Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture

All right. Good afternoon. Thank you all for joining us and welcome to the Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture. We're going to call the meeting together. On behalf of the Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture. We're going to welcome you to the annual Zeke Greater Fisheries for forum in today's hearing serves as California State of the Fishery.

And we are truly appreciative that folks have come from far and wide to be able to be here today. A few housekeeping items before we get right into it.

We have folks who are participating remotely now that the technical difficulties have been fixed and again want to say thank you so much to the technical team for all the work on that. And of course we're coming to you from room to 2200 in the capital just for a few items.

Obviously, we're not permitted any conduct that disrupts the hearing. Any individual that advances that type of conduct will be immediately escorted out. We are going to be having remote participation here today.

We're going to respectfully request those who are participating online that each time you're recognized, if you don't mind just hitting that pop up window that will appear in asking you to unmute. So make sure that you hit that.

And we do have some technical advisors who are going to be on Zoom with you and really appreciate you participating today for public comment. We are going to welcome public comment.

The way we'd like to be able to run, if it works for each and every one of you, is we'd like to be able to get through each of the panels and then at the end we're going to be taking public comment. And public comment will be limited to two minutes.

And we again cannot say how grateful we are to have each and every one of you here today. We are so appreciative that Senator Curtase is here as well. The good Senator. Nice to see you, sir. We appreciate you being here today. So let's talk about what is in front of us.

We're going to hear from governmental leaders, representatives of the commercial fleet, top scientists and environmental leaders Here at the 50th annual Zeet Grater Fisheries Forum. We have panels focused on salmon, on Dungeness crab, kelp, the blob. I was just hearing people from Mr. Ogg, who's been up fishing in Oregon, 68 degrees. He has never seen it warmer.

And it's just that impact that we're seeing in the Pacific right now. And we're going to hear from various fishery committees who are required to report to the Legislature each and every year.

I think that we can all agree fisheries on the West Coast, especially salmon and Dungeness crab, both top tier, have been incredibly challenged over the past several years. And it seems for every step forward that we take, two steps are taken back. And the the latest that we're seeing is on government funding from the federal level.

Funds have been reduced for Noah across the West Coast and of course across the nation. And we're also seeing that fiscal cliff based off of the shutdown. And we'll wait to see the total ramifications and how long that shutdown lasts and here in the coming days. But here in the Golden State we continue to do our part.

We're beginning to roll out a few $1.0 billion from Proposition 4. And I want to say thank you so much to the voters who stepped up to be able to Fund Proposition 4. If I could be so candid, we would be in real trouble if we did not see Proposition 4 funding in the State of California.

And a lot of those dollars are focused on mitigating the impacts of the climate crisis, especially within the coastal zone. And a lot of those funds are being invested in watershed and coastal restoration and forest health, which is absolutely critical long term to the health of the salmon fishery.

This year the Legislature and the Governor have appropriated a total of about $267 million for coastal resilience. 24 million of that is, is pegged for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. We're going to hear from the Director in just a moment for parental salmon tagging and of course climate ready fisheries management, which is absolutely critical.

And 12 million has been allocated to the Ocean Protection Council for the restoration and management of kelp ecosystems as well as restoration of island ecosystems. We're going to hear more on the challenges with kelp in just a few moments.

In addition, 256 million in Prop 4 funds have been allocated to the Wildlife Conservation Board for actions to protect and enhance Fish and Wildlife resources.

So this hearing could not come at a more critical time to be able to get the facts straight, talk about the challenges and how we can all work towards solutions in the months and years to come. I want to wrap it up right here and just say this. We are living in challenging times.

Our government politics with the climate. We've had some wins though. We had the first recreational salmon fishing season in California in three years. The challenge that we continue to see no commercial salmon fishing for the third straight year. And that has had a massive impact on rural coastal communities, especially in Northern California. A win though.

We cleared four dams in the Klamath River, unlocking more than 500 miles of Salmon Habitat. That would not have happened without the work of our Secretary of Natural Resources, the Governor, and of course, the Biden Administration. For all of their work, we would have never seen that happen.

Dungeons crab season yielded a strong catch last year, even though it was a truncated season and with delays and restrictions, about 7 bucks a pound last year for Dungeness crab, total fishery was worth about 50 million. But obviously there are continued concerns.

We're going to hear more from the Director and of course, our panel on Dungeness crab in just a few moments. I'll end it here and say protecting preserving our state's fisheries and aquaculture is vital. It is vital to the long term health of rural economies up and down this state.

And then it is also key to the social and cultural diversity we celebrate here in California, especially with tribal nations. So let's talk about what we have in store today. First, we're going to hear from state leaders about the State of the fishery.

Next we're going to talk about the challenges and opportunities surrounding salmon in the Golden State. Following that, we're going to get the outlook for the 2025-2026 Dungeness Crab Season. We're going to then hear all about the health of kelp.

We're going to talk about that hot blob that is the largest that we've ever seen in the Pacific. And then we're going to get a glimpse at the fishery Committee and aquaculture program reports. So without further ado, and I know that he is one of the busiest in the capital and that is Wade Crowfoot.

And we'd like to move directly into our first panel, and that is with the Secretary of Natural Resources as well as Department of Fish and Wildlife. Secretary Crowfoot has led the California Natural resources agency since 2019.

And I got to say, just working with him directly, I'd say one of the most engaged individuals that I have ever met in state service. If you were to ask him what's going on in the Jackson State demonstration force, or what's happened in the eel or what's going down in El Viso, he will know it.

And it is because he returns phone calls, he returns emails, he engages with the public. And, and we are really grateful for your work, Mr. Secretary. You're going to be giving us an update on all issues from the agency. The floor is yours. And we're grateful that you're here.

Thank you so much, Senator and Senators, for the opportunity to speak. And thank you for holding this every year. California is a big state. We have a lot of economic priorities and environmental challenges. And the Z Greater Fisheries Forum keeps us focused and it brings us together.

It's a forcing function to, to update on the State of play with our fisheries and understand where we're making progress and where we have continued challenges. As you point out, it's been a very challenging decade. You know, two millennial droughts in just over a decade.

So called because science told us that those droughts would only happen once every thousand years. And we've had two of them. They've battered the health of our rivers. They've brought species to the brink. They've meant fishery closures and all the livelihood impacts that they've had. And those same droughts have put 5 million Californians under water rationing.

And believe it or not, at the end of 2022, with the end of the driest three years in California history, we had the salmon situation. We had 5 million people under the water rationing. We were preparing for 20 million underwater rationing had we not had those string of atmospheric rivers.

I think, as Director Bonham and others may note, there are cause for, you know, there's cause for optimism in some of the recovery of at least some of the runs in the past couple of years recognizing salmon have this triennial life cycle.

But we still have, you know, we still have huge major challenges and the biggest challenges lie ahead. You know, the fishing sector has been very clear on how discouraged they are by the State of their ability to have a livelihood. And it's been remarkable to see their perseverance.

I was prepared to touch on some high level points, many of which that you already, you already touched on. But I think, you know, I appreciate this forum every year being so clear eyed in terms of the challenges. I think at the same time, let's reflect on some progress that has been made.

Clearly the Klamath River Dam removal that has been led by the perseverance of tribes. Over the last 20 years. The Yurok, the Karuk and other tribes has gained global attention to demonstrate that big things are possible.

The removal of four defunct dams, the restoration of 400 miles of habitat, the return of salmon not in years or months or weeks, but in days into that restored river that's once again living in its full form. Big shout out to Director Bonham and so many allies that supported that tribal leadership.

Director Bonham was working on Klamath Dam removal actually for the last 25 years, long before he was in state government. More progress to be made. More progress has been made beyond the Klamath River.

Many don't know that the largest wetland restoration in the delta took place with Lookout Slough, several thousand acres inundated for the imperiled endangered species of the delta. And that's just. Those are just big projects. There's all sorts of small projects underway, thanks to funding from the Legislature and the Governor.

There's really a no regret strategy to restore floodplains, to restore habitat, and to restore flows. We know that the combination of restored flows and restored habitat and more adaptive management, more nimble management, is the key to recovering these fisheries. And we have seen.

We've seen progress on that front in the ocean, which is, of course, as you point out, challenged in so many ways by climate change and ocean acidification, the loss of oxygen, hypoxia, the harmful algal blooms.

More progress, the Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Ocean Protection Council getting money out the door to reduce the risk of entanglement of sea life in fishing gear, which has been critical not only for the survival of remarkable species like the whale, but for the ability of those fishing seasons to happen.

So we'll look forward to hearing from Director Bonham and others. On that January of last year, we aggregated all that we're working on to restore the health of aquatic habitats, the rivers, the delta, into an effort or document we call the state's Salmon Strategy for a Hotter, Drier Future.

And it's not that we decided all of a sudden that we were going to prioritize this, but we've been doing all of this work that's been fairly decentralized, and we wanted to hold ourselves accountable for putting this in one place.

So Director Bonham led an effort to put all in one place exactly what we're doing and what we need to do in order to hold ourselves accountable. Removing stream barriers, restoring aquatic habitat, bolstering stream flows at important times, expanding floodplains, restoring wetlands. And we made progress. We provided an update earlier this year.

And I won't bore you with numbers, but for those who want to check it out, action by action, we've characterized the progress that we're making, and I think we have a lot to be proud of. The way I would put it is proud of our progress with the hardest work ahead.

Proposition 4 has the potential to be a game changer.

We've developed sort of a task force within our agency to identify all the funding streams within Prop 4 that can advance that salmon strategy or that set of actions that we're taking to Restore the health of our rivers and aquatic habitat and numbers that we think there's upwards, you know, of a universe of $1.4 billion in that bond that can advance the salmon strategy actions and that of that the Legislature and the Governor have approved about 376 million.

Now, these are in different pots of money. They're competitive. It's not suggesting that all of this necessarily goes to priority actions for salmon and our fisheries, but the potential is there.

And you've got folks across Fish and Wildlife, Natural Resources Agency, our conservancies, Department of Water Resources, all focused on how to optimize Prop 4 funding for the benefit of our rivers and fisheries.

Last point of progress I'd raise is our effort to cut green tape to reduce the time and expense of taking the environmental actions we need to take.

When I took office, gosh, seven years ago, I heard from conservation groups that sometimes a third of their budget for a project was spent on the planning and environmental permitting for a restoration project.

So thanks to Director Bonham, Chair Joaquin Esquivel at the Water Board, we've shifted that paradigm and made it much easier to get good projects in the ground. And I hope, Director Bonham, you'll be able to share real specific objective facts in terms of money saved and time saved getting these improvements in the ground.

Last point I'll make, and then I'll turn it over, is we have to continue to break down silos and, you know, and the conflict that holds us back from achieving what we need to on water. The fact is climate change is terribly disruptive with our water systems. It's not fis versus farms, north versus south, urban versus rural.

It's we need to balance these needs and we need to take care of the health of our rivers and our people. I'll say that I'm increasingly inspired by the connection between land conservation and water conservation led by tribes.

Earlier this year, I had a chance to visit the Machupta tribe in Big Chico Creek in Butte County, where they're partnering with the University to actually get land back, ancestral land return funded by the state Legislature and the Governor, and then put that to use, actually managing the land for the benefit of salmonoid recovery.

What tribes have educated us is that actually prescribed fire, cultural fire, was used not only to reduce wildfire risk, but to actually cool temperatures for fish in the summer. So breaking down this distinction between land and water conservation is important.

And then lastly, just again, finding common ground so that we can restore the health of our fisheries and rivers, build the certainty of our water supply. It's never going to be an Oregon, an either or. It's always going to be an and.

So, Senator, just huge thanks for your years of leadership on this and your leadership once again of this forum.

No, thank you so much, Mr. Secretary. I know that you are going to need to roll out here in just a moment. What I'd like to be able to do is I just want to make sure that you were able to share your opening statement.

I want to say thank you so much to Senator Cortese, who's also joining us here today. And I want to see Senator Cortese has any opening remarks or any questions for the secretary. And we're grateful that you're here. Senator Cortese, it's really great to see you, sir.

Thank you. It's great to be here. And I appreciate, you know, having been appointed to this Committee a couple years ago. It's it's one of the better places to be in terms of getting the kind of information that we need to do our jobs, try to help you folks out. I don't have a lot of big questions.

There's two or three things that popped into my head while you were you were talking in terms of restoration of fisheries riparian areas.

The last example you just gave in Butte County, in Santa Clara County, with the miles and miles, you know, I think there's if you go, if you go by the area that was consumed by fire, 600,000 acres, most of which is in my district, which is hard for people to believe since I I represent 80% of San Jose, essentially Silicon Valley.

And I hate to hit you with this question, especially if you're in a big hurry, but maybe, you know, maybe the, you know, the nutshell version of the novel, I know it's an area that the pro tem is interested in, too, always has been.

Given his district and otherwise illegal gross. We have riparian areas in the Mount Hamilton Range, Diabolt Range that are, that are populated with trout. They are spring fed. They always have been. They come down from the highest altitude, you know, and generally source pick up volume and depth and quantity of water.

