The Bering Sea pollock industry might close itself out of as much as 5,000 square nautical miles of fishing grounds in an effort to reduce chum salmon bycatch.
Here's the press release.
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Alaska commercial fishing news and notes
About me
- Deckboss
- I'm a journalist covering Alaska's commercial fishing industry. My real name is Wesley Loy. Reach me at wloy61@gmail.com.
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8 comments:
Any effort to help the chum salmon survive in the Bering Sea by the pollock fishery is worthy of praise. They need to do the same thing for the King Salmon in the sea because the King Salmon is the most valuable species of all the salmon.
Anything done for the chum salmon this late in the game comes across very suspiciously and the motive is probably a positive one for the pollock fishery. They are most likely not doing it for the hundreds and hundreds of poor people who can no longer subsist on a resource that is important both cultually and traditionally. They will continue to line their billionaire pockets no matter what.
That word "might" is pretty fishy from the mightiest fishery of the Bering Sea - "....might close itself out ...".
It'll be more news worthy to me when it's a done deal. Might is like a promise given to a kid that doesn't get fulfilled.
Hey I wonder how that Ward's Cove purchase will work out for Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation and Coastal Villages Region Fund after this area closure?
You can read more about the Ward's Cove purchase here: http://tinyurl.com/6z9v8kd This is about all we know about it. As is NSEDC's normal MO, it has all been very hush hush. Even the members of the NSEDC board of directors haven't gotten any of the details of the deal.
The author of this story, Tyler Rhodes, is listed as NSEDC communications director but except for fluff pieces, he doesn't do much communicating especially not with the people who live in the Norton Sound region.
The projections by the NMFS economists don't look too good. In fact they look awful for the catcher vessel fleet. Shore based catcher vessels are going to have a lot tougher time getting the pollock. Is it possible that the Brindles saw this coming and sold the clueless CDQ program rubes a white-elephant? Would they do that?
NSEDC isn't talking about it to the people who will end up holding the bag if this deal goes sour. If they have something up their sleeves that will make this work they ought to tell us what the plan is. From the perspective of a Norton Sound resident locked out of the machinations of our CDQ group's think tank, it looks like another of the colossal screw-ups that happen whenever people from rural Alaska without education or business experience try to invest the public's money in big shot for-profit competitive business ventures. We have seen how this plays out many times in the past but maybe it will be different this time.
It would sure be reassuring if NSEDC and CVRF would explain how they are going to make Ward's Cove work and avoid chum salmon bycatch at the same time. The way they are doing it gives the appearance that they didn't anticipate the impact of bycatch reduction measures and got blindsided. Is that possible?
Conspiracy theories abound 'round these parts. I'd probably have a little more respect for them if I knew that some of them were taking a kickback than if they just overlooked the bycatch ramifications before they signed the Ward's Cove purchase agreement.
Is that you again Tim?
Any are that they close off to themselves either has poor catch history or no catch history for the species they are targeting. This is just to make it seem like they are "doing the right thing". Might as well close off lakes and streams 200 miles inland to Trawlers also. Wouldn't make any difference.
The way the way the pollock fleet's hot spot closure program works is that only areas that have been recently fished are closed. In this case, the fleet has been moved away from what has easily been the most productive fishing grounds to date this season.
trawlers,locusts of the seas. killing everything they come in contact with.
"trawlers....killing everything they come in contact with." as well as a hundreds year old culture and tradition of poor Alaskans with the CDQ millions that was intended to give relief for the lack of salmon returning to the rivers to spawn.
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