Mar 15, 2008 11:31 pm US/Pacific
Salmon Disappearing From Local Rivers
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) ―
The Klamath River was once a bounty of fish and eel for the Karuk Indians, but Sonny Davis has watched that change in recent years.
"I would say it's 90-percent ruined now," Davis said. "We ain't getting no fish back. If we want fish, the people here have to go over to the coast and get them before they start out, if we can get any."
As it turns out, those may have been the wise observations of a tribal leader. The number of spawning Chinook salmon on the nearby Sacramento River is critically low. Wildlife experts expected as many as 180,000 during the fall run; they counted less than half, just under 70,000 fish.
"I think 'disaster' comes to mind," said Don McIsaac, the head of the Pacific Fishery Management Council. "This run has been stable, adult runs in the hundreds of thousands, for several decades."
Chemicals and pesticides used in farming could be a factor, as could the dams that regulate flows on rivers like the Sacramento and the Klamath. But commercial fishermen point to the practice of diverting water over agriculture land and through the Delta.
"Much of that water is going on lands that are toxic," said Zeke Grader of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman's Association. "It's going back into the stream as polluted water that is killing the fish."
In the 1980's, AG runoff was blamed for some of the most gruesome birth defects ever seen in wild birds.
Along the Klamath, the Karuk Indians believe removing small dams like this one will renew the fish population.
"The river will clean itself out," Davis said.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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