Recreational salmon fishing returns Saturday

Santa Cruz Sentinel
By Kurtis Alexander
March 29, 2010

Tackle shop owner Todd Fraser has spent a long time preparing for the coming weekend. He's dusted off his rods and reels, stocked his supply of bait and beer and set up a telephone hotline that reports the latest fishing conditions.

"I've been waiting three years for this," said Fraser, owner of Bayside Marine at the Santa Cruz Small Craft Harbor.

Saturday is the opening of the recreational salmon season. It marks the first time since 2007 that fishing for the celebrated fish will be allowed off the California coast.

Emergency coho recovery measures

Siskiyou Daily News
By David Smith
March 29, 2010

Thursday's meeting of the Shasta-Scott Recovery Team (SSRT) generated much discussion and public comment as those in attendance were presented with options for emergency recovery measures for spring run Coho salmon in the Shasta, of which nine returning adults were counted in 2009.

Fish-friendly hydro turbines on the drawing board

KPLU
By Liam Moriarty
March 29, 2010

Hydro dams can cause big problems for migrating salmon. They block the fish from getting upstream to spawn. And going through the huge turbines on the way downstream can be deadly. Now, dam operators are spending millions to design a more fish-friendly turbine.

The idea of salmon going through hydroelectric turbines sounds like sending them through a blender. But the big blades turn relatively slowly and the fish don't get chopped up.

Nestucca River salmon issues

The Oregonian
By Bill Monroe
March 28, 2010

The recent public meeting about options for fall salmon fishing on the Nehalem River and Bay was a barnburner, but state officials there said the grim outlook for the Nehalem is rosy compared with what could happen this fall on the Nestucca River and Bay.

The Nehalem is recovering from a chinook salmon closure last year and while some fishing may be allowed this fall, the system is far from healed.

New law will end a 60-year fishing tradition

The Oregonian
By Dana Tims
March 28, 2010

Most Fridays for the past year, Sonny Nguyen has packed up his wife, kids and fishing gear, backed out of his driveway in Springfield and headed for the Willamette River angling mecca known simply as The Wall.

From the gritty sidewalk 40 feet above the river, Nguyen joins, on any given day, anywhere from tens to hundreds of other bank-bound anglers -- casts of thousands -- all hoping that their next sling will land a sturgeon big enough to feed their families for three days or more.

Full story of Delta stressors yet to be revealed

Fresno Bee
March 28, 2010

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is a crucial part of California's complicated and crumbling water system. But instead of being treated with the respect it deserves, the Delta has been held hostage by feuding politicians and the special interests who fund them.

It's a recipe for environmental and economic disaster. Even a scientific study of the crisis has fallen victim to the political spin machine. The National Academy of Sciences has released the first part of a $1.5 million study on the science that has led federal wildlife agencies to limit pumping of agricultural water from the Delta to restore threatened species.

Protection of fish stocks essential

Gulf News
March 29, 2010

The importance of maintaining proper control over fish stocks off the coastal waters of the UAE is a primary concern for officials from the Ministry of Environment and Water.

With overfishing and large-scale commercial harvesting of fish stocks in the world's oceans, every effort has to be made by the UAE authorities to ensure that fish continue to be available while sustaining their populations. In a recent crackdown at the Deira fish market, inspectors found a number of small fish offered for sale - a clear violation of Ministerial Decree No 16 for 2010, aimed at ensuring immature fish are returned to the sea after being caught by fishermen.

Staging a comeback

Democrat Herald
By Bennett Hall
March 27, 2010

Hip-deep in the murky water of a grass-choked beaver pond at Finley National Wildlife Refuge south of Corvallis, Brian Bangs inspects the contents of his dip net. It's filled with snails culled from the muddy bottom.

"This place is full of life," smiles Bangs, a biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. A few more dips, and Bangs finds what he's looking for. It's a small, silvery minnow the size of his pinky - the endangered Oregon chub.

Chile tsunami costs Japanese fisheries $68 mln

Bangkok Post
March 27, 2010

The Pacific-wide tsunami generated by the massive undersea earthquake off Chile's coast last month caused 68 million dollars of damage to Japan's fishing industry, a report said Saturday.

Scallop, oyster and seaweed farms off the northeast coast of Japan were hit when waves up to 1.45 metres high smashed into Japan following the quake thousands of kilometres (miles) away.

Dwindling marine stocks

The Dawn
March, 27 2010

The country's fishing communities, already amongst the poorest of the poor, are now being pushed to the point of starvation by the state's apparent inability to control overfishing and the use of prohibited nets. Deep-sea trawling by foreign and local boats has caused the fish catch available to local fishermen to drop by some 70 per cent. This spells disaster for hundreds of coastal communities for which fishing is not just the primary source of livelihood but also the dietary mainstay. Furthermore, if unchecked, overfishing could lead to the extinction of valuable species of local fish.

