US West Coast Braced For Ban on Salmon Fishing As Stocks Collapse
America’s west coast looks set to lose almost all of its wild salmon harvest this year, depriving fish retailers and restaurants around the world of one of their key sources of high-quality fish, and raising troubling questions about the viability of commercial fishing in an age of climate change and increased competition over water use.
United States government regulators have already closed down the early fishing season along swathes of the west coast and are expected to issue a season-long ban in California and Oregon, in response to an unprecedented collapse in the region’s salmon population.
The unexpected shutdown will have a devastating effect on the 1,000 or so commercial salmon fishermen who ply their trade between California’s Central Coast and the Oregon-Washington state line. It will kill the recreational salmon fishing industry, which attracts millions of anglers each year and generates about $4bn (£2bn) in benefits to the coastal economy.
And it will drastically change the menu at restaurants and private houses on the west coast and far beyond. Wild salmon had, over the past 30 years, slowly changed from a delicacy to a relatively common and affordable menu item. This year, though, anyone wanting to eat wild, as opposed to farmed, west coast salmon is going to have to rely on the solid, but small, harvest of king or chinook salmon from Alaska and Washington state - and pay through the nose for it.
“Brutally expensive,” was how one key wholesaler, Paul Johnson, of the Monterey Fish Market in San Francisco, envisaged his wild salmon offerings over the next several months. “Oh man, I’m telling you the king salmon is the icon in the [San Francisco] Bay Area,” Mr Johnson told The San Francisco Chronicle. “This is going to be devastating to the economy.”
The shortage of fish is so bad that even the commercial fishermen understand there is no point lobbying for a higher quota - or any quota at all - this year.
The most startling data comes from the Sacramento river, the source of more than 80 per cent of all the mature salmon caught off California. Last year, only 90,000 spawning adults returned to the river, the second lowest figure on record, and the projections for this year, based on sightings of two-year-old fish during last autumn’s spawning run, are for fewer than 60,000. To put those figures in perspective: the Sacramento River once saw spawning populations of 800,000. The federal government sets a minimum of about 120,000, below which it doesn’t authorise any fishing season at all.
The reasons for the drop-off are far from clear. Some scientists blame the whole thing on changes in ocean currents, which in turn disturb the pattern of marine nutrients coming to the surface of the Pacific to supply a food chain that includes the west coast salmon population. It is certainly true that wind and tide patterns have not been favourable to this so-called “upwelling” of ocean nutrients, creating food shortages for many forms of marine life.
Fishermen, though, point to other less immediate causes too: competition over water resources involving big farmers, property developers and big-city water resource managers. Water that comes out of the giant river delta where the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers meet in California’s Central Valley is, they argue, water that salmon cannot use to spawn and thrive in. They also accuse farmers of damaging fish stocks by dumping pesticide-infected irrigation water back into streams and rivers.
Salmon runs up and down the west coast have been affected over the years by everything from the construction of golf courses - a big water siphon, especially in a dry region - to the mass harvest of redwoods and other trees that prevent the silting of rivers.
Up to now the variety most affected has been the coho salmon, a delicate-tasting fish now regarded as an endangered species. King, or chinook, salmon, which is fished in the ocean, has tended to remain plentiful.
Many west coast fishermen are likely to flock to Washington state, which has not suffered the same sort of drop-off. But it is likely to suffer very similar economic hardship because its fishermen will be competing for a limited number of fish with a far higher number of rivals than usual.
Illegal fishing off the California or Oregon coasts is unlikely, however, because the fishermen recognise the scale of the crisis. “I think if we do have fishing, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot,” said a California fishermen’s representative, Duncan MacLean.
© 2008 The Independent
Nature is reacting to human overpopulation by reducing our food supply. Do we have the audacity to hope people can keep winning the battle against nature?
Like all the global warming critics correctly claim, nature goes through these huge cycles. The problem for too many contemporary species is the outcome when the conditions which produce a down cycle correspond with a already much weakened population–I think it is called extinction.
