March 4, 2020 — West Coast salmon fishermen are facing another grim year, trollers heard last week at state meetings in Washington, Oregon and California.
In Washington, lower numbers of coho are projected to return to the Columbia River and to Washington’s coastal streams. The low numbers will likely constrain both sport and commercial fisheries.
December 13, 2019 — With the danger of whale entanglements eased, the Dungeness crab season for central California will open Sunday. But lackluster meat quality led Northwest state fisheries manager to delay opening other coastal areas until the New Year.
Officials from California, Oregon and Washington state wildlife agencies conferred Dec. 6 and agreed on the delay, citing meat recovery values still below 25 percent in areas on the northern coast. The continuing closure will remain in effect from Point Arena, Calif., north to the Canadian border, “through December 3, 2019 at least,” according to a joint statement issued through the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Testing protocols specify season delays for any area where sampled crabs do not meet the minimum standards for meat recovery, with additional testing before a new opening date can be set. The state agencies are sampling again in mid-December with an eye to having complete results Dec. 20.
It’s a rocky start to the beginning of the winter fishery that has had more than its share of problems, from domoic acid to marine mammal conflicts. The California opener originally set for Nov. 22 was delayed, after the Bodega Bay crabbing fleet voted to voluntarily hold back from deploying their gear until a large number of endangered humpback whales had finished feeding in their nearshore zone.
October 24, 2019 — The federal government is asking the public to weigh in on current and potentially new regulations for whale watching near endangered southern resident orcas.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has opened a so-called scoping period for 60 days to take public comment on whether existing federal regulations adequately protect killer whales from the impacts of vessels and noise in the inland waters of Washington state, and if not, what action the agency should take.
Southern resident orcas are an endangered species and have declined to only 73 animals. They are threatened by a combination of inadequate food, pollution, and vessel noise and disturbance that makes it harder for them to hunt salmon.
NOAA’s existing rules have been eclipsed by more strict regulations imposed both by the state of Washington and interim rules in Canada that sunset after this season. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife also is launching a process under the direction of the Legislature to enact further restrictions on whale watching.
October 4, 2019 — Cooke Aquaculture has moved a step closer to ensuring a long-term presence in Washington State after the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) confirmed earlier this week that it plans to issue a five-year marine aquaculture permit to the Canadian aquaculture company to farm all-female rainbow trout at its existing farms in Puget Sound.
Washington lawmakers voted to phase out and ban non-native finfish net-pen farming in the state following the 2017 collapse of a Cooke farm that released at least 250,000 Atlantic salmon into Puget Sound. If Cooke does not repurpose its salmon farms, they will be shut down by 2022.
October 1, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — At a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing last week on fisheries disasters, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., the Ranking Member of the committee, highlighted the importance of responding to fisheries disasters and pushed for reforms to the process.
“In Washington, fisheries are a cornerstone of our maritime economy,” Cantwell said in her remarks. “Its related businesses and seafood processors, ship builders, gear manufacturers, support 60% of our maritime economy, which is about 146,000 jobs and $30 billion in economic activity. Washington has experienced 17 fishery disasters since 1992, including crab, groundfish, and salmon. Unfortunately, the fisheries disaster process has become more burdensome, and has resulted in less funding and lengthy delays, putting an unnecessary burden on fishermen and fishing communities.”
In particular, Cantwell discussed the 2016 coho salmon fishery disaster, which affected fisheries across the state.
The coho disaster affected tribes, commercial fishermen, charter and recreational fishermen but not all groups received adequate funding from NOAA, Cantwell said.
“In a shift from previous policy, the administration determined that the charter fishermen should not be included in the economic determination. Thus, I believe Washington did not receive adequate funding for this disaster,” Cantwell said in a press release.
Ron Warren, the Director of Fish Policy at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, testified at the hearing about the impact of that inadequate funding for Washington state’s economy.
“If you add the charters from the coast and charters from Puget Sound, as well as the troll fishery and other fisheries that had been included, you’d be looking at about $100 million to the state of Washington,” Warren said in the statement.
