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Fishing Ban Imperils Calif. Salmon Industry

There aren't enough fish to sustain industry: fishery heads

By Ambreen Ali, Newser User

Posted Apr 9, 2009 7:51 AM CDT

(Newser) – Plummeting populations have led to a federal ban on commercial salmon fishing off California for the second straight year, raising fears that the industry will disappear altogether, the Los Angeles Times reports. "If we don't go fishing next year, we have to start thinking that salmon fishing in California is over," said a commercial fisherman. That possibility also affects numerous affiliated businesses, from ice producers to fuel suppliers.

Warm ocean conditions, low food supply, habitat destruction, and pollution have devastated chinook salmon stocks, which have fallen to levels below what's necessary to sustain the population. A $170 million federal bailout last year helped offset the financial consequences, but a possible biological fix is far more elusive. "There's no one smoking gun," said one expert, "but there are a lot of spent shell casings all over the place."

[Images (3)]

[Quotes (1)]

Hugo Tapia, a worker at the Princeton Seafood Fish Restaurant & Market, holds up a frozen Wild King Salmon from Canada, at his market in Half Moon Bay, Calif. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

A fish culturalist views tiny winter run chinook salmon hatched at the Livingston Stone National Fish Hatchery located at the base of Shasta Dam at Shasta Lake, Calif. (AP File Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)

A "No Fishing" sign is posted at a fishing pier in Half Moon Bay, Calif. Federal fisheries managers have severely limited California's chinook salmon fishing season. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

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Salmon numbers are
creeping up again, but there is no guarantee such trends will lead to fishable populations in the next two to three years, or beyond. - Peter Moyle, fish biology
professor at UC Davis

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Fishing Ban Imperils Calif. Salmon Industry