Feds: State returning chinook salmon a record low

The Pacific Fishery Management Council’s newest report posted online Thursday reported that 39,530 natural and hatchery chinook or "king” salmon adults were estimated to have returned to the Sacramento River basin in 2009 to spawn.

"The 2009 adult escapement estimate is the lowest on record and continues the declining trend in the (Sacramento River chinook run),” the council’s report states.

The 2009 numbers were down from the 66,264 counted the previous year and showed an even greater drop from 90,000 counted in 2007. In 2002, more than 750,000 adult salmon were counted in the Sacramento River basin.

The numbers help the council determine if it should recommend limits on commercial and recreational fishing.

"This year’s Sacramento River fall Chinook adult return is a terrible disappointment,” said Neil Manji, the California Department of Fish & Game fisheries branch chief. "Salmon have a complex life cycle in both fresh and saltwater, and while we cannot pinpoint a cause for the decline at this time, we do know ocean productivity has been unpredictable in recent years.”

If the season is indeed canceled later in a final decision by the National Marine Fisheries Service later this year, it would be the third year in a row for the commercial salmon fishing season in the waters off California and parts of southern Oregon.

This precipitous decline in king salmon that swam from the Pacific Ocean through San Francisco Bay to spawn in the Sacramento River is part of broader decline in wild salmon runs in Western rivers in recent years.

The Sacramento River king salmon run is watched especially closely as it ultimately provides much of the salmon caught off the Oregon and California coasts.

In the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, fishermen and federal regulators believe the large pumps used to move water around for use by cities and in agriculture is to blame for the salmon’s decline. Others cite changing ocean conditions due to global warming as a possible factor.

On Wednesday, a federal judge’s decision to continue restrictions on this pumping in the delta was hailed by environmentalists and fishermen as a good sign for the salmon and other struggling fish species recovery.

Still, last year’s numbers mean salmon fishermen will likely keep their boats docked in 2010.

"There’s not going to be any season this year from these numbers,” said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, an industry group.

"I think some of us were thinking they’d scratch out something of a recreational fishery, but with these numbers at a new all time low. In retrospect, it’s not surprising given what they’ve been doing in the Delta.”

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Associated Press Writer Samantha Young contributed to this report from Sacramento.