Remember the Chinook

Following my post about the Chinook salmon collapse, I was encouraged to see this AP story. Apparently, the Pacific Fishery Management Council is considering a ban on West Coast salmon fishing to protect rapidly declining Chinook stocks. The article quotes one fisherman as saying:

"There's likely no fish, so what are you going to be fishing for?" asked Duncan MacLean, a fisherman from Half Moon Bay. "I have no problem sitting out to rebuild this resource if that's what's necessary."

The numbers are staggering. Last fall, only 90,000 adult Chinook returned to the Central Valley. This fall, scientists predict as few as 58,000 will return.

Elsewhere, in the Klamath River, fall Chinook runs have failed to meet the Council's conservation objective of at least 35,000 adult natural spawners three years in a row.

The lesson? The Chinook cannot, and are not, surviving. We need to take the pressure off these fish, and help this resource rebuild in the face of unbearable odds.

With the Council set to vote in Seattle this week, I remind them of Aldo Leopold's words -- words that have become for us a warning:

"Men still live who, in their youth remember pigeons; tress still live that, in their youth, were shaken by a living wind. But a few decades hence only the oldest oaks will remember, and at long last only the hills will know."

I know that every member of the Council remembers the Chinook. But let us hope that our children may remember them as well.

UPDATE: An article in today's San Francisco Chronicle reports that the PFMC voted to close the commercial and recreational salmon fishing off the coast of California and Oregon, in an effort to preserve the declining Chinook populations.

This is good news for the salmon stocks, but tough news for those who have depended on the fish for a way of life. Consider these quotations from the article.

"I think it's probably the right thing to do," said Barbara Emley, 64, who has run a commercial fishing boat with her husband out of Fisherman's Wharf since 1985.

"It's tough, though. We're going to lose our (fishing) community. People are going to have to figure out what to do with five months of no income."

And

"This is a disaster for West Coast salmon fisheries, under any standard," said council Chairman Don Hansen. "There will be a huge impact on the people who fish for a living, those who eat wild-caught king salmon, those who enjoy recreational fishing, and the businesses and coastal communities dependent on these fisheries."

This isn't a short-term problem, either. It wil require long-term sacrifice. While encouraging, it's also quite upsetting. Read the article. It paints a compelling profile of the issue.

Second Update: The New York Times has an Op/Ed this morning (4/15) about the Pacific salmon collapse. It's good, and it points out the basic figures, and includes the Klamath and Columbia-Snake, but it could do more. For instance, wht would they recommend for a "long-term salmon recovery plan"? Who is judge James Redden? We need outlets like NY Times to be more strident on this issue. In their coverage of Spitzer, and of the campaign, they have taken clear, uncompromising positions. Why not do the same when it comes to a collapsing natural resource?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/opinion/15tues2.html?ref=opinion