Saturday, April 21, 2012

Another sorry salmon season expected on Yukon

State and federal agencies have come out with the Yukon River salmon outlook for this year, and it's not great.

No commercial fishery for Chinook salmon is anticipated, due to a "below average to poor" run projection.

Managers also expect to ban the sale of Chinook caught incidentally in the summer chum fishery.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

Shouldn't be poopin in your river.
Would you like to live in feces???

Anonymous said...

Build a freakin hatchery for salmon, duh.

Anonymous said...

Not enough kings?...it wasn't me!

love,

"Subsistence" Sam and Pitchfork Pete

Anonymous said...

We knew that was coming, but the north pacific council refused to acknowledge the problem. I hope this problem doesn't continue. Keep going to the meetings and let them know what they did. We need to send them the message they have a policy of sustainable of a fishery under state law. Come on AYK make them follow the law.

Anonymous said...

"Keep going to the meetings and let them know what they did." doesn't seem like an answer to the problem. They know what they did without having it rubbed in their faces.

The state also appears to be avoiding the issue as the Commissioner of F&G sits on the council. The next best path leads the people straight to Washington D.C. and the lawmakers down there. Lisa M. owes the people a favor for getting elected on a Write In. Talk to her.

Anonymous said...

So far it looks like the 25 years of crying about what it use to be like hasn't worked one iota.

How about changing the approach and start demanding that the US government represented by the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council and the State government represented by the members on NPFMC from Alaska, which includes the Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game,draw up and enact Emergency Shut Down regulations on the Bering Sea Pollock Fishery. No more Salmon Bycatch should be the demand.

Anonymous said...

the only way to stop this is thru the courts.
get some lawyers after the npmc.

Anonymous said...

No, change the law like Ted Stevens and Don Young did. Coast Guard rider in 2006 can be undone. It took away oversight government oversight to the CDQ program. A law can take it back.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps the Natives of the state should start talking to each other. This week in Nome, Kawerak is sponsoring an Elders Conference for the Norton Sound region. They are talking about "Non-Salmon Subsistence Activities". Crazy. Telling their elders what to talk about. It's about silencing the ignorant and illiterate. Changing the culture is what's going on. Making talking about "Salmon" taboo. Forget that it's a traditional and cultural food source. Crazy.

Anonymous said...

So how's that Upper Yukon River CDQ group doing in Dawson, and Whitehorse?

http://alaska.fws.gov/asm/pdf/fisheries/reports/00-003final.pdf

Anonymous said...

CDQ is American, Dawson and Whitehorse are Canadian.

Yup, squeezing out our neighbors while we're squeezing out the Alaskan Native and Alaskans in general from a traditional food source. The President of the US needs to keep tabs on this international soon to be a crisis. Killing off the King Salmon in the Bering Sea Pollock Fishery is what's happening!

Anonymous said...

"No More Salmon Bycath", zero, nada, will help bring back the Yukon King Salmon, the Yukon and Norton Sound summer Chum Salmon and all the other Salmon Species being destroyed in their natural nursery, The Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

That's the logical solution because once the salmon are killed off, the pollock are killed off, the seals are killed off, the cod are killed off, the halibut are killed off, and all the other species in the oceans habitat are killed off, the US government will have nearly 1/2 million people depending on the salmon as food on welfare.

This is the start of the travesty and it's been going on for 30 years! Alaska is only 50 years old for criminy shakes!

Anonymous said...

They're already on welfare, what's new?

Anonymous said...

CDQ drag boats are like putting a knife to your own throat, then shooting yourself in the foot...or the big family party that ends in a big drunken fight.

Anonymous said...

Ever meet our drunken party members, experts at shooting themselves in the foot...it's a family tradition.

http://www.sitnews.us/Kiffer/SalmonWars/071907_salmonwars.html

Anonymous said...

But in that case a sharp Canadian billionaire, Jim Pattison, buys fish on both sides of the border, and comes out winning no matter what. Meuter, Suder, put down that shooter, we're one big happy family!

Anonymous said...

The CDQ haters on here have it wrong (at least in the context of salmon bycatch). The CDQ groups work hard to keep their bycatch low, in fact , they have the lowest rates out there. Trident doesn't give a shit. Even though they put on a good show at the Council meetings, the Akutan co-op consistently has the worst bycatch performance. By far.

I say give it all to the CDQ groups. If they can fish it with the same rates they've had, bycatch would drop to less than half what it is now.

