SACRAMENTO, California — California will halve its production of steelhead trout and chinook salmon at a major fish hatchery this fall because the federal government hasn’t increased its funding, a state official said Thursday.
What happened: The Bureau of Reclamation is providing $2.5 million in the current fiscal year to the state of California to run the Nimbus Fish Hatchery on the American River in Northern California — less than the $3.16 million state wildlife officials estimated would be necessary to run at full capacity. The payments are meant to compensate the state for the impact of the federally owned Folsom and Nimbus dams, which block the commercially caught fish from their natural spawning habitats farther upriver.
As a result, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife is planning to cut in half its production of fall-run chinook salmon smolt and steelhead trout, according to spokesperson Peter Tira.
Why this matters: The millions of juvenile fish usually released at Nimbus Hatchery each year are meant to prop up declining wild fish populations throughout the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, though they haven’t been enough to avert three commercial salmon fishing season closures in a row. A reduction in Nimbus hatchery salmon, which traditionally represent 7 to 30 percent of the salmon caught commercially in the ocean off California, is a bad sign for future fishing seasons because it could translate into even lower numbers of grown fish.