And when you get into the fall of the year here, you know, it's a real important time for habitat was happening the last few years outside of drought years is all of a sudden we're seeing that water dry up.

If you're out in the rangeland or you talk to the range associations, they'll tell you there's all kinds of water. You know, the springs are. Are trying to feed those corridors. So what's happening? So people are making.

Drawing conclusions sometimes from law enforcement information, sometimes from what we think we just know from doing these jobs for a long time and sometimes anecdotal. How big of an issue is that? That's all I'm really asking.

And you know, it's something I think, something I think a lot, a lot of Members of the Legislature have some experience with and would like to follow up on. Like to be helpful with.

Yeah, I'll just say at the highest level and I'll turn it over to Director Bonham because he's spending a lot of time on it. It's a big deal. You know, in certain parts of the state, these illegal cannabis grows are decimating the environment.

Not only are they diverting water, but they're introducing illegal pesticides, rodenticides that are getting into the ecosystem. They're horrible. I mean they're. And that's just on the environmental. From the environmental standpoint. So as Director Bonham will share, there has been increased enforcement and there is a focus on continuing to increase enforcement. Get those illegal grows out.

You know, like I said, like I would say on these other topics. Proud of some of our progress, but with more work ahead. But maybe Director Bonham and if it's.

All right, Director Bonham, I'm going to have you. I know you have opening remarks that you're going to be providing. I'll just wait for my answer. Yeah, that's great.

I can build.

That's perfect.

Whichever you prefer.

Right after your opening remarks, if that's okay. Anything else for Secretary Crowfoot before he has to roll out?

Appreciate your. Appreciate your work. And I think as for my office, we'd love to, you know, to get, you know, whatever the information is sort of the audit trail on some of those restoration projects, especially the ones that the tribes are helping fund and drive just as best practices.

Absolutely. And would love to share more about the progress of wetland restoration as well in the bay thanks to Measure AA. And there's a lot of great work happening in your district.

Deal in my office. Thank you. And I appreciate the pro tem mentioning Alviso a little while ago. Thanks. There we go.

You know, hot deal.

Thank you. No, thank you so much. Secretary, before you head out and I know you have another meeting, just quick glimpse and some of this is in a crystal ball.

All right.

Yeah.

Your prediction over the next 12 to 24 months in regards to federal funding. We have been attached to the hip with the Federal Government when it comes to restoration work across the state.

A lot of federal funds are coming in for restoration work, both on cold water habitat for creeks and streams, but then also obviously forestry restoration throughout the state. What's your prediction on that? And I can't believe it's going to be very, it's going to be a bit dire.

I mean, I would say all bets are off. I can tell you that we're working professionally with our colleagues in these federal agencies to make the case for continued investments. These are investments that support rural economies. They support the fishing sector. They demonstrate success. And we've seen cuts to these projects as recently as last week.

So our focus is doing what we can through state funding and again cutting the bureaucracy to get these projects in place and to continue to make the case. I can tell you this, as remarkable as the state investment has been, thanks to you all and Governor Newsom, it's not enough.

You know, the Federal Government simply can't divest in our fisheries in order for our fisheries to recover. Just can't happen. So we'll continue to make the case for that and to persevere. But you know, I just want to be clear eyed that we haven't, we haven't seen signs of support from this new Administration really in any respect.

Yeah. And I think that the, the ongoing concern will be, and I don't want to predetermine, but with the stateside funds that are available, that is supposed to look at program expansion, project expansion across the state, some of this may have to be used to be able to backfill some of what we may lose.

Again, I don't want to look into that crystal ball too far, but we're in a situation of do or die on some of these projects.

Well, and I'll say the, you know, the hasty and disorganized cutting of large portions of the federal workforce, not only impact projects that haven't happened. They impact operations.

Right now, you know, our federal network of refuges, for example, we've been very concerned around those early cuts from DOGE and what they did to those programs and those federal facilities.

And now with the shutdown, there continues to be uncertainty even as we speak here today about will there be enough federal staff to actually operate the facilities that the Federal Government right now has the responsibility to operate? 100%.

Secretary, thank you. Very, very grateful that you're here. Appreciate your work, sir, and sincerely meant what I said is that you are active and engaged and you deliver and you're really good at the governmental side.

And then also what I really appreciate is, is that you directly engage folks at the community level and especially when times are hot. That's what folks expect. And I am grateful for that leadership style, sir.

Well, and lastly, I'll just say this has been a remarkable seven years since I've been in this role. And if you look at the amount of funding that our legislative leaders have delivered in partnership with the Governor, there's no comparison.

So we are doing more than we ever have, even as the challenges are greater than they've ever been. 110%.

Thank you so much, Secretary Crofite. Appreciate you. Thank you for being here. Ladies and gentlemen, Committee, we're now going to be turning over to the longest serving Director of the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Grateful for his work. He's going to be updating us on the Department priorities for 2026.

He's going to be focusing on salmon fishery issues, Dungeons Crab fishing issues, and then obviously all other fishery and aquaculture items. We had a report. Director, bottom the floor is yours. We're grateful for your leadership, sir. Welcome.

Great. Thank you. Senator, Committee Members, I'd like to do three things. I'd like to step back and do a quick survey across many different fishery updates. Then I'd like to Zoom in and talk a moment just about salmon.

And then I'll end by backing up again and closing with remaining like fishery updates and address the Senator's question about illegal cannabis cultivation. Maybe in your position. I know in my position I'm often either hearing complaint or compliment and can be both on the same topic. And that is true for some of our fishery issues, of course.

But to begin, what I really want to do, because I'm not sure who's watching and I have the captive microphone for a moment, is help people understand all California, all the Department of Fish and Wildlife is doing for the public interest for those Things that live in the ocean.

So this is one of our oldest core work areas at the department. When you go into our files, you can find historical photos there. The black and white photos of sailboats, literally schooners, men and women doing scientific work in the ocean and managing the historic fisheries like read about as youth at Cannery Row and anchovies and sardines.

And when you think about this context and look even to the beginning of time. Of course, we've had indigenous people, Native American tribes, sustainably managing in the ocean since the beginning of the time and in their cultures. If you're an angler, you've got hope baked into your DNA.

Whether you're a recreationalist or a commercialist, every time you throw that line out, you're hopeful that you'll catch something. It's not a strategy hope, but it is something you can base joy in and think about the positive.

So here are a couple of things that were happening at the end of 2024 coming into this year, which I think are an expression of that hope and that joy.

At the end the summer and end of last year, we had a ground fish based boat season for the first time in the Calcod conservation area in more than 20 years. So you're always hearing about loss of opportunity. Here's a tangible new opportunity after 20 years.

At the end of last year, we celebrated the 75th anniversary of something called the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigation Program. That is the biggest, longest kind of effort to gather information in the fisheries space that's been conducted on the West Coast.

And then when you start to think about the work the Department does for you, our constituents, it's spread across about 5,800 square miles. San Francisco Bay is included. San Pablo Bay to the Carquinez Bridge is included. And then you can look at the states still thriving, and we need to help them thrive more port areas.

Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Eureka, San Diego, Bodega Bay, Monterey, Fort Bragg, Morro Bay. Looking at the data for 2024 and we aren't complete on 2025, folks brought in 117,684,000 pounds of seafood, a total ex vessel, which means the amount paid to the fisherman, man or woman, at the dock was about 190 million.

And in our commercial fishing space, the top value fishery for quite some time has been market squid, and it came in at about 67 million. It's also the top weight, about 130,000 pounds.

You can break these dynamics out in a lot of different statistics, but we still have when you look at vessel registration and fishing license, about 3,000 vessels that are out there trying to make a living on the Ocean and about 5,500 licenses that are being sold in the commercial fishing space.

Overall, you can start to try to understand our top fisheries. You can look at that by weight or value weight. You really Sea Squid, Dungeness Crab, Anchovies, Sardine. When you go to value, you have some fish that really aren't weight, if you will, at the dock, but are incredibly valuable.

So you'll see market squid at the top of both. Dungeness Crab up in that perennial second place, right behind Squid. But then you'll see Spiny Lobster come up, not much weight, but a lot of value. Red Sea Urchin, Halibut.

So then you can turn to our recreationalist and you can see kind of what's going on in that space. Over the course of 2024, we collected data from about 77,000 angler trips. So hardworking men and women who are your public employees, engaging with anglers at the dock, running them through questionnaires.

That's an estimated recreational fishing trip in our ocean waters of 2.1 million fishing trips. That's its own industry in your districts. For all the secondary services that relate to people coming in and out of our coastal areas. Total fish caught in that recreational space last year, an estimated 4.2 million.

And we know that from measurements collected from about 80,000 fish. You can also get a sense of what people like to fish for recreationally. The tunas are extremely popular.

And in one of the most ironic but super depressing dynamics around a warming ocean, we may be seeing tuna way further north, farther north than we've ever seen them before. Rockfish comes in kind of second. Our Halibuts, our Sandabs, our Soles, our Starry Flounder. That's kind of where you see our top tier, most preferred recreational fisheries.

When you think about licenses sold in the recreational space, we're selling about 1.5 million recreational angling licenses a year. I'd say that's in the bound of pretty predictable for the last couple of decades, a little bit more, a little bit less. We sell a lot of Spiny Lobster report cards, about 33,000.

And I think right now in Southern California, we have the opening of the lobster fishery going on. Our marine staff actually also do a lot of permitting with our Commission. They're putting out experimental fishing permits, which we'll talk about in a moment.

In the crab space, they're doing a lot of permitting for the Collection of Science, particularly in our MPA network, All the researchers need permission to be in those spaces and take fish for purposes of their science. We're doing artificial reef work. We're out with probably almost 20 different types of vessels doing all of this scientific work.

And then when you think with our enforcement staff, we have 50 full time wildlife officers out in the ocean. They're on seven large patrol vessels and several large skiffs everywhere from the border with Baja all the way to the border with Oregon doing enforcement. That's the broadness of the work.

And then when you zoom in on particular fisheries, I'm a salmon person by passion and by prior careers. So let's talk a little bit about where we are in salmon. Everyone in this room knows we've had a very difficult three years.

But just as the Senator mentioned in his opening, we've had a couple of moments of super fantastic joy. This summer, after two years of complete closure, people got to go out with their families and their kids and fish in the ocean.

That happened in the summer season in early June with great conditions, lots of participants, high catch rates. We, we caught our 7,000 fish recreational harvest kind of guideline in a short two days, early June. But people loved it. They remembered what they used to be doing and it has created great optimism.

We did this again in fall recently, the beginning of September, September 4 through 7. It was a much smaller geographic area, Point Reyes down to Point Sur. Same kind of dynamic. In a quick couple of days, a lot of people out, success rates, high happiness.

We were able to do this in part because we did something for the first time working through the federal process, our state leaders in the fisheries, tribes and others. Our Department deployed a guideline, a harvest catch rate guideline where we set an upper limit.

We tracked it instantaneously and we called the fishery off when we got close to that benchmark. It's the first time we've tried it. Technology is helping us do more of that. I foresee that as part of our future. The docks were bustling, so now let's talk about the future.

I, of course, can't make a guarantee as I sit here in September or October of 2025. We won't fully know until we get into the early spring of next year. But I'm very optimistic. We're going to have both a recreational season and one of our first commercial seasons in quite some time.

Can't guarantee it, but all the anecdotal information we're getting from folks in the ocean, a lot of our preliminary work indicates We've got more fish, more fish than we've had in the last three years.

And part of that is just based on the simple fact it's rained more going back three years ago in the last several years than than it was right before that in the period of drought.

So when you think about these improved like hydrology conditions, the rain, you think about some of the surgical increased hatchery production we've been doing around Fall Run Chinook. You think about your investment in our technologies around parental based tagging, our ability to fine tune some of our release strategies out of our hatcheries.

Preliminary data suggesting the abundance of young fish holding out in the ocean is looking pretty good, certainly much better than it has in the prior, say, three to four years. But even within those good parts of my update, there are some difficult parts. The pro tem and Secretary Crofet were talking about federal issues.

We're going to have to drastically reduce our Chinook salmon production levels at the Nimbus Fish Hatchery not too far from here up on the American River. It's owned by the Federal Government. We operate it under contract. It's been happening for like 50 years.

But due to a reduced budget, starting this fall, our fall run production levels are going to drop from around 4.5 million smolts to about 2.25 million smolts. And you can see a corresponding kind of proportional drop on steelhead production. That's an issue.

We're going to spend a lot of time trying to change the Federal Government's opinion on the contract and the amount of money. But we're in the middle of that right now. We know enough to forecast we may have to reduce some of that production.

But even when you have a moment of less joy, we can find other moments of great hope in the data we're seeing right now. Let's talk about Winter Run, one of our most consistently imperiled fisheries.

That keeps the whole fisheries dynamic kind of in a more curtailed, conservative approach because we have so few of them, we have to manage for that heightened risk. We're expecting higher than average natural production of Winter Run this year.