Yet another warning from nature that business as usual–of either the conservative or liberal variety–has no long-term future.
Of course fishermen will fish illegally! That is so naive.
Its great to be vegan, but I feel sorry for seals. If the US follows Canada’s example on the East Coast, it will blame the seals and start slaughtering them to compensate.
Who wants to eat something that is full of poison anyway? Eating fish in now worse than eating liver, which is just a low pressure filter and equivelant to eating the sludge from the bottom of a garbage dump.
great news for the salmon……………..
Let the bears have them, we can eat cake.
KEM PATRICK:
Wild caught salmon is one of the most pollution free seafoods available due to:
(1)Living in relatively clean water for nearly all of their growing life.
(2)Having a naturally short lifespan.
Sadly, you are all to right about the poisons in most of the longer lived and farm raised seafoods.
Poisons are being found IN ALASKA in almost ALL the fish species, far above the “allowable limit”, recent revelations revealed. NO fish are safe anymore if you care about what goes into your body.
But then again, the air we breathe is poison, and the water we drink is drugged, and GMFs are in OUR daily food on the shelves…
Welcome to War on the Human species by the elite few who can insulate themselves in their compounds below ground.
On the east coast shorlines, there are large government signs with red lettering, which in essence tell us that if we are adults and are not pregnant, it is only safe to eat one fluke, one flouneder one sea bass or blue and one or two crabs a year. Which day of the year is not noted. Yummy-yum. ___ Well at least you won’t get mad cow disease.
“Welcome to War on the Human species by the elite few who can insulate themselves in their compounds below ground.”
I thought life was seeming more and more like a Philip K. Dick novel.
If you want to eat in the future, have your own garden and a few chickens.
“from the construction of golf courses - a big water siphon, especially in a dry region ”
Go to Google earth and look at any city. Golf courses are hideous scars on the landscape, an act of triumphalism on the part of the rich.
Cause. Overpopulation? NOT!! Most of the world racing to achieve an American-style consumption pattern? Irrefutably IS!! No seven-generation-thinking could ever produce such a predicament.
” ezeflyer March 14th, 2008 11:47 am
Nature is reacting to human overpopulation by reducing our food supply.”
I SERIOUSLY DOUBT THAT that is the cause. Carefully considering what the article says, it’s not human overpopulation that’s the problem, but how we destroy the environment in hellish ways that is. “construction of golf courses - a big water siphon, especially in a dry region - to the mass harvest of redwoods and other trees that prevent the silting of rivers” does not mean anything more than what it says, and it does not in any manner inherently infer human overpopulation. If we had the same population, but well mannered, environmentally speaking, then we’d MOST likely not have this depletion of fish stocks to the extent that we do.
The major depletion of cod on the east coast wasn’t as much due to overfishing, as it was due to the huge fishing boats, quasi ships, with their DEEP trawling, or dragging, whatever, destroying the ocean bottom and the cod’s habitat. Without its habitat, the cod obviously could not continue to survive, so they’d need to relocate, and hopefully find another suitable habitat, or else bye-bye cod.
I went recreationally deep-sea fishing a number of times off of Cape Cod from 1994 to 1996, and there was not very abundant but still enough cod; just a question of finding the spots, and then once there, well, we were on a 100ft party boat, the large kind where anyone who wishes to go and pays the fare can go out. Well, once there, you want to have:
1) A suitable rod for cod fishing; having learned this in first-hand, … fashion, myself; and,
2) To fortunately lower your bait or jig near enough to cod, or other fish. There were also pollock, the seldom but occasional haddock, and some others; a wolf fish now and then, I think. It was mostly pollock and cod that we were catching.
So a person can go out on such trips and return with the trip and fishing equipment, if owning your own, paid in a trip. One trip, I think the third or fourth I went out on, definitely provided enough cod to cover all my costs up to that point; including all prior trips. After all, if it costs you around $100 to go out Friday night and return Sunday (for these interesting full weekend’ers), then every pound of cod you catch sold for around $7 a lb in grocery stores, for [freshest] sold there; and you’re returning home with … couldn’t be fresher.
