Deckboss has been remiss in failing to note that the North Pacific Fishery Management Council has been meeting the past several days in Nome.
It's the first time the council has ever convened in that exciting and faraway town.
And the council, evidently, has used the occasion to achieve yet another first: a limit on Chinook salmon bycatch in the Gulf of Alaska pollock fishery, says this press release from the Alaska Marine Conservation Council.
Awesome - the middle ground was chosen at 22,500, to be a middle ground above the ten year average - so the harvesters would not really have to do anything on an average year - so hey, let's just up that number 25,000 to make sure, as a middle ground approach, that nothing really has to be done on this issue.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, two rivers are closed to king salmon fishing in Kodiak (both sport and commercial) and four rivers in Cook Inlet (both sport and commercial).
I am sure none of the kings caught in the Gulf of Alaska come from Southcentral Alaska...
Of course, no one knows cause no one has any information on the river of origin of these bye bye bycatch kings.
I am sure it will take NOAA about ten years to get a genetic stock identification plan in place for king bycatch in the Gulf of Alaska.
About f****** time!
ReplyDelete#1 has it right...set the number high enough that it never becomes a problem for the fleet. Don't try to protect kings. Proportionately, this is WAY higher than the Bering Sea Chinook cap, per ton of pollock.
ReplyDeleteAnd, what the fuck is Ed Dersham doing? He's only "Alaska" member to vote against the lower cap level.
Managers of the salmon fisheries have been talking "genetic stock identification" for going on 20 years now. Could it be that those same managers don't really want a way to identify where the salmon killed as ByCatch are coming from.
ReplyDeletefuck tim smith
ReplyDelete