There is a paradox about salmon: We love them, but we are part of their problem.
We love them as an important food, as the base of fishing economies, for sport recreation, and as symbols of fresh water and renewal. But we harvest them, dam, pave and pump their streams, pollute their water and mix their gene pool with hatchery fish.
Then there's global warming and changing ocean currents.
When we look at Central Valley Spring Run salmon decline, we look back to the 1990s and realize, shocked, that the populations have crashed by over 90 percent. Estimates may make that 95 percent or worse.
But that only looks at a few years. We don't like to acknowledge that less than two centuries ago, the fish were so plentiful that they supported cultures. They were so abundant, in fact, that they could be harvested with pitchforks. The run of fish supported animals, the soil and plants, and were a significant wild ocean resource as well.
Now the runs are on the ropes, and wild salmon will be disappearing from our plates, as well as our rivers, for the next couple of years ... at least.
The problems that salmon, as a group of species, have encountered are epic. They include loss of habitat, fishing in the ocean, changing ocean and inland conditions, less water, more pollution and predation from other marine life. In addition, we have introduced hatcheries into the life cycle of the fish.
Our runs are hatchery-dominated, with survival and pathogen issues plaguing the raised fingerlings. The hatcheries stand with the dams, the mitigations for cutting off spawning habitat, adding up to hundreds of miles of major rivers and thousands of miles of tributaries, the small streams where fish reproduce.
Ocean-farmed fish are not a solution. There are so many problems of disease, escapement and pollution that California doesn't allow factory salmon farms in state waters.
The problem of salmon collapse is not restricted to the Central Valley. We have lost significant salmon and steelhead runs in the Russian, the Eel and the Klamath rivers as well, creating economic disasters for fishermen and the sport-fishing industry. Emergency relief funding will only last so long, and we cannot support the fishing community on handouts from the government (nor do they wish to be supported in this way).
On April 1, the Senate passed my bill (SB 562) to support salmon monitoring and restoration with nearly $5.3 million. This money, which may enable our state to secure up to $20 million in federal matching funds, will go to basic science and the repair of specific problems on creeks and rivers. It is an investment in this resource.
But we will need more than simple patience and investment to get salmon back to respectable runs. We will need cooperation from fishermen, farmers, water users, the tribes, power companies, the governor's office and the Legislature to find an effective path to recovery.
We also need help from every citizen to "think at the sink" and "use your brain at the drain," and not introduce oil, detergents and chemicals into our waters.
No less than recovery is necessary for our fishing and sport-fishing economy, for our responsibility to the species, and to have great tasting, healthy wild salmon as part of a continuing California tradition.
State Senator Patricia Wiggins (D-Santa Rosa) represents California's 2nd Senate District, which includes portions or all of six counties, including Humboldt. She also chairs the Legislature's Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture. On Thursday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed her salmon restoration bill.