Salmon Rules Hit Snag in County

With the federal government seeking to cut in half California’s annual salmon harvest, Ventura County fishermen are looking for better ways to protect an endangered species.

Although the busiest waters lie in Northern California, the local salmon industry brings in as much as $6 million a year and could be hard hit by the new proposal, said Tom Roff, president of the Ventura County Fishermen’s Assn.

“It’s ironic, because last year we had one of our best years ever,” he said.

Ten salmon boats operate out of Ventura Harbor, three out of Channel Islands Harbor and about 20 out of Santa Barbara, Roff said.

“I think we can come up with a different way to protect those fish,” Roff said.

Last week--in a last-ditch effort to save an increasingly rare species of salmon--the Commerce Department’s National Marine Fisheries Service announced plans to cut the salmon fishing season in half and increase the minimum size of fish that can be caught.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council--an independent, federally funded group that manages fish harvests in the waters off California, Oregon and Washington--has planned a meeting within the next few weeks to get local reaction to the proposed cuts.

Fishing groups have already proclaimed their disgust with the proposal.

The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Assn. said the move would destroy California’s $59-million commercial and recreational salmon fishing industry. Recreational salmon fishing produced about $33.2 million in revenue off the California coast last year, and commercial trolls brought in $25.7 million.

The industry averages about 7 million pounds of salmon a year, which are mostly fall-run Chinook salmon from the Sacramento River.

*

But government officials say the proposed reduction could save another breed, the Sacramento River’s winter-run Chinook salmon, which once numbered as many as 40,000 fish a year, but only three years ago was down to about 189 fish.

Last year, there were about 341 adult spawners counted by fish biologists. The species, which was put on the endangered list in 1989, needs about 500 spawners to avoid extinction, government scientists have said.

Many of the fish are sucked into the giant state and federal water diversion pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta that divert millions of acre-feet of water every year to supply farmers in the Central Valley and homeowners primarily in Southern California.

Representatives of the fishing industry complain that the proposed cuts, shortening the season and increasing the size of the fish, do not attack the real culprit.

Roff argued that because any winter-run salmon caught in the ocean during the season would be young fish--2-year-olds and less than 28 inches--the government could protect the fish by simply increasing the size limits.

He said that only about 8% of the salmon that are caught and then released as too small end up dying. Estimates are that the salmon industry catches about 100 winter-run salmon a year, so Roff estimates that fewer than 10 fish a year would be killed under his plan.

“I think we can achieve the same protections without destroying the industry,” he said.