Saving Seafood

CALIFORNIA: California Salmon Season to Be Restricted or Shut Down — Again

March 12, 2024 — California’s fishing industry is bracing for another bad year as federal managers announced Monday plans to heavily restrict or prohibit salmon fishing again after canceling the entire season last year.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council on Monday released a series of options that are under consideration, all of which either ban commercial and recreational salmon fishing in the ocean off California or shorten the season and set strict catch limits. The council’s decision is expected next month; the commercial season typically begins in May and ends in October.

While more Chinook salmon returned from the ocean to spawn last year than in 2022, fishery managers said the population is expected to be so small that they must be protected this year to avoid overfishing.

Fall-run Chinook salmon are a mainstay of commercial and recreational fishing and tribal food supplies. But their populations are now a fraction of what they once were — dams have blocked vital habitat, while droughts and water diversions have driven down flows and increased temperatures, killing large numbers of salmon eggs and young fish.

The plan is a devastating blow for an industry still reeling from last year’s closure. State officials estimate that last year’s closure cost about $45 million — which the fishing industry says vastly underestimates the actual toll.

Read the full article at KQED

CALIFORNIA: Calif. fishermen struggle with proposal to protect deep-sea coral

March 6, 2024 — The Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) will analyze the potential impacts of fishery closures for deep-sea coral restoration and research sites. These sites are proposed to protect habitats from bottom fishing gear in Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

Sur Ridge, Ano Nuevo Canyon, and Ascension Canyon are the three potential sites. The fishing gear that could affect these sanctuaries at these depths would include traps and set longlines for black cod, also known as sablefish. The proposed coral research and restoration areas vary in size. Sur Ridge is 36.64 nautical square miles, Ano Neuvo Canyon is 6.5 nautical square miles, and Ascension Canyon is 2.96 nautical square miles, with the depths of all three ranging from 1574 to 5118 feet.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

California salmon disaster funding falls far short, say fishing advocates

February 6, 2024 –The $20.6 million allocated for federal relief to California’s Chinook salmon closure is just two-thirds of the state’s aid request, and threatens the survival of fishing businesses, California commercial anglers and for-hire recreational groups said Monday.

In a letter to U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, the Golden Gate Fisherman’s Association, and the Northern California Guides and Sportsmen’s Association called for “immediate full funding of salmon disaster funding assistance” in the $30.7 million figure sought by state officials.

“The State’s economic analysis already falls short of expected needs, and the federal disaster assistance package add insult to injury,” leaders of the fishing groups wrote in their joint letter. “Additionally, nearly a year after the declaration of the complete season closure, not one dollar of relief funds have been made available to affected businesses or their employees.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

US government provides USD 21 million in financial relief for California salmon season closure

February 5, 2024 — The U.S. Department of Commerce has allocated USD 20.6 million (EUR 19.2 million) in financial relief to the state of California following the closure of its Chinook salmon season in 2023.

“Fishery disasters have wide-ranging impacts and can affect commercial and recreational fishermen, subsistence users, charter businesses, shore-side infrastructure, and the marine environment,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said. “These funds will help affected California communities recover and improve sustainability.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

CALIFORNIA: Gov. Newsom releases new plan to save California salmon

January 31, 2024 — There’s a newly restored wetland at the edge of Prairie Creek, a stream that crosses ancestral Yurok land in Northern California’s Redwood National Park. The site is humble at first glance: an expanse of mud along the streamside, where starts of native vegetation dot the ground, and quiet pools branch off from the main flow of the creek. But this carefully rebuilt backwater holds an array of rare young fish. On Monday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom stood by as researchers pulled juvenile chinook and coho salmon along with steelhead and cutthroat trout from the water and displayed them in a clear plastic box.

Newsom and his entourage paid a visit to this area to see salmon restoration in action – and to announce a sweeping new plan intended to protect California’s iconic fish. The state’s once-abundant salmon have been devastated by sediment pollution from logging, overfishing and massive habitat loss due to decades of dam construction. As summer temperatures soar and snowpack dwindles due to human-caused climate change, there’s increasingly less of the cold water the remaining salmon need to survive.

Read the full article at High Country News

 

First ever U.S. Indigenous Marine Stewardship Area declared in California

January 30, 2024 — Three tribes along California’s rugged northern coast made history in late September by designating the first Indigenous Marine Stewardship Area (IMSA) in the United States.

The Resighini Tribe of the Yurok People, the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation, and the Cher-Ae Heights Indian Community of the Trinidad Rancheria agreed to collaboratively steward nearly 700 square miles (about 1,800 square kilometers) of ocean and coast from the California-Oregon border to Little River near the town of Trinidad, California.

