The Pacific Fishery Management Council will allow commercial fishing for Chinook salmon off California’s coast after a three-year ban aimed at helping populations recover from drought.
Recent signs suggest salmon populations are rebounding, said California Department of Fish and Wildlife information officer Steve Gonzalez.
“Salmon are on a three-year cycle, so the three years where the fishery was closed kind of reflects the three years prior that there was a drought,” Gonzalez said. “What we're seeing now is the first year of a wet winter, and then other policies that we changed and improved on.”
Those changes include dam removals along spawning areas in the Klamath River, he said.
“This fish is iconic for the state of California, for the tribal nations, for families going out fishing with their kids,” Gonzalez said. “It's hopeful news.”
But fishermen in Crescent City aren’t celebrating. Commercial salmon fishing is remains prohibited within protected areas, including the Klamath Management Zone, which covers Crescent City and Eureka.
Rick Shepard, a Crescent City Harbor District commissioner, said the restrictions continue to harm the local economy.
“It's devastating to the harbor and to the community,” he said. “At one time, one of the largest revenues for the harbor and for our community was salmon fishing.”
Shepard said he supports conservation efforts, but he said his harbor hasn’t been able to enjoy the successes of that work.
This morning, he said, he caught his limit of salmon in nearby Brookings, Oregon, which he described as teeming with fish and people.
“And we're sitting here…. It's a vacant parking lot in my harbor,” he said. “Nobody's here.”
Sport fishermen out of Crescent City will be allowed to catch around 3,900 Chinook salmon this summer. Shepard said that the limit could be reached in a week.
Commercial fishing below Point Arena in Mendocino County is scheduled to begin in May.
