Partial Fishing Ban Imposed to Save Salmon

Hoping to ensure that enough salmon survive to perpetuate the species, a federal agency Friday banned salmon fishing off Washington state for the first time and imposed tough limits on commercial and recreational fishing off California and Oregon.

The action by the Pacific Fishery Management Council places the strictest limits ever on salmon fishing off the West Coast. The salmon population is in steep decline because of the steady degradation of its freshwater habitat.

The council, which is responsible for overseeing the West Coast fishing industry, said the chief reason for the decline of salmon is the destruction of spawning grounds--in some cases hundreds of miles from the ocean. But the agency is powerless to protect salmon except by limiting fishing.

“Fishing is not the primary cause of the decline, and (restricting fishing) is not the answer to rebuilding,” said Larry Six, executive director of the council. “The actions we take here are only a small measure and one that by itself will not do the job to restore these stocks.”

For consumers, the fishing restrictions will go largely unnoticed, because salmon farming and the salmon catch in other parts of the world will continue to supply California markets.

The council’s decision comes nearly two decades after fishermen and environmentalists began urging protection of salmon’s inland spawning grounds and predicting that the West Coast’s multimillion-dollar commercial fishery would be lost if action was not taken.

In California, the salmon fishing industry from Morro Bay to Eureka is facing collapse, with many fishermen predicting that they will be unable to make a living from the limited season adopted by the council Friday.

Earlier this week, 13 members of California’s congressional delegation urged President Clinton to provide emergency aid to fishing communities that have been devastated by the decline in salmon.

And the National Marine Fisheries Service, which oversees the survival of marine species, is considering whether to list the coho salmon as endangered, which could lead to changes in water use and logging practices.

Each year a dwindling number of salmon are hatched in freshwater streams throughout the West. The young fish, or fry, swim downstream to the ocean. Several years later, at the end of their lives, the salmon return to spawn in the same streams in which they hatched.

In recent years, the Pacific Fishery Management Council has concluded that salmon are jeopardized primarily by human activities on land: construction of hydroelectric dams, diversion of streams and rivers, logging, ranching, mining, pollution, road construction and development.

Dams have blocked the migration of salmon upstream. Gravel beds where the fish spawn have been smothered in silt. Diversion of water to agriculture and cities has reduced the flow of rivers and caused water temperatures to rise to levels that are lethal to salmon eggs.

“You can’t keep destroying rivers and forests and have salmon,” said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Assns. “We’ve been telling them for the past 18 years this was going to happen. Now it’s happened.”

The only major river system producing enough salmon to provide much of a fishing season is the Sacramento River, which has been plagued by a dwindling salmon population.

One Sacramento River species--the winter-run chinook salmon--is critically endangered, but hatcheries on the river have produced enough salmon to allow a limited harvest this year outside San Francisco Bay and to the south. As a result, recreational fishing will be permitted all season from the Mexican border to Point Arena, 100 miles north of San Francisco.

“The Sacramento’s not at the peak of production by any means, but compared to the disastrous situation we find elsewhere, it’s about the only bright spot,” Six said.

The council’s action, which is expected to be ratified by Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, for the first time prohibits commercial fishing for coho or silver salmon anywhere off the West Coast. It also restricts fishing for other types of salmon to a much shorter season to protect fish that are returning to spawn. The restrictions vary along different sections of the coast.

Off the northern coast of California, for example, commercial salmon fishing is restricted to August and September. South of San Francisco, such salmon fishing is prohibited during most of June and all of July--the heart of the season for some fishermen.

State governments usually model their fishing restrictions for inland waters on the council’s action. As a result, restrictions on river fishing are likely to match the coastal limits.

During Friday’s hearing, commercial and recreational fishermen appealed for action to save the salmon habitat and to preserve as much of this year’s salmon season as possible.

Cathy Novak, representing fishermen from Morro Bay, said this year’s restrictions will cut their commercial harvest in half, putting many of the 100 boats harbored there out of business. “It’s going to be economic disaster,” she said.

At Ft. Bragg’s Noyo Harbor, fishermen anticipating the restrictions have been selling off seaworthy boats for as little as $1.

“Fishermen are struggling just as surely as the salmon are struggling for survival,” Rep. Dan Hamburg (D-Ukiah) told the council.