Endangered

"This is a problem that society has created," said Jennifer Gilden, spokeswoman for the Pacific Fishery Management Council, whose recommendation for a drastic cut in allowable fishing is likely to be adopted May 1 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "We're destroying the habitat for these fish, and it's the fishermen who end up paying the price. This is not a problem of overfishing."

The complete closure of the California coast and most of Oregon's coast is the largest shutdown in the history of the salmon fleet. Salmon trollers will be allowed to lure only 9,000 hatchery-raised coho salmon in central and southern Oregon. These are boats accustomed to bringing in more than 800,000 fish per year, between 2000 and 2005. The average income to fishermen and coastal communities from the commercial and recreational salmon fishery was $103 million between 1979 and 2004.

"This is devastating," said Darus Peake, chairman of the Oregon Salmon Commission and a Garibaldi troller. "If you're depending on salmon for any part of your income, take that out. It's gone. Whether you're the fisherman, the fisherman's family, the gas station on the corner, the bait shop, the motel; if you expected so many dollars from tourism, it's gone."

Some trollers will try their hand at other fisheries, such as black cod and tuna, but with diesel fuel prices topping $4 a gallon, it's tough to live without salmon, they say. Other fishermen will spend this summer asking for help and demanding answers about why an icon that is as symbolic of the Pacific Northwest as rain is so imperiled. One group of trollers traveled to Washington, D.C., earlier this month to call for a congressional investigation into the collapse of salmon stocks, and federal lawmakers are pressing the U.S. Secretary of Commerce for a disaster declaration that could help buoy boats in the short term.

What nobody really wants is to face the terrifying underlying question: is this the beginning of the end?

"You want to know," said Onno Husing, executive director of the Oregon Coastal Zone Management Agency, which advocates for government entities on the coast, "how many rivets out of the airplane can you lose, before the thing will break apart? These people are amazingly resourceful and they care so deeply about what they do. It's much more than just an average job. It's a way of life. With that comes a certain tenacity, even if it doesn't make economic sense."

What made sense to Jared Reeves was to jump ship, after maxed-out credit cards drove him out of the salmon business. He's now counting endangered birds for the Bureau of Land Management.

© 2008