Zeke Grader Quotations

Some are just going to tie up their boats and try to find something else.

At this point, our goal is to model whatever season we get so the catch is spread out over the entire fishing period. We don't want to catch everything at once -- we want to be able to provide at least some fresh local salmon to consumers throughout the entire season.

For most fishermen, salmon is critical for a major portion of their income. This is a killer. This is a fishery that's a century old and this is the first time to my knowledge that it would be totally closed.

This is going to be a horrible year. It's not a total closure, but it's the closest thing to it.

This is why it's so important to us to try to get the Klamath restored. We're talking about most of Oregon and California being shut down by this.

We've seen some troubling signs. Like almost every fish and shellfish that uses the bay, Pacific herring depend on a clean estuary with plenty of freshwater inflow to create productive brackish conditions. But as we ship more and more water south from the delta, we're endangering the herring and most other commercial species.

Year in, year out, salmon is the one that they depend upon. It's their anchor fishery.

The wet winter does give us time to sit down with them and see how we can meet those requirements.

The failure to follow scientific advice and the fish kills of 2002 is now being put onto the backs of family fishermen by taking away their livelihood.

The federal government has done absolutely nothing to help, and fishermen are angry. It's almost like they created this Klamath situation to make them look competent on Katrina.