Salmon

Hauling truckloads of hitchhiking juvenile salmon around dams is one silly way to save a species. And it doesn't work either. As four dams were built along the lower Snake River in southeastern Washington from the late 1950s to early 1970s, it took only a few years for the river's healthy salmon populations to plummet. By the mid-1990s, the populations of four types of salmon had been declared endangered or threatened. The federal expenditure of $8 billion since then for fish ladders, hatcheries, habitat restoration and, yes, trucks and barges to transport the salmon around the dams has not restored the fish.

Government fishery managers took steps Friday toward an unprecedented total ban on salmon fishing this year off the California and Oregon coasts, a move that would hammer beleaguered harbors and deprive the West of a culinary and cultural prize. A ban would cut deeply into a $150-million industry already suffering hard times, hitting not just commercial fishing but also the state's recreational angling industry.

Instead of preparing to hit the Pacific's wind-tossed waters next month, veteran fisherman Dave Bitts sat at the counter of a dockside restaurant on Humboldt Bay recently, mulling fate and a cloudy future. For the first time since the birth of the West Coast fishing industry 150 years ago, Bitts and other fishermen face a season without salmon.

A federal judge Wednesday invalidated a plan that justified boosted water exports from Northern California, ruling that it failed to account for the effects on endangered salmon and steelhead. U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger of Fresno found that a 2004 study by the National Marine Fisheries Service didn't adequately address global warming, the loss of habitat and other factors that could hurt the fish.

A federal judge struck a largely symbolic blow for imperiled salmon and steelhead Friday, declaring that the state's vast water-export system is putting the fish at risk but rejecting environmentalists' key demands for change. U.S. District Judge Oliver W.

An unusually weak Dungeness crab harvest is compounding the financial woes of West Coast fishermen who were already struggling with depressed consumer demand and the unprecedented collapse of the Pacific chinook salmon fishery. Commercial fishermen in California, Oregon and Washington are struggling to stay afloat financially. They say the downturn could force fishermen who depend heavily on crab and salmon to leave the shrinking ranks of the region's fishing fleet.

Like nearly every other West Coast fisherman's wife, Ronnie Pellegrini fretted as a near-shutdown of last year's salmon season hammered California's commercial fleet. Enough is enough, she decided one day. So she turned on the computer in her Eureka home -- and turned to EBay.

The power company that owns four Klamath River dams blocking the migration of imperiled salmon launched a counterattack Monday against a recent government study that declared it cheaper to remove the structures than to keep them. Officials at Portland-based PacifiCorp said the study released by the California Energy Commission failed to account for certain unavoidable costs that could dramatically increase the price of demolition.

Firing the latest salvo in a battle over the future of the Klamath River, the California Energy Commission on Monday reaffirmed its stand that removing four hydroelectric dams that block salmon migration would cost less than trying to keep them. In December, the commission issued a report asserting that removing the dams and purchasing replacement power would cost roughly $100 million less than installing extensive new fish ladders for imperiled salmon and steelhead.

A national consumer campaign to save wild salmon will launch in Washington today, as about 200 chefs from restaurants in 33 states call on Congress to pass laws to restore river habitats and tear down massive hydroelectric dams that have decimated salmon species along the Pacific coast. The initiative, led by celebrity chef Alice Waters of Berkeley's Chez Panisse, follows last year's federal shutdown of 88% of the commercial salmon fishing along 700 miles of coastline in California and Oregon.