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http://www.goldengatesalmon.orgBelow are quotes from Golden Gate Salmon Association executive director John McManus reacting to an announcement from the National Marine Fisheries Service today that only three percent of the winter run salmon eggs laid in the upper Sacramento River in 2015 hatched into fry.
“Salmon fishermen and their families will pay a price for water allocation decisions made by others that decimated winter run salmon in the Sacramento River the last two years in a row. This comes on top of a really poor 2015 salmon fishing season and now a shut down of the crab fishery.
Salmon fishermen are asking if protections for winter run salmon under the Endangered Species Act need to be strengthened since they obviously weren't strong enough to protect them the last two years in a row.
State and federal fish agencies are charged with restricting water allocations to protect our fish and wildlife in drought. Salmon fishermen all up and down the west coast are asking how the state and federal fish and wildlife agencies failed to protect winter run the last two years in a row.
The three percent of winter run salmon eggs that hatched were further reduced when the young fish made the dangerous journey down the Sacramento River. Now the surviving juvenile winter run salmon have two to three months of rearing in the Delta to endure while the massive Delta water export pumps are diverting the water they're trying to survive in.”
Media contact: Michael Coats (707) 935-6203 or michael@coatspr.com
Photo Courtesy of Sac Bee.
GGSA president John McManus is a long-time salmon fisherman and salmon advocate. He comes from a varied background that includes ten years of commercial salmon fishing in southeast Alaska, 15 years producing news for CNN and more recently, 11 years doing publicity and organizing for the public interest environmental law firm Earthjustice. Work at Earthjustice included organizing and publicity supporting restored salmon fisheries in the Columbia, Klamath and Sacramento rivers.
A San Francisco native, Muni Pier and Lake Merced were the places where he first learned to tie a fishing line, bait a hook, and cast. He’s a long time member of the Coastside Fishing Club and keeps a boat part of the year in Half Moon Bay.
From the 1970s on he spent a lot of time in the north coast salmon communities of Bodega Bay, Pt. Arena, Fort Bragg and Eureka. As salmon runs declined in the 1990’s, he got a front row seat to the demise of these communities, something that fuels his advocacy for salmon and salmon communities to this day.
The Golden Gate Salmon Association is a coalition of salmon advocates that includes commercial and recreational salmon fisherman, businesses, restaurants, a native tribe, environmentalists, elected officials, families and communities that rely on salmon.
GGSA’s mission is to restore California salmon for their economic, recreational, commercial, environmental, cultural and health values.
Currently, California’s salmon industry is valued at $1.4 billion in economic activity annually in a regular season and about half that much in economic activity and jobs again in Oregon. The industry employs tens of thousands of people from Santa Barbara to northern Oregon. This is a huge economic bloc made up of commercial fishermen, recreational fishermen (fresh and salt water), fish processors, marinas, coastal communities, equipment manufacturers, the hotel and food industry, tribes, and the salmon fishing industry at large.
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