Other fisheries included charters
However, charter businesses in other fisheries received federal funding during the same time. Marine-related businesses and charters have also benefitted in the past, in other fisheries. The federal determination letter did not specifically exclude charter businesses.
For example, both the Washington coho request letter from Gov. Jay Inslee and the California Dungeness crab request letter from Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. included the recreational sectors, noting the importance of the sport fleets to their states’ respective economies.
“While the language in these acts is specific to commercial fishery failures, the economic impact of this fishery resource disaster will also affect communities beyond the ocean commercial fishing industry. Also affected are charter fleets, fishing guides, resorts, tackle and equipment vendors and other businesses … ,” Inslee wrote in the request letter of Sept. 24, 2016.
The federal determination letters for both the coho and Dungeness crab fisheries were worded similarly and issued on the same day by then-Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker.
The Jan. 18, 2017 letter approving the fisheries failure for coho specifically included communities, of which charters are obviously a member: “This determination provides a basis for Congress to appropriate disaster relief funding under the MSA, Section 312(a), and then for the NMFS to provide assistance to the State of Washington and the affected communities,” Pritzker wrote.
The wording for the California Dungeness crab fishery was the same.
California charter businesses received a portion of the $26 million eventually approved by Congress, based on a plan submitted by the state. The funding approved for the Washington coho fishery was $834,401.
Concerns about the Pebble Mine
During the hearing, Cantwell also took the opportunity to ask one of the witnesses, Assistant Administrator for NOAA Fisheries Chris Oliver, about NOAA’s role in the Pebble Mine. Cantwell spoke about her concern that NOAA chose not to be a cooperating agency with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as it related to the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska.
“When commercial fishing in Bristol Bay is over 135 years old and supports 14,000 fishing jobs and 10,000 industry jobs and is about $500 million in direct economic impact – valued at $1.5 billion. How is NOAA not warranted at this time to participate in a discussion about how that economy could be destroyed by a mine?” Cantwell asked.
Oliver said NOAA’s role is fairly limited. “We’re not a permitting agency. We will consult on essential fish habitat for per Magnuson Act. We will consult, as requested by the Army Corps, on the Endangered Species Act implications as well as the Marine Mammal Protection Act. So we have a relatively limited role.”
Oliver said the agency has to receive the requests and actual proposed action from the permitting agency before it can conduct a full consultation and the agency is still waiting.
But Cantwell was not finishing pressing her point.
“I think my colleague here this morning, and my other colleague from Alaska in the appropriations process is making it very clear. The Army Corps of Engineers should not move forward until the science says that it’s there. And every agency that has an impact and stewardship over a resource that’s going to be impacted should be participating in that process,” she said.
“So the Pacific Northwest is not going to stand by while the administration builds a gold mine in the middle of the largest salmon habitat area. We’re just not going to sit by. … But a science agency has to participate in the process.”
This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.
September 30, 2019 — The marine heatwave known as “The Blob” wreaked havoc on Northwest fisheries during 2015 and 2016, Ron Warren, fish policy director for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, told a Senate committee Wednesday.
And before the federal government could even provide disaster relief for that event, another marine heatwave loomed, he said.
The Blob stoked marine temperatures nearly 7 degrees higher than normal, according to his testimony. Fewer coho salmon returned. Those that did return were smaller. Fisheries had to be closed.
Gov. Jay Inslee and representatives of several tribal governments in 2016 requested millions of dollars in federal fishing disaster funds to help offset the losses to fishing communities.
Now, more than three years later, the fishing disaster money has only just arrived from the feds, Warren told senators. The money, including some for tribes and about $1.5 million for nontreaty fishing communities in Washington state, is in the process of being distributed.
June 20, 2019 — The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, in partnership with several stakeholders, has submitted an application to remove by lethal force, California and Stellar sea lions that are preying on protected salmon and steelhead runs in the Columbia River and many of its tributaries.
Sea lion numbers have been growing alarmingly in the last decade, and they have been gathering below the Bonneville Dam to intercept salmon and steelhead as they make their way upstream. Many of the fish they are feeding on are listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
Many runs of salmon, particularly chinook, are struggling. Chinook runs this year are so low that fishing closures have been enacted.