Fish-spawning prototype feeds into hatchery

The San Francisco Chronicle
By Peter Fimrite
March 27, 2010

A crowd of schoolchildren stood at a bend in a creek under the shadow of the Warm Springs Dam last week and watched 14 large steelhead trout thrashing against the current.

It was the last push for the fish, which had struggled 46 miles from the ocean up the mighty Russian River into Dry Creek in search of the spot where they were born three years ago.

Ocean salmon season should open April 3

Napa Valley Register
By Guy Carl
March 26, 2010

The 2010 ocean salmon season is set to open as scheduled on April 3, barring any last-minute action by the California Fish and Game Commission.

The length of the season has yet to be determined, and could close as early as April 15 or last all the way until Nov. 14.

Recommendations by the Pacific Fishery Management Council, a federal agency, are normally enacted by the FGC for California waters. At its March meetings in 2009 and 2008, FGC enacted emergency closure of salmon fishing in most California waters due to low estimated returns.

Climate change on fisheries studied

UPI
March 25, 2010

U.S. government scientists say they have created a computer model that is one of the first to directly link a specific fish with climate change effects.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researchers said their new climate-population model considers rising ocean temperatures and fishing rates involving the future of the Atlantic croaker fishery. Atlantic croaker (Micropogonias undulatus) is a U.S. east coast marine fish with an $8 million annual commercial fishery.

Marine biologist outlines perils of over-fishing

The Jamestown Press
By Steven Stycos
March 25, 2010

Drastically reduced populations of blue fin tuna, sharks and other large fish predators indicate that the world's oceans are in trouble and must be more carefully managed, a Canadian marine biologist said recently at the University of Rhode Island.

Noting that oceans produce 50% of the oxygen humans breathe - and absorb 40 to 45% of the carbon dioxide humans produce - Boris Worm, a professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, called for reduced fishing to protect marine biodiversity. He also condemned wasteful practices, like shark finning.

San Joaquin River's flow extends to Pacific again

The Fresno Bee
By Mark Grossi
March 24, 2010

The San Joaquin River is now flowing from Friant Dam to the Pacific Ocean, reaching the first milestone in a plan to bring back Chinook salmon.

Restoration of the state's second-longest river should achieve another major goal this summer - a continuous run of water to the ocean even during the dry months of August, September and October.

CITES turns down most bids to reel in shark overfishing

WWF
March 23, 2010

Governments of a United Nations meeting on wildlife trade today voted against better international trade controls for five shark species, which are in severe decline because of overfishing for their high-value fins and meat.

The Convention on International Trade and Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) governments voted against proposals to list three hammerhead sharks (scalloped, great and smooth), the oceanic whitetip and the spiny dogfish on Appendix II of the Convention, which would enforce better management of the fishery for international commercial trade and allow their declining populations to recover.

Klamath River fish diseases spreading

The Times-Standard
By John Driscoll
March 24, 2010

Biologists expect to see the host of a lethal fish disease continue to spread in the middle Klamath River unless high flows scour out the silty areas where it lives.

Researchers on Monday reported their work on the Klamath over the past year at the River Lodge in Fortuna. They said more of the tiny polychaete worms that host the fish parasites were found packed more densely into a larger area than in other recent years.

Ground broken for Red Bluff fish passage project

The Record Searchlight
By Janet O'Neill
March 24, 2010

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar were among those who spoke Tuesday at a groundbreaking for the $230 million Fish Passage Improvement Project at the Red Bluff Diversion Dam.

"It was a nice affair," said Don Reck, environmental division chief for the Northern California area office of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. He estimated 100 people attended the hourlong ceremony, including the project's engineering team, city officials and people from state and federal agencies.

Rule aims to limit accidental salmon catch

KTUU News
By Mary Pemberton
March 23, 2010

A federal agency said Tuesday that a program could be in place by next year limiting the number of king salmon accidentally caught in the huge Bering Sea pollock trawl fishery.

Under the NOAA Fisheries program, if the limit of salmon bycatch is reached, the pollock fishery -- the largest by volume in the United States -- will have to shut down.

Poison picked for eliminating cutthroat trout

The Sacramento Bee
By Matt Weiser
March 22, 2010

State wildlife officials have decided their preferred method to restore endangered Paiute cutthroat trout in the Sierra Nevada's Silver King Creek is to poison non-native fish in the creek.

In a final environmental study released last week, the Department of Fish and Game settled on the poisoning plan after studying several other alternatives. The plan would treat the Alpine County creek with the chemical rotenone to kill non-native fish that compete with the cutthroat. This includes hatchery rainbow trout introduced by the department itself in prior decades.