Enough people on the trips caught 15, 20, 25 lb cod, and we sometimes hauled up some larger ones. Last trip I went on, I got up when the others did, though took my time, it was sometime between 5am and 6am, they all swung over frantically to one side, leaving the whole other side open, opportunities I don’t neglect to notice. So I walked out to that side, dropped my line, and within seconds … had to be [whale] cod; first two, I could feel’em alright, but couldn’t budge them upward, so they got their food from my bait. That was two times in a row, while the third time I finally brought a whopper up; largest catch of the day or weekend, must’ve been weekend, for those are the only ones I spent overnight on these boats.
That one fish alone probably had close to 40 lb of cleaned fish, so filets. Too tough for me, for I bake’em, but cousins enjoyed it; deep-frying being their way, and I guess this tenderizes, while baking doesn’t.
And I had other cod from which I kept some and gave the rest away.
SO we can do okay when going out recreationally, although for some species only. F.e., flounder, summer or winter, forgetting which, but not the fluke one anyway, and off of Cape Cod, now this was a difficult fish to find a good location to fish for. I caught some, but while it was still worth going back because I like or love the outdoors and ocean, the amount of flounder caught was SMALL; acceptable size, but small in number.
WHY is that with flounder, for it’s not sold as much as many other fish in stores; or not from what I’ve seen anyway? I wonder.
KEM PATRICK speaks of the fluke on the east coast being high risk to eat, and speaks of the most sensitive condition being whether we’re pregnant or not. I assume what I learned during my years in Ontario, Canada, might apply for the ocean species, but am not sure.
The Ontario Fish & Game Ministry used to publish a book or booklet every year or so, and it covered all bodies of water with fish people would or could fish for, listing the species found in each body of water, and the health guide info. It said, f.e., that it was estimated to be safe to eat a northern pike of up to 26″ out of Toronto Harbour, but to NOT even eat at 12″ trout or salmon, the reason then being that trout and salmon are fatty fish, while pike are [very] lean; and the heavy metals, perhaps esp. mercury, bioaccumulates very quickly with fatty fish. After pike, we had walleye being safe up to around 24″, bass was around 18″, and they didn’t list yellow perch, but it’s a [very] lean fish and doesn’t grow large, so I’d guess than these are safe when they’re in their catch-and-keep size range of … what, 9″ and more, perhaps even 8″.
From that book I learned that some bodies of water do not have fish that are safe to eat, and it seems to apply sometimes naturally. The book listed a pond or small lake well within Algonquin Park, where we used to go for weekend canoe-portage (or -ing) trips, and there was NO consumable fish in this water. There were fish, but the book strongly stated to NOT eat anything caught there, because of a high level of mercury being present. NO ROADWAYS anywhere nearby, this was well into wilderness, taking around a day of canoing to get to, so I figured it must be mercury that is naturally present.
We certainly should not make matters worse.
Anyway, the book spoke of safety of eating fish from all these waters and based on whether we’re children, women, pregnant women, or adult and non-child males. The most vulnerable were the pregnant women and children, while then followed non-pregnant women; men having the least danger or risk.
If I recall correctly, the book said that the 26″ pike from Toronto Harbour were also safe for women; although I don’t recall, at all, what it said for pregnant women and children.
I lived there from 1989-1994.
Later, when doing a contract in Hartford, Ct, I would get a small New England fishing journal or guide that we could pick up for around $1 or $2 in many stores, and it said that for flounder, f.e., where it was safe to catch and then eat the fish from, vs where it was recommended to definitely not eat any fish. I think it had something to do with whether the fish were caught in Long Island Sound, or not. If that’s remembered correctly, then it was because the pollution builds up in the Sound, there not being enough tides or currents, tidal currents, whatever, to disperse the pollution to the point that it becomes so diluted that the danger is very reduced. There was something like this about the Sound, for I recall specically staying away from fishing there because of this fishing journal, whatever it’s called.
