Forum on Dungeness crab season and a salmon fisheries
West Coast fisheries ‘incredibly challenged’: McGuire forum addresses Dungeness, salmon impacts
by Robert Schaulis
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Last week, the California State Senate’s Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture hosted its 50th annual Zeke Grader Fisheries Forum. Scientists and representatives from various state agencies, tribal government, industry and environmental groups met to discuss challenges facing kelp forests off our shores, the future of a later and later Dungeness crab season and a salmon fishery now in its third consecutive year of commercial fishing closure.
Click Here. Committee Chair Senator Mike McGuire opened proceedings by noting the challenges the state’s fisheries are facing as well as some of the state’s redoubled efforts and funding, via Proposition 4 funding and other legislative commitments, to improve resiliency along the California coast and waterways.
“I think that we can all agree, fisheries on the West Coast, salmon and Dungeness crab both, … have been incredibly challenged over the past several years, and it seems for every step forward that we take, two steps are taken back,” McGuire said. “… We’ve had some wins, though. We had the first recreational salmon fishing season in California in three years. The challenge that we continue to see (is) no commercial salmon fishing for the third straight year, and that has had massive impacts on rural coastal communities, especially in Northern California …
“Protecting (and) preserving our state’s Fisheries and Aquaculture is vital. It’s vital to the long-term health of rural economies up and down this state, and it is also key to the social and cultural diversity we celebrate here in California, especially with tribal nations.”
California Natural Resources Agency Secretary Wade Crowfoot echoed those sentiments, praising Yurok and Karuk Tribe-led efforts to restore the Klamath River in the wake of historical dam removal and saying that he is increasingly inspired by tribally led land and water restoration projects. He said that greater collaboration, not zero-sum thinking, was required to address the “terribly disruptive” effects of climate change.
“It’s not fish versus farms, north versus south, urban versus rural,” Crowfoot said. “We need to balance these needs, and we need to take care of the health of our rivers and our people.”
Click Here to Watch the News Report on ABC 7 KRCR News by Emma Underwood Mon, October 6th 2025 at 3:39 PM
Illegal growing
In response to a question by Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San Jose), Crowfoot also addressed the impacts of illegal cannabis growing, which he characterized as “just horrible (from) the environmental standpoint.”
“It’s a big deal,” he said. “In certain parts of the state, these illegal cannabis grows are decimating the environment. Not only are they diverting water, but they’re introducing illegal pesticides, rodenticides, that are getting into the ecosystem.”
California Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Charlton Bonham said addressing the impacts was central to the mission.
“… The drying up streams, dewatering, habitat for fish leaving, water for infrastructure, that is a central focus of the filtering that we do, working with local law enforcement, coordinating with OES, our state water board and our highly focused marine enforcement team at the department,” Bonham said.
Humboldt County
“Our three years of complete, consecutive closures has been devastating to our coastal communities and, of course, individual fishermen,” Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association President George Bradshaw said, noting that fisheries in the state are “in desperate need of hatchery infrastructure” in California’s Central Valley.
“… I mean no disrespect to our commercial sector; (salmon season closure) has been harder on our tribal communities,” Bonham said. “Some of our most emotional moments, for me, have been when our tribal chairs tell me that they don’t have fish for their beginning of creation ceremonies. I saw Chair (Buster) Attebery of (the) Karuk (tribe) last week because the leaders were in town for their tribal forum, and he told me, for the first time in, I think, three years, they had fish for those ceremonies. That feels good …
“But on the commercial front … we’ve been, finally, able to get about $20 million in federal relief funds out to 1,200 qualifying commercial trawlers, processors, passenger fleet vessels and guides (for 2023).”
Barry McCovey, fisheries director for the Yurok Tribe, talked about a number of things including the “bad news” about salmon along the North Coast, saying that the tribe has not had a successful commercial fishing year since 2015.
“I think the run size prediction for 2025 has been one of the lowest on record since we’ve been keeping track of this, since the late-70s, early-80s,” McCovey said. “The state fishery was closed. The state recreational fishery on the Klamath was closed. The tribal fishery was very small, a very miniscule amount of fish available for the tribe to harvest, not nearly enough to meet our subsistence needs let alone our commercial needs.”
McCovey noted that post-dam removal restoration projects on the Klamath, the Scott and the Trinity have been helpful in the tribe’s efforts to restore salmon populations, as is AB 263, a bill securing river flows on the Klamath. He also noted that there is a need for federal funding related to monitoring fish populations and health that may have been cut in the last year.
Charlie Schneider, senior project manager with CalTrout, noted that “if current trends continue, 45% of California salmonids … are likely to be extinct in the next 50 years” and noted that improvements to water management and environmental policy could help improve the state’s fisheries and ensure the future of salmon and trout in the state.
Dungeness crab
“Last season was a lot like the year before and the year before and the year before, and that may be the predictor for next year,” Bonham said. “Last year, we conducted 13 risk assessments. We did 11 aerial surveys … We’re bringing in data streams from all the recreational whale touring vessels, and we’re engaging with the fleet and nonprofit groups on a regular frequency … and if you look at the last year, it feels a lot like the prior three or four years. That beginning, most loved traditional moment of November and December is not happening … what we’re seeing, it’s more like mid-January, end of January.”
Bonham said that the future of Dungeness crab fishing might shift toward fishing with ropeless gear in the spring rather than the holiday season. He also noted that oceanic warming has been the cause of late starts to the season, not the regulatory environment.
He said that last season’s $55 million was in line with the 10-year average, and said that “at some point this is the kind of dynamic that will drive a person like me out of the position I’m in, because trying to square all these corners and balance all these interests is just becoming increasingly difficult as we see these dramatic climate disruptions.”
The report can be viewed at https://tinyurl.com/56cvnvrv.
