Oregon Confronting Possible Closure Of Salmon Fishery For 2006

Fishermen and businesses along the Oregon Coast are bracing for the possibility of no commercial salmon season this year. Hoping to develop a strategy to minimize the impact on coastal communities, Gov. Ted Kulongoski plans to meet this morning with some trollers, coastal legislators and agency directors and Oregon's congressional delegation.

The third consecutive season of poor chinook returns to Northern California's Klamath River to spawn has federal fisheries managers considering closing 700 miles of coastline to salmon fishing for the May-October season, despite plentiful stocks elsewhere. They already have closed this year's spring season.

The governor's natural-resources adviser said that today's meeting at the Capitol will focus on how best to help people possibly affected by the proposed closure of coastal waters to commercial salmon fishing. "What we are really looking for (today) is for commercial fishermen and community leaders to tell us what has worked well in the past and any new ideas they have," Mike Carrier said Monday.

Among the possible forms of aid to be discussed will be temporary jobs in streambed and watershed restoration, direct grants to help owners make payments on their boats and job retraining for fishermen who might opt to leave the business, he said. Federal fishery managers are considering three options. One would close the season in Oregon and California, and the others would impose deep reductions in the catch.

EDIT

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060328/STATE/603280317/1042

how stupid of us

we gotta pull our heads out and fast. What kinda world is my daughter, much less her children and their children, going to live in?

estimated fish numbers in pre-columbian times? 11 to 16 million salmon, yearly, in the Columbia River system. Now? Last year, last I heard from my spot on the east coast was we weren't seeing 10% of the expected run of 500,000. That's a lot of biomass not returning to our ecosystem, folks.

We really need to jettison all forms of activity that are not ecologically sustainable, I don't think we have time for market forces to provide us with the proper information. I suspect that information will come in a form I don't want to view.

driving cars every Wednesday

not trucks, emergency, cops, etc.

just cars

THERE HAS TO BE A FIRST BIG IMMEDIATE WORLD STEP

suggest your, meaning the readers, first world step. mine is no car driving on Wed. anywhere in the world

I'm not entirely sure what I mean, other than I am trying, on every front, to limit my ecological footprint and increase my impact on positive change. Obviously I will always have a footprint, but for example, I will never buy a new vehicle again, because I don't want to contribute to the market for production of new vehicles (metals, plastics, etc). I drive as little as I can, and I take commuting into account on this basis for every potential living situation and job. I eat as locally, organically, and package minimal as possible. I try to focus my efforts on what is really important to me, my family and community, and leave all extraneous efforts behind. And I am changing my career to work in sustainable development, both nonprofit and for.

I tend to avoid big first steps, because of the difficulty of bringing lots of people along, the letdown when the first step doesn't pay off immediately, and I think solutions are unique to everyone, but I'm open to suggestions.

but a large part of america and the world doesn't even know what an ecological footprint is

and tick, tick, tick is there time to teach them?

think emergency room protocol

I'm not a fisherman, but I know the thing that used to work well in the past was not taking so many goddamned fish out of the water.

Or, more generally speaking, having fewer than 6.5 billion human beings all living on planet earth.

if the food doesn't run out, ala peak oil.

that by 2100 there will be fewer than one billion humans. Maybe a lot, lot fewer.

Prediction is hard. Especially about the future.
--Yogi Berra

but I will spend the rest of my life trying to figure out how to help my daughter survive, and very little else.