And a lot of that's reflected by some of our calculations on the estimates of how many reds, which as you all know, are kind of the nesting bed created in the water in the riverbed for the young fish. We're seeing an estimate of a little over 3000 redds right now in a part of the Sacramento system.

And that's a high number. And when you think about that, coupled with the good Spawning incubation temperatures, the low rates of red dewatering. We're actually feeling really optimistic about a turnaround in the winter run compared to where it was three years or five years ago.

Livingston Stone National Fish Hatchery as an example, has met their spawning targets, and that's good this soon. And then when you turn to spring run, we're seeing really strong returns in Mill and Deer Creeks, Butte Creek compared to more recent history.

And we go to Deer Creek, we've been doing adult snorkel counts from this summer, and we see 343 adults. Last year it was 33. A year before that it was only 16. And when you look at video counts in that same Creek, we're at 60 fish. And a year ago that was 18.

So that field work that's being done by California's public servants in conjunction with tribes more and more across the state is showing we have reason to be optimistic as we head into 2025. Butte Creek is a similar example.

Looking at those numbers, you get a rough estimate of about 5,500 to 6,000 adults this year, which is more like 2014. And last year there were fewer than 50. Some similar stories in the Feather River on fish counted at the Department of Water Resources new fish monitoring station through last week. So things are looking good.

And then when you go very large on salmon, I've got to come back to where we were two years ago when we launched the salmon strategy. We have about two more minutes, sir. Give me one second to think about how to best use two minutes. There we go. 71 actions in the salmon strategy.

A year ago, we reported 67% were underway, 26% were fully done. Then you can turn to crab. And let me say, on crab, we owe a huge thanks to the men and women who fish for crab to you, Senator Mcguire, and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman's Associations.

We have had a very successful effort at distributing marked line. Marked line is really important because it allows us to understand which gear may be entangling marine mammals and how to attribute it to which sectors for purposes of making management decisions. We had two events, August and September.

We had over 360 Dungeness crab permitted fishermen and women show up. We've had additional distribution events across the whole coast. And we've gotten out the door about 4,000 coils of line. And we've distributed all that at no charge to folks using the $1.0 million in the OPC funding which you've helped produce through the annual budget cycle process.

Groundfish. Another great story. You Know this well because of Del Norte county, go back about 15 months ago, and we were dramatically reducing fishing opportunity for quillback and closing that. But we took a hard look at the science, the science that you support by investing in our Department.

And we realized the science was not as sharp as it should have been. And the stocks weren't as declined as many were suggesting in the federal scientific space. We've reopened it, working hard with NOAA fisheries and local communities.

Crab, as you mentioned, was a shortened season yet again, more or less starting middle end of January and wrapping up in some sort of sequence, April, May and June. But nonetheless, a lot of people on the water made $55 million, which puts the total value still within about the average. Looking backwards over the last 10 years.

Let me end with a story. I think I might have 30 seconds. And this is an example of how you can make a difference where you sit. And I can share with you the story of that success. We've been running large patrol vessels up and down the coast for a long time.

One of them, I think the swordfish, was about 20 years old. Four years ago, three years ago, in the General Fund surplus era, the Legislature approved, the Governor endorsed, an investment in our Department. We spec'd a new patrol boat. It's called the Barracuda. We have it in Half Moon Bay. Why is that important?

We were able to build it with a bigger platform on back and a better hoist technology coming out of the Stern so that when our enforcement officers are out collecting abandoned fishing gear in the ocean to reduce the risk of entangling whales, they can collect more of it on one trip, faster and more safely, saving multiple trips back to the harbor to gas and go back out.

It's an efficiency that's been produced for the good of fishermen and women and our species because of your leadership in the appropriation space. And with that, I'll send it back to you for any questions. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr. Director. Grateful for your work. Mr. Director. Before we turn over to Senator Cortese, if you want to address the issue of cannabis and those illicit grows and the impact on the fishery, please.

As I'm getting older, I'm forgetting what you're supposed to do at the panel. It's a real deal, Senator Cortese. It's been a real impact for our natural systems for some time and the Governor is taking it more serious than any other state in these United States. He has formed a unified Cannabis Enforcement Task Force.

I co chair it with the Director of Cannabis Control. It is Patterned on similar enforcement activities on illegal substances like fentanyl.

Where you sit with your intelligence gathering agencies, you sit with your local law enforcement, you sit with your Department of Justice, all of your other unified enforcement entities, and you're designing risk profiles and you're conducting operations to go after these illegal criminal enterprises that are doing harm to our environment, producing substances that can harm our people.

And our Department is specially trained to follow these criminal actors as far into the backcountry and wilderness as they may go.

So to give you examples of success on this front, between April And June of 2025, this unified task force served 214 search warrants, completed about 100 arrests and took $476 million worth of illegally cultivated cannabis off the market. Just in that short time frame. The task force has been up and running almost two years.

The total number is north of a billion have seized off the market. And just this month, September 25th, our Department did a specialized operation in the North Coast area to take off the landscape about 21,000 cannabis plants where we're still finding the use of illegal pesticides which are harmful to the environment, our employees and the public.

If it gets into the stream of commerce.

I'll just say I turn over to Senator Cortese. I think that the biggest challenge that we have and Mr. Director, feel free to chime in on this is enforcement dollars. Right? I think we had that one focus. North Coast is some of the most egregious illicit grows that one time 1.5 million.

I think that's, I think Mendocino county maybe has 300,000 left somewhere right in there. That is just the biggest challenge that we have of having the dollars be able to do these joint operations.

In many ways the challenge is reasonably well understood. One of the main transitions that appears to me is some of this illegal activity has moved off of public onto private lands which has been a transition in the recent couple of years.

But because the problem is generally understood on how to scope for scale, it really does become how do you generate the year over year capacity to apply it to the ongoing problem.

Thank you, Mr. Director. Senator Cortese, floor is yours, sir.

Thank you Chair McGuire, I appreciate the, you know, the comments and the report, the overall report on the cannabis issue.

You know, again what I was trying to say maybe a little more explicitly is we know really just by deduction that when you have, when you have a stream that's flowing or should be flowing, is flowing in certain parts of its, of its corridor and, and not in others, that in the springs that are feeding, you know, that that corridor are running, you know, typical artesian to the point where you can see surface water coming from the springs.

And you've got dried up, essentially a dried up fishery habitat. Obviously, somebody's dammed it up. Yes. And I think probably the State of the art is as simple as damming it up, putting a solar sump pump in the water and then pumping the water, you know, to irrigate. Right. Yes. This can be done all summer long.

And the driest part of some of that, you know, some of that property, private or public, I guess I would just like to know going forward what we can do. Appreciate what Chair Mcguire said about the enforcement dollars having been We've both been county supervisors, but I've been a county supervisor. There's a reluctance to.

To take sheriff deputies out of the urban area and move them up into those areas. I think on two levels. One, they're pulling them off of human enforcement activity in the urban areas. That, that may be life and death. Secondly, fear. And you know, that's real.

I've heard, you know, I've heard testimony maybe, maybe not the exact use of that word, but we don't want to go up there with insufficient boots on the ground because we might not come out.

I know without mentioning names, a Fish and Game officer from, from our area who's a tremendous reputation, I think was shot in the, in the thigh by one of those. I'm sure you're quite familiar with that. One of those perpetrators.

You know, all the reason in the world to be, you know, sort of humanly reluctant to go in without. This is something that if you were probably in some kind of combat, you'd have air support and all kinds of things helping you out. You know, not just a scout troop that's going out there.

I don't mean a scouting troop. I mean, you know, the equivalent of, you know, a U.S. army, you know, set of advanced scouts going out there hoping they don't run into, you know, enemy fire. And that's what we. These are.

I know you know this and I know you know, I mean, none of what I'm saying is exaggeration. This is actually happening. People get hurt.

So all I want to know going forward and so we don't have to take the deep dive today in an informational hearing that has a packed agenda but is just information to my office. Yes, we want to be informed as to what we can do.

I think it's hard in our subcommittees say this somewhat gingerly, but I think with Executive agencies where, where budget appropriations have, you know, sort of been established before, we start trying to work them over. It's not easy to get. It's not easy to get alternative spending scenarios and frankly, it's not easier to.

Easy to sell our urban Members on why we're even, why we didn't priorities prioritizing something like this. So anything you can do to elevate not just the need, but quantify it and what actions we could take. You're never going to see a Prop 36, you know, for these kind of problems.

And I think there are probably people in the. Representing in some of these rural areas of the state who are otherwise very progressive, you know, who would be very, very willing to step up penalties. These aren't ordinary trespass. That's right. You know, these Aren't, you know, ordinary minor. You know, they're certainly not misdemeanors.

They're not minor felonies when you're completely destroying waterways and habitat. So I. I didn't intend to make a speech. I just want. I just want to invite. You know, it's just an invitation.

You know, I think I'm on my own behalf and on behalf of others in the Legislature who are interested in carrying legislation and working with the pro tem's office and others who have been working on these kind of issues to bring forward, whether that's two bills, three bills, four bills.

You know, maybe there's a package of bills somewhere that just is really just on the enforcement side. That's right. Not on the federal issues, not on licensing, not on banking, not on transport. You know, all these other issues that we run into with commercial, with legal and illegal grows. But just what can we do about enforcement?

And what would you do? With all your experience, you must have some thoughts, you know, if you could wave a magic wand and get, you know, three or four bills that exactly gave you exactly the support that you wanted to help eradicate this problem, what would that be? I think we'd love to hear that.

Whether we could pull it off or not, who knows? But I think we'd love to hear that.

I appreciate the invitation. We'll follow up this week with your office. Come over and talk.

We're in a recess. It's a good time to take your time to get back to us.

And I just want to tell you directly the facts you raise as impact. Drying up streams, dewatering habitat for fish, leaving diversion, water diversion infrastructure.

That is a central focus of the filtering we do, working with local law enforcement, coordinating with State Office of Emergency Services, our State Water Board, and our highly specialized marine enforcement team at the Department.

So when that's occurring in the legal space, we're using administrative authorities, penalties and funds which have been increased over time because of the Legislature's leadership.

And we're also helping people come into compliance, but on the illegal front, we're in there doing the operation and then we're getting all that stuff out of our streams so they can get wet again.

That is top of mind for us when we're trying to figure out which watersheds we rank for purposes of prioritization when we go do enforcement and investigations. Good to know. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Senator Cortese. Director Bonham, you had you offer some glimpse of hope for commercial salmon season that has just been so challenged over the last three years. Talk to us about Dungeness Crab, a top tier fishery. Candidly, so many ports are dependent on it for long term economic success.

What do you see, especially with whales? And obviously the Department has become much more aggressive in its observation efforts, both boat and plane. But what do you see right now as we move into what was historically Dungeness crab season, Thanksgiving through the new year?

So this weighs on me. I think about it a lot in the crab season. You definitely moved me up in your speed dial, on your phone. It's true. And we end up engaging a fair amount. And I've learned a lot from your championing your district and trying to find the right balance between these issues.

Let me segue out of salmon just to put a final exclamation point on how hard it has been for our salmon communities and it's been harder for our tribal communities.

And I mean no disrespect to our commercial sector when I say some of the most emotional moments for me have been when our tribal chairs tell me they don't have fish for their beginning of creation ceremonies.

I saw Chair Atterbury of Karuk last week because the leaders were in town for their tribal forum and he told me for the first time in I think three years they had fish for those ceremonies. That feels good compared to the worst alternative. But on the commercial front, it took too long.

As you know, Senator, we were going through a revised federal process. This was not the state's fault in any regard. But we've been finally able to get out the 2023 Federal Disaster Relief package.

And we've been able to get about 20 million in federal leaf funds out to over 1,200 qualifying California commercial trollers, processors, the passenger fleet vessels and guides. The salmon 2024 request package that's gone to the Federal Government.

The determination has been made, but we are now in that even more opaque how will the Federal Government issue the funding problem? And then Sam, in 2025 the request is in queue to submit. So then turn to crab. I think this is something where I'm going to get complaint and I hope a little compliment.

And I know you have crab panels behind us. I think on like the marked line dynamic, part of the practical problem is how much gear is out there, how do we keep track of gear?

How do we know whose gear is, you know, inadvertently getting into what impact that we were able to identify that as an area to solve in, find assistance from you and state funds, collaborate with the Ocean Protection Council, use about $1.0 million and get out the door.

You know, moving towards 4000 coils of marked line and then seeking input from the fleet. What colors, like what colors should we use? Remember those conversations and strong opinion on whether we should use purple or black. But getting it out the door, that's fixing part of the challenge. That's good.

Things like the Barracuda and other ways to use some of the legislative direction you've created over your tenure to go get more derelict gear out of the water, those are all good. But last season was a lot like the year before and the year before and the year before. And that may be the predictor for next year.

Last season we conducted 13 risk assessments. We did 11 aerial surveys. That's us putting planes in the air with spotters. We're bringing in data streams from all the recreational whale touring vessels and we're engaging with the fleet and nonprofit conservation groups on a regular frequency. What should we do? What should we do? What should we do?

