Calif., Ore. Fishing Declared a Disaster

[Judi Lynn]

Calif., Ore. Fishing Declared a Disaster

Friday August 11, 2006 9:46 AM

By JEFF BARNARD
Associated Press Writer

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) - Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez on Thursday declared commercial salmon fishing a failure off Oregon and California this year, enabling the states to seek federal aid.

The harvest was cut back sharply by a regional council to help raise numbers of chinook salmon in the Klamath River.

Gutierrez' formal declaration under federal fisheries law is the first since 1992 to come before the end of the fishing season, which runs from spring to fall.

Officials have said they may seek as much as $80 million in aid to fishermen, processors and other parties, as well as research and habitat restoration.
(snip/...)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6008216,00.html

[aquart]

1. This is a tragedy.

Families are being beggared.

[Name removed]

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[xchrom]

2. they are going to have to stop taking water

from the klamath -- the salmon need those rivers to run as free as possible.

huge farms take more than they give back to the immediate environment and then become everyones burden.

[WhiteTara]

5. that is definitely on the table

The river is on its deathbed and many people are fighting. There is a proposal (I think it is being really considered) to bomb the dam and let the water back into the river. The area is one of devastation and depression. The people look haggard and angry on the streets (I drove through a couple of weeks ago). I'm looking for a new place to live and Klamath never even comes close to the list.

[xchrom]

7. wow -- i'd heard it was rough --

i'm in the bay area -- but that is a pretty rotten description you just gave.

[SpiralHawk]

4. republicon enviromental policies at work

"Chill, dudes. This is meaningless. We won't need no steenkin fish after the Rapture." - republkristians

[Barrett808]

6. The fishing industry is doomed

Fisheries have collapsed all over the planet, due to massive overexploitation. Vietnamese fishermen can no longer afford gas prices, so their ships stay moored.

"Fishing down the food web" assures that species can't recover, as fish of reproductive age are taken ever earlier in their life cycles. The exponential loss of ocean biomass leaves the seas empty deserts; drag nets strip the ocean floors bare.

Agricultural and sewage runoff stimulates blue-green algae and other slime, returning the oceans to their primordial state of 500 million years ago.

Fishermen, like the airlines, are the canaries in the coal mine. I expect both to be dropping like flies in the next few years.

[Shakespeare]

8. True, but this particular issue is unrelated to overfishing

It's directly related to Oregon farmers breaking the law in 2003 to take more water from the Klamath for their crops (the Bush administration, of course, refused to seek punitive measures against any of the farmers in response). It decimated that year's salmon run, and we can only hope that this year's restrictions on fishing will allow the salmon to begin to recover.

The regulations on salmon fishing in the Pacific northwest are actually pretty good--they monitor populations closely, and tailor each season accordingly.

[Barrett808]

9. Yeah, I get the salmon recovery report form BPA

It's pretty amazing how well the spillways and turbine bypasses are working. Also, they're buying lots of river and stream habitat. And they moved the freaking Caspian turns that were eating 15 million fry per year (now down to 3 million).

So on better days I have a little hope. :/