The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is asking the Obama administration to provide $3.8 million to launch an expanded fisheries observer program.
Here's the letter requesting the money.
Fishery observers — people who ride aboard boats to monitor catch and bycatch — already are used extensively off Alaska, with industry paying most of the cost. The observers provide data vital for managing pollock, cod and other fisheries.
The council wants to fill in gaps in the program by expanding observer coverage to more boats, including halibut vessels and small trawlers.
The $3.8 million is needed as a one-time subsidy to put the expanded observer program into place faster, the council letter explains.
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24 comments:
The off-shore fisheries observer program will work if the observers are on duty 24/7! Hopefully the 3.8 million dollars, if given by the Federal Government, will not be wasted.
Observers 24/7 will help weed out the cheaters!
Many boats participating in gulf trawling are 58 feet. A length where no coverage is required. Truth be told, gulf trawl fisheries can be very dirty. The best solution would be to change the start date to February 20th. This will result in cleaner tows and less fuel wasted. However, observer coverage should be required for all trawlers regardless of length.
The most obvious solution for the biggest impact soonest would be to require 100 percent coverage on the
trawlers that now only require 33. Is there any mystery on why they fish different places when observed? I'm a fisherman, I Know why!
Hmm....wonder why Pacific seafood has so many small draggers on its roster.......
Hopefully this will be a start toward getting a true count on salmon bycatch. It won't eliminate the problem of observer coercion or deception but it will theoretically give us better handle on the magnitude of the bycatch.
Observed salmon bycatch in the pollock B season is out of control again this year. No matter what they tell the council, it doesn't look like there is any practical way to avoid scooping up salmon along with the pollock.
I concure with both comments above. However postponing gulf cod fishing until February 20th will be the best solution. I too am a fisherman and I too trawl in the gulf. I am not interested in finding a new job. But I am willing to do what's necessary to clean up while reducing costs. The best would be quota shares, delay until Feb 20th with 100% observer coverage.
If you want quota shares move to the east or west coast just get the hell out of Alaska! We don't want or need quota shares
Sorry Buckwheat, I'm not going anywhere. I will continue to fight for quota share so you better get used to it winer!
Winner is with two n's.
Why do people always associate better coverage and more practical fishing seasons with quota shares? Quota has nothing to do with observer coverage or when the seasons open.
Evidently someone should move to the east or west coast of America.
The MFCMA was enacted to promote the U.S. fishing industry's optimal exploitation of coastal fisheries by “consolidating control over territorial waters” and establishing eight regional councils to manage fish stocks.[5] The act has been amended several times in response to continued overfishing of major stocks. The most recent version, authorized in 2007, includes seven purposes:[6]
1.Acting to conserve fishery resources
2.Supporting enforcement of international fishing agreements
3.Promoting fishing in line with conservation principles
4.Providing for the implementation of fishery management plans (FMPs) which achieve optimal yield
5.Establishing Regional Fishery Management Councils to steward fishery resources through the preparation, monitoring, and revising of plans which (A) enable stake holders to participate in the administration of fisheries and (B) consider social and economics needs of states.
6.Developing underutilized fisheries
7.Protecting essential fish habitats
Additionally, the law calls for reducing bycatch and establishing fishery information monitoring systems.
Individual fishing quotas are wiping out livelihoods and traditional ways of making a living more than the by catch of salmon are. It does more to take jobs away from fishermen and devestate communities than by catch. In these difficult financial times why would the government try to do anything to remove jobs? I say remove Dr. Lubchenco and investigate all the councils.
Because open access has such a great track record of success?
Open acess was closed so the community would not be devestated.
http://www.cfec.state.ak.us/pregs/Homan30YrsLimitedEntrySummary.pdf
The Limited Entry law was enacted in 1973. Some key features of the program were to
1) require issuance to natural persons only, 2) prohibit permit leasing, 3) prevent the use
of permits as collateral for loans, and 4) allow for free transferability. The Limited Entry
law also defined entry permits as a use-privilege that can be modified by the legislature
without compensation. Free transferability has resulted in maintaining high percentages
of residents within Alaska’s fisheries and has been upheld by Alaska’s Supreme Court.
Permit holders are free to transfer their permits to family members or any other individual
who is able to participate in the fishery by means of gift, inheritance or sale.
And even on a Gulf Sandbar chop, chop, chop! Olemiss, that favorite of equal protection, always confusing on one certain, Alaska Limited Entry Sandbar.
http://nsglc.olemiss.edu/SandBar/SandBar3/3.4alaska.htm
there is no more open access. the l.l.p. program put an end to that. with the ifq program you just as well give it all to big corporations and wipe out the small towns as fast as you can. why delay the inevitable!!! how many original issue quota holders are there for halibut or blackcod? how much of that quota has moved out of the small towns? how many people in those same small towns now have longline jobs in the ifq fishery? how did king cove fare with the privitization of bering sea crab fishery's?
Oh, that closed minded open access?
And the reports on it are clearly written, take for instance Kodiak and Petersburg, where increases of IFQ, both in new and original entrants has increased about 20%
In Homer it's dropped about 15%, of course is can also be explained by "What's a Fishing Community"
Who's fault is it that Kodiak and Petersburg, bought some of Homers IFQ?
George Bush?
If you think LLPs and IFQs are destroying communities, take a look at the devastation wrought by CDQs. The program that Ted Stevens created to promote fisheries related economic development in coastal communities along the Bering Sea is now an impenetrable barrier to anyone trying to enter any kind of fisheries business who is not favored by the CDQ management elite.
The inevitable end point of catch shares are corporate monopolies and the worst examples of this are the CDQs.
The fifteen page memo from the former council members from Washington and Oregon complaining about oppressive CDQ monopoly abuse is right on the mark. Ironically, the most severely impacted are the people living in the impoverished CDQ eligible communities Ted said were supposed to be the beneficiaries of the CDQs.
What the CDQ program has done more than anything else is broaden the income disparity between the haves and the have-nots in the 65 CDQ communities and created a privileged class of CDQ program pseudo-executives living in Anchorage, Juneau and Seattle.
Vote Larry Cotter then, AIPEDC, WACDA, and any or every other PAC too!
234 Gold Street
Juneau AK. 00000
907-586-0161
This subject has been discussed, his address is self explainatory!
Dang! Wouldn't you just die for 123 Gold St in Juneau?
So why does one see this Larry Cotter guy name pop up so much these days? And who could ever name an organization WACDA? Whack da what?
"WACDA? Whack da.." right out of the picture you little fishermen!
WACDA's current director is old enough to be some of us old fart's granddaughter and she didn't come from a commercial fishing family like our Chief of Fish and Game who is out fishing a crab fishery just opened after a six year closure! Get those intimates out of the picture then maybe we'll get back to the fairness in the industry.
Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children. - Tribe Unknown
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