For California’s commercial few days salmon season could be a respite but it raises their eyebrows too as it might endanger already-low salmon runs. In addition to restoring a commercial chinook season in California, the Pacific Fishery Management Council also gave tentative approval on Monday to an Oregon commercial and sport chinook season along the full coastline for the first time in two years.
Policy and management plans for West Coast fisheries are in the making as the council, which includes officials from Washington, Oregon, Idaho and California, is meeting this week in Portland. The plan was rare positive news to coastal communities, which have received $170 million in federal disaster relief over the last two years to help cope with fishing losses.
Jim Relaford, a Brookings Harbor port commissioner in southern Oregon, informed that most of their coast communities have very fragile economies. They make it April to October and struggle to make it the other six months. The opportunity for a fishing community to have fishing is so important. Experts said that Oregon and Washington will have full May-to-September seasons, but their coho catches will be restricted because of expected low returns. There will be no commercial fishing for coho off Oregon’s central and southern coast.
As recommendation for resuming commercial chinook fishing in California started pouring in, fishery authorities also asked the council to prepare wording for an emergency closure if the predicted fish don’t turn up. For the past two years commercial and sport fishing were closed off California’s coast. The closure was so intense that it reached up to southern and central Oregon.
It is reported that Sacramento River Basin chinook runs have plummeted yearly from 769,868 chinook counted in 2002. Just 39,000 fall chinook returned to the basin last year after the council predicted 122,000. Some worried the prediction was too high, and that commercial fishing perhaps should wait for proof that the basin’s chinook have recovered strongly.
