Saturday, April 12, 2008

Eaten into extinction

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We should be so proud of ourselves:

Culver City, CA (AHN) - After much deliberation, federal officials have decided to cancel the salmon fishing season this Friday. Due to dwindling numbers of salmon in rivers, commercial and recreational fishing of salmon has been outlawed, and the governor has declared a state of emergency for fisherman.

Experts say the number of salmon has reached a critically low amount, with only 68,000 in the Sacramento river and its tributaries. This is down from 800,000, just six years before, a record low in the population.

The price of Salmon is expected skyrocket. Salmon is already going for $30-$40 dollars a pound in some markets, in anticipation of the shortage.

This could very well be the death of the industry in California. "We're looking at the end of it right now," Hedley Prince told the San Francisco Chronicle. He is the harbormaster at San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf. He used to have hundreds of fishing boats based out of San Francisco - now, there is only a handful.

Some commercial fishermen are worried about their futures saying they have been fishing all their lives and have no other marketable skills.

[snip]

The salmon season was expected to start on May 1. At least 400 commercial fishermen could stand to lose 80 percent of their annual income, should the ban remain in force. In addition, California's economy stands to take about a $20 million dollar hit from this ban.
We're going to see more and more of this as we go. Our world is changing before our very eyes.

3 comments:

Distributorcap said...

salmon is only the start....this is gonna get worse and worse with more and more species of fish andanimals

this is friggin scary

pygalgia said...

As much as I love Salmon, the wild population has been declining and fragile for years. It's bad.

ellroon said...

I didn't know when I began my life that I would be seeing the end of my era.... it's rather more than scary, it's Mad Max scary.

All the end-of-the-world stories come to mind....

I don't think digging bunkers will help.