I saw, from what I recall anyway, no such warnings with respect to fishing off of Cape Cod, or north of there; except Boston Harbour.
The commercial fishing businesses fished themselves out of business and destroyed much of the ocean bottom or floor, which is food habitat for some species. Recreational fishing shouldn’t be banned, except where fish truly are too contaminated with our poisonous pollutants. Otherwise, quotas should be applied. As allowable quotas per person per trip decreases, the less people not living very near the bodies of water will choose to go, while the remainder of people who do go will need to keep fewer. That should be sufficient regulation for recreational fishing, I believe anyway.
It’s not the recreational fishermen or -people who destroyed fish stocks and habitats, which is entirely the fault of hellishly negligent govt and pig commcercial fishermen.
As for CRABS, maybe it depends on which species or subspecies, whatever the right term is for this. Perhaps some are okay, safe, while others aren’t. F.e., what about Alaskan King? Or are they all said to be unsafe to eat? I wonder.
I also wonder if the govt is telling the whole truth and nothing but truth when it claims fish is unsafe to eat in many places they can be caught; and does the govt say that a fish is unsafe to eat because it is in one place, while applying this to all places the fish can be caught, but while it’d be safe to eat them in some of these other places? That is, is the information as refined as what I described above about the booklet from the Ontario F&G Ministry?
If not, then I would personally keep this distinction in mind; while seeking information from different sources on the fishes in various locations I might go to. F.e., someone living in Mass. might be prepared to fish anywhere off of its coastline, as well as off of R.I., Ct, NH, and Maine. Some of us would drive such distances, when we know of the trips being worthwhile anyway.
“Thing is”, if I can catch my own fish, then this is what I would do; just not being in this fortunate situation at the moment. There are bodies of water around here, but a lot of waterside property has become privatised for homes and cottages over the past few decades; damn blastard crap thing that is to allow to happen. Damn govt! And when this isn’t the problem, then fishing clubs club off fishable waters and put up ‘NO TRESPASSING’ signs, so if you go, and you’re not member, then don’t get caught, or else ….
Damn shit.
I seem to recall Cheney’s involvement in closing ‘feeder-rivers’ for wild-salmon (and USACofE-jungue and dams) that helped only the ‘huge Agri-biz’ and “factory-farm” hybridized/Frankenfood/Monsanto-producers he always seems to favor. Guess Cheney doesn’t ‘like’ anything “wild” (evident, also, from his ‘hunting’ of hundreds of clipped-wing little-birds thrown skyward by ‘Illegals’ in Texas, whilst celebrating his give-away of 6-billion in Fed Oil-lease Grants to the King-ranch owners — you know, when he shot his ‘apologetic/old lawyer-friend’ due to “over-celebration”).
[Good thing I hate the taste of salmon/trout, anyhoo — “Save the Walleye!”, close a coal-fired/unregulated Utility-plant today! Instead, start a locally-competitive bio-diesel/LPG-powered DC-utility of your own, and string-some-cable…?]
Of course, kill-off COULD be due to military-dumping of 100’s-of-thousands of tons of nerve-gas, nuclear-waste, toxins, and ‘old-boats’ — right off the coastline, there (hell, they do the same in Lake Superior, also!). I really doubt THAT does the ‘ecology’ there (or on the East Coast) any real ‘favor’, either…?
“Spinoza said:
Yet another warning from nature that business as usual–of either the conservative or liberal variety–has no long-term future.”
We can’t let conservatives off the hook by letting them place a share the blame with liberals, the only real environmentalists who have been fighting conservative’s depredations of nature forever.
“fist said:
Cause. Overpopulation? NOT!! Most of the world racing to achieve an American-style consumption pattern? Irrefutably IS!! No seven-generation-thinking could ever produce such a predicament.”
