Fishing Ban Is Among 3 Options Panel Is Considering to Save Klamath Salmon

Facing a salmon shortage on the ailing Klamath River, a fishing advisory board Wednesday sketched out ways to slash this year’s West Coast salmon catch that range from cutting the season by more than half to adopting an outright ban.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council asked its staff to return Friday with a review of three potential options, all of them met with dismay by fishermen already hard-hit by a shortened 2005 season.

“Last season was the most restrictive on record,” said Duncan MacLean, president of the Half Moon Bay Fishermen’s Marketing Assn. “This year we’re hoping we just have some sort of season. But it’s not going to be easy pulling a rabbit out of that hat.”

During an average year, salmon fishing in California and Oregon is a $150-million industry. The commercial mainstay is the silver-sided Chinook that return each fall from the sea to spawn. Experts say a commercial ban could put struggling coastal fishing fleets financially underwater.

The fishery council, which acts as an advisory board for federal regulators who will decide the fate of this year’s salmon season, is meeting in Seattle this week and expects by Friday to complete three options for public review during the coming month.

On Tuesday, an official with the National Marine Fisheries Service -- the agency involved in the final decision -- told the council there appeared to be few options other than a ban.

Fishermen, however, say they hope a compromise can be reached that will allow a short season.

A ban, the most onerous proposal the council is considering, would cancel the salmon season from near Oregon’s northern boundary to Point Sur, just south of Carmel.

A typical season runs about six months, beginning in the spring.

The council also is considering allowing commercial fishing boats to put to sea about as often as they did last year, when the fleets were left at the dock for the late spring and early summer months that are considered best.

In between is a third option, which would likely allow fishermen on the water roughly half as long as they were in 2005.

The trouble lies with the Klamath River, which rises from the snowmelt of the Cascade Range and empties into the ocean north of Eureka, Calif.

During spring 2002 and again the next year, upward of 80% of the juvenile fish returning to sea from the Klamath River succumbed to a parasite scientists blame on a combination of low river flows, pollution and overheated water.

“Simply put,” said MacLean, “the river is killing its young.”

Environmentalists have blamed the current troubles on the Bush administration, which in recent years has allowed larger irrigation diversions from the Klamath for upriver farmers.