Pacific salmon fishery shut down
What could turn out to be the largest closure of a salmon fishery on the U.S. West Coast was recently initiated by fisheries managers in Oregon and California. Fishing off the Oregon coast is shut down at least until the end of April. Sacramento River salmon stocks account for 60 to 80 per cent of the Oregon ocean catch. Returns of Chinook salmon to the Californian river and its tributaries have stayed above 200,000 during the past 15 years, but last fall only 90,000 spawners returned.
"While past years have seen poor salmon numbers in certain regions, this year the decline seems to extend along the entire West Coast", said Frank Warren, a member of the Pacific Fishery Management Council to The Oregonian. "I am personally terming it the perfect storm of salmon declines".
Experts say the fish's collapse may be related to the damage that global warming is doing to oceans. Unusually warm conditions shut down a pipeline of nutrients from deep waters, leaving the marine food chain with little to eat. Other possible causes mentioned are low oxygen levels, sea lions, deteriorating spawning grounds, hatchery practice changes, dams, scarcity of krill, overfishing and pollution.
"Dumping of farmed fish into the gene pool" was also mentioned, but very little Chinook salmon is farmed, and all of it in British Columbia. Atlantic salmon, which is the main species of salmon being farmed in British Columbia and Washington State, does not cross-breed with any of the Pacific salmon species. Government enhancement facilities however, hatch and feed and release some 500 million Pacific salmon from just B.C. each year. Environmental groups in B.C. have pointed fingers at sea lice from salmon farms as the main cause of declining wild salmon populations.