Overpopulation AND unlimited money-power concentration. Sorry but I left out the last part to not be so repetitive on my posts.
“mike corbeil said:
If we had the same population, but well mannered, environmentally speaking, then we’d MOST likely not have this depletion of fish stocks to the extent that we do.”
We don’t want to live in a world dictatorship that requires us to be environmentally well mannered even if we’re poor and hungry, or place all hope that they won’t deplete fish stocks, or think we’re apart from nature and we’ll overcome our resource limits with technological fixes that usually fix one thing and break two.
We are another species living in a global wildlife park. Why should we be exempted from the dynamics of too many elephants, locusts or kudzu in an ecosystem eating up all the resources?
If you love salmon just say no to farmed salmon!!! Sea lice clinging to the net cages of salmon “farms” jump onto baby salmon migrating out to sea and eat them alive. I want my grandchildren to be able to catch a wild salmon to barbecue someday. Real fish don’t eat pellets or do drugs or have their flesh dyed pink.
Their flesh dyed pink? Maybe in a canning factory. All stocked trout and salmon are white fleshed, all wild are pink. They are all loaded with mercury, tricoretheline, or pesticides, or DU or other atomic wastes.
One really is struck dumb by the stupidity of those who cant see that taking too much aint gonna work forever.
Are americans possibly genetically stupid about world resources and their planetary home. Do you really not GET IT.
When youre ancestors crossed the Pond did they just give up thousands of years of understanding how nature works.
I had a rather silly old aunt who used to warn us that if we didn’t do well in school we’d be “eating codfish” our whole lives. It sounded like an OK fate to me then, and now it sounds like heaven.
Now for priorities - golf courses MUST be maintained even during droughts. In the recent drought in the SE US, congresspeople proposed diverting water away from protected fish spawning areas, yet water recovered at govt. expense was made available for sale to favored customers, including to golf courses. Such are our values. This reminds me of a poem:
The golf links lie so near the mill
That almost every day
The laboring children can look out
And see the men at play.
——Sarah N. Cleghorn, 1917
Well not exactly the same today. The mill owned by the golfers might be in Asia. Globalization.
A gift to the Beef, Pork and FOUL industries.
Lets face it, Ranchers in Texas, Wyoming, Montana, etc. could care less about seafood stocks.
Here in Maine the farmed Salmon density has elevated disease and parasite levels to the detriment of the few wild river fish left. Soon wild fish will be gone and indigenous genes extinct which will most likely allow genetically modified “super Salmon” to be stocked in pens.
These “super Salmon” grow 3 times faster and twice the size(to 50 pounds) are voracious and if they escape(penned fish escape is very common)will TERRORIZE cool/cold water species such as Cod, Haddock, Herring etc. which are already in jeopardy of total collapse.
I’m sure Bush and Cheney say “let them eat Beef”
I say “lets all grow our own and go veggie”
~Jclientelle~ you eat enough cod fish and you may be in heaven sooner than you think.
Hey, the replacement of cod fish is the Alaskan Pollock. One single boat brings in 22 ‘THOUSAND TONS’ on one trip, all filleted and smashed up ready for fish sticks and McDonald’s fish-burgers. They use the fish oil for fuel to run their ovens and mash up the fish heads and guts for fetrtilizer.
- jclientelle - “…the golfers might be in Asia.”
Golf courses and globalization: the VNese gov’t wishes to focus on high-end tourism - fancy resorts and golf courses. I somehow can’t imagine Vietnam (where I live) as a global golfers’ destination but more and more golf courses are being built. This in a country that’s ‘working hard to reduce poverty and malnutrition’. The logic is to get the fat cats to come and dump their money into the system/economy. Funny thing is that its foreign corporations that are building and owning these golf courses. Mercedes Benz is sponsoring a marvelous golf tournament right now. They’re delighted to see the new class of super corrupt rich VNese getting into the swing of things, as there are some (countable) VNese golfers now.