West Coast Cancels Salmon Fishing Season

ANDREA SEABROOK, host:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Andrea Seabrook.

Salmon are vanishing off the coast of Oregon and California. In one major tributary, the Sacramento River, the population has crashed. Spawning rates are down more than 90 percent from six years ago. That prompted a ban this week on Chinook Salmon fishing in the Pacific off California and Oregon, and that's a big headache for the people who make their living off salmon.

Don Stanley has been fishing the Pacific coast for most of his 70 years. He joins us by phone from his boat, The Josie Sea, in Half Moon Bay, California. How are you, sir?

Mr. DON STANLEY (Fisherman): Fine, and you?

SEABROOK: Good, thank you. You're out on your boat.

Mr. STANLEY: Yes. I'm on a morning out on the boat here. Beautiful day out here today.

SEABROOK: This is the first time salmon fishing has been just completely banned off the California coast. Did you see this coming?

Mr. STANLEY: No. It hasn't been bad like this before. But what it is, is the Bureau of Water Recordation takes all the water out of the rivers, (unintelligible) water, gives it to the farmers. And they have these huge pumps that pump the water down to Los Angeles. And the pumps are so big that when the little babies are going down, the fingerlings are going down, it pulls them into the pumps and kills them all off.

SEABROOK: Do you think this is going to work, skipping an entire season of salmon fishing? Do you think it'll work?

Mr. STANLEY: Personally, no. Because these are, like, four- and five-year-old fish and it takes, like, four or five years for the fish to reproduce enough to be able to fish. And if there's no water and they can't get water - that's what we really needed. We need the water to raise the fish.

SEABROOK: And how is this year worse than other years?

Mr. STANLEY: Well, what's worse about it is there was very few returning fish. Last year the season, I think, in the first 11 days they caught five million pounds of crabs but that was it. They're really fishing everything out. There's just too many boats for this.

I mean, all we've got is a little planet, you know. And they're just, everybody wants to do something. You can only do so much, you know.

SEABROOK: So what are you going to do?

Mr. STANLEY: Well, I really don't know. I've been doing this for quite a while. I'm old enough to where I'm not going to go out and get a job. I've been fishing for all my life. If they take the fishing away there's nothing really to go and do. Well, I might try to see if they can put up some survey work. They're looking for fish nests, stuff like that.

And we might get some government money.

SEABROOK: What is the Josie Sea, what do you do with the Josie Sea when there's no salmon to fish?

Mr. STANLEY: Live on it.

SEABROOK: You live on it.

Mr. STANLEY: It's only 34-, 35-foot but it's built very deep. And I've got a TV and a stereo player and a stove and all of that.

SEABROOK: You live alone, sir?

Mr. STANLEY: Right now I have a cat named Panda Bear. He's my first mate.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. STANLEY: Well, I do. I had his mother was on the boat for 16 years and he's 12 years old now. But he's, I mean, he's sort of like, you can take him fishing and he doesn't complain or say anything, you know?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. STANLEY: He's a good pet.

SEABROOK: He's a boat cat.

Mr. STANLEY: Yes, he's a boat cat, yes.

SEABROOK: Don Stanley is a salmon fisherman in Half Moon Bay, California. Mr. Stanley, thanks so much.

Mr. STANLEY: Okay. You're welcome. Thank you too. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.