LOS ANGELES — Federal fisheries managers voted Wednesday to cancel all commercial and recreational salmon fishing off the coast of California for the second year in a row, and only the fourth time in the state’s history, because of declining stocks.
The unanimous vote by the Pacific Fishery Management Council, the authority responsible for setting salmon seasons in the Pacific Ocean, is a blow to the state’s fishing industry, which supports tens of thousands of jobs and is still reeling from last year’s shutdown. California’s salmon fishery was also closed in the 2008 and 2009 seasons.
As in 2023, the decision this year was made to protect California’s declining salmon populations after drought and water diversions resulted in river flows that are too warm and slow for the state’s Chinook salmon to thrive.
A February Fisheries Council report found that just over 6,100 fall-run Chinook, also known as king salmon, returned to the Upper Sacramento River to spawn in 2023. The average between 1996 and 2005 was more than 175,000 fish.
For the time being, the ban will affect commercial and recreational sea fishing. However, the council recommended that the California Fish and Game Commission consider banning river fishing as well. The state agency is expected to vote in the coming weeks.
The salmon population faces a number of challenges, including rising river water temperatures due to warm weather and the rollback of Trump-era federal protections of waterways that allowed more water to be diverted to farms. Climate change, meanwhile, threatens food sources for young Chinook maturing in the Pacific Ocean.
Scott Artis, executive director of the Golden State Salmon Association, said state water policies under Gov. Gavin Newsom have resulted in “dangerously low river flows, unsustainable water releases from our rivers, record high water temperatures due to dam operations and record numbers of salmon eggs and juveniles killed in our streams.”
“Our water, our natural resources, the resources that every Californian and the entire salmon industry depend on, are being stolen on Governor Newsom’s watch,” Artis said in a statement Wednesday following the council’s decision.
The governor’s office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the closure.
Much of the salmon caught in the ocean comes from California’s Klamath and Sacramento rivers. After hatching in freshwater, they mature for an average of three years in the Pacific Ocean, where many are retained by commercial fishermen, before returning to their spawning grounds where conditions are more ideal for giving birth. After laying eggs they die.
California’s spring-farmed Chinook is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, while winter-farmed Chinook is endangered along with Central California Coast coho salmon, which have been off-limits to commercial fishing since the 1990s fishermen in California.