Report: Ocean caused Sacramento River salmon decline

<p>The decline of Sacramento River salmon, which has prompted a proposed fishing ban for a second straight year, was caused primarily by poor ocean conditions, according to a new federal report released Wednesday.</p><p>The conclusion is at odds with many commercial fishermen and their allies, who for more than a year have maintained that freshwater diversions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta are largely to blame for the fishery’s problems.</p><p>The report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that the Sacramento salmon returning to spawn in 2007 and 2008 contended with warmer ocean temperatures, lowered food abundance and less upwelling — the phenomenon by which cold, often nutrient-rich waters rise from the ocean depths to the surface.</p><p>The study noted that delta water exports were at near-record levels during 2005 and 2006, the years when those fish were released from hatcheries into the river. But the diversions weren’t unusual in the months when the fish actually were in the river or San Francisco Bay en route to the ocean, said Churchill Grimes, director of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service at the agency’s Santa Cruz Marine Laboratory.</p><p>“We’re not trying to be apologists for the water pumpers,” Grimes said. “That’s just what the numbers are.”</p><p>Fishermen said the report failed to account for why this year’s adult salmon are still in such low numbers when ocean conditions appear to have improved.</p><p>“We’re sorely disappointed that they failed to look at or fully understand delta flows for Sacramento River (salmon) survival, said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations.</p><p>The report will be reviewed next month when the federal Pacific Fishery Management Council meets in Millbrae to set the rules for the West Coast salmon season.</p><p>The council has proposed banning commercial fishing off California for a second straight year and allowing at most 10 days of sport fishing between Eureka and Crescent City.</p><p>The federal government last year banned fishing and declared the salmon fishery a disaster. Congress later provided $170 million in aid. Some of that aid still remains available and may be requested by fishermen and related businesses again this year.</p>