How elevated or not is the risk? Where are the whales migrating? And if you look at last year, it feels a lot like the prior three or four years that beginning most loved traditional moment of November and December is not happening.

Yeah, whales are hanging longer.

And it's when our whole market structure has been based and I take advantage of this. I walk down to my local fishmonger and I'm trying to get that crab for Thanksgiving or Hanukkah, Christmas, whatever you may be celebrating New Year's.

And what we're seeing when we look at that 10 year, 5 year track is it's more like mid January into January. And then what we're seeing on the backside is just not an open ended.

Anyone can fish like they may like when you get into April, May and June, but rather starting to do zonal closures and trying to build out that technology of ropeless for that season. Our future might be something that's more predictable in that beginning part of year. Still remains uncertain and risky in that holiday season.

But we know we can also plan for a pretty reliable spring if we're using this alternative technology gear. Not up to me over time whether our fleets will embrace ropeless gear all year long in all ways. We're seeing more people wanting to test it in the experimental fishing space. Those permits are going out.

More people are feeling more confident about may be over time that the market and you know, people's choice making is they start wanting to try that gear in the holiday season.

I don't know what we also can't tell the thing that may have started all of this off in the most accentuated way was the warming of the ocean about 10 years ago. And we don't know what pattern we're in right now. That was as you remember, because you and I were in similar spots.

Domoic acid, heat, change of migration pattern, food source for whales.

The other piece I think on the crab season is warmer water conditions and we have a crab panel. I know we also have Mr. Schumann here as well. But with this warmer water, the blob, as they call it, and predominance of the moic acid and algal blooms, concern with that this year.

Haven't had anyone in the Department come to me and say we're seeing the domoic triggers that move us into decision making and management. But I'm super worried about it because of that past experience we had. That's what I. But even with my discussion a moment ago about crab, the total value was $55 million.

And that is right in line with that 10 year average. It's just a Shorter season, which is tough. Yes. And that's a whole transition dynamic that's really hard to struggle with. The most recent information coming from the federal streams of information is entanglements with whales are going up again, not down.

Yeah.

So at some point this is the kind of dynamic that'll drive a person like me out of the position I'm in. Because trying to square all these corners and balance all these interests is just becoming increasingly difficult as we see these dramatic climate disruptions. We are starting to test for domoic acid right around now.

Yeah. And first planes will go up when?

Ballpark, I'm guessing Dr. Schuman will text me here in a moment and I'll. Cause he's behind me. And when he does, I'll tell you that. See, there we go. I appreciate it.

Thank you so much, Senator Cortesa. Anything else that you have?

No, just along with whatever else, you know, you end up providing in terms of potential augmentation, you know, especially by way of legislation. There's some kind of historic trend on, on, on fte. You know, overall would be good. I, I assume it's been fairly stagnant or worse in, in some of our areas.

I appreciate the numbers you gave us earlier on the ocean team, you know, the number of people out there, but I don't need that information right now. I can't do anything right now at the moment.

But I think law abiding folks, you could ask California Waterfowl Association, you could ask just about any of the groups that, you know, support the work that you're doing, support our conservation work. Don't want to run away from enforcement. They'd like to actually see, you know, more efficient game officers out there once in a while.

And it could be just a perception that there hasn't been enough growth over the years. I suspect it's not because we have other agencies that, you know, have certainly had other challenges in trying to add positions or even fill positions. So just would love to get that kind of information from you.

Just honest, you know, candid information on a graph or something as to how it's been going. I don't know how you differentiate, you know, your ocean or, you know, waterways enforcement team versus your land team, but I'm interested in both, but separately.

Be careful what you ask for, Senator. I can have a whole suite of information sent over because our Department is one of only two departments that have ever done a top to bottom, what's called service based budgeting of our entire budget. We have everything we do broken down to about 6,000 tasks across every labor hour.

We track it annually, we update it every three years. We did this construct with Deloitte. Senator Mcguire was very influential in starting that kind of analytical effort. The takeaway, it's publicly known. We talk about it all the time. We're underfunded by threefold. But we'll send that information to you and Senator to wrap it up.

We're going to be up in the air mid November. Okay. Because we got the possibility of the recreational opener. Excuse me, Mid month, because we have the possibility of recreational opener early November. Some of our plan work involves some federal folks. So, you know, question mark.

Okay. No, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. We have a couple of follow ups for Senator Cartese's office. That's going to be 1 on the cannabis funding. The second will be on the FTE's. Appreciate that. Thank you so much. And I know that we're going to be in contact as Dungeness crab season is upon us.

And I just want to take a moment, Mr. Director, for your work. It has become an increasingly difficult job. It's always been a tough job, let's just be blunt. Right. But it is becoming more and more challenging just because the problems become larger and more complicated. Right? Yep. And folks are being squeezed.

And I think the biggest challenge that we have right now, especially within the fleet, is an individual's livelihood. And when it comes to salmon, when it comes to Dungeness crab, what was always counted on to bring home the bacon simply isn't there anymore and I think that just causes it hurts.

Yeah, it's really challenging and I know you work it really hard. So thank you so much, sir. I'm grateful you're here. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Director. All right, ladies and gentlemen, we do appreciate Director Bonham and for all of his work into the team as well.

We're now going to be moving on to our next panel. We're going to have our panel representing the salmon fleet if they can please come forward. We'll take a 30 second break as they get situated. We're going to first welcome Mr. McCovey to be able to come forward. He's the fishing fisheries Director for the Yurok tribe.

We're also going to invite Mr. Bradshaw who will be joining us virtually here today. He's the President of the Pacific Coast Federation Fishermen's Association and Charlie Schneider, senior project manager for Cal Trout as well. You want to come on forward? We're going to give it 60 seconds to get folks situated and we'll be right back with you.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, we're now back. We're going to be talking all issues of the challenges and opportunities for California salmon season. We welcome our esteemed panelists here. First and foremost, we're going to talk to Mr. McCovey, representing the Yurok tribe, I got to say, one of the experts on all issues, salmon.

He's the Fisheries Director for the Yurok Tribe. He has spent two decades with the tribal fisheries program and now serves as the Fisheries Director. He's going to be talking candidly about the tribe's leadership, and a lot of that is under the chair and himself on salmon restoration and water quality and the stewardship of the Klamath.

Then we're going to turn it over virtually to Mr. Bradshaw, and then we're going to hear from Mr. Schneider. Mr. McCovey, the floor is yours. You have five minutes. As you get close, I'll give you a 30 second prompt.

Okay, great. Thank you, Senator Mcguire, Senator Cortese, for the invite. I'm here representing the Yurok Tribe. You guys originally had invited Chairman James. Chairman James couldn't make it today, so I'm here instead. But Chairman James sends his regard, Senator. So thanks for that.

I'm going to talk a bit about the Klamath River more specifically and salmon in particular. I'm going to talk a little bit about some challenges we're facing right now. I'm going to talk about some of the successes that we've had recently in the last year or so.

And then I'm going to talk a bit about some of the opportunities that we have in front of us. So first, the bad news, some of the challenges that we're facing.

So as Senator McGuire, you pointed out, as did the secretary and the Director, things aren't great right now for salmon in California, and that includes the Klamath River. I think the run size prediction for 2025 was one of the lowest predictions on record since. We've been keeping track of this since the late 70s, early 80s.

So not a lot of opportunities for fishing. The state fishery was closed. The state recreational fishery on the Klamath River was closed. The tribal fishery was very small, a very miniscule amount of fish available for the tribe to harvest, not nearly enough to meet even our subsistence needs, let alone the tribe's commercial needs.

So, you know, the tribe hasn't had a successful commercial fishery since 2015. And so Director Bonham mentioned that tribes have been affected by this. And he's telling the truth when he says that, you know, overarching kind of Thing that has been mentioned a couple times here is climate change.

And that's definitely something that we're dealing with in the Klamath Basin. We're seeing, you know, higher water temperatures, we're seeing catastrophic wildfire and the impacts that that has on fisheries. We're seeing all these things happen, and we're not seeing it slow down.

We've had some good years related to rain and snowpack, but the overall trend, we feel like is still in the wrong direction. Things aren't changing as far as global climate change goes. And so that's a challenge that we're facing right now, today, and that we're going to continue to face on into the future.

You know, we're dealing with funding issues, of course, with the Federal Government. That's something that I think everyone's dealing with. And so that's going to be challenging. We're going to have to work together, we're going to have to be creative to kind of figure our way out from underneath of this and work through all this.

And then, you know, from a federal level on the Klamath, we're also really concerned about how ESA in relation to river flows is going to be protected or not protected moving forward into the future.

So right now, a lot of river flows on the Klamath are dictated by esa, and ESA might not look the same as it has in the past as we move into the future. So that's kind of some of the bad news. But there's a lot of good news, too. And this has been pointed out.

Dam removal, of course, over the last couple years, we removed the four dams on the Klamath, the largest dam removal project in history, probably one of the largest fish restoration projects in history. Fish are returning. We saw fish returning last year. Fish are starting to come back. This year we're doing a lot of restoration in the Klamath.

There was a huge federal investment and there's been a huge state investment into restoration in the Klamath. It's not just dam removal. There's restoration projects going on in the Scott river that restoration projects going on related to the impacts of catastrophic wildfire. And there's restoration projects going on in the Trinity River.

A lot of this work was funded by the State of California, and those projects are ongoing. And we're making great progress there. Of course, Proposition four funding, looking forward in the future. That's going to be huge. To continue the work that's happening in the Klamath Basin. But recently legislation was passed AB 263.

I think the Governor may have just signed that that's helpful, you know, to secure baseline minimum river flows and two really important tributaries on the Klamath. That's going to be helpful as we move forward. We know that to make wild fish, we need habitat and we need river flows.

And so with the investments in restoration, we're working on the habitat part. And with things like AB263 and working with our federal agencies, we're working on securing water flows. Water flows plus habitat equal fish.

We have about 30 seconds.

Okay. And then opportunities for the future. We're not done with dam removal. There's still a lot of work to do there. We can work together on this. We can. There's a lot of opportunities for people to work with private landowners, with farmers, with ranchers.

We can all kind of work together on a lot of these restoration projects, not just dam removal. And I think there's a big opportunity for us to all work together to secure river flows again, habitat and adequate flows and water quality equal, good, healthy populations of wild fish. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr. McCovey. We're grateful you're here. And please give our best. Chairman James, and miss him and appreciate you being here today. We're now going to turn it over to George Bradshaw. He is President of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Association.

He is a lifelong fisherman out of Crescent City and of course serves as President of PCFFA. We're grateful that Mr. Bradshaw is going to be joining us, and I know that we also have a big meeting tomorrow for the fleet and appreciate that he's made himself available today virtually. And do apologize about the scheduling conflicts. Mr. Bradshaw.

Mr. President, good afternoon. You have five minutes, sir. And we'll give you a 30 second prompt as you get close to your time. The floor is yours.

All right, thank you. Good afternoon. Do. Am I coming in Clear?

You're coming loud and clear. Looking good. Thank you so much.

Perfect. All right, thank you. And first off, I want to say thanks for the opportunity to speak here today, you know, voice our opinions from the commercial fleet. And I want to apologize for not being able to be in person, but as you said, Senator, there's a pretty booked schedule ahead.

You know, I'll follow kind of the same trend. I'll highlight some, you know, positive actions. No speakers before me have spoke to some of them and then some also concerning topics and, you know, stuff that we might be able to do to secure a better future moving forward.

You know, what was also mentioned earlier was, you know, the large Project of the Klamath Dam removal. The federation was, you know, a key supporter in that project and the long term viability of that upper basin, you know, needed that project to happen for, you know, continued success of our salmon populations.

You know, as the Director and secretary mentioned, you know, PBT is another, you know, big positive win for fisheries and for salmon and for management moving forward. It's, you know, a record breaking and new scientific technology to monitor our fish.

Not only, you know, the hatchery populations of code wire tag, but also the natural populations will also help us in, you know, some of our reintroduction plans moving forward, you know, fry releases.

Diversifying our hatchery release portfolio, you know, trying to get better life strategies for our hatchery productions has been very positive in the last, you know, five years or so. It's, you know, I think already showing benefits, as you know, Director Bonham mentioned, for what we saw in the ocean in our, you know, very short recreational fisheries.

I mentioned a little bit about it. You know, our salmon reintroduction efforts, you know, those are being enacted right now into key tributaries for the spring run and winter run and the Sacramento Central Valley.

You know, this is another, you know, positive momentum to get those fish back into their natal waters and preserve the genetics, you know, and we look forward to supporting that. Moving, you know, moving forward.

Another really great project that hasn't been highlighted yet is that nature, like Fishway Passage on the Yuba, it's going to open up some more spawning habitat and give an adrenalous species and others access back into some more of their natal grounds. A very good project and a lot of hope there in the future for it.

Some of our concerning topics, however, is the speed. Before spoke Mr. McCovey to the Klamath. You know, we have some concerns of, you know, Fall Creek hatchery and not meeting broodstock, you know, egg take goals, you know, it didn't perform well last year.

