salmon open, though limitedS
“From the point of view of salmon, this is an environmental disaster. For the fishing industry, it is a human tragedy and also an economic disaster,” says Scott Artis, CEO of the Golden State Salmon Association, an industrial organization that lobbies to restore rivers and improves cough programs.
The decline of salmon in California has followed for decades in worsening conditions in waterways, where fish spawn every year, including the Sacramento and Klamat rivers. California salmon is an environmental icon and a valuable source of food for Indian tribes.
The lock also has an economic fee: it has already dumped hundreds of commercial fishermen and boat operators for workless fishing and affected thousands of people in communities and industries relying on the processing, sale and service of locally caught salmon.
Commercial fishing in California has never been closed for three years in a row before.
Some experts fear that the conditions in California have been so bad so long that Chinook may never recover to fishing levels. Others remain the hope of a great recovery if the quantities of water diverted on the farms and cities are reduced and the wetlands from flood control are restored.
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This year's recreation season includes several short fishing windows, including a weekend in June and another in July, or a 7,000 fish quota.
Jared Davis, the owner and operator of the Salt Lady in the Sausalito, one of the dozens of party boats that inhabit customers' customers, thinks that this quota is likely to be performed on the first open weekend for resting on June 7-8.
"Obviously, the pressure will be intense, so everyone and their mother will go into the water in those days," he said. "When they hit this quota, it's done."
A member of the Fishing Council, Corey Ridings, voted against the proposed provisions after saying that he was concerned that the first weekend would overcome the quota with 7,000 fish.
Davis said that such a minimum recreation season would not help the owners of boats like him recover from past closure, although it would be symbolic.
"This can give the fishermen the California glimmer of hope and protect them from selling all their bars and buy golf clubs," he said.
"He continues to be detrimental. The salmon has been a cornerstone of many of our ports for a long time."
Sarah Bates, commercial fishing based in San Francisco
Sarah Bates, commercial fishing, based in the port of San Francisco's fisherman, said that continued closure had undressed many boats with the greater part of their income.
"It continues to be detrimental," she said. "Salmon is a milestone of many of our ports for a long time."
She said the exclusion also has effects on a number of businesses that support salmon fishing, such as combustion services, grocery stores and Dokis ice machines.
"We also see something like a third wave ... The common seafood market for local products is a tank," like rock fish and a coat. She said many buyers turn to agriculture and wild salmon delivered from other regions.
Davis noted that federal resources for emergency assistance promised to close in 2023 have not yet arrived. "No one has seen a penny," he said.
Slower
Before the gold tide, several million Chinook was born annually in the Central Valley River Systems and the North Coast of the State. During much of the 20th century, California fishing on salmon It forms the economic backbone of coastal fishing ports, with fishermen using a hook and a line that pulls millions of pounds in good years.
But in 2024, just 99,274 Autumn Running Chinook - the most trade viable of the four subpopulations of the central valley - returned to The Sacramento River and its tributaries, significantly smaller than the numbers in 2023. In 2022, less than 70,000 returned, one of the most estimates so far.
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About 40,000 returned to the San Joaquin River. Less than 30,000 Chinook have reached their spawning places in the Klamat River system, where the Hupa, Joker and Karuk tribes rely on fish in years of abundance.
The decline of salmon in California stems from nearly two centuries of damage to the rivers, where salmon spends the first and last stage of its life. Gold extraction, logging and construction of dams devastated ponds. Levees restricts rivers by turning them into relatively sterile channels of fast moving water while turning floodplains and wetlands into irrigated farmland.
Today, many of these effects continue to exist, along with water abnormalities, reduced flows and elevated river temperatures, which often write death for fertilized eggs and youth fish.
The future of California salmon is cloudy
Peter Moil, a biologist and professor of UC Davis Fish, said the restoration of self -supporting populations may be possible in some tributaries of the Sacramento River.
"There are some options to at least keep tracks in parts of the central valley, but to return the fish naturally in a large number, I just can't see this to happen," he said.
Jacob Katz, a biologist from the California trout group, has hope for the future of the thriving River Sacramento Chinuk. "We could have vital populations from autumn running after a decade," he said.
This will require large habitat restorations, including the removal of dams, reconstruction of Levee systems to revive wetlands and floodplains and reduced deviations of agricultural water - all measures filled with costs, regulatory restrictions and disputes.
"There are some options for the least maintenance (salmon) running in parts of the central valley, but of course throwing fish in a large number, I just can't see that this is happening."
Peter Moil, Biologist of UC Davis Fish Fish
Civil servants, recognizing the risk of extinction, encouraged the restoration of salmon as a political purposes for years. In early 2024, the Newsom Administration released its California Salmon strategy for a hot, drier futureCatalog of 37 pages of proposed actions to mitigate environmental impact and restore flows and habitat, all in front of the warming environment.
The Artis of Golden State Salmon Association said the State Salmon Strategy includes some important elements, but leaves equally critical, as the protection of the minimum necessary fish flows - what Artis said are threatened by the proposed water projects approved by the Newsom administration.
“He does not include some of the upcoming salmon killing projects that the governor insists as Tank Sites and Delta tunneland ignores the fact that Voluntary agreements are designed to allow massive water abnormalities, "he said.
Experts agree that an important key to restoring salmon is to increase the frequency and duration of shallow floods in the riverside areas of Riverside or even the decline of rice - a program that KATZ has helped to develop through its career.
In such seasonal floods, a shallow layer of water can help cause explosion of photosynthesis and food production, ultimately providing a minor salmon while migrating from the river system every spring.
Through meetings with farmers, urban water agencies and civil servants, Renee Heri, California Director of Science at Trout Unlimited, helped to draw up an ambitious plan to restore salmon called. "Reorientation of recoveryS "With the participation of habitat restoration, carefully managed harvests and generously improved river flows-especially in a dry year-this frame, Heri said, can restore the reduced Central Valley, which Chinook moves to more than 1.6 million adults annually over a period of 20 years.
He said that opponents - often farmers and conservationists - must be transferred from traditional feuds over water to more common programs to restore productive reservoirs while maintaining productive agriculture.
While the Chinook recovery needle is moving in the wrong direction, Katz said deliberate actions were urgent.
"We are balanced on the edge of the loss of these populations," he said. "We have to become big now. We have no other option."
This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.
