04/11/06 Salmon Fishing Restrictions

(PART 1) Salmon fishing restricted. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Commercial salmon fishing in the northwest has been severely restricted. Last week the Pacific Fishery Management Council voted to close most of the 700 miles of coastline to commercial salmon fishing for much of May, June and July, the most productive months of the season, which runs from April-October. These are the broadest closures ever imposed. The move this summer is to protect dwindling salmon populations in the Klamath River. Chuck Tracy, staff officer for the Pacific Fishery Council explains. TRACY: Well the restrictions were put into place because of the depressed status of Klamath Falls Chinook. They're not going to meet their conservation objective this year even without additional fishing and our fish management plan requires that we close fisheries that impact the stock unless we can justify any sort of fishing through an emergency rule. While salmon populations from the Sacramento and Columbia rivers are healthy, Northern California`s Klamath River has seen poor returns of spawning salmon. TRACY: The fishery is essentially closed from Coos Bay through Fort Bragg and then severely restricted up in the Newport/Tillamook area in Oregon and in San Francisco and Monterey. There'll be months that are closed in the summer normally in the peak fishing period. Some of the other months that are open there are days on and days off so that even there's some time in the month that the total effort will be restricted quite a bit. The council`s decision still must be approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service, which generally follows the panel`s recommendations. In recent years, Klamath water has been diverted for farming, leading to lower river levels, warmer water and an increase in parasites that attack young fish. Because salmon return to spawn in the rivers where they were born, fishery managers are concerned that catching the reduced numbers of Klamath salmon could deplete future generations. The 1,200 West Coast fishermen who trolled for salmon last year are worried about the impact of fishing restrictions on their livelihoods as well as coastal communities up and down the West Coast that depend on the trade. Glen Spain is the Northwest regional director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen`s Association in Eugene, OR. SPAIN: What we're looking at is a 90% closure below the Columbia River. It's going to be a very bad year. Tomorrow we'll take a look at the impact on the fishing industry and beyond. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.