You know, looking into it with the agencies and the tribes of, you know, what could potentially be done differently this year to try to achieve some of those egg take goals, I think is very important.

One of the biggest issues I think that we face for the central Valley is and, and around the state is, you know, our aging, the aging hatchery infrastructure. It's a pillar of the salmon recovery, you know, Governor salmon recovery plan. You know, it's going to take some investments, you know, and there's a lot of work to do.

Most of those facilities, at least the anadromous ones are at least half a century old506070 years. You know, we need to invest in that. We need, you know, for the Central Valley, increased hatchery production.

We went through drought, had some investments from Legislature and state to, you know, increase some productions at various hatcheries to try to combat and lighten the impacts of drought, which I think, you know, we did the best that we could, but those need to be looked at and reassessed and reinvested in as well.

You know, we obviously have a continued water problem in all of our rivers and basins. You know, we need to do all that we can to juggle, you know, that water resource that the Secretary talked about.

You know, there is competing interests, obviously, and, you know, trying to find a happy medium to, you know, stretch that resource the best that we can. And then, I guess, you know, obviously for the commercial fleet and, you know, recreational anglers as well.

But, you know, our three years of complete, consecutive closures has been devastating to our coastal communities and individual fishermen. As the Director mentioned, we did get one year of federal disaster relief funding two and a half years after the first closure.

But I can't express any clear the negative impact that that has had to, you know, not just the fishermen, but the rural coastal communities and communities at large that, you know, support and, you know, that the fisheries support and they depend on those fisheries to bring revenue and excitement to, you know, those coastal regions.

You know, I'll wrap up, you know, with just highlighting again, you know, that we, Senator, and, you know, Committee staff, we are in desperate need of. Of hatchery infrastructure investment in the Central Valley. Mcmillan report, you know, that was just done and was supported through the Legislature as well. You know, highlights a lot of those infrastructure needs.

You know, again, like I said, it's part of the Salmon Strategy plan, one of the main pillars of it.

And, you know, while we're doing that, though, you know, not just hatchery needs, infrastructure themselves, we need to keep in mind, you know, the production goals and production needs that could support fisheries and escapements, you know, in the Central Valley, you know, on the Klamath side, like I said, you know, I think that we need to ensure that.

That Fall Creek gets the broodstock needed to meet those production goals. Because, you know, in our view, you know, the intent there was to boost, in a short period, you know, the poor salmon populations, which was a crucial tool in our minds, you know, to expedite that Upper basin recovery.

And, you know, we need to, you know, put all of our heads together and try to figure out how to ensure that we get that Fall Creek hatchery, you know, operating correctly. Thank you. Thank you for the time today.

Thank you so much, Mr. President. We're grateful that you've joined us and again, know that it is a busy week and appreciate your flexibility. Mr. President, it's good to see you. We're going to open up questions in just a moment, but before we do, we're going to turn it over to Mr. Schneider, senior project manager for Cal Trout.

And I just want to say thank you because let's just be honest, tough time, right? And Cal Trout has been on the front lines to preserve the waterways of this state for healthy habitat. You're going to be talking about the threats and solutions that we are seeing for California salmon runners.

Mr. Schneider, thank you so much for taking time in your busy schedule. The floor is yours. You have five minutes. I'll give you a 30 second prompt.

Thank you so much, Senator. Happy to be here and really appreciate the invite. Yeah. Caltrout's a nonprofit organization. We've been working in the state for about 50 years and we use science, restoration and policy to solve for the needs of fish, water and people.

We have about 60 active restoration projects across the state and we're working to ensure wild fish thrive here in California. California is a salmon state. Many of the other speakers have touched on it. The status of salmon in California is not great. In 2017, we published our SOS2 report.

And that report found that if current trends continue, 45% of California salmonids, that salmon and trout are likely to be extinct in the the next 50 years. You know, as Director Bonham mentioned, we're as anglers, we're hopeful. And so I'd like to touch on some of that hope.

I think hope the fuel for momentum, right, to keep this ball moving forward. And we're so grateful to the people of California for approving Prop 4 and providing that investment in the future of our waterways. Several of the other speakers have mentioned climate dam removal.

And just this week, the first Chinook salmon was observed moving above Keno Dam passing the fish ladder, which is really exciting. And I want to touch on some rivers that are close to my heart, which is the Mendocino Coast. And I know Zeke Grater would be proud as well.

But several of those rivers over the last couple years have reached their recovery targets for endangered coho salmon. And so it's just a testament to the hard work of the folks restoring those rivers up there and the state's continued investment to do that restoration work.

And we're, and we're seeing those benefits a Recent NOAA paper looked at salmon and steelhead populations across the West Coast and found mixed results for individual populations, but also that many of those listed stocks are holding steady and we're not getting any closer to extinction. And some are even improving in numbers.

As I mentioned, those Mendocino coast fish are looking better than they have historically. But none of those, none of those listed stocks have been delisted, which shows there's a lot more work to do. And so when we think about how. Right. What is that work that we need to get done?

I like to bucket it in sort of two buckets. One is management. So what information do we need to more effectively manage that fishery? Right. As we harvest those fish, what are the tools we need to better understand how we're impacting escapement. Escapement meaning the number of salmon that return to spawn.

And as Director Bonham mentioned, you know, the department's chronically underfunded and we need those scientists to help us to help inform those fishery, you know, what we take in that fishery. And then as Mr. McCovey mentioned, Habitat. Cal Trout's focus is on wild fish.

And those impacts are often described as death by a thousand cuts, water management, poor habitat conditions due to historic logging, road building, dams, catastrophic wildfire, ocean conditions. Right. There's a myriad of factors.

And so as a restoration organization, and I know many tribes and other restoration organizations across the strait, we try to tackle problems one by one and solve them. Right. So what are the opportunities? We really need to redouble our efforts to increase the pace of the work we're doing to keep up with climate change.

And we see several areas that are ripe for improvement. Again, we discussed the historic investment in Prop 4. So reconnecting habitat to barrier removals like those on the Klamath, Battle Creek, Eel River, Matiliha Dam in Southern California. Huge opportunities to reconnect large portions of intact habitat for salmonids, reconnecting floodplains.

So the side to side movement of rivers in the Central Valley that provide really productive feeding grounds for salmon and steelhead, and focusing on other highly productive habitats like estuaries and springs, we need to expedite that restoration with structural support.

So funding from agencies like CDFW, WCB, Coastal Conservancy and others, leveraging Prop 4 cannabis tax dollars as well, and also looking to the cutting programs like cutting the green tape that make those projects easier to do.

So while we're investing in those programs, we also need to make it simpler to get them done to make it easier to do good things and we also need flexibility in those grant programs for restoration practitioners like us to implement the projects quickly and again, keep up the pace of climate change to make those necessary changes.

We also need to improve water management. We need to keep cold water in stream at the right times for fish. And that's using different tools in different geographies.

So things like the environmental flows framework, where we have control of systems, and improving water management in distributed systems like those on the coast, where you've got, you know, a lot of small water users that are uncoordinated.

So getting those folks together to better understand the impacts of their actions and providing them with water resiliency solutions that ultimately meet their needs as well. Thanks. Additionally, we need to support that science and monitoring I mentioned.

So implementing things like the coastal monitoring program, life cycle monitoring stations, again, better help to quantify the investments we're making and also improve our management. And finally, I'll just touch on partnerships.

You know, none of this work happens without strong partnerships between NGOs like ourselves, certainly with tribes, the state, federal partners, as we mentioned, academic partners, landowners, and of course, our anglers. Right. Our fishing community. Ultimately, what's good for salmon is good for us. It's good for people.

We've heard a lot about the impacts to people and we look forward to working with you to meet the moment to make sure California remains a salmon state.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Schneider. We're very grateful. Senior project manager for Cal Trout. We're grateful for your work, sir, and appreciate you being here today. What we're going to do is turn it over to Senator Cortese, see questions or comments, and then we'll check.

Yeah, I don't have any additional comments. I appreciate the overview from all of you and you know, the urgency. You. Know, in all of these areas and probably particularly around the Klamath, you know, in terms of that initial presentation. So just want you to know you're heard.

And again, we'll stand ready for any kind of input or information that might, you know, give rise to some legislative help.

Thank you so much. Senator Cortese. Let's talk about Mr. Schneider monitoring. You did not use these terms, but we're falling short talk about that. And what do you think is needed? Look, just being very blunt, right. Especially in these times, won't be able to invest fully of everything we need to.

But what do you think is needed to be able to get to a better baseline?

Yeah, well, I, you know, I would note our tribal partners have been doing a lot of the heavy lifting on monitoring Certainly on the Klamath, the California monitoring program is, you know, been in existence for some time in the state and again, it's chronically underfunded. Right.

We receive a lot of the funding received from the Federal Government from the PACSAR Fund goes to Fund CMP projects across the state. So I think to start, it starts with a small network of rivers that are heavily monitored that provides just sort of ongoing baseline information that we can then use to benchmark other important salmon rivers.

So it's that ongoing investment. It's not a sexy investment. Right. It's often tough to Fund. But just a simple baseline investment in monitoring across the state would make a huge difference, not just in understanding those rivers, but sort of all of our salmon rivers. Thank you so much, Mr. Director.

Any items that you'd like to follow up on with that?

I think, you know, there's opportunities to increase monitoring, in particular on the Klamath River where, where we're falling short as some things would be, you know, disease monitoring and especially there's a lot of monitoring that was funded or slated to be funded and may not be funded anymore, unfortunately.

And so, you know, immediately, maybe we were already falling short and now with some funding cuts, we're definitely going to be falling short. And so there's some immediate short term needs for monitoring related to the Klamath River and salmonids. They're both juvenile and adult. But, you know, one thing I think that's really important is monitoring the fishery.

As we see recolonization and reintroduction to the upper basin after dam removal. A lot of the work is being done. There are plenty of projects out there. People are getting out there right now.

I know the State of California is already doing monitoring up there, so a lot of the work is being done, but there are gaps that could be filled. So thank you.

No, I appreciate that. Thank you so much. I'm going to go to Mr. President. Mr. Bradshaw, any additional concerns that you're having with the challenges that we've had with salmon season over the last three years on processing, having that infrastructure continuing to be in place in the ports that's needed. Mr. Bradshaw?

Yeah, yeah.

Do you hear me, Senator? Yeah. Please. You're coming in loud and clear.

Perfect. Thank you. Yes. You know, obviously there's been, you know, impacts to the coastal communities, like I said, you know, to the fishermen themselves and the support facilities that, you know, support the fishing industry along our coast. You know, docks, marinas, Ayes docks, fuel docks, you know, all those direct businesses have taken the hit as well.

And, you know, I think, you know, with a lot of the conversation that's been highlighted here today, there's, there's a lot of really good outlook, you know, long term and even so, more short term on the climate with dam removal and reintroduction and restoration. You know, I think there's some hurdles still with water. Right.

You know, I mean, how do we balance that water usage, specifically on the climate? But more so on the Sacramento Central Valley side, it isn't as hopeful in our eyes. It became abundantly clear through this three years of full closure what our natural production and hatchery complex can produce through drought and climate change in the Central Valley.

And, you know, it shut our fisheries down. You know, there was barely enough to keep some populations alive.

And I think that, you know, it's, you know, bluntly clear that we need to look into those hatcheries and look into that hatchery complex in the Central Valley, you know, simply because, you know, I don't think that those large dams are coming down in the near future.

And our fisheries, you know, we won't have fisheries, you know, in the near term if we don't, you know, relook at and reinvest into those. Into the hatcheries in the Central Valley.

Yeah, 100%. And I know that we're a little late, but quickly, on the issue of the Sacramento, we saw this during the drought and we continue to see this now. Some of the worst hot water conditions remain in the west on the Sacramento. Right. And that is just one of the main grounds for disaster that we've seen.

Mr. Director, please, Mr. Schneider, any comments on that?

Yeah, the last 10 years or so, you know, started around 2014- 2015. We really started kind of feeling the effects of the drought and seeing changes in water temperatures. And, you know, salmon have a very specific window of water temperature that they need to survive.

And, you know, we've seen that threshold, you know, be exceeded many, many times in many different streams throughout the Klamath River Basin. That may be something that just happens with climate change. So we have to look at how can we make these streams resilient to climate change.

And a big part of that is creating cold water habitat, protecting streams that provide cold water habitat, enhancing streams that have the ability to provide that cold water habitat.

So it goes back to the habitat enhancement and then making sure that there's enough water in the river and in these streams to support good water quality and good cold water.

Appreciate that, please. Yeah, I think that's similar to what I was going to say. And we need to look for opportunities to reconnect that habitat when they present themselves. Places like Butte Creek, Battle Creek and the Sacramento system.

You know, we know that many of the large dams in our Central Valley are not going away and our society depends on them.

But when we have opportunities to remove smaller dams that are outdated, we should seize on those and as quickly as possible to ensure that those salmon populations, both the wild populations, are also resilient to droughts. Places like Battle Creek offer that cold water refuge, you know, year in and year out.

