At the beginning of May, US Secretary of Commerce Carlos M Gutierrez declared a commercial fishery failure for the West Coast salmon fishery due to historically low salmon returns.
Hundreds of thousands of fall Chinook salmon typically return to the Sacramento River every year to spawn. This year, scientists estimate that fewer than 60,000 adult Chinook will make it back to the Sacramento River. NOAA Fisheries Service has issued regulations to close or severely limit recreational and commercial salmon fishing in the area.
Although the reasons for the sudden decline of the fishery are not completely understood, NOAA scientists suggest that changes in ocean conditions, including unfavourable shifts in ocean temperature and food sources for juvenile salmon, likely caused poor survival of salmon that would have comprised this year's fishery. Loss of freshwater habitat for salmon spawning, rearing, and migration to the ocean is a chronic problem that has made salmon populations more susceptible to the occasional poor ocean conditions. NOAA will undertake a thorough examination of the causes.
The disaster declaration opens the door for Congress to appropriate money towards alleviating the financial hardship caused by the fishery disaster.
