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Posts published by “Alastair Bland”

Has Trucking Saved Our Salmon?

With an ocean salmon fishing season set to open on April 2nd and fishery managers estimating that coastal waters currently boast more salmon than they have in five dismal years, it appears that the severe…

Will Commercial Catch Shares Sink Local Fleets?

A lawsuit filed by local commercial fishermen may not stop what plaintiffs see as a corporate scheme to privatize the ocean and eliminate small-boat fishermen from the water. On Jan. 13, a new fishery management…

Georgian Wine

They came to California by FedEx in September, two dozen grapevine specimens collected on a government fruit-collecting trip to the Republic of Georgia. They will eventually be rooted at the US Department of Agriculture’s tree…

Lake Almanor & The Thermal Curtain

As summer heats up, the water temperatures in the lower reaches of the North Fork of the Feather River may rise above 70 degrees Fahrenheit — uncomfortably and even dangerously warm for the native rainbow…

A Halibut Free-For-All

With the collapse of the West Coast’s salmon fishery, thousands of anglers have turned their attentions toward other more readily available species of fish, like rockfish, striped bass and lingcod. California halibut, though, may feel…

Gray Whales Under Fire

Each March, gray whales by the thousands flood into the large lagoons of Baja California’s Pacific coast to give birth. Not this year.

Salmon Feeding In San Pablo Bay

Each week during the spring along the shores of San Pablo Bay, tanker trucks hired by the Department of Fish and Game (DFG) deliver thousands of Chinook salmon smolts, born in hatcheries upstream, to strategic…

Liquor Tax Hits Barrel-Aged Beers

When Bison Brewing Company’s bourbon barrel-aged brown ale goes to tap late this spring, the brewery’s owner, Dan Del Grande, may be required by a new law to pay a hefty liquor tax to state…

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