So 100% to our panel focus on challenging opportunities on salmon. We are grateful. Thank you so much, gentlemen, for being here. Mr. Director, thank you so much. Mr. President, appreciate you being here. Mr. Schneider, thank you. We're really, really grateful. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Nice job today. We so appreciate your time. Thank you.

Thank you so much. We're now going to be moving on to the outlook for the 2025-2026 Dungeness crab season. We're going to have Dr. Schumann come on up. He is the marine region Director for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. We have Lisa Domrash, Executive Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Association.

Come on down. We have Dick Og, commercial fisherman out of Bodega Bay, a real leader within the fleet. And then we also have Kate Cower, who is the associate Director for the oceans program of the Nature Conservancy. We're going to take a 30 second time out, let folks get situated and we'll start with Dr. Schumann.

Give us 30 seconds.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, we started high level with the secretary and the Director. We then did a deep dive on all issues of salmon. And now we are going to focus on a top tier fishery here in the State of California and that's Dungeness crab. And this is our annual outlook of the season ahead.

And an individual who has really dedicated his life to this issue is Dr. Shuman. He's going to give us a brief recap of the 24-25 season and then he's going to talk about the season ahead. If you don't know this, Dr. Shuman carries a crystal ball in his backpack. Am I right, sir? Always. Yes, that's.

It's cracked and it's cloudy, but I have one.

Yeah, exactly. I dig. And it's going to. We're going to hear all issues about what the Department is preparing for. Right. Monitoring of whales off of the California coast, talking about domoic acid testing, talking about quality testing, and of course, everyone's least favorite issue, and that is ramp.

And Dr. Shuman and I say that with peace and love, everyone. But. But he is also going to do a deep dive on that. Each one of you will have five minutes. I'll give you a 30 second prompt, not at all trying to be rude. And then we'll open it up for questions.

Dr. Shuman, why don't you kick us off? You have five minutes.

Thank you. Senator McGuire, Senator Cortese, appreciate the opportunity to be here. I'm Craig Shuman, Marine Region Manager, Department of Fish and Wildlife. First want to give out a shout out to Mr. Nielsen. Thank you for all the hard work putting this together. This is not easy to do.

Also thinking about just flying up here this afternoon or this morning, I always try to sit on the right side or left side of the plane, depending on which way I'm going.

And looking at our coastline and just how fortunate we are as Californians to have this resource offshore from the Channel Islands, the Big Sur coastline, the Lost coast and everything in between. It's just spectacular that we have this at our disposal. And despite all of our challenges, it's amazing that we have these opportunities.

So looking back towards last year's crab season, after a few years of soft prices, we saw record price per pound last year. So the first time ever, the fleet statewide eclipsed $7 a pound. That's non adjusted dollars for prior years. We also had the highest number of active permits since the 2019- 2020 season.

As was previously stated, the fleet landed about 81/2 million lbs. Of crab worth close to $55 million.

What's notable about that and because of the high price per pound, that eclipsed the 2023-2024 value, which came in at 48 million at 14 million pounds, and the 2022-2023 value of 54.5 million, which had almost three times the amount of crab landed at 21 million pounds of crab.

So just interesting to see how the dynamics and how that price can really play into that ex vessel value. The fleet was delayed in the north until January 15th, and that was due to quality issues and delayed in the south or central area from January 5th due to whales.

And in both areas, the fleet opened under trap reductions in both zones. Looking ahead to the 25-26 season, this will be the first season that we will be operating under our new ramp rules, and that will be under ramp 2.0.

Those regulations are currently under review at the Office of Administrative Law and we expect they will be effective by November 1st for the start of the season. Some notable changes this year. Marked lines so Director bottom touched on that. For the 25-26 season, 100% of surface gear must be marked with the California purple and black line.

And then we'll be phasing in the vertical line. That's the top 15 fathoms of line over the next three years. 25% 26-27, 50% 27-28 up to 100% in 28-29. We're also updating some of our entanglement numbers and impact scores.

So for example, if we have three humpback whales entangled in one calendar year, that will automatically delay the start of that season the next year until January 1st. I'll touch on that more in a moment. We're updating our electronic monitoring program to specify data transmission time frames. We're updating our alternative gear authorization process.

So we are going to be working towards authorizing alternative gear for this spring. A couple other changes for the fleet to make things more streamlined for them. The season opener so now it's time to pull out my crystal ball.

First thing to note, for the calendar year 2025, we have three confirmed entanglements in California commercial Dungeness crab gear involving humpback whales. And there have also been four entanglements and unknown gear, two of which just occurred this past weekend and are still being evaluated.

Given the entanglement history and recent entanglements and historic migration patterns, I I expect the Department will likely take a conservative approach and a delay is possible. I can't Say with certainty. Until risk is reduced, the whales may clear out. We don't know.

Important to note that if we were fishing under ramp 2.0, the fleet would automatically be delayed until January 1st. I think the one silver lining of that, if we were under those rules, is the fleet would have the certainty that they've been looking for. So this time of year, the phone starts ringing off the hook.

Everyone's trying to figure out, should I go north, should I go south? Am I fishing half stacks or full stacks? When are you going to open? What should I tell my crew? It's really tough on the fleet. It's tough on us. It's tough on everyone. So we're looking to see if we can find some certainty.

We're continuing to monitor for action species, humpback whales, blue whales and leatherback sea turtles. We've got a plane going up in the air, I think, at the end of next week to start looking at that. We've got preliminary data for Monterey Bay Whale watch showing elevated levels in Monterey Bay.

Anecdotal reports that we still have on pack whales up in the central and northern portion. I know Dick just rode down the coast, so he'd be the best to tell us how many whales he saw up there. As I said, we're working toward gear authorization for alternative gear this spring.

And yesterday morning when I got up, it was cold for the first time in a while and it felt like fall. It was crisp, it was chilly. Fall was in the air. I started thinking about pumpkins. I started thinking about scarecrows. I started thinking about the four horsemen of the crab apocalypse. And those are whales.

Demoic quality and process. That process is kicking off tomorrow with the Dungeons Crab Fishing Gear working group with their annual meeting where they're going to be looking at those four Horsemen, primarily whales, but those other pieces fit into it and we can take them head on.

Domoic, I know that had brought up earlier, warm water is a concern. So we're seeing warm water. We do not have any reports of elevated domoic acid levels yet. I believe the first samples are coming into the lab shortly, so we're starting testing early.

I'd say the one piece of good news about Domoic is we have established protocols and procedures so we know what to do. We know how to get samples. We know what happens if we get hot samples. It's a horrible inconvenience and it's a drag on the fleet if we get hot areas and it moves things around.

But at least we know what we're doing. We've learned a lot from the last several years. And I will stop there because I'm probably out of time.

No, I appreciate that. Dr. Yeah, look, I think in those early days and Mr. Ogg, please chime in on this, working through those domoic acid challenges that we had. It was an S show, right? I will not swear here at the hearing.

And I think one positive piece of all this is that we have a process and testing now that we are proactively moving on so that we know what we're getting into, which is really incredible compared to where we are coming from.

And first thing had said to Mr. Nielsen, I do appreciate everything that he does each and every day he's coming off of. Also working on all the energy bills is this warm water is just the last thing that we want to hear about.

And hearing that it's the largest we've ever had, stretching across almost over to Japan, it's not a good sign. And so we're going to be knocking our Wood on this with that. We are really grateful that the Executive Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen Association is here.

And I just want to say thank you so much to Lisa Damrosch for all of her work that she puts in each and every day. You're going to be talking also about the fleet in particular and your outlook for Dungeness crab. Madam Executive Director, the floor is yours.

You have five minutes and I'll give you a 30 second prompt.

Great. Thank you. Senator McGuire, Senator Cortese, before I get started, I want to note that you will hear me use the term fisherman. And while our industry is not all men, it is the widely accepted, all inclusive term and it is okay to use.

And I come from a long line of fishermen and I'm proud to be trusted by the commercial fishing fleet.

As their Executive Director of PCFFA, we have recently rebuilt our organization to truly represent the fleet with a board of active commercial fishermen working in every fishery off of California, both state and federally managed, from San Diego to Crescent City.

And by representing such a diverse fleet that allows us to tap into that collective wisdom and expertise and really step up when there are problems to be solved. Fisheries management can be complex, but we like to keep it simple.

Show up, make sure the voice of commercial fishermen are heard, focus on practical solutions that will provide maximum opportunity to keep boats working, feeding communities, supporting coastal economies, and protecting our way of life for future generations.

I often say that I grew up believing that pretty much anything could be fixed with a roll of electrical tape and a needle of crab pot wire. And I learned as I got older that it was really the commercial fishing mindset that got that work done, not the tools. And they won't say it, but I will.

Commercial fishermen are the most brilliant, innovative and capable problem solvers you will find. But fishermen know the first step is always to fully assess the problem at sea. They can't afford to overreact or jump to a solution that looks good on paper or is politically popular. They must fully understand the actual problem.

And that solution needs to not only work in the moment, it needs to be measurable. And there needs to be an opportunity to continually adapt as conditions and situations change. And unfortunately, it doesn't always work that way on land. Shutting down our commercial access is too often the default.

And we settle for feel good fixes that are likely not fixing anything because we don't fully understand the problem. And I don't think anywhere that's more clear than in our Dungeness crab fishery. Size, sex and season management of Dungeness crab has kept the resource sustainable since the 1900s.

And our current management ramp, as you said, Senator Mcguire, that is a required solution to a perceived problem of co occurrence that, that we don't fully understand at this yet. And I just want to take a quick look back, even though PCFFA is all about looking forward.

But this all started the 10 years ago with the last marine heat wave, the Domoic acid crisis, the unprecedented delay. And this resulted in what the last decade of data has proven was a single season spike in entanglement numbers and an NGO reaction in the form of a lawsuit, which resulted in a settlement which required ramp.

And that's how we got here. And I think it's important to keep that in perspective. And it's also important to remember that that settlement also imposed arbitrary and interim triggers for management actions. And that's what we still live under today. And we will still live under those same triggers in ramp 2.0.

And those triggers are the single most impactful thing on how our seasons open, how much gear we get to use, how much access we get to have to the fishery. So we have not reevaluated them since that time.

They weren't based on science originally and by all accounts over this time, humpback populations are growing and we have new data. So PCFFA is committed to revisiting these triggers. And I want to thank Dr. Shuman and Director Bonham for their commitment to doing the same and working with us to address this as soon as possible.

I do want to say though, when a problem is Identifiable the commercial fishermen find solutions. And PCFFA as a statewide organization is in a great spot to help. There's already been talk about the line marking. PCFFA has distributed the first 650 coils. Was interesting process, but we did get it done.

We helped support the next section of distribution and we want to thank everyone for that. But also want to flag for you that we need one more round of funding in order to meet that 2028 deadline of full implementation.

We also successfully piloted an EFP through PCFFA using alternative gear that requires no investment for pop up gear and new technology. That was very successful and we're excited to work towards authorization of that as an additional option for the fleet in the spring. And another thing that we've contributed to is the lost gear recovery.

Commercial fishermen have been bringing in each other's lost pots since my grandfather's days. This is not a new phenomenon. But in the world of entanglement mitigation, in 2015, the Nature Conservancy and port based organizations work together and we've collected thousands of pots. And last year the Dungeness Crab Task Force asked PCFFA and TNC to expand that work.

And we're really proud to announce that we'll be launching the Fisherman's Gear Recovery Network. And this is going to be an umbrella that can bring all of those port based projects under one umbrella and share technology and resources. And we want to thank OPC and the Department for their Support of that work as well.

We'll be reporting out more tomorrow at the working group and at the task force later this month.

And speaking of the task force, I also want to point out that that is a very important group of commercial fishermen chosen by the fleet that volunteer their time to identify problems and solutions and to provide direction to all to you, our legislators, to carry those solutions forward.

And thank you for your work on that in the past, Senator McGuire. I know my fellow panelists will share more details, but we are very supportive of supportive of the task force. And there are several DCTF recommendations that have been out there for a while that have not yet moved forward.

And we really can't overstate the need to get that done. And one of them is to make sure the task force itself stays in place beyond its sunset date of 2029. So we humbly ask for help on that and getting those things moved forward. I think maintaining process certainty matters even more in these uncertain times.

And we've talked a lot about uncertainty. You know, growing up in a commercial fishing family, our lives revolved around Those opening days of crab and salmon, it was on the calendar like my birthday and Christmas and everyone could count on the season's opening. And that certainty is gone.

And that's not just for crabs, but in all of our fisheries. And it has far reaching impacts. And I think what's the saddest is that our dependence on imports flown from around the world that don't meet California sustainability standards just continues to increase while our coastal communities literally crumble before our eyes.

And that's something we need to deal with. And so what are we going to do? Well, the other rule in fishing is there's no whining. So we're going to keep working and we're going to tap into that commercial fishing mindset and we're going to work tirelessly to fix what's worth fixing.