Anonymous said...

It's hard to see people make fun of our way of life and see our people not having enough fish to feed our families for the winter like we used too. I really feel sorry for the AYK people having so little salmon for the winter. I spoke to a elderly lady up in Galena she only had one King Salmon for the winter. Come on you guys what if there were no stores for your food. We live off the land in most rural alaska. We need to work together and make the State of Alaska live up too there Sustainable Fisheries law they are suppose to follow. I heard the average income in the AYK commerical fishing fishery is only $2700.00 each year. Pretty sad it isn't funny. Anchorage and Fairbanks are always fighting wwho getting to have the Alaska Federation of Naive Convention. We as rural villages spend 3 to 4 million dollars each year in those big cities when we go to these cities for our convention. BYcatch in the Bering Sea that we fought for was 22,000 yet they put the cap at 77,000 and I heard they are catching less now,but we still need to see 22,000 in order to bring back King Salmon to the western villages.

Anonymous said...

C ommunistic
D elinquency
Q uotient

Have someone else do the work, send us all "shares" and program benefits for little effort, the masses get next to nothing compared to the royalty at the top. Great system, just like the old USSR.

Some people will never turn down free money even if it means their demise.

Tim Smith said...

"The CDQ haters on here have it wrong (at least in the context of salmon bycatch). The CDQ groups work hard to keep their bycatch low, in fact , they have the lowest rates out there."

I always wondered how the reported CDQ bycatch is lower than in the open access fishery too. The legend is as the blogger above says, the CDQ groups care so much that their trawls magically miss the salmon. It all became clear when I heard one of the NMFS officials explain how it works at a North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting

Turns out it is nothing more than an accounting shell game. Salmon were prohibited species catch from the beginning of the CDQ program. The open access fishery had no limits on salmon bycatch and still doesn't for anything but king salmon. The same draggers were fishing for CDQ and open access pollock at the same time. If a bag came up full of bycaught salmon it was logged under the open access fishery if it came up clean it went on the CDQ ticket. Thus giving the illusion that CDQ fishing was cleaner and more responsible when in fact it was just a numbers game.

It will be interesting to see what happens now that everybody is limited on king salmon bycatch and if and when they get limited on non-Chinook salmon.

One would think that if the CDQs really had a magical incantation or something allowing them to avoid salmon bycatch that they would share it with the rest of the fleet. With all the political pressure to reduce bycatch and the economic impacts on the industry that would surely follow, I'm sure everybody would like to know their secret.

The CDQ groups now own and fish a lot of non-CDQ pollock. I haven't looked at the numbers but I would be really surprised if their salmon bycatch numbers in those harvests are significantly different than the industry average.

Tim Smith said...

"The CDQ haters on here have it wrong (at least in the context of salmon bycatch). The CDQ groups work hard to keep their bycatch low, in fact , they have the lowest rates out there."

I always wondered how the reported CDQ bycatch is lower than in the open access fishery too. The legend is as the blogger above says, the CDQ groups care so much that their trawls magically miss the salmon. It all became clear when I heard one of the NMFS officials explain how it works at a North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting

Turns out it is nothing more than an accounting shell game. Salmon were prohibited species catch from the beginning of the CDQ program. The open access fishery had no limits on salmon bycatch and still doesn't for anything but king salmon. The same draggers were fishing for CDQ and open access pollock at the same time. If a bag came up full of bycaught salmon it was logged under the open access fishery if it came up clean it went on the CDQ ticket. Thus giving the illusion that CDQ fishing was cleaner and more responsible when in fact it was just a numbers game.

It will be interesting to see what happens now that everybody is limited on king salmon bycatch and if and when they get limited on non-Chinook salmon.

One would think that if the CDQs really had a magical incantation or something allowing them to avoid salmon bycatch that they would share it with the rest of the fleet. With all the political pressure to reduce bycatch and the economic impacts on the industry that would surely follow, I'm sure everybody would like to know their secret.

The CDQ groups now own and fish a lot of non-CDQ pollock. I haven't looked at the numbers but I would be really surprised if their salmon bycatch numbers in those harvests are significantly different than the industry average.

Anonymous said...

"CDQ haters", ummmmmmmm. I wonder who those people are????

I guess if one would stop reading between the lines, one could understand the critics a little better.

