Rivers of a Lost Coast

A panel of legal and fishery experts blasted the state’s inadequate, under-funded and poorly managed salmon practices at a special hearing yesterday. Identifying a host of serious blunders including, lack of monitoring of fish returns, lack of monitoring riparian and groundwater withdrawals, lack of monitoring land-use changes, and a severe inability to enforce existing laws, the panel told legislators the problem is not new and that their blind eye has only worsened the problem.

The panel, which included several UC Davis fishery experts, told legislators the state’s environmental laws are both robust and legally adequate, but what remains inadequate is the level of state funding and resources allocation to enforce the existing laws. The panel noted California had the lowest warden enforcement to citizen ratio in the entire country.

The panel also noted Oregon, Washington and Idaho all closely monitor their salmon in order to make informed and wise management policy decisions, and yet California, with possibly the greatest salmon problem has no comprehensive data gathering structure in place.

The legislators were routinely reminded of Prof. Moyle’s recent study stating 65% of California’s native salmon, steelhead and trout populations will be permanently lost if current practices do not change.

You can read more in a Sacramento Bee article by Matt Weiser California must step up to save salmon