And we're going to keep reminding everyone that will listen that commercial fishing is not the problem. We are food producers, economy drivers, ocean stewards and problem solvers. And we can't always be the ones that pay the price.

And we are often, and especially not the price of solving a problem that we're not sure what we're doing is solving.

So with that, I want to thank you for having me and say that we will be here always at PCFFA to work for balanced, reasonable regulations that really balance, protect ocean resources and allow for maximum commercial fishing access to feed our state and our communities.

Madam Executive Director. Thank you so much. Very grateful for your eloquent remarks and for your leadership. It's good to see you. We're now going to turn it over to a real legend and he does amazing work each and every day.

But it's Also very true, Mr. Ogg, he comes to us out of Bodega Bay and we're really grateful that you are here today.

He's going to be sharing his perspective on the working group and then also the testing of new fishing technologies, which, look, let's be honest, Mr. Ogg has been a bone of contention over the past many years. And what I deeply appreciate about Mr. Ogg is he's always at the table seeking solutions and be able to build bridges.

And when there is a hot issue, you run towards it. And that is not always easy, especially working internally with politics. Right. I think some of the most difficult politics are internal politics. So, Mr. Ogg, we're really grateful for your leadership. The floor is yours. You have five minutes. We'll give you a 30 second prompt.

Okay, thank you very much. Senator McGuire, I, you know, it's really an honor to be Here I really, really sincerely appreciate it.

I'd like to just kind of start out with, you know, I mean, we all understand that the crab industry or our commercial industry has been severely impacted by a reduction in seasons, gear restrictions, time area closures and marketing conditions.

These situations have not only immediate financial impacts, but also local long term economic impacts that result in the valuation of our fishery assets. Looking into the future and considering how to support young men and women interested in continuing this amazing industry is difficult at best.

Our role as elder, and I say that kind of jokingly, elder commercial critical food providers is to secure that future for up and coming, up and coming generations and to ensure that the opportunities are solidified for them to continue that tradition.

With that, I'd like to remind the Committee that we are stewards of the ocean and we're here to provide a resource that belongs to the public in the most sustainable manner possible. We remain committed to staying engaged and providing solution oriented support.

As fishermen, we are detailed observers and it's been said that we have to think like the resource that we harvest. And stepping back and understanding this, we're a data source that needs to be used to help manage and to help management decisions. We are real time information that should be utilized and integrated in the scientific community.

I'm here to support science based management decisions. The department's been doing its best to protect the industry, but is hindered by situations beyond their control and they must prioritize responding to risk. The overall entanglement numbers do not really truly represent the true verified interactions within the commercial dungeons crab industry.

For example, between 2017 and the beginning of 2025, the average confirmed interaction has been just slightly over 4. By collaborating with the Department and doing what we can, we've successfully maintained overall interaction levels. While the humpback whale population has continued to grow at approximately 7 to 8%. This is a win for everybody.

And if we really sit back and think about this, that's a possibility of anything from 300 to, to 500 animals each year right now. I mean these, that population is continuing to increase and it's going to impact our opportunities to potentially interact with these animals.

It's no different than when you're driving on the freeway and there's more cars on the freeway. The opportunity for an accident is a higher, there's a higher percentage. So additionally, one other thing I'd like to bring up is that the last time we were able to start our season in the central management area normally was in 2019.

From November to late January, the Maximum number of vertical lines are in the water. And yet, interestingly enough, that's when the fewest confirmed entanglements actually occur.

I know, you know, you can't precisely say when those entanglements occur, but in reality there's more eyes on the water at that particular time than there are just about any time during the year. And we would obviously see that if it was occurring.

So, I mean, I really think we need to remember that the industry itself is not the only human impact on these majestic creatures. And the fishermen I know, and every single one of them are trying to do the best they can to avoid any interaction.

This is our livelihood, this is what we do, and we address these issues as soon as they arise. So I'd like to sit back and think about having some flexibility and bringing back our holiday markets. You know, I mean, we really, really, truly need those.

So we just kind of have to think about how we can kind of manipulate and work with these different issues. Additionally, you know, Lisa touched on it. The task force was formed to provide recommendations from the industry to the legislators. The last few years, those recommendations by the task force, they, they haven't really received much recognition.

And you know, I mean, we really, truly need to work together to try and move those things forward. I mean, some of them, as she, as Lisa pointed out, the reauthorization is critical. You know, the fleet's ability to serve as an advisory body is going to go away in 2029 if we don't reauthorize it.

Gear servicing intervals, that's another issue that's been brought up and been unanimously approved by the task force to try and allow for a little more flexibility so the fishermen have more time to service the gear based on weather and financial impacts of a shortened time to have to go out and service the gear.

Prep tag, account, surplus management, that's another thing we really need to look at. So all of that's really, really important to evaluate. About 30 seconds. Okay, thank you.

PCFFA has been, you know, a solution based oriented action group led by Lisa Damrosch and the newly formed board are opportunities, you know, to be a collective body of fishermen advocacy through the state, you know, such as, you know, things that we need to work on last year and the alternative gear that was, you know, promoted by PCFFA to try to minimize vertical lines and offer the opportunity for fishermen to be able to fish without having to buy large amount, purchase large amounts of equipment.

And, you know, I mean, they've been the impetus behind this. I mean, you know, so the PCFFA has been the driving force behind a number of these different things that are very, very important to the fleet.

So in conclusion, I'd like to say that the fleet is doing all it can to protect and preserve the seafood production in an environmentally safe and sustainable way.

My request is for you to believe in the fishermen and women and know that we're doing our very best to preserve and protect the environment and the creatures that inhabit the ocean that we fish in. Thank you strong. Thank you so much.

I have a couple questions I'm going to bring forward in just a moment, but thank you so much for your testimony today. We're now going to go to Kate Kauer. She's the Fisheries Strategy lead for the Nature Conservancy and just want to take a moment to say thank you so much, Ms. Kauer.

She is working with the fishermen, the fleet, to develop solutions. Right. To be able to reduce the risk. And it has been a dedication that the Nature Conservancy has had. And we cannot say thank you for the partnership enough.

And whether it's on the electronic monitoring, monitoring or on the management strategies, you've been there every step of the way. Kate, thank you so much. The floor is yours. You have five minutes. We'll give you a 30 second prompt.

Great. Thanks so much. Senator McGuire, thank you for the opportunity to be here today. Thank you, Mr. Nielsen, also for the opportunity to to participate. The Nature Conservancy is a science based organization. We work worldwide on developing conservation solutions that benefit both people and nature.

And in California, we've been active collaborating with fishermen, with managers, with scientists, many other partners, all to advance sustainable fisheries and really protect biodiversity and thriving coastal communities. And since 2015, since 2017, we've been partnering with the Dungeness Crab fleet to develop solutions that reduce whale and turtle entanglement and maintain a productive fishery.

And we've been active Members of the Whale Working Group and the Dungeness Crab Task Force and through that have helped shape adaptive and climate ready management strategies that really do balance these economic and environmental priorities.

And so today I wanted to focus my comments on highlighting two priorities, priorities I see for the coming year and the need for diverse sustainable funding sources for those priorities. So first up, I thought I'd highlight the importance of data that really serves as the basis for ramp.

Everyone knows RAMP is our framework for reducing entanglement risk through responsive and science based action. And its success really does depend on accurate data about whale presence and abundance along the coast. And one of the Whale Working Group's priorities right now is ensuring that RAMP is informed by a diverse set of credible data sources.

And we know that RAMP is adaptable. It was set up to be adaptable, but it is vulnerable to data gaps. For instance, if we can't get aerial surveys out, we can have a situation where an entire management zone, say on the north coast, doesn't have any observational data.

And so to address that, we partnered with the California Crab Coast Crab Association, Triple CA and other stakeholders with OPC's support and piloted industry led vessel based whale surveys starting back in 2020.

And those surveys are conducted by fishermen, Mr. Ogg here in particular, using vetted protocols and using their own vessels to go out and monitor for whale observations and fill these critical data gaps. The information from those vessel surveys has been used in RAMP decision making, even to support delayed fishery opening when the risk was too high.

But RAMP is currently lacking a formal process for evaluating and improving new data sources, which limits its ability to fully incorporate valuable information like the industry led vessel surveys. And so the working group is developing a process right now to address this.

And we are looking forward to working with the Department and with the working group to see this process implemented and to ensure that RAMP is still grounded in the best available data and that it remains a really adaptive and science driven and effective framework.

The second priority that I wanted to touch on today is the work that Lisa and Dick both shared here. The partnership with PCFFA, with support from OPC to expand lost fishing gear recovery, which is another key strategy to reduce entanglement risk.

We know lost fishing gear is a contributor to marine life entanglements and sometimes precise data on gear sources and timing is limited, but it is still a significant risk to whale and other species. And so since 2015, we've helped pioneer and formalize this port based recovery model.

The efforts were formalized under California's trap gear retrieval program and the program has removed thousands of traps, reducing entanglement risk and ocean debris. Last year the task force formally recommended expanding these recovery efforts statewide through this partnership between TNC and pcffa. And so with help from opc, we've formalized the fisherman's gear recovery network.

And it appoints these port coordinators, recruits retrieval captains and uses shared tools like the crab gear app to locate, track and return gear. This year we're expanding that to additional ports and we're also launching a new gear spotting application for public reporting of lost gear.

And the port based program that is designed under this network really ensures that recovery is efficient, efficient that the crews are compensated and that all retrieval complies with two different regulatory pathways we have available today.

So we're focused right now on Dungeness crab, but we also think that this is a model that could be scalable to other fisheries as well. Finally, on to funding, which I think is the most critical point here. Since 2019, TNC has been working to secure public investments in data delivery and entanglement risk reduction.

And thanks to the leadership of the Legislature and support of California voters, The passage of Prop 4 really provides a historic opportunity with 75 million dedicated to climate ready marine fisheries.

At a time when we know federal funding for anything fisheries related has been uncertain at best, the Prop 4 investments and other state funding are really more important than ever.

This year we advocated for nearly 17 million in Prop 4 funding for vessel based whale surveys, for other technologies to inform risk reduction, for lost gear recovery, for alternative gear purchases, and for modernizing fisheries information systems at CDFW. And so the FY25-26 expenditure plan puts 11 million to CDFW for climate ready fisheries.

I think while the implementation details are still emerging, it is clear that we still need to leverage diverse sources of funding, especially continuous funding beyond Prop 4 for priorities in Dungeness crab fishery.

You have about 30 seconds.

So my specific ask is that the task force recommendation to amend the statute for the Dungeness crab account would actually take happen and would allow surplus funds to be directed to some of these task force priorities including loss gear recovery and data collection for ramp. So these funds are all industry derived.

It comes from the trap tag pro permit tag and trap tag fees. And Wood right now has a balance of over 3.5 million. And those statutory changes could free up about 1.3 million in surplus for these critical needs. Task force is going to revisit this recommendation at our meeting in the next two weeks.

And we're looking forward to working with the Legislature to explore opportunities to amend the statute and try to unlock this industry derived funding so that we can support entanglement risk reduction, maintain a productive and resilient fishery and really strengthen California's leadership and sustainable fisheries management. So thank you again for the opportunity.

Thank you so much, Mr. Kauer. Yeah, I think that one of the items that we were talking about earlier today is looking at advancing the biannual fishery omnibus Bill here this coming year. So that is something that we'd love to be able to see the recommendations on. So greatly appreciate that. Thank you so much.

Let's talk entanglements real quick because I think that is one of the biggest challenges right. Mr. Ogg. Madam Executive Director, Mr. Shuman, which you all mentioned a lot of theories in regards to whales hanging out longer now than they have been. Right. Populations are up and then warm water. So your thoughts, Dr. Shuman, on. Is it both.

A little bit of both your thoughts about whales hanging off of the California coast longer, more whales plus warmer water conditions.

So thank you for the question, Senator McGuire. I'll preface it that I'm not a whale expert. I think it's a combination of factors, and we've got more whales, which is a good thing. We do have a lot of gear in the water.

I think we're still trying to figure out, is it lost gear, is it actively fish gear, is it some combination? Are there patterns that we can discern based on the entanglements? Is it just random unluckiness? I think we're still trying to figure that all out.

And I think one of the biggest challenges that we have is working through the federal incidental take permit application process. The numbers that we're held to are extremely low.

And I think that is one of the challenges that that's really limiting our ability to expand fishing opportunities because of that very low entanglement number, especially as that population is increasing and we're seeing more whales out there.

Madam Executive Director. Mr. Alke.

Yeah. I'll just dovetail on to what Dr. Shuman just said. Thank you for the question. It's that number that's too low is another place that we can look. We can't control if the water's warmer. We can't control if the whales are hanging out longer.

But we can look at the data and we can examine those triggers and figure out what's reasonable and what's a reasonable expectation. The problem is we're being held to an expectation of zero. That's like saying you're being held to an expectation of driving on the freeway and there's never an accident.

