[6] Harvest Managers Weigh West Coast Fishing Options
State, federal and tribal fisheries managers are meeting all week in Seattle to come up with options for this summer's commercial and recreational salmon fishing regimes.
Washington managers say Puget Sound and coastal seasons for chinook and coho fishing should be pretty much normal, with returns expected to be close to last year's numbers. Some increased restrictions could apply to coho fishing in the Columbia River, where lower river coho were listed as "threatened" under the ESA last year.
But a February report on stock abundance by the Pacific Fishery Management Council said that changes in Canadian harvest patterns off Vancouver Island have generated more uncertainty about impacts from different fisheries. However, managers said they don't have enough new information to change the way they do their pre-season planning.
Further south, the news was not so good. Concerned about expected low returns of Klamath River fall chinook, federal managers are recommending no commercial salmon season at all off the southern Oregon and northern California coasts.
According to a pre-season report from the Pacific Fishery Management Council, a repeat of the 2005 fishing regime (which was cut in half from 2004's) would allow about 19,000 spawners to return, but canceling the season altogether would boost spawner numbers to nearly 30,000 fish.
The report said ocean conditions off the West Coast in 2005 were "highly unusual," with upwelling occurring until mid-summer. NOAA researchers reported that such conditions hadn't been observed over the past 50 years. Large numbers of coastal seabirds also starved to death last year, while warm water currents allowed southern-oriented species like Humboldt squid to be found as far north as Vancouver Island.
Managers said their forecasting models must be viewed with "greater caution" when these unusual ocean conditions are in place.
They also said if Klamath spawner numbers dip below 35,000 in 2006, it will be the third year in a row that the FMP conservation objective will not be met. There is already discussion of paying out federal disaster funds to fishermen in return for staying tied up at the dock. It could be an expensive proposition, since the troll fleet would be giving up a lucrative share of the Sacramento River chinook run, expected to be over 600,000 fish this year.
In 2002, a good portion of the Klamath run, 30,000 fish or more, died from lethal temperatures during part of their upriver migration. That year, the Iron Gate hatchery saw its third highest return of fall chinook (24,000), but only 3,500 spawners returned to the nearby Trinity River Hatchery. Biologists think the later running chinook bound for the Trinity suffered the most damage.
Fishing interests have pointed to farmers in the Klamath Basin as the culprit in the 2002 fish kill. They say more water should have been used to help cool the river for migrating salmon. The high temperatures encouraged growth of a common parasite that killed many of the chinook.
In 2005, about 28,000 chinook returned to the two hatcheries, with about 27,000 natural spawners returning to the basin. In 2004, the hatcheries counted about 23,000 returning fish, with natural spawners in the 29,000-fish range.
Harvest managers could still implement an emergency rule to allow for some semblance of a fishing season, but that would not occur before April when the West Coast fishing seasons are formally adopted at the next council meeting.
If spawning numbers in the Klamath are below 35,000 fish again, the management plan mandates an "overfishing" review, which the pre-season report says would likely trigger a rebuilding plan. The overall return to the Klamath Basin is predicted at 110,000 fish, about half the number that returned in 2005. More than 435,000 chinook returned to the basin in 2001, and numbers were above 300,000 in other returns years from 2000-2003. The lowest return on record occurred in 1992 when 96,000 chinook returned to the basin. -B. R.
The following links were mentioned in this story:
Preseason Report I, Stock Abundance Analysis for 2006 Ocean Salmon Fisheries, February 2006
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