As expected, the meeting of state fish and game biologists and officials in Santa Rosa yesterday, concluded our state’s salmon fisheries are in devastating peril. For the second time in 16 years, the fall run Chinook failed to meet the Fishery Management low-end goal of a 122,000 salmon.
Despite continued increase in hatchery releases the state’s salmon numbers have been in an alarming decline since 2005. Although it is has not been officially announced, it is difficult to see how fisheries managers could allow a salmon season in 2009.
Reliable Peter Fimrite noted in his SF Chronicle feature today , there are no reliable studies showing how many of the surviving fish in the ocean and rivers are from hatcheries. But a study last year of fish caught by sport fishermen found that 71 percent of them were raised in hatcheries. Regardless of the influence of hatcheries, very few chinook of any kind are surviving.
State and federal scientists believe that warmer ocean conditions have reduced the food supply for the fish. Record exports of water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta coincided with major declines in chinook, a factor that environmentalists and fishing representatives believe is the major culprit.
Food poisoning has been recognized as a disease of man since as early as Hippocrates. The sale of rancid, contaminated or adulterated food was commonplace until introduction of hygiene, refrigeration, and vermin controls in the 19th century. Discovery of techniques for killing bacteria using heat and other microbiological studies by scientists such as Louis Pasteur contributed to the modern sanitation standards that are ubiquitous in developed nations today.
Bag sealer