Cdfw. “Recreational Ocean Salmon Fishery Season Curtailed on Much of the California Coast.” CDFW News, 14 June 2021, https://cdfgnews.wordpress.com/2021/03/11/recreational-ocean-salmon-fishery-season-curtailed-on-much-of-the-california-coast/.
Recreational ocean salmon fishery season has been curtailed and a large part of the California coast, ocean waters will open on April 3 from pigeon point to the US Mexico border, and fish must be at least 24 inches long the northernmost areas of the California coast will remain closed until further notice. These fission management strategies were put in place as a result of the California drought in 2021 salmon fishery representatives, and the Pacific fishery management council PFMC, decided to delay these dates due to poor stock forecasts. These final dates will be decided later in the season for other areas.
This article is fairly similar to the first article I researched, except it was last year and more focused on the ocean rather than coastal rivers, although the article is nearly outdated, it is important to compare last year‘s management to this year‘s management, as we can compare the different stock levels and different management practices. Additionally we can take into account the environmental effects that that year had on the management and the fish levels. 2021 and especially early 2021 was yelling somewhat little rain and very little rain storms. Therefore many species struggle to maintain population levels as coastal rivers struggle to maintain water flow. That is a likely result of these curtailed fishing seasons in 2021. Although we saw similar effects in 2022 and coastal rivers and the ocean, the dates were not pushed back as far and the areas restricted were much smaller and limited to certain rivers rather than nearly half of the California coast north of pigeon point. California is clearly doing the right thing when it comes to management in some of my articles and never seems like California is putting fishing before the health of fish species. Reading articles from the California Department of Fish and wildlife itself to articles that were posted on fishing logs information seems rather similar even fishermen seem to accept the health of their fish species.
I thought this article was interesting because many people do not know about this problem, but apparently it is very prominent in California and is affecting us greatly. Why is it so important to help the survival of these fish, what would happen if we ignored what was happening to them?
Thanks for the comment, to be honest I think your question can be answered in a rather broad sense when it comes to the preservation of species. If we let one species of fish go extinct, we might not see any effects, but chances are, there will be changes in the way that ecosystem functions as it loses a species, if we let 5 species go, what would be expect to happen, chances are one of those fish greatly impacted its ecosystem, and therefore the survival of all of these fish is key to preserve the the Pacific’s thriving systems. Fish provide all sorts of things population regulation, cleaning of water, food, and not to mention industries and food for humans. Without them there would be a collapse of many unexpected systems that we may not even yet expect.
I agree that this is one instance in which California is putting the health of fish and the environment first. I also think it’s really important that you noted that the fishermen even support these measures, which means that they know the effects that overfishing salmon will have on their livelihoods. I think people often paint environmental regulations and policies as being universally opposed by business people who rely on environmental resources for their jobs, but it’s important to note that it doesn’t have to be that way.