Federal fisheries managers voted Wednesday to finish all business and recreational salmon fishing off the coast of California For the second time in a rowfor less than the fourth time in state history attributable to dwindling supplies.
The unanimous vote of the Pacific Fishery Management Council, the agency answerable for determining the salmon season within the Pacific, is a blow to the state’s fishing industry which supports tens of 1000’s of jobs and remains to be affected by last yr’s closure. Salmon fishing was also suspended in California through the 2008 and 2009 seasons.
Like 2023, this yr’s decision was made to guard California’s dwindling salmon populations after drought and water diversions resulted in warm and slow river flows for the state’s Chinook salmon to thrive.
A February Fisheries Council report found that in 2023, just over 6,100 fall-caught Chinook salmon, often referred to as king salmon, returned to the upper Sacramento River to spawn. The average between 1996 and 2005 was greater than 175,000 fish.
The ban initially affects business marine fishing and recreational fishing. However, the California Fish and Game Commission Council has beneficial that a ban on river fishing even be considered. The state board is predicted to vote on it in the approaching weeks.
The salmon population faces a variety of challenges, including rising river water temperatures in warm weather and a Rolling back Trump-era federal protections for waterways that allowed more water to be diverted to farms. Climate change, meanwhile, is threatening food sources for young Chinook maturing within the Pacific.
Scott Artis, executive director of the Golden State Salmon Association, said state water policies under Gov. Gavin Newsom have resulted in “dangerously low river flows, unsustainable water diversions from our rivers, record-high water temperatures attributable to dam work and record numbers of salmon eggs and hatchlings arriving in were killed in our streams.”
“Our water, our natural resources, the resources that every Californian and the entire salmon industry depends on are being stolen under Governor Newsom’s watch,” Artis said in an announcement Wednesday following the council’s decision.
The governor’s office didn’t immediately reply to an email in search of comment on the closure.
A majority of the salmon caught within the ocean comes from the Klamath and Sacramento rivers in California. After hatching in freshwater, they spend a median of three years maturing within the Pacific, where many are caught by business fishermen, before returning to their spawning grounds where conditions are more ideal for the birth of their young. After laying their eggs they die.
California’s spring chinook are considered endangered under the Endangered Species Act, while winter chinook are in danger, as are the central California coast coho salmon, which have been banned from California business fishermen for the reason that Nineteen Nineties.
