Outlook Worsens for Ocean Salmon Season
By Peter Sleeth, The Oregonian
March 11, 2006

SEATTLE -- Commercial salmon fishermen could be shut out of the planned season opener beginning March 15 off the Oregon coast, with the looming possibility of no season at all this year.

A precariously low number of fall chinook salmon predicted to return to the Klamath River in Northern California is driving the proposed closure. Although there is expected to be a reduced ocean salmon season off the mouth of the Columbia River and Washington this year, there will probably be none for much of Oregon.

The Pacific Fisheries Management Council called for public comment on the proposed shutdown Friday at its monthly meeting in Seattle. A second council meeting to be held in Sacramento the week of April 2 will determine whether to prohibit all salmon fishing this year from Cape Falcon, north of Manzanita, to Point Sur, near Monterey, Calif.

Council members voted to allow sportfishing off the Oregon coast from March 15 to April 30 from Cape Falcon to Humbug Mountain, near Port Orford. The future of that fishery for the rest of the year will also be decided in April.

Both state and federal governments generally follow the council's recommendations for fishing closures.

Any shutdown carries perilous consequences for fishermen and their families. Many rely on the salmon season for much of their annual income, as other fisheries have been closed or severely restricted in recent years.

"If we have no fishery or even a reduced fishery, I don't know if I can survive," said Ben Platt of Fort Bragg, Calif.

Platt, 44, grew up in a fishing family and knows little else, spending approximately 200 days at sea each year, he said. Sporting tattooed fingers and a grim resolve, he sat with others from California who came to plead for the chance to land salmon this year. In years past, he and his family compensated for reduced salmon harvests by fishing for a " grocery bag" of other species -- most of which are now too scarce to support a fishery.

"We don't have that option anymore," he said.

The council is one of eight fisheries councils nationwide that research and then make recommendations to the federal government on how to best manage fisheries, many of them in perilous decline. The Pacific council regulates waters off Oregon, Washington and California from three miles offshore to 200 miles out.

Meeting near the Seattle airport all week, the council took sweeping action on a number of species, deciding to:

Ban any future fishery for krill off the Pacific Coast. Krill are small, shrimplike creatures that salmon and whales alike eat as a primary food source. While there is currently no krill fishery off the coast, regulators worry that in the future the demand for krill for fish feed and other uses might arise, imperiling the ocean ecosystem.

Protect approximately 150,000 square miles of Pacific Ocean floor extending 200 miles off the coast by banning fishing that uses weighted trawl nets. The nets bounce along the ocean floor tearing up coral, rocky reefs and other fish habitat. Environmentalists and fishing groups alike cheered the move.

Put together three options -- to be voted on in April -- on whether to mildly restrict the coho and chinook seasons from Cape Falcon north to Canada or reduce them by about one-half over last year. The restrictions on the season -- which typically runs from early to late summer -- would include both commercial and sportfishing.

The proactive approach to both krill and ocean bottom habitat was an easy move for both the council and federal government --preserving something is far easier than trying to bring a fish back once it starts the slow slide toward extinction. For the West Coast, the Klamath River is quickly becoming the focus of frantic efforts to make humans work well with the natural environment.

The Klamath has seen dramatically reduced water flows as irrigators and fishermen battle for control of the river. Between irrigation, dams and habitat destruction, the river has become one plagued by fish diseases and chronically low salmon runs.

U.S. Reps. David Wu and Peter DeFazio, both Oregon Democrats, asked the fishery council Friday to not halt salmon fishing. They said the decline of Klamath salmon is the result of failed federal water policies in the Klamath Basin, and the government must look at all the factors that contribute instead of fishing alone. Under a halt to fishing, "coastal communities in Oregon and California would be made to suffer for this administration's failure to address the real causes of salmon decline," they wrote to the council.

Fishermen, and the myriad businesses that depend on them, showed up at the council hoping they could persuade the council to consider some fishing. John Duke, who manufactures fishing rods in Springfield, said his business is just as dependent on the fishing season as is the charter boat industry.

"In general, what we want is a full recovery of salmon so we don't have to go through this kind of stuff anymore," he said, pointing inside to the meeting room where the council sat.

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