SalmonAid 2009 Festival - June 20 & 21

When – June 20 & 21, Noon–7pm

Where – Jack London Square, Oakland, CA

Come join The Bay Institute at the SalmonAid 2009 Festival in Oakland's Jack London Square June 20 & 21 for a festival of food, music, and culture. SalmonAid 2009 features an impressive line-up of musicians, sustainable seafoods, educational forums, demonstrations from First Nation’s tribes, children’s activities, films, speakers, and more.

TBI and a coalition of commercial, recreational and tribal fishermen, conservation organizations, slow food chefs, and scientists are coming together to honor wild Pacific salmon. This year's theme will be “Restore Rivers, Recover Salmon, Rebuild Jobs.”

SalmonAID 2009 responds to the continuing wild salmon disaster along the Pacific Coast and the closure of the salmon fishing season along the Pacific Coast throughout California and most of Oregon.

Currently about 1500 commercial salmon fishermen fish ocean waters for salmon 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 mismanagement of the freshwater river and stream habitat that salmon depend upon for reproduction and rearing.

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. The juvenile fish kills during subsequent years caused by the Klamath dams have also had a devastating impact. Many state and federal agencies say these dams should be removed to help restore the Klamath’s severely depressed salmon runs.

In the last few years, Sacramento River salmon have been beset by record high water withdrawals from the San Francisco Bay-Delta and over allocation of water supplies from dams in the Central Valley. The Sacramento River hosts two endangered populations of Chinook salmon and an endangered population of steelhead (a migratory form of rainbow trout).

Dr. Jon Rosenfield, Conservation Biologist for the Bay Institute, said “Commercial fishermen and sport boat operators willingly missed their season entirely last year in order to support wild populations spawning in the rivers – but their sacrifice may have been in vain. The federal and state water projects failed to manage water resources to protect the salmon and steelhead populations that are precariously close to extinction. They ignored the crisis entirely.”

Similarly, wild salmon populations on the Columbia and Snake Rivers, once home to the world’s greatest runs, have been devastated primarily by the construction of dams and other forms of habitat destruction. Since 1991, the federal government has failed to produce a plan (required under the Endangered Species Act) to protect and restore endangered stocks throughout the basin. Pressure is intensifying to remove four costly and out-dated dams in the lower Snake River, which block access for salmon to thousands of miles of high quality habitat.

SalmonAid’s nearly three dozen member organizations are calling for progress towards removing outdated dams on several rivers, and enforcement of existing environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act and Clean Water Act.