For the first time in more than three decades of fishing for salmon near Bodega Bay, Dick Ogg will motor his white and navy boat, Karen Jeanne, north this summer past his typical fisheries in hopes of finding the multicolored species along the Oregon coast.
There aren’t enough salmon left off the California coast for Ogg to sell on Bodega Bay’s historic docks.
“We, as fishermen, have nowhere to turn,” he said.
Fishery managers are signaling they may cancel California’s commercial salmon season for the second year in a row, which means the 71-year-old has two options: temporarily traveling to Oregon to catch salmon or barely making ends meet luring in rockfish and sablefish.
Ogg, often in a gray hoodie and wiry sunglasses, wishes there was a solution for boosting California’s salmon schools. He describes the species as “having one of the greatest spirits” an ocean-fairing creature can have.
“They can take a hook and bend it straight to get away,” he said, remembering countless salmon that escaped. “Maybe that’s what they were supposed to do, having the chance to go up the river to spawn.”
Lawmakers think they have a solution for at least one part of the salmon mortality problem: purifying highway runoff of toxic dust from tires that enters streams and rivers during storms — made worse by human-caused climate change. When the chemical enters waterways, it quickly kills some species of salmon and trout.
Assemblymember Diane Papan (D-San Mateo) recently introduced legislation — AB 1798 — that would mandate the state’s leading transportation agency to devise a plan for naturally removing the toxic tire particles, known as 6PPD-quinone, before they slip into waterways and kill fish. While the state has already asked the tire industry to develop alternatives for the chemicals in every tire sold in California, Papan’s plan seeks to clean up the pollution from the cars already on the road.
While purifying runoff from tiny, tainted rubber bits won’t entirely solve the salmon die-off, Ogg sees the effort as an “opportunity to do what we can to support the fish.”
The perils to California’s salmon are growing.
A changing ocean, dams blocking migration paths, worsening drought conditions drastically decreasing water flows, and climate-fueled storms further complicate river systems. People are feeling the effects on land, even if they don’t realize it — fishers lose jobs, restaurants turn to farm-grown fish, and tribes who view salmon as part of their cultural identity can’t rely on salmon as a food source.
Sarah Bates, who captains Bounty, a commercial fishing boat docked at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, said the industry is suffering after years of diminished salmon populations.
“A lot of people are out of work and struggling financially and emotionally,” she said. “But the fact is that these fish are in peril because their river ecosystems are in peril. If we don’t take some steps now, then we might be looking at the final days of the species and the fishing fleet.”