Tag Archives: Drought
Amid Louisiana’s crawfish shortage, governor issues disaster declaration
Amid a crawfish shortage in Louisiana, the nation’s top producer of the crustaceans that are a staple in Gulf Coast seafood boils, Gov. Jeff Landry issued a disaster declaration for the impacted industry Wednesday. Last year’s drought, extreme heat, saltwater intrusion on the Mississippi River and a hard winter freeze in the Bayou State have devastated this year’s crawfish harvest and led to significant price hikes for those purchasing “mudbugs.” Landry says the shortage is not only affecting Louisiana’s economy but also “our way of life.” “All 365,000 crawfish acres in Louisiana have been affected by these conditions,” Landry said in a written statement Wednesday. “That is why I am issuing a disaster declaration. more, >>click to read<< 11:34
Balance The Pain Of Drought On Farmers And Fishermen Equitably
In the first week of May a young salmon boat captain struggled to keep his boat stable and fishing while getting bashed by an unruly spring wind storm near the San Mateo-Santa Cruz county line. Far offshore, where the continental shelf drops off and a huge volume of marine nutrients circulate from the ocean bottom to the surface, salmon gathered. So did borderline gale force winds on top of a 10-foot swell. It looked like the scene at the end of the movie, “The Perfect Storm.” You’re risking life and limb fishing in those conditions, and you wouldn’t in more normal times. But these aren’t normal times. >click to read< 11:08
Sacramento River King Salmon hold on, but drought, heat may take toll next year
The California drought and a strange warming trend in the ocean have not yet killed off the Sacramento River’s king salmon, which are swimming off the coast unaware of all the doomsaying. That could all change next year, fisheries experts warn, when the full effect of the four-year dry spell hits the scaly creatures where they live. There are 652,000 fall run chinook salmon that were born in the Sacramento swimming in the sea right now, about 17,000 more fish than there were at this time last year, according to estimates by the National Marine Fisheries Service. Read the rest here 09:23
California wild salmon harvest continues to dwindle with drought
It’s still a little too early to tell for sure, but the news on the California wild salmon front is not good. A combination of low water levels in streams because of the drought and high summer temperatures resulted in a massive die-off of young salmon in Northern California. Read the rest here 13:57
Pressure’s on to help Delta fish suffering amid drought
With populations of numerous endangered Delta fish species at alarming lows, officials in California are planning a number of steps to help them survive if 2015 proves to be a fourth year. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife last week released the results of its annual fall population survey for five key fish species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Read the rest here 08:10
Drought starting to kill salmon in Klamath Basin
Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, which represents California commercial salmon fishermen, said the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation was meeting minimum flows in the Klamath River set under a biological opinion for threatened coho salmon. “This is the sort of situation we are all going to have to cope with through the summer,” he said. “And it’s going to be a white-knuckle ride, there is no doubt about that.” Read more here 08:51
Feinstein: Environmentalists no help on California drought
Environmentalists “have never been helpful to me in producing good water policy,” the California Democrat said. “You can’t have a water infrastructure for 16 million people and say, ‘Oh, it’s fine for 38 million people,’ when we’re losing the Sierra Nevada snowpack.’ The diversion is already damaging endangered steelhead trout and commercial chinook salmon, said Jon Rosenfield, a conservation biologist at the Bay Institute, a San Francisco environmental group. Read more here 12:21
Drought blocking passages to sea for California coho salmon putting them in immediate danger.
DAVENPORT, Calif. — By now, water would typically be ripping down Scott Creek, and months ago it should have burst through a berm of sand to provide fish passage between freshwater and the ocean. Read more@latimes 12:45
Water Woes out West: Drought
Drought imperils California salmon, steelhead
SANTA CRUZ — The sensitive populations of fish that spawn in Northern California’s creeks and rivers are starting to suffer from the brutal drought threatening the state’s water supplies. In Sonoma and Santa Cruz counties, the National Marine Fisheries Service has heard reports of anglers catching endangered coho salmon trapped by low water flows. In the American River, water levels have dropped to a 20-year nadir, endangering the redds, or nests of eggs, laid by chinook salmon, a consumer staple that supports hundreds of Bay Area fishermen. Read more@contracostatimes 14:21