“Our tribes have a responsibility to steward, protect, and restore the ocean and coastal resources within our ancestral territories,” Jeri Lynn Thompson, chair of the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation, said at a Dec. 6 celebration held on their ancestral land. “We can no longer wait.”

The tribes say permission from the U.S. government isn’t required to designate the IMSA because they are sovereign, and they recognize the IMSA.

“Tribes are sovereign, and this is designated under tribal authority,” said Megan Rocha, executive director of the Resighini Rancheria Tribe. This is the first declaration of its kind in U.S. history.

Read the full article at Mongabay

The Largest Dam Removal Project in U.S. History Begins Final Stretch, Welcoming Salmon Home

January 23, 2024 — The Klamath River in California and Oregon is one step closer to a healthy new beginning.

Officials gathered earlier this month at the Iron Gate Dam in Hornbrook, California, to unlatch a gate at the base of its reservoir. As the water flowed through, it signaled the beginning of the end of the largest dam removal project in United States history, report Erik Neumann and Juliet Grable for NPR.

The gate’s opening, formerly just a crack, was extended to three feet wide. Dark brown waters rumbled through the gap, washing years of sediment buildup downriver. Over the next week, 2,200 cubic feet of water per second were expected to flow, lowering the reservoir between two and four feet per day. Eventually, the channel’s entire width—stretching 16 feet across—will allow the uninhibited passage of water and sediment.

Opening the Iron Gate Dam represents a critical advancement in the historic demolition project, which was approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in November 2022. The effort will remove four aging hydroelectric dams in the Klamath River, restoring hundreds of miles of salmon habitat. The first and smallest dam, Copco 2, was already deconstructed this past autumn, and the rest are slated for removal this year.

Read the full article at the Smithsonian Magazine

CALIFORNIA: Southern California Conservationists and Fishermen Reach Compromise over Cowcod and Corals

January 22, 2024 — After a 20-year rockfish recovery effort, marine scientists and fishermen reached an unlikely compromise to protect fragile areas of the seafloor off Southern California’s coast while reopening others to fishing.

According to Oceana, an ocean conservation organization, the eight new Groundfish Exclusion Areas cover more than 425 square miles — in and around the Santa Barbara Channel — which are now closed to all groundfish fishing to protect the living seafloor.

Simultaneously, more than 4,800 miles of ocean waters in the region are re-opened for non-trawl groundfish fishing.

Dr. Geoff Shester, Oceana’s senior scientist, called it a “win-win.” The compromise protects brittle, potentially millennia-old colonies of deep-sea corals that are easily damaged by fishing, while also allowing fishermen to access valuable fishing spots that have been essentially untouched for decades.

“It’ll probably be some of the best fishing anyone’s seen in their lives,” Shester said.

Read the full article at The Independent

CALIFORNIA: Fishing crews head to sea as delayed Dungeness crab season opens

January 21, 2024 — Thursday was the day local crab fisherman had been waiting for after months of delays because of whale entanglement restrictions.

Jonathan Tin is a deckhand aboard the commercial fishing boat Pale Horse and he was ready to get to work to bring home the paycheck he hasn’t seen in months.

“We started rigging the gear in October. We’re really excited to see what’s in these crab pots,” Tin said.

The San Francisco native has been working as a commercial fisherman for seven years after getting hooked doing the job while attending college.

“I love everything about it. I love being out here in the ocean. I love working hard, running the gear. The harder you work the more money you’re going to make,” Tin said.

Read the full article at CBS News

CALIFORNIA: Bay Area’s commercial Dungeness crab season can start officially Jan. 18 — with caveats

January 13, 2024 — The Bay Area’s commercial Dungeness crab season can begin Jan. 18, state officials announced Thursday, now that many of the migrating behemoths of the sea have safely made their way down the coast.

The decision comes after a series of delays since November meant to protect whales from getting tangled in fishing lines, and it comes with a key restriction: Fleets will have to operate under a 50 percent trap reduction.

“This management decision is a balanced approach that achieves two outcomes,” the California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced. “First, this trap reduction will help reduce entanglement risk for humpback whales by reducing the amount of gear and vertical lines in the water. Second, the decision gets the commercial fishery open statewide.”

For commercial crabbers, it’s a late but welcome start to a season that may end early. They will be allowed to drop crab pots on Jan. 15 but not pull them up until Jan. 18. If last season is any indication, they may get three months out of what would normally be a five-month season.

Read the full article at the Mercury News