July 12, 2021 — Record-high temperatures across the Pacific Northwest is killing off marine life from the U.S. state of California to British Columbia, Canada.
An estimated one billion sea creatures on the coast of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada have died due to the heatwave, according to Christopher Harley, a professor of zoology at the University of British Columbia.
July 9, 2021 — The drought is making the Sacramento River so hot that “nearly all” of an endangered salmon species’ juveniles could be cooked to death this fall, California officials warned this week.
In a brief update on the perilous state of the river issued this week, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife made a dire prediction about the endangered winter-run Chinook salmon and its struggles against consistently hot weather in the Sacramento Valley.
“This persistent heat dome over the West Coast will likely result in earlier loss of ability to provide cool water and subsequently it is possible that nearly all in-river juveniles will not survive this season,” the department said.
Given that the salmon generally have a three-year life cycle, a near-total wipeout of one year’s run of juveniles “greatly increases the risk of extinction for the species,” said Doug Obegi, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The winter-run salmon endured two years of severe mortality during the last drought as well.
July 8, 2021 — Conservationists are applauding the inclusion of $1.3 million in the new state budget that is designed to protect sea turtles and marine mammals from being killed by swordfish fishing gear.
The funds will be used in a voluntary buyback program to get California’s swordfish fleet to switch from drift gill nets — nylon nets up to a mile long that can catch and kill dolphins, sea lions and whales as well as the occasional endangered leatherback sea turtle — to what’s called deep-set buoy gear, which is designed to prevent entanglements. But some say the move will put fishermen out of business and limit Californians’ access to a local fish in good supply.
Gov. Gavin Newsom approved the funding last week as part of the $262.6 billion state budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
July 6, 2021 — A budget deal reached between state lawmakers and California Governor Gavin Newsom includes funding that will complete the state’s buyout of drift gillnets from commercial fishing operators who catch swordfish.
The USD 1.3 million (EUR 1.1 million) will help fishermen purchase safer gear that doesn’t threaten other marine wildlife.
July 2, 2021 — For the first time in at least six years, the California sports fishery for Pacific halibut closed on June 30, months earlier than the usual September closure and among the highest allocations in that period for recreational stakeholders.
Based on the latest catch projections, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) “expects the 2021 California recreational quota of 39,260 net pounds will be exceeded unless the fishery is closed,” the department announced in a statement on Tuesday this week.
July 1, 2021 — Halibut fishermen in Washington, Oregon and California better get those baited tubs ready for next week: The can try again to catch the remaining allocation at a second three-day opener, according to the International Pacific Halibut Commission.
Roughly one-third of the overall quota for Area 2A, the West Coast of the U.S., was caught, the IPHC said.
June 30, 2021 — In mid-June, California’s State Water Resources Control Board wrote a tragic letter. The board, which has significant powers under California’s Constitution to manage water for the benefit of California’s people and ecosystems, wrote that it would approve a plan for water releases out of Lake Shasta that risk destroying the Sacramento River’s iconic winter-run Chinook salmon population forever.
The winter-run Chinook population has already declined by 99%, down to a few thousand fish that manage to run out of the San Francisco Bay and return to spawn below a dam near Redding. Baby salmon need cold water to hatch from their eggs and grow until they’re ready to migrate to the ocean. But in this drought year, the Federal Bureau of Reclamation has proposed drawing down the levels in Lake Shasta — California’s largest reservoir — to deliver water to irrigators in the Central Valley, allowing the diminished reservoir to heat up over the summer to temperatures that when released into the river “could increase the risk of extinction significantly,” as the board’s own letter put it.
The board, whose members are appointed by the governor, could have modified the plan. Even keeping a small fraction of the water sent for irrigation to be released later could have a dramatic impact on the survival rates of young salmon hatching later in the summer. But holding back water to save fish would have set up a conflict with powerful business interests in the Central Valley.
The board seems to have been more willing to risk the extinction of a salmon run than they were to risk angering landowners and lobbyists. To save even some of the Sacramento River’s salmon population, in a year where pumping water to farms has resulted in dangerously low water flows, California has had to resort to hauling millions of young fish raised in state-run hatcheries via tanker trucks to the Golden Gate. But trucking fish is a desperate measure, one that conceals a larger crisis that is likely to make the fate of fish into one of the key political issues of California’s drought-stricken future.
June 22, 2021 — Bill Blue has been commercially fishing Dungeness crab and black cod near the shores of Morro Bay for 47 years.
It’s a business that he got into when he was 19 years old.
“That’s all I know. That’s what I do,” he said.
Blue’s business has survived in an industry that has faced growing regulations and shrinking territory during the nearly five decades he’s operated off the Central Coast.
Now, proposals to develop a massive floating offshore wind farm in the Pacific Ocean near Cambria may diminish Blue’s fishing grounds by 399 square miles — an area more than twice the size of Lake Tahoe.
The proposed offshore wind farm got a green light from Biden administration officials with support from California Gov. Gavin Newsom on May 25, after years of negotiations between federal, state and local governments.
Along with Newsom, U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Dr. Colin Kahl announced the advancement of the proposed offshore wind farm in a call with reporters, touting the economic benefits of the project and clean energy it will generate.
The wind farm would be located northwest of Morro Bay, about 17 to 40 miles offshore.
June 10, 2021 — California is rolling out a fresh strategy to keep its economy afloat — releasing 17 million salmon into the San Francisco Bay.
Millions of Chinook salmon raised in hatcheries will bypass California’s drought-stricken riverbanks to be released directly into colder, downstream sites in the San Francisco Bay, in an attempt to maximize their survival rate amid some of the most extreme environmental conditions the state has ever faced.
By the end of June, around 16.8 million young adult salmon, also called smolt, will travel more than 30,000 miles by truck from hatcheries to direct release sites around the coastline.
At the release sites around the San Francisco, San Pablo, Half Moon, and Monterey bays, the salmon will be set free to make their way into colder ocean waters.
June 2, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
Salmon and steelhead in Northern California have been in trouble for more than 100 years, primarily because of habitat damage and loss resulting from human activities. Climate change has only worsened these habitat problems. For the last 50 years, communities have worked to restore this habitat in hopes of reversing the fortunes of these fish. Scientists and local restoration communities are seeking new ways to maximize the benefits of habitat restoration so that rivers and streams can support healthy fish populations again.
One new approach to maximize these benefits is the Salmonid Habitat Restoration Priorities (SHaRP) process. The process creates a strategy to rebuild salmon and steelhead within a watershed by focusing on restoring its healthier, less impaired areas. Scientists expect that improved fish survival and reproduction in these restored areas will enable faster recolonization of the more degraded areas.
“The SHaRP process builds upon existing recovery plans and identifies very specific actions to create real wins for declining species. This approach to conservation offers the restoration community a seat at the table to design a near-term recovery strategy to maximize restoration impacts for their watershed,” said Barry Thom, NOAA Fisheries West Coast Regional Administrator.
NOAA Fisheries and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) developed the SHaRP process. They first applied it to the South Fork Eel River, a few hours drive north of San Francisco Bay. Historically, the Eel River supported hundreds of thousands of Chinook salmon, coho salmon, and steelhead. Today, these three species reflect only about 5 percent of their historical numbers.