“The vast majority of these animals remain in coastal and offshore waters, but several hundred have established themselves in upriver locations,” said Kessina Lee, Region 5 director with WDFW in a news release. “Where salmon and steelhead numbers are low, any unmanaged increase in predation can cause serious problems.”
June 14, 2019 — The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), along with a consortium of state and tribal partners, today submitted an expanded application to lethally remove California and Steller sea lions preying on threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead runs in the Columbia River and its tributaries.
California sea lions — and increasingly, Steller sea lions — have been observed in growing numbers in the Columbia River basin, especially in the last decade. These sea lions prey heavily on salmon and steelhead runs listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), including thousands of fish at Bonneville Dam each year.
The impacts come at a time when many Chinook salmon runs are already at historic lows.
The recovery of sea lions since the passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) in 1972 is a success story, said Kessina Lee, Region 5 director with WDFW. But that recovery has also brought challenges.
“The vast majority of these animals remain in coastal and offshore waters, but several hundred have established themselves in upriver locations,” Lee said. “Where salmon and steelhead numbers are low, any unmanaged increase in predation can cause serious problems.”
Predator management is a key part of a multi-faceted effort to restore salmon and steelhead populations in the Pacific Northwest.
May 21, 2019 — Lost and abandoned fishing nets, which have killed millions of sea creatures in Puget Sound, still lurk in deeper, darker waters, where they continue to catch fish and crabs.
But the quiet, unregulated killing has been quelled substantially since 2002, as divers have pulled up nearly 6,000 of these so-called “ghost nets.”
The challenge for the future is to find and quickly remove newly lost nets while going after the difficult-to-remove nets still fishing in more than 100 feet of water. Programs are moving forward on both fronts.
The massive removal of ghost nets over a 13-year period ultimately cost the state and federal governments about $11 million. But if the 5,809 nets had been left in place, they might still be catching and killing up to 12 million animals each year, based on studies that measured the catch rates of abandoned nets.
“The magnitude of this effort often gets overlooked when considering the restoration of Puget Sound,” said Ginny Broadhurst, executive director of the Salish Sea Institute. “We talk about the Nisqually and the Elwha, but (net removal) is among the most important restoration efforts.”
The Nisqually Delta Restoration Project restored nearly 1,000 acres of wetlands, and the removal of two dams on the Elwha River opened up nearly 70 miles of salmon-spawning habitat. But pulling out derelict nets produced an immediate, long-lasting and cost-effective outcome, argues Broadhurst, who was involved in the early days of net removal as director of the Northwest Straits Commission.
Many of the lost nets appear to have been fishing continually for 20 to 30 years or more after getting snagged on rocky outcroppings or submerged pilings during the heyday of commercial salmon fishing in the 1970s and ’80s, said Larry LeClair, a biologist and diver with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
April 23, 2019 — The Skagit River is one of Puget Sound’s most important rivers for Chinook salmon and the killer whales who depend on them.
Last week, KING 5 visited a fish trap that looks like a floating hut. Each morning, state wildlife technicians check to see what’s been caught.
“We operate from January through mid-July to catch juvenile salmon as they are migrating towards Puget sound,” said Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Clayton Kinsel.
Kinsel’s team is mostly counting chum salmon right now, some 3,000-4,000 each night. Southern Resident killer whales do eat chum, but scientists believe their diet depends on Chinook salmon.
Those salmon are dwindling like the whales who depend on them, and the fish trap is helping scientists figure out how to stop that.
“It tells us how many fish are coming down stream to Puget Sound. It’s a tool that we use to set fisheries, to manage fisheries to inform habitat restoration,” Kinsel said.
“Habitat restoration” is the buzz phrase when it comes to Chinook salmon recovery, especially on the Skagit River, where dikes and levees have cut off side streams that are important for young salmon trying to grow bigger and stronger for their journey to the ocean.
“These are places where the river used to flow many years ago. They are now cut off. In particular, the levee right along the Skagit River, it’s cutting water access off to all those side channels,” said NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Science Center research biologist Correigh Greene. “As a result, those places are inaccessible to juvenile salmon moving down the river.”