Pacific worries over salmon collapse

Researchers and fisheries managers on the west coast of the US are now engaged in rapid efforts to fathom the sudden decline in salmon stocks off the coasts of California and Oregon. Representatives of several fishing groups have resigned themselves to the likelihood of an unprecedented closure of salmon fishing this year along much of the length of this US coast. A final decision on salmon fishing will be made this month, but with near-record low returns last year and early indications that 2008 will be much worse, many researchers are coming round to the prospect of a year-long closure as the best option. The Pacific Fishery Management Council, the body that overseas fishing quotas, has come up with three options to consider this month at its meeting in Seattle where it will decide formally whether or not to cancel the 2009 season. The options include no commercial or recreational fishing off the California coast; catch-and-release fishing to provide information for an ongoing genetic study; or allowing a one-month, 3,000 fish season for commercial anglers and three, three-day seasons for recreational anglers. The options for Oregon fisheries are nearly as restrictive. The sudden collapse of the fishery has hit researchers and managers by surprise. " What we need to look at is why it collapsed, " said the council's chairman, Donald Hansen. " This is a major disaster. " Following a series of years in which salmon numbers off the California coast were high, the health of News focus California's salmon has taken a sudden downturn. In 2006, the commercial salmon fishing off the coast was curtailed sharply, but that was in response to a specific problem in the Klamath River runs that had suffered major die-offs that year. The Sacramento river system, which historically produced at least 80 per cent of the fish caught off the state's coast, was very strong. But last year the Sacramento River autumn run was much reduced with fewer than 90,000 adults returning to spawn. Based on the census of fish that returned last year, biologists estimate that fewer than 60,000 fish will return this year. That is less than half of the minimum regulatory target of 122,000, below which the fisheries authorities believe action needs to be taken to preserve stocks. As recently as 2002, 775,000 adults returned to spawn. A puzzling decline in salmon numbers off California and Oregon threatens the fishery …