SalmonAid News
Periodically, we will bring you important news and updates about SalmonAid. We also bring you other news related to the issues we care about.
06/19/09 | Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition Presented to SalmonAid
05/19/08 | Les Claypool to lead dazzling line-up of musicians at SalmonAid Festival.
05/08/08 | Restaurants, Fishermen, Conservationists Urge: “Save the Salmon!”
03/24/08 | OCSC Fundraiser brings in over $7000 for SalmonAid!
11/03/07 | Central California Joint Cable Fisheries Liaison Committee awards $25,000 Grant to SalmonAid
10/25/07 | Two-Day SalmonAid 2008 Festival in Oakland Announced
The largest ever coalition of West Coast salmon advocates - including commercial, recreational and tribal fishermen, conservation organizations, chefs, restaurants, scientists, and many others - will host a two-day event celebrating wild salmon Click here for more..
Les Claypool to lead dazzling line-up of musicians at SalmonAid Festival.
Bay Area alternative rock royalty and Primus front-man Les Claypool, whose thumping bass lines and unique worldview have become the calling cards for a number of wildly successful and influential albums in the last two decades, will lead a diverse roster of twenty bands on two live outdoor stages at Oakland’s 2008 SalmonAid Festival. Claypool, The Zydeco Flames, Stacy Kray, Sizemo, Saul Kaye, Captain Zohar, Tia Carroll, Manaleo, Captain Mike & The Sea Kings, Asheba, John Craigie, The Bobby Young Project, Eliyahu & Qadim, and other performing artists promise to provide loads of fun when they join West Coast fishermen, tribes, restaurateurs and conservationists on May 31 and June 1 in Oakland’s Jack London Square to celebrate wild Pacific salmon.
The purpose of the free and family-friendly, two-day event is to highlight the urgent need to protect the river habitats of these iconic fish. SalmonAid will feature top music acts, educational forums, children’s activities, speakers and a chance for the public to enjoy wild caught salmon served by some of the West Coast’s finest restaurants.
“Pacific salmon is an icon and inspiration for a lot of us the West Coast, and it’s one of my favorite foods,” said Claypool, who regularly sport fishes for salmon off the northern California coast. “But today we’re in danger of losing this incredible fish. The bands at SalmonAid are playing to help ensure that wild Pacific salmon will always be around, and to help protect the rivers where salmon live.”
West Coast restaurants, including Fish. in Sausalito, CA, The Basin in Saratoga, CA, Flea Street Café in Menlo Park, CA, and Local Ocean Seafoods in Newport, OR, are also banding together for the festival. Due to the total closure of the 2008 ocean salmon season from the Mexican border to the Oregon-Washington line, Alaskan commercial fishermen will be donating the wild salmon served at the festival.
In recent years, salmon fishing has be closed or significantly limited along most of the West Coast because fish populations from three of the most productive salmon watersheds in the world – the Sacramento, the Columbia-Snake, and the Klamath river basins – are collapsing. The problem is not overfishing. Out-dated dams, runaway water diversions, and government inaction are taking a lethal toll on wild salmon. The grim result are some of the most sweeping fishing closures in West Coast history, costing the region’s economy hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of family-wage jobs.
Federal judges have been forced to become involved in managing all three rivers because the federal government, which operates dams and water diversion projects on all three rivers, repeatedly produces inadequate salmon protection plans and refuses to follow the science that says wild salmon need cold, free-flowing rivers and streams to thrive. When salmon habitat disappears, so do the wild salmon.
Despite the bad news of recent years, the festival’s goal is to highlight the economic, cultural, and culinary value of salmon. At a rally on Sunday, June 1, SalmonAid participants will call on Congress to help ensure the future of healthy populations of wild salmon and the rivers upon which they depend.
Restaurants, Fishermen, Conservationists Urge: “Save the Salmon!”
Restaurants from across the West Coast will join fishermen, tribes, and conservationists on May 31 and June 1 in Oakland’s Jack London Square to celebrate wild Pacific salmon at the SalmonAid 2008 Festival. The purpose of the free two-day outdoor event is to highlight what Americans stand to lose if we do not take steps to protect habitat for these iconic fish.
SalmonAid, modeled loosely after Farm Aid, will feature live music acts, educational forums, children’s activities, speakers and a chance for the public to enjoy wild caught salmon served by some of the West Coast’s finest restaurants. Due to the total closure of the 2008 ocean salmon season from the Mexican border to the Oregon-Washington line, Alaskan commercial fishermen will be donating the wild salmon served at the festival.
“American consumers deserve to be able to enjoy delicious wild-caught Pacific salmon without fear that these fish will someday disappear,” said Mike Hudson, a commercial salmon fisherman out of Half Moon Bay, California. “To ensure that wild Pacific salmon will always be an abundant resource, we must protect the places where salmon live.”
SalmonAid’s participating restaurants, including Fish in Sausalito, CA, The Basin in Saratoga, CA, Flea Street Café in Menlo Park, CA, and Local Ocean Seafoods in Newport, OR, are also banding together to pledge to serve only wild salmon and reject farmed salmon substitutes.
“We’re pledging to serve only delicious wild salmon,” said Kenny Belov of Fish restaurant. “We believe that serving sustainably-harvested wild salmon is the best choice for our customers and businesses. By choosing to stay wild and rejecting farmed salmon, we are also doing our part to support our fishing communities and help maintain public support for protecting the salmon rivers of the Pacific West.”
