Photo of volunteer holding up a live striped bass stranded during the Prospect Island Fish Kill of November 2007 prior to a historic rescue effort by anglers. Photo by Dan Bacher.
Feb. 1, 2012 - Hundreds of anglers, conservationists and supporters of Delta fish restoration will be attending the Fish and Game Commission meeting in Sacramento on Thursday, February 2 at 8:30 a.m. to oppose the Department of Fish and Game's striped bass eradication proposal. The meeting will held at the Resources Building in the First Floor Auditorium, 1416 Ninth Street, in Sacramento.
The eradication proposal, the "request for the authorization to publish notice of the Commission intent to amend the striped bass regulations," is number 9 on the agenda. There will be two special presentations, the first by the Department of Fish and Game and the second by the Allied Fishing Groups.
"Fishing regulations are supposed to be based on the best available science," said John Beuttler, spokesman for the Allied Fishing Groups. "These regulations are not based on the best available science."
Members of the California Striped Bass Association, Coastside Fishing Club, Water for Fish, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Golden Gate Salmon Association, Federation of Fly Fishers, Northern California Council, and other groups will be there in force to oppose the adoption of the DFG proposal.
The DFG proposal would raise the daily bag limit for striped bass from two to six fish, raise the possession limit from two to 12 fish and lower the minimum size from 18 to 12 inches in order to reduce alleged "predation" of Central Valley salmon and Delta smelt by stripers.
It would also establish a hot spot for striped bass fishing at Clifton Court Forebay and specified adjacent waterways at which the daily bag limit will be 20 fish, the possession limit will be 40 fish and there will be no size limit. Anglers fishing at the hot spot would be required to fill out a report card and deposit it in an iron ranger or similar receptacle.
The Allied Fishing Groups, in a letter to the Commission on January 17, voiced their "complete opposition" to the DFG's proposed changes to the striped bass sport fishing regulations for a number of reasons.
"Adopting this proposal would be a violation of the Departments and the Commissions fiduciary obligations to hold the publics fish and wildlife resources in trust and manage them at sustainable population levels in accord with the Commissions policies and statutory responsibilities including your striped bass management policy (See Fish and Game Code sections: 703, 711.7, 1017, 1301, 1600, 1700, 1802, 2761, 2780, 7050, 7070, 7072)," the letter stated.
"Since the striped bass fishery has declined from some 3 to 4 million adult fish in the 1960s to 650,000 today, its collapse has paralleled that of several runs of listed salmonids that utilize the Bay-Delta estuary. Its clear all of these fisheries are not being managed on a sustainable basis," the groups said.
The Golden Gate Salmon Association (GGSA) has sponsored an alternate proposal for the Commission to "dedicate a much greater percentage of unimpaired runoff in the winter and spring to Delta inflows and outflows, and generally restore more natural flow patterns throughout the year, in order to provide habitat conditions that promote much greater survival of native species populations and reduce the effects of predation."
The proposal also advises the Commission to "aggressively remove hot spots where striped bass and other predators can congregate and easily attack juvenile native fish." (http://goldengatesalmonassociation.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Striper-Proposal-GGSA-Final.pdf)
The DFG striped bass eradication proposal is the result of a court settlement of a lawsuit between the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, an agribusiness "Astroturf" group representing San Joaquin Valley corporate growers. This group is housed in Stewart Resnick's headquarters for Paramount Farms in Kern County. Resnick is the politically connected Beverly Hills billionaire and largest tree fruit grower in the world who has made tens of millions of dollars annually from buying and reselling water back to the state for a big profit.
The Coalition claims that the striped bass, an East Coast fish introduced to the Sacramento over 120 years ago, should not be protected because the fish supposedly prey on protected chinook salmon and Delta smelt. The Coalition is trying to blame striped bass "predation" for the decline of salmon and smelt in order to divert attention from record exports out of the Delta in recent years that resulted in the 2008-2009 Central Valley fall salmon collapse, in addition to the collapse of Delta smelt, longsfin smelt, threadfin shad, young striped bass and other species. The coalition's backers want to divert more Delta water to San Joaquin Valley growers and southern California.
Agency staff "salvaged" over 11 million fish, including a record 9 million imperiled Sacramento splittail, in the state and federal pumps in 2011. Scientists estimate that the actual amount of fish lost in the pumps is 5 to 10 times the "salvage" numbers.
Last year was also a record one for water exports from the Delta. The total water exported was 6,633,000 acre-feet in 2011 163,000 acre-feet more than the previous record of 6,470,000 acre-feet set in 2005, according to DWR data. (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2011/12/30/states-first-snow-survey-follows-record-water-export-year)
It is noteworthy that Resnick sits on the Board of Conservation International, a corporate environmental NGO, with Walmart Chairman Rob Walton. Walton's Walton Family Foundation dumped $36 million into ocean privatization efforts through "catch shares" programs and the creation of so-called "marine protected areas" in 2010 in an attempt to kick sustainable recreational and commercial fishermen off the water.
Resnick and Walton's Conservation International received the top amount, $18,640,917, of the five NGOs receiving Walmart money to promote ocean "conservation" programs including marine protected areas similar to those imposed by the privately funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative in California. (http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/30/the-worst-of-the-one-percent).
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