the proper use a regulation of this management activity.
Ocean regulatory control is set for the near coastal water by the State of California, and from that zone out to 200 miles offshore by the Pacific Fisheries Management Council (PFMC). While the PFMC tries to regulate the coho fishery to provide optimum yealds on a sustainable basis, they do so by attempting to prevent overfishing. The process of regulation does not take into account the highly migratory nature of coho salmon, and in the past has tended to deal with authorizing fishing as a combined total, rather than acknowledging weak stocks. There have been attempts by the PFMC to change the practice of agglomeration, in and effort to protect endangered runs of salmon. Ocean migratory ranges have been determined by coded wire tagging, and fishing has been restricted to areas outside the range of these weak stocks. Recent protections afforded coho salmon by the PFMC has lead to fishing regulations and gear restrictions that have almost eliminated commercial and recreational catch of coho salmon in the ocean.
For recovery to succeed it is critical the protect important populations of locally adapted and geographically distinct stocks. At this time there is only one program (south of San Francisco) to manage coho salmon populations to maintain genetic diversity. More immediate actions must be taken. The loss of coho stocks that migrate over 200 miles from Eureka to Willits, (Eel River) is almost certain at this time, due to the small number of returning adults. This extinction will doom efforts to recover coho salmon in these and many other headwater streams throughout the Eel River basin. The future of coho salmon, its role as a natural resource, its ability to adapt in the future and survive by evolving are in jeopardy if we lose more of the runs that are now threatened with extinction.
The State of California has acknowledged a serious decline in fisheries since the early 1980s. The California Advisory Committee on Salmon Steelhead and Trout studied and reported on this serious problem in 1988 in Restoring the Balance. This report lead to the adoption of SB2261, which set a goal of doubling the runs of anadromous fisheries by the year 2000. Unfortunately no dedicated funding was provided to accomplish this goal. Small funding sources have been available to restorationists ranging from the early Boscoe-Keene grants, Proposition 99 and 70, and most recently the Thompson bill SB271. These modest attempts at funding a recovery have been administered by the Department of Fish and Game and overseen and granted through by the California Advisory Committee on Salmon Steelhead and Trout. Some small but important gains in stream habitat improvement, and barrier modification have accomplished in this initial work. One outgrowth has been a concerted effort critique and continues to improve the techniques of stream restoration and improve on fish passage. But these efforts can not and have not been able to alter in any significant way the continuing decline in overall habitat quality, serious losses in overall population, and extinctions of some stocks of coho salmon.
Several programs have been devised to develop a coordinated consensus approach to dealing with the declines in salmonids (California Salmon Initiative and Watershed Restoration and Protection Advisory Council). No program to date has produced either funding or a concerted effort to deal with the obvious problems facing all anadromous fisheries today, habitat loss. The majority of the coho salmon life stages occur in freshwater and can be protected by laws that regulate inland waters, the remainder of their life is governed at sea by state national and international fishing laws. These laws often conflict and are not effectively enforced, leading to poor protection and little positive affect. The combined effect environmental damage and the value of multi-jurisdictional regulations, is unknown at best, and likely ineffective as shown by the product of continued declining populations. If we truly expect to protect