Consumers are increasingly demanding wild salmon for its delicious flavor and its health benefits. By contrast, farmed salmon contains fewer healthy nutrients, and can be contaminated with toxins like PCBs. Farmed salmon also infect wild salmon with parasites and disease, creating additional burdens on wild populations.
In recent years, salmon fishing has be closed or significantly limited along most of the West Coast because fish populations from three of the most productive salmon watersheds in the world – the Sacramento, the Columbia-Snake, and the Klamath river basins – are collapsing. The problem is not overfishing. Out-dated dams, runaway water diversions, and government inaction are taking a lethal toll on wild salmon. The grim result are some of the most sweeping fishing closures in West Coast history, costing the region’s economy hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of family-wage jobs.
Federal judges have been forced to become involved in managing all three rivers because the federal government, which operates dams and water diversion projects on all three rivers, repeatedly produces inadequate salmon protection plans and refuses to follow the science that says wild salmon need cold, free-flowing rivers and streams to thrive. When salmon habitat disappears, so do the wild salmon.
Despite the grim news of recent years, the festival’s goal is to highlight the economic, cultural, and culinary value of salmon. Restaurant owners understand that consumers can ensure that wild salmon conservation remains a priority for policy makers both nationally and regionally. “Consumers can make a difference by choosing wild-caught Pacific salmon in their favorite restaurants and markets, and urging Congress to take real steps to protect and restore salmon habitat,” added Laura Anderson of Local Ocean Seafoods. “
Wild salmon is the natural choice for our health, our environment, and our economy,” said Jim McCarthy of the conservation organization Earthjustice.
At a rally on Sunday, June 1, all SalmonAid participants will call on Congress to help ensure the future of healthy populations of wild salmon and the rivers upon which they depend.
Fishing Communities Need Help Too
The commercial fishing closures of 2005, 2006, and 2008 have seriously impacted fishing communities, consumers, and associated businesses throughout the Pacific Northwest. This year’s closure of West Coast salmon fisheries will be one of the largest single fishery closures in our nation’s history. Fishermen and distributors who have spent decades building their livelihoods on the availability of this naturally renewable resource have been left floundering, while consumers faced shortages and higher prices wherever local salmon is available. SalmonAid supports efforts to provide urgently needed disaster relief for fishing communities.
OCSC Fundraiser brings in over $7000 for SalmonAid!
Our thanks go out to the Central California Joint Cable Fisheries Liaison Committee for awarding a $25,000 Grant to SalmonAid.
For more info go to: http://www.slofiberfish.org/
Two-Day SalmonAid 2008 Festival in Oakland Announced
Contact: Captain Mike Hudson, 510-528- 6575
Event modeled after Farm Aid to support beleaguered salmon fishing communities and freshwater salmon habitat
Oakland, CA -- What could be the largest coalition of West Coast commercial, recreational and tribal fishermen ever created are partnering with environmental organizations, chefs, restaurants, scientists, and others to host a two-day event celebrating wild salmon. SalmonAid, modeled loosely after Farm Aid, will take place at Oakland's Jack London Square on May 31 & June 1, 2008. The outdoor event will feature live music acts, educational forums, children’s activities, speakers and a chance for the public to enjoy and buy fresh, wild caught salmon directly from the fishermen who will dock their boats in the Oakland estuary at Jack London Square. Captain Sig Hansen of the Bering Sea crab boat Northwestern, featured on Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch, is one of many scheduled speakers who will talk about the contribution salmon fishing makes to the health and the economy of the west coast.
Event organizers hope to raise awareness of the plight of west coast salmon populations as well as the many communities that rely on salmon for their livelihood and survival. The festival will feature booths highlighting the natural history of salmon, as well as the history, culture and traditions of salmon towns on the coast from Morro Bay, California to Bellingham, Washington.
Currently only about 1500 commercial salmon fishermen still fish ocean waters forsalmon off Washington, Oregon and California. They supply one of our Nation’s healthiest foods to Americans coast to coast. But salmon populations in California, Oregon, Washington State, and Idaho have declined dramatically in recent years, primarily due to human-made destruction of the freshwater river and stream habitat that salmon depend upon for reproduction and rearing.
The festival comes after several particularly poor years of salmon fishing across the coast. Recent problems for the California and Oregon salmon fishery trace back to the massive 2002 Klamath River fish kill, which occurred when federal officials diverted river flows to upstream farms. Thejuvenile fish kills during subsequent years caused by the Klamath dams have also had a devastasting impact. These four dams are currently up for renewal and many state and federal agencies say should be removed to help restore the Klamath’s severely depressed salmon runs.
The Columbia and Snake Rivers were once home to the world’s greatest runs of salmon. These populations today however have been devastated primarily by thet construction of dams and other forms of habitat destruction. Since 1991, the federal government has failed in its responsibilities to protect and restore endangered stocks throughout the basin. Pressure is intensifying on four costly and out-dated dams in the lower Snake River, which block access for salmon to thousands of miles of high quality habitat.
Sacramento River salmon have recently been beset with their own problems stemming from record high water withdrawals from the San Francisco Bay delta in recent years.