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- California’s commercial fishing fleet depends on catching salmon, but low population numbers could lead regulators to shut down or sharply limit fishing this year.
- Salmon fishing was banned in 2023 and 2024 after the fish population declined dramatically.
- The latest estimates show the salmon population remains low. While years of drought have taken a toll, those who work in fishing also blame water policies. `
California’s salmon population has declined so severely over the last several years that regulators canceled the fishing season in 2023 and again in 2024.
This year, state estimates show the number of Chinook salmon is still so low that fishing could again be prohibited — or if not, sharply limited — to help fish stocks recover.
The Pacific Fishery Management Council, a multistate, quasi-federal body, is expected to decide in April after a series of meetings whether there will be a limited fishing season or none at all.
Newly released figures from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife estimate the number of Sacramento River fall-run Chinook salmon in the ocean this year at nearly 166,000 fish — down from a preseason estimate of 214,000 last year, and similar to the 2023 estimate of 169,000 fish.
Those figures represent a drop from the much larger numbers of salmon that cycled through California’s rivers a decade or more ago.
“It’s just another bad year that is upon us, and that’s unfortunate for everybody,” said Scott Artis, executive director of Golden State Salmon Assn., a nonprofit group that represents fishing communities. “Commercial and recreational fishing businesses have been struggling.”
Captains of fishing boats on the California coast are bracing for salmon fishing to be severely restricted — or possibly canceled for a second year.
The fishing season typically runs from May to October, and in recent years the state’s commercial salmon fishing fleet has numbered about 460 vessels, Artis said. But many boat owners and crew members have recently turned to other work to make ends meet. Some have put their boats up for sale.
“A lot of the guys right now are basically doing land jobs because the fishery has just been devastated,” said George Jue, a commercial fisherman at Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay.
Jue said he has three other types of fishing permits, which allow him to continue earning a living by catching Dungeness crab, rock crab and rockfish. Even as many fishing boats have sat idle in the harbor lately, Jue and a group of other fishermen have been busy hauling in traps filled with crabs.
Once that season is over, Jue said, he expects little or no salmon fishing this year. “This harbor is going to be dead.”
Many who work in the fishing industry blame California’s water managers for the low salmon numbers, saying too much water has been sent to farms and cities, depriving rivers of the cold river flows salmon need to survive.
Artis said while the severe drought from 2020-22 contributed to the decline, he also lays much of the blame on “poor water management” by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, which he said has prioritized supplies for agriculture while starving rivers of vital water that salmon depend on. Those low flows and warm water temperatures during the drought, he said, have been “killing salmon and killing the fishing industry.”
Officials have decided to ban salmon fishing on the California coast for a second year. Salmon populations have dropped after the state’s last drought.
Coastal fishing has been canceled for two consecutive years once before, in 2008 and 2009. If fishing is canceled for a third year, it would be the longest closure ever in California.
State biologists say salmon populations have declined because of a combination of factors, such as dams, which have blocked off spawning areas, and global warming, which is intensifying droughts and causing warmer temperatures in rivers.
During the 2020-22 drought, the water flowing from dams sometimes got so warm that it was lethal for salmon eggs. And because salmon typically feed in the ocean for about three years and then return to their natal streams, the decline in the numbers of surviving juvenile fish during the drought left a reduced population of adult fish.
“The reality is the numbers are still not looking good,” Charlton “Chuck” Bonham, director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said during a virtual briefing Tuesday.
Bonham said the Newsom administration’s ongoing efforts to help salmon populations recover include restoring tidal habitats, modernizing infrastructure, removing barriers that hinder fish migration, and reintroducing salmon in traditional spawning areas upstream from dams.
After the removal of dams on the Klamath River near the California-Oregon border last year, biologists have spotted salmon spawning far upstream in waters that were previously inaccessible for more than a century.
“I have great joy and excitement about some of the progress, and I also still have great uncertainty and sadness about the challenges we’re seeing for salmon,” Bonham said. He said the state’s initiatives, detailed in a salmon strategy plan launched last year, bring a “fair amount of hope.”
The recently completed removal of dams on the Klamath River is raising hopes of rebuilding the population of threatened spring-run Chinook salmon.
Fishery regulators will weigh alternatives in the coming weeks, Bonham said, to determine whether it’s most prudent to limit the fishing season or shut it down again this year.
Salmon are not only a mainstay of commercial and recreational fishing businesses, but are also central to the cultures of Native tribes, who continue traditions of subsistence fishing.
The fishing industry depends on fall-run Chinook, which migrate upstream to spawn from July through December.
Other salmon runs have declined to a point that they are at risk of extinction. Spring-run Chinook are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and winter-run Chinook are endangered.
For decades, government-run hatcheries in the Central Valley have reared and released millions of salmon each year to help boost their numbers.
State-operated hatcheries have been raising more salmon and over the last three years have been releasing about 30% more fish than in previous years, said Jay Rowan, the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s fisheries branch chief.
“A lot of people make their living off this fishery,” Rowan said. “We certainly feel for those folks, and we want to do everything we can to get this population rebounded.”
Natural cycles also could help. Scientists say the wet winters since 2023 have provided favorable conditions for salmon and, because the fish mostly have a three-year life cycle, this could enable the population to increase starting around 2026 — a pattern that has occurred in the past.
Because of declining salmon populations, California has canceled fishing in rivers for a second year. The decision mirrors the shutdown of coastal fishing.
Jue, the commercial fisherman, said he would like to see the salmon fishing season reopened this year. But if the season falls under strict limits, he said that would probably make most other boat captains think twice about investing time and money for a minimal profit.
Jue said he’d like to see more water prioritized for sustaining salmon populations. But, he noted, in the political realm, the influence of the salmon fishing industry — which can generate an estimated $1.4 billion in revenues in a good year — pales in comparison to the agriculture industry, which has been producing more than $59 billion annually in revenues.
“The agriculture lobbyists are so much stronger,” Jue said. “We’re nothing compared to agriculture. … We don’t have a voice.”
The shutdown of fishing has taken a toll not only on the commercial fishing fleet but also on operators of charter fishing boats, as well as shops that sell bait and tackle.
“Families are having trouble just making ends meet,” Artis said. “It’s just going to continue until we get our salmon back, or we completely eradicate the fishing industry.”