It's not that we hate CDQs, and "hate" is not the right word here because it means "bears malice toward". How could thousands of poor people HATE a Public Monies program intended to give them a better life????

The intent of the CDQs was changed by a handful of men back in 2006 with the Coast Guard rider to the Magnuson-Stevens Act. That law can be undone. It needs to be undone.

I say you have it backwards, it's the handful of men that are guarding the pot of bucks that are hating - hating those that remind them that the money is not being managed right. Hatred and billions of public dollars is a bad combination. Both don't buy respect nor do they buy prosperity for all. They buy big time bullying and enrichment for those in control.

The poor Western Alaska people don't "Hate CDQs" because they've just begun to understand the program twenty years later. Information holders kept it to themselves all these years.

Anonymous said...

"Another sorry salmon season" is a misleading title because it leaves me wondering who should be "sorry": the ADF&G Managers who have obviously not managed an important resource for sustainability; or the poor Western Alaska owners of the Community Development Quota of the Bering Sea Pollock Fishery.

Both sectors should be sorry, very, very sorry.

Sam Rabung of the hatchery permitting section of ADF&G, holding hands with Charlie Lean of NSEDC, Norton Sounds CDQ program, just got done forcing the 'Regions Salmon Plan' down the peoples throat at the recent Kawerak Elders Conference this past week in Nome. The stakeholders have no idea who wrote the plan in the first place. ADF&G or NSEDC? ADF&G and NSEDC?

Watching this monopoly take place was the NSEDC Administrators who were there in force, silently watching the sham as if they were witnessing their baby being born. After the birth of the 'Regional Salmon Plan', Janis Ivanoff, CEO of NSEDC, thanked everyone, mainly Sam and Charlie for putting on the sham. NSEDC's Salmon Plan for the Norton Sound region. The state helped facilitate this document.

In this same Elders Conference, the elders of the region were regulated to speak about 'Non-Salmon Subsistence Fish' which boils down to bullheads, tom cods and northern pike. Scrubby fish, good enough for you was the message loud and clear. Our elders went along with the sham because they know about bullying and they are afraid.

Bullying the elders and through them, the people, who for hundreds and hundreds of years have lived off the salmon. The stakeholders of the Norton Sound CDQ program need to be sorry for not taking a stand for salmon in Norton Sound.

danwot

Anonymous said...

Here is the exact wording for the "Non-Salmon Fish" elder exchange workshop at the recent Kawerak Elders Conference in Nome last week.

"Traditional Knowledge Exchange: Non-Salmon Fish, April 25 (Wednesday), 9:45a-10:30a in the Aerobics Room

This workshop will have a panel of several non-salmon experts from Shishmaref, Wales, Brevig Mission, Teller and Stebbins. The experts will share some of their local and traditional knowledge of non-salmon fish and fishing, have fishing equipment for participants to look at, and will answer all your questions about non-salmon fish!! Bring your favorite non-salmon fish recipe to share with the group!"

It's a clear, concise, and overt message taking away the peoples VOICE on an important cultural and traditional food resource - the salmon. Restricting their topic as if these elder people are children!!

The time frame allowed them 45 minutes and I could see why. There isn't much to catching a bullhead, a tom cod, and a northern pike. Equipment for harvesting is simple and can be handmade - jigging stick with a few trade beads.

The overt message I am concluding from this advertised workshop is that these elderly poor people can afford to subsist off of scrubby fish to sustain their culture with "non-salmon fish". You just need a stick, some string, and a few trade beads! Easy, simple and affordable. This is Disrespect to the max!!!!

danwot

Anonymous said...

The lack of salmon returning to the Western Alaska rivers to spawn is not about "poopin" in the rivers as blogger #1 stated! It's about "poopin" on the people who are the poorest in the State of Alaska.

The declining numbers of salmon returning to spawn in the Western Alaska rivers and the poor people who lived off of salmon for hundreds of years was given a "hand-up" in the form of the Western Alaska Community Development Quota", CDQs from the Federal Government. This amounts to billions and billions of Public Monies.

Billions of Public Dollars with no oversight from the Federal or State governments puts the CDQs in a very peculiar spotlight.

Take this peculiar spotlight and shine it on the recent happenings in Nome - the Kawerak Elders Conference and the events that happened just this last week. ADF&G, NSEDC, and Kawerak.

Don't cry for the salmon anymore because nobody is listening to you! "No Voice - No Future" (themudflats, April 20, 2012)