Competition grows for salmon

Poor salmon returns make commercial fishing unlikely off the coasts of California and Oregon this year, heating up the competition for fish off portions of Washington's coast.

"Those people need somewhere to go to make some money. If you don't have a job, you move," said Jim Olson, a Washington commercial fisherman advising the Pacific Fisheries Management Council, which helps set the timing and length of fishing seasons.

"Less fish for everyone is what it works out to," Olson said.

Doug Fricke, president of the Washington Trollers Association, said that is bad news for Washington commercial fishermen, who for years have had to make do with ever-smaller quotas and shorter seasons because of diminished salmon runs. Development, logging, dams, water withdrawals from rivers and other habitat damage are taking their toll.

"The last few years, it has been on the edge of being financially viable," Fricke said. "These Oregon fishermen being pushed north is going to split the allowable catch, which will make it even more questionable."

The seasons and quotas for this spring and summer's salmon harvest will be decided next month. Washington fishing seasons are not expected to be reduced, because Washington salmon returns are forecast to be about normal.

The root of the problem in California and Oregon is ocean conditions. The cold waters of the California Current flow southward from the northern Pacific along the West Coast and are crucial to upwelling, which happens when wind brings nutrients to the ocean's surface. Upwelling feeds the ocean food web, and myriad creatures have evolved to migrate and hatch in rhythm with it.

When upwelling is weak, or late, all kinds of animals, including salmon, fail to thrive and even starve.

The climate for the past several years has caused persistently late or weak upwelling off the coast of California and Oregon, which has meant less food for salmon living and migrating in those waters.

Runs of fall chinook salmon to the Sacramento River in California's Central Valley were 33 percent of what fishery biologists expected in 2007. This year, even lower returns are projected. Coho-salmon returns to California and Oregon are also projected to be down this year, with some preliminary estimates showing only 27 percent of adult salmon returning to some California streams.

Oregon Coast coho don't look much better. And coho are already listed as either endangered or threatened in the Central and Northern California and Southern Oregon watersheds.

Washington salmon returns have been relatively unaffected, because most of the salmon returning to Washington's coast and river systems are coming home from the Bering Sea.

Ocean conditions there have been favorable for salmon.

Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2736 or lmapes@seattletimes.com