Salmon

Traps, pyrotechnics and bean bags shot at sea lions have failed to deter the annual springtime feast of threatened salmon at a Columbia River dam, so federal authorities gave some of them a death sentence. The National Marine Fisheries Service authorized officials to attempt to catch the sea lions that arrive at the base of the Bonneville Dam and hold them for 48 hours to see whether an aquarium or zoo would take them. Otherwise, they could be euthanized along with those that avoid trapping.

With federal regulators canceling this year's salmon fishing season off California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency and asked the Bush administration to aid the embattled coastal industry. The governor issued a proclamation and dispatched a letter to President Bush asking help in obtaining federal disaster assistance. Meanwhile, he signed a bill by state Sen. Patricia Wiggins (D-Santa Rosa) to fund $5.3 million in restoration projects for salmon and steelhead.

With a historic salmon fishing ban keeping the West Coast fleet tied up at the docks, a top Bush administration official Thursday declared a fishery failure that could allow the industry to land a $60-million federal bailout. Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez's announcement comes amid what he called "the unprecedented collapse" of the salmon population off California and Oregon. By proclaiming a salmon fishery failure for waters off the two states, Gutierrez gives Congress a green light to consider a bailout of the West's fishing industry for the second time in the last three years.

Investigators theorize that the killer of six sea lions on the Columbia River arrived by boat and was familiar with trapping methods, closing the doors of two metal cages before firing a high-powered rifle at the animals within. The sea lions' carcasses were found Sunday. Wildlife agents had begun trapping sea lions last month to keep them from eating endangered chinook salmon. The trapping has been suspended. American Indian tribes protecting their fisheries and state governments representing commercial and sport fishermen had promoted the sea lion removal.

Infestations of sea lice at salmon farms on Canada's west coast are threatening local wild pink salmon populations and could result in their extinction in four years, Canadian researchers said Thursday. Scientists collected nearly four decades of data on the numbers of pink salmon in rivers along the central coast of British Columbia, comparing the wild populations exposed to salmon farms to those not exposed.

Federal regulators are considering an unprecedented ocean fishing ban on Chinook salmon along 700 miles of California and Oregon coast, threatening to spread distress from beleaguered commercial fleets to family dinner tables. The Pacific Fishery Management Council meets next week in Seattle to recommend how the federal government should tackle a problem caused by plummeting commercial salmon stocks on the troubled Klamath River.

Facing a salmon shortage on the ailing Klamath River, a fishing advisory board Wednesday sketched out ways to slash this year's West Coast salmon catch that range from cutting the season by more than half to adopting an outright ban. The Pacific Fishery Management Council asked its staff to return Friday with a review of three potential options, all of them met with dismay by fishermen already hard-hit by a shortened 2005 season.

Fishing towns along the Northern California coast are bracing for a shutdown of this year's salmon season -- a possibility that grew more real with a decision Friday by a federal advisory panel. At its meeting in Seattle, the Pacific Fishery Management Council included an unprecedented closure of the six-month fishing season as one of three options it will place before the National Marine Fisheries Service this spring after a series of public hearings.

Aboard his weatherworn fishing boat, Duncan MacLean has pulled a livelihood from the high seas. He takes pride in putting seafood on dinner tables. He loves his workday on the roller-coaster swells. But that storied way of life is at risk for West Coast fishermen. The culprit is a sick river and its dwindling salmon runs.

A federal judge delivered a stinging defeat Monday to the Bush administration over its decision to reduce flows on the Klamath River, which has been blamed for devastating fish kills and putting the commercial salmon season in jeopardy. U.S. District Judge Saundra B. Armstrong of Oakland ordered the administration's Bureau of Reclamation to return more water to the river in dry years to help ensure that the endangered coho salmon doesn't slide into extinction in the Klamath.