Need to Truck and Release 20.2 Million Central Valley Salmon into San Pablo Bay is Sad Commentary on Health of California Delta

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Photo: Salmon from the DFG's fish hatcheries are placed in Fishery Foundation acclimation pens in Carquinez Strait at the entrance to San Pablo Bay. The pens help salmon to better acclimate to life in salt water and to evade predators.

By Dan Bacher

The California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) has completed placing 20.2 million young chinook salmon from Central Valley rivers in acclimation pens for release into San Pablo Bay.

"The number released is the most ever by any state agency on the West Coast for a single stock of salmon in one year," according to a DFG press release on June 19. "The young salmon were released this spring into San Pablo Bay and are expected to return to the Sacramento River system in two to four years."

On June 17, the last tanker load of 250,000 tiny fall run Central Valley chinook salmon - called "smolts" - was released into the acclimation pens of the Fishery Foundation of California in San Pablo Bay and towed out into the bay and released in the out-going tide.

“Ramping up the effort to raise, transport and acclimate 20.2 million smolts was an all-hands effort involving three major hatcheries and acclimation pens operated by the Fishery Foundation,” said Neil Manji, DFG Fisheries Branch Chief. “We put in nearly twice the normal amount of smolts into the acclimation pens with the goal of increasing both their survival and the return of adult salmon.”

The successful release of salmon into the acclimation pens this year was the result of intense political pressure by Assemblyman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), Nels Johnson, outdoor columnist for the Marin Independent Journal, and the Allied Fishing Groups to stop the DFG from dumping salmon directly into the bay, where the stunned fish were quickly eaten by predatory birds and fish. The DFG, after having put salmon smolts into acclimation pens for years, dropped the ball when the fish weren't put into the pens two years in a row, 2005 and 2006.

The DFG’s increased effort occurs in the context of the collapse of the fall run of Sacramento River king salmon stocks. The collapse resulted in the unprecedented closure of all commercial and recreational ocean salmon seasons off California and most of Oregon and the closure of most Central Valley river salmon seasons.