Sunday, December 22, 2013

Seeking answers for Chinook decline

Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell's proposed fiscal year 2015 budget contains $10 million for ongoing research on Chinook salmon, returns of which have been low in recent years.

One research project involves a planned juvenile Chinook survey in the northern Bering Sea.

The Department of Fish and Game is looking to charter a trawl vessel for the survey, to be conducted next September. For more specifics, see page 5 of this invitation to bid.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Like OJ searching for the real killer on the Florida golf course.

Anonymous said...

The Dept. could obtain an instrument to locate the cause of the loss of Chinook stocks. That is, if they wanted to. It is a hand held mirror!

Anonymous said...

The new improve NMFS observer program reduced gulf of alaska trawler coverage from 30% to less than 16%. this is supposed to generate more accurate bycatch numbers. AND trawl bycatch miraculously has gone down by 1/2.

EXCEPT

The guy who runs http://tholepin.blogspot.com/
Discovered that there was one boat, who had a previous, rather slimey exemption to the earlier 100% catcher/processor coverage rate, whose observer coverage now went from 30% to 100%

And guess what happened?

His King salmon bycatch RATE increased 900%.

What this clearly shows is that he was previously "gaming" the observer coverage, fishing safe tows when observed and fishing totally different when not observed.

There is a cost to "gaming". You fish where you no there is no bycatch and there is less target species too. So are you more apt to incur that cost if it only happens 15% of the time instead of 30% ???

Let's say the majority of the gulf trawl fleet is gaming their observer coverage and what is actually being killed as bycatch more closely reflects the Golden Fleece's 900% bycatch increase.

Do we really need to spent $10 million on head in the sand, pretend research?


Anonymous said...

A mirror 12:36? And Walt Disney's still looking for Cinderella's glass slipper too!

Let's go trawl up some endangered species, like the mouse that drove the Pumpkin?

"A blind man is not required to see at his peril; and although he is, no doubt, bound to consider his infirmity in regulating his actions, yet if he properly finds himself in a certain situation, the neglect of precautions requiring eyesight would not prevent his recovering for an injury to himself, and, it may be presumed, would not make him liable for injuring another."
O.W. Holmes

Anonymous said...

ADF&G what bunch of clowns. I like the mirror solution.