Offshore salmon seasons will be closed or look much different this summer along most of the Oregon coast as managers struggle to ensure the safety of declining fall Chinook returning to Northern California.
A federal regulatory group has voted to officially close the ocean commercial and recreational Chinook salmon fishing season along much of the West Coast after near-record low numbers of the fish returned to California’s rivers last year. The Pacific Fishery Management Council approved the closure of the 2023 season for all commercial and most recreational Chinook fishing along the coast from Cape Falcon, near Manzanita in northern Oregon to the California-Mexico border.
Limited recreational salmon fishing will be allowed off southern Oregon in the fall.
“The forecasts for Chinook returning to California rivers this year are near record lows,” Council Chair Marc Gorelnik said in a statement after Thursday’s vote. “The poor conditions in the freshwater environment that contributed to these low forecasted returns are unfortunately not something that the Council can, or has authority to, control.”
Much of the salmon caught off Oregon originate in California’s Klamath and Sacramento rivers. After hatching in freshwater, they spend 2-4 years maturing in the Pacific, where many are caught by commercial fishermen each summer as they return to their spawning grounds.
Chinook salmon heading to the Columbia River and north Oregon coast tributaries spend their time at sea off British Columbia and Alaska, and are not affected by the council’s decision.
Biologists say the Chinook salmon population has declined dramatically after years of drought in California.
The council is an advisory group to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, which makes the final decision, but historically has followed the council’s rulings. The secretary’s decision will be posted in the Federal Register within days.
In California, officials there say they will ask federal disaster aid for the state’s salmon fishing industry.
Declining for years
While Chinook salmon are an iconic Northwest fish, the numbers and value of the commercial ocean catch has been declining drastically for years.
Fish with higher commercial value in Oregon last year included tuna, whiting, sole, sable fish and varieties of Rockfish.
Commercial ocean Chinook landings in Oregon totaled 4.83 million pounds with a value of $18.2 million in 2014, according to Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife statistics. By last year that had declined to 1.48 million pounds and $6.48 million.
Newport’s commercial salmon fleet is the largest on the Oregon coast, with landings totaling 211,000 pounds in 2022 and a value of $1.62 million.
The biggest effect will be that salmon trollers will have to switch to other species or not fish at all, and that restaurants and groceries will have very limited supplies of commercially-caught Chinook salmon to sell this summer.
Coastal coho stock OK
Experts fear native California salmon are in a spiral toward extinction. Already California’s spring-run Chinook are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, while winter-run Chinook are endangered along with the Central California Coast coho salmon, which has been off-limits to California commercial fishers since the 1990s.
Recreational fishing is expected to be allowed off the Oregon coast only for coho salmon during the summer and for Chinook after Sept. 1, according to the ODFW. Chinook season is expected to open as usual north of Manzanita, including in the Columbia River and off Washington’s coast.
By Sept. 1, most Sacramento and Klamath river fall Chinook salmon – the two stocks with severely low forecasted returns – have left the area from Cape Falcon to Humbug Mountain and Oregon’s coastal fall Chinook have begun staging near the coast where they will comprise most of the recreational bay and river catch.
Recommended salmon seasons are not official until final approval by the National Marine Fisheries Service expected by May 16, and after adoption April 21 by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission for waters within three nautical miles of shore.
ODFW biologists say hatchery coho salmon headed to the Columbia basin and wild coho on the Oregon coast are bright spots with a third consecutive year of strong forecasted returns and season openings beginning mid-June.
Fall seasons for coastal estuaries won’t be set until late spring.
Federal help?
California fishing industry representatives and elected leaders said federal aid must be released quickly and efforts need to be ramped up to restore salmon habitat in California rivers with better water management, and the removal of dams and other barriers.
“We have to make sure that the policies and practices and the rest are not such that they are defying the evolutionary progress of salmon,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. said Friday, speaking in San Francisco in the rain, surrounded by fishers who spoke of their concerns about making ends meet during the closure.
Pelosi pledged to push for the Biden administration to act quickly on the state’s request to declare the situation a fishery resource disaster, the first step toward a disaster assistance bill that must be approved by Congress.
In a letter to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo seeking the declaration, the California governor’s office stated that the projected loss of the 2023 season is over $45 million — and that does not include the full impact to coastal communities and inland salmon fisheries.
California’s salmon industry is valued at $1.4 billion in economic activity and 23,000 jobs annually in a normal season and contributes about $700 million to the economy and supports more than 10,000 jobs in Oregon, according to the Golden State Salmon Association.
“There’s a lot of fear and panic all up and down the coast with families trying to figure out how they’re going to pay the bills this year,” said John McManus, the group’s senior policy director.
- Compiled from news releases, the Associated Press, The Oregonian/OregonLive and Oregon Public Broadcasting