Hundreds of sport and commercial salmon fishermen and people in related fishing and seafood businesses reeling from recent cancelled salmon fishing seasons in California and Oregon today called for better management of water in the California Bay-Delta at a Salmon Summit in San Francisco. The fishing industry representatives also called for immediate steps to rebuild strong salmon runs in the Bay-Delta during the Summit hosted by U.S. Reps. George Miller (D-Martinez), Mike Thompson (D-Napa Valley) and other elected officials.
“Californians want local, healthy sustainable food and we want to provide it to them,” said Larry Collins, a commercial fisherman and president of the Crab Boat Owners Association of San Francisco, the oldest fisherman’s association on the West Coast. “We can restore one of the great sustainable wild fisheries in North America, a fishery that provides healthy, natural, delicious food to millions of people. But to do that, we have to take our rightful share of the water back from the agribusiness bigwigs who have seized it for their own.”
An economic study commissioned by Southwick and Associates revealed that the collapse of the salmon industry has collectively cost California and Oregon 23,000 jobs and more than $2 billion per year in lost revenue. Recent economic estimates indicate that a full recovery of the California fall-run salmon would yield approximately $6 billion in revenue and create 94,000 new jobs.
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