And if there is an accident, we're going to stop driving and no one's going to get anywhere. And unfortunately for us, when there's an accident, the commercial Dungeness crab fishery stops. But all of the other ocean uses don't. Ships don't. There's a lot of other components.

So I think for me and for pcffa, where we really see an opportunity to broaden our opportunities is by using updated science and real data to figure out those triggers. Ramp is. Is built with those numbers because those are the only numbers we have.

But we contend that those numbers could be reevaluated and that could have the single biggest impact on increasing opportunity and production.

Thank you, Mr. Ogg.

To dovetail on what Lisa is talking about, I mean, I sit back and think about this logically, and when we look at, you know, the migratory patterns of these animals and thinking about, you. Know. When they decide when they.

If there's three or 400 smaller juvenile animals, we need to know if those are going to be migrating with the entire group or are they going to be able to. Or are they going to be sticking around longer in the areas that we might be fishing in. And those numbers that Lisa's talking about that does.

That threshold that we're set at has no wiggle room. And, you know, we don't know for sure that some of these animals don't hang around for 23 years and we don't have an opportunity to fish because we can't work with that set threshold. That adjustment needs to be adaptable to the population. And as things change, we.

We need to be able to change that threshold to adjust for that. So I really think it's important that the data be the driving force, you know, and not a set, you know, not a set thing, you know, so. Yeah. Thank you.

No, thank you so much, Mr. Ogg. I'm going to turn over to Senator Cortese.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm just curious about the. The trap fee surplus, I guess you referred to it as. Seems like it's kind of just a Reserve sitting there. Or is. Is it the usage of the dollars that needs to be statutorily changed? Because it's.

Because it isn't defined broadly enough to cover the areas you want to cover? I'm just trying to understand.

Yeah. Thank you, Senator Cartesi. It is so in statute, I believe, and actually, Dr. Schumann is probably the expert on this, but it does say that the proceeds from that Fund can be used to cover Department costs associated with implementing and enforcing the trap limit program and also to facilitate and administer the Dungeness Crab Task Force.

And then any excess funds do just sit in that account. So that's why since 2013, we've built up quite a surplus that has not been used. I think the average biannual usage by the Department is somewhere around $1.1 million over the last six years or so.

And so if you removed that and you maintained a $1.1 million buffer for uncertainty purposes, you would still have about 1.3 million in surplus that could be freed up and used for some of these priorities.

And is there maybe it's a question for you. I don't know. But is there risk, the propensity for risk to, to the program beyond the six year average that we're seeing? Right. It seems like a rather basic kind of a cleanup item if, especially if the administration's agreeable to it.

But it would seem like with all the moving parts that we're hearing about today, is there some kind of, you know, possibility of an enforcement spike that's going to want to draw on that money? I think that's what our colleagues would want to know. Are we going to bottom out the fund and then not.

And then not have it there for you? I understand you're leaving $1.0 million there as a buffer, but it's just a General question. Have as much analysis been done as to worst case scenario planning?

Thank you, Senator Cortese. I don't think we have looked at the worst case scenario. I think that $1.1 million Buff to as the expected need for a worst case scenario potentially. I do know the statute also includes a provision right now that allows for reducing those fees in case there is a buildup of surplus.

And that has not happened. And so there has been interest in going and looking at ways to actually leverage and use those funds towards some of these priority needs.

That's why I asked the question. Initially it seemed like administratively you should be able to to take the Fund down to use it, but evidently it's not. Some of these items, even though they're very pertinent to the topic, are not specifically called on the statute as items that are eligible for expenditure. So. Okay. Exactly. I'm sure.

I understand. Case I have to vote on that Bill someday.

Hey, there we go. Hi, Dion here, the Executive Director in Mr. Ogg in regards to. Look, we got to talk numbers. I'm paraphrasing here based off of ramp.

Something that we've been talking about for quite some time is when does commercial season start when it comes to dungeon scrap and whether it's issues of quality domoic acid or presence of whales, we are creeping into the new year and missing that historic boom time of the holidays. Your thoughts on looking at a January 1st date, please.

Madam Executive Director.

Thank you for the question that has come up several times and I can tell you I don't think that we are ready to give up on the statutory season starting November 15, even if the cold reality is we haven't done that in a long time and we may not get to for a long time.

We don't know what's coming. We don't know what's coming. With changes in the migratory pattern of the whales. We don't know if the, the whales are going to be delisted. There's conversations about that.

We don't know how much this population may grow and how much we may learn about co occurrence and be able to fish with traditional gear earlier.

So I think at this time, even though that may be where we are in practicality, cutting off that first couple of months and no longer having the opportunity to go back to it if conditions change would be tragic. So I think that's where we're at.

I, you know, I have to completely agree. I don't, I don't think we should ever give up that opportunity. I really firmly believe that in time it's possible that we might be able to figure out ways to work around this. I, I just could never say never.

I mean, I just can't, you know, and I don't think there's anybody in our porch or anywhere that I can think of that would say, hey, you know what, we'll just give it up and we'll just say January 1st. I get it, I understand. But I really feel it's important that we maintain that opportunity. Got it.

And very quickly, Mr. Ogg, if you just want to talk a little bit about what you're hearing from those fishermen within the fleet that have adopted new and, or testing new technologies, give us some feedback.

Thank you for the opportunity. Actually, I think that in General, you know, there's optimism. I do feel that, you know, that the opportunity to continue and have a chance in the springtime to be able to fish is very important.

That spring fishery means a lot to a lot of people and there has been a shift in the way the resource has kind of rebounded in the springtime. I think that one thing we do need to consider is alternatives.

And you know, as we said, the PCFFA was instrumental in trying to do a grapple only technique that does not require the purchase of thousands of dollars of equipment. And it was extremely successful.

I had the opportunity to do that and I also have had the opportunity to test a number of the different pieces of equipment, all of which work most of the time.

But one has to remember there are vertical lines and there is the possibility of non deployment, mid water deployment and all sorts of other things that can occur. We are just trying to find other methods that offer opportunity to the industry that don't cost an arm and a leg to operate.

And we want everybody to have a chance. So I think that in General, the fleet is, you know, beginning to kind of look at options. I won't say it's always completely positive, but, you know, I mean, we're trying our best.

Yeah. Look, transition is never easy. Just be blunt. Right. And I hate it. I don't like transition.

So I hear what you're saying in regards to you've done something all of your life for your entire career and then expected to be able to advance something that's different and something that may work majority of the time, but still has some kinks to work out. Right. And it's very frustrating. Yeah. Please, Madam Director.

Thank you. I would just like to add, I think it's difficult for people who aren't in the industry to understand the significant difference between the opening of a season and spring. While it's one season on paper, statutorily, they're essentially two different fisheries, the opening season and the spring season. And these alternative gear types work in the spring.

And I think there's a lot of optimism because it does allow fishing to continue because the participation is so much lower, the weather is different, the price is higher. The additional effort it takes to do that kind of long lining, whether it's with pop up or not, works in that environment.

And that's why we're seeing more adoption, because there's no salmon season. Guys want to keep fishing crabs longer, and we are very supportive of increasing that access at the end of the. But the math for those of us on land that think, well, hey, let's just do that all the time, it doesn't math.

It doesn't work in a situation where 420 boats are fishing and it's a derby and it's a virgin biomass and it's the weather and it's fast and it's furious. It just doesn't work.

So I just think it's important as we're talking about alternative gear that we keep in mind that it's something for the spring where 6% of the harvest happens and not for the 94% that happens at the beginning.

Thank you so much. Very grateful. I want to turn over to Dr. Shuman. We're going to need to start wrapping up Dr. Shuman on the issues of domoic acid.

Thank you, Senator McGuire. So apparently, while we were sitting up here, one of the horsemen has struck and we have hot crab, three of them out of the first sampling out of Trinidad, one of them very high. So it's early. So we've got several more weeks or months of testing ahead of us.

I think Monterey is the next sample that'll be coming in. So we'll be tracking that closely, working with our partners at cdph, saniform, Department of Public Health and Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment and the fleet of course, to get the samples and track that and go run through our protocols. 100%. Thank you so much.

And first area will be up next week as well, correct? I believe. Yes, next week. That's great. To our entire panel, thank you. Thank you for taking the time. Really, really grateful for your work. Thank you for being here today and for your leadership. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right.

We are going to take a 32nd break, but we're going to in that time, we're going to invite our next panel to come up. This is what we call help for kelp. And beware of the blob. And look, one of the biggest challenges that we've seen in some parts of the earth, it's coral.

Here in California, we've seen a lot of deficit when it comes to our traditional kelp forests. And we're really grateful to have this conversation about the health of kelp across the state and what this impact of the blob is going to be here on California's fishery.

We're going to take a 32nd recess and we'll be right back with you.

All right, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much for your patience and grateful for this next panel. This is a really important one and we want to say thank you so much to Jenn Eckerle. She's with the California Natural Resource Agency as the Deputy Secretary for Oceans and Coastal Policy.

And if that was not enough, she's OPC's Acting Executive Director. Just a few things going on. And Madam Director is going to be speaking in the partnership with DFW in regards to the health of kelp across the State of California and the investment plan in research and restoration efforts here throughout California.

Thank you so much, Madam Secretary. It's wonderful to see you. The floor is yours. You have five minutes. And this is something that is near and dear to so many of us who live in California, and it's been devastating to be able to see the die off and really grateful for the work and the research.

The floor is yours. And I'll give you a 30 second prompt.

Thank you so much, Senator McGuire and Mr. Nielsen, for the invitation to be here. I'm really proud and honored to be sitting here with these panelists and also everyone you've heard from today. I have close relationships and deep respect for everyone who is doing this work to protect the ocean, whether you're a conservation organization or a fisherman.

I don't have to tell you that California's kelp forests host extraordinary biodiversity. They support ecologically and economically important species, and they hold significant cultural importance for California Native American tribes.

They drive California's coastal economy by supporting fisheries and fishing communities, and they draw thousands of tourists to the coast each year. And we know that kelp forests are dynamic ecosystems and they generally fluctuate from year to year. Disturbances like El Niños and large winter storms can have significant impacts, but kelp forests have historically tended to bounce back.

In 2014, however, an unprecedented marine heat wave, coupled with the onset of Sea Star Wasting Disease in 2013, caused the near collapse of kelp forests in Northern California and significant declines in Central and Southern California, with impacts cascading across the ecosystem and coastal communities. We do have some good news.

Preliminary satellite data from 2025 suggests that kelp forests are beginning to recover in much of the Central and Southern California coasts. And while that recovery is promising, in May, as you mentioned, Senator, a new marine heat wave arose off the coast of—off the West Coast—presenting concerns for marine life and ecosystem health.

We are actively tracking the extent and severity of this marine heat wave, and my fellow panelist and colleague, Dr. Marissa Baskett, will share more about this during her presentation.

The loss of nearly 96% of kelp forests in Northern California and kelp declines in central and Southern California have really catalyzed state action over the last several years. Since 2019, the Ocean Protection Council has invested close to $11 million in kelp forest research, community and tribal engagement, and restoration efforts to combat these losses.

These investments have supported research to inform the location, timing, and efficacy of restoration; removal of sea urchins by commercial urchin divers—with over 27 tons of urchins removed from pilot restoration sites in Mendocino County—facilitating early signs of kelp forest recovery; development of innovative aquaculture approaches to grow kelp for outplanting; improved understanding of the impacts of increased sea surface temperature and marine heat waves on kelp growth and resilience; tribally led kelp forest monitoring; novel pilot-scale restoration experiments, including testing for urchin removal and defense of kelp edges against urchin incursion; and undergraduate, graduate, and early-career training for the next generation of marine scientists and restoration practitioners.

The initial results from these state investments highlight the success of a portfolio approach to restoring kelp forests and they will directly inform the development of a statewide Kelp Restoration and Management Plan, otherwise known as the KRMP, currently led by the Department of Fish and Wildlife in partnership with OPC.

The KRMP will be California's first ecosystem-based fisheries management plan and will include a restoration toolkit and a harvest framework for giant and bulk kelp.

The KRMP is being formed through a community working group composed of urchin fishers, recreational scuba divers, and restoration practitioners, as well as a Science Advisory Committee made up of experts in marine ecology, social science, and fisheries, including Dr. Basket. Tribal leaders and scientists are participating on both groups.

We anticipate the final KRMP will be presented to the Fish and Game Commission for adoption in late 2026.

More broadly, the Ocean Protection Council is partnering with California Ocean Science Trust on an expert and an expert scientific working group to develop science guidance for coastal and ocean marine restoration in California in the face of a rapidly changing ocean. My colleague, Monica Lafleur from the Ocean Science Trust, will share more about that effort in her remarks.

The KRMP and this new science guidance will support the conservation and restoration of kelp forests and other threatened ecosystems as climate change accelerates.

Importantly, the state has adopted a learn by doing approach that meets the urgency of the moment, supporting actions that help us learn and ensure that project outcomes are integrated into our policy and management. Supporting the recovery and reintroduction of sunflower stars is also a key emerging priority for the Ocean Protection Council and the Department of Fish and Wildlife.