State and federal managers have released their Yukon River salmon fisheries outlook. Here's how it starts:
The 2014 Chinook salmon run is expected to be extremely poor and could be the worst on record.
Read the whole thing here, if you dare.
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12 comments:
What is the number of the pollock trawler by- catch for this season? I know it the same old question , with same old answer! Cora Campbell its time to speak up before someone in the Obama administration does it for you!
"Escapement - Insufficient to meet all escapement goals". " Commercial harvest - No Fishery anticipated, Subsistence harvest - No Fishery anticipated." Allowable prohibited species bycatch of king salmon by BSAI pollock drag fleet for 2014 under Ammendment 91 - 47,591 king salmon. The Magnuson Stevens Act and the pollock industry dominated NPFMC have failed to protect the king salmon resource and failed to acknowledge long standing conservation concerns of subsistence and commercial king harvesters.
Managing the king salmon bycatch consistent with principles of Maximum Sustained Greed has destroyed Alaska's king salmon resource. Sad times for our State Fish.
I'm glad the Yukon managers have finally decided to set their forecasts more realistically given their previous forecast versus actual return problems.
Now, will the Council do their part instead of abdicating...oops, I mean trusting the pollock fleet to keep their bycatch low?
When zero harvest in-river becomes the norm, what's an acceptable level of bycatch?
I recall Robin Samuelson straddling a chair, as if he was mounting a horse, to testify to the NPFMC, regarding the king salmon by-catch, and his willingness to shut down the pollock fishery, should the king salmon be threatened.
Check the testimony. Anchorage Hilton, around 2009.
Let's be honest in this argument instead of using inflammatory arguments and pushing the current propaganda. There are a lot of things wrong with fishery management that may impact the Yukon Chinook decline but the biggest cause is not probably Bering Sea bycatch. It could be but let's at least use current Bering Sea Chinook bycatch numbers:
2007 - 121,770
2008 - 21,480
2009 - 12,369
2010 - 9,697
2011 - 25,499
2012 - 11,344
2013 - 13,033
Of that bycatch, according to a paper by Becca Robbins Gisclair (Salmon Bycatch Management in the Bering Sea Walleye Pollock Fishery: Threats and Opportunities for Western Alaska, American Fisheries Society Symposium 70, 2009), "The stock of origin of these salmon caught as bycatch has not been extensively studied; however, a study of bycatch samples from 1997 to 1999 using scale pattern analysis indicated that on average Chinook salmon stock origins were: 56% western Alaska, 31% Cook Inlet, 8% southeast Alaska-British Columbia, and 5% Kamchatka (Asia) (Myers et al. 2004). Of the western Alaskan portion, 40% of the Chinook salmon were of Yukon River origin, 34% from Bristol Bay, and 26% from the Kuskok- wim River (Myers et al. 2004)." So 40% of the 56% of the Chinook bycatch were from the Yukon, so in 29\013 bycatch accounted for 2,919 Chinook, certainly not all would have normally survived and made it back to the river. To be fair, in the extremely high year of bycatch, 2007 the chinook bycatch number for the Yukon was 27,276.
I believe that Robin from BBBEDC who, along with Ragnar from YDFDA supported a much lower Chinook harvest cap in from of the North Pacific Council, was happy that, for the first time, there was a chinook hard cap in place for the Bering Sea trawlers and that while the hard cap is too high at least it has caused a radical shift in how that fleet operates. Not perfect and we all wish that no Chinook were caught as bycatch for sure but let's at least use real numbers when discussiug the situation.
12:41 pm: …a study of by catch samples from 1997 to 1999….
Real numbers? How about REALLY OLD numbers? 1997 - 1999…and now it's 2014? The real number is that your numbers are upwards of 17 years old. That's comforting.
The largest problem with the bycatch numbers, is that they are untrustworthy. Prior to observers, one just had to trust the trawl fleet. After observers, well considering the hostile work environment, the actual bycatch numbers are questionable.
Fisheries observer harassment is so common, that the bycatch numbers are generated under duress. In the four year period between 2004 - 2007 there were 6 pages of complaints alone.
Link: http://www.apo-observers.org/docs/4_Appendix_5_Observer_Harassment_Cases.pdf
In many fisheries, there was constant cheating when observer coverage of only 30%. The government refuses to release this data for all to see.
American Seafoods was caught cheating on their reported landing weights for a five year period. If they cheated on weights, is there any chance they would cheat on bycatch?
It has long since been time to put fishermen and observer under penalty of perjury, and see if the bycatch numbers change.
Observers on these boats are like a snitch in a prison yard. They are at risk, and under tremendous pressure.
The money at stake is huge, and people do cheat.
To trust the bycatch numbers at all, one needs to put people under oath, and I think people would be surprised at how inaccurate the bycatch numbers really are over the last 30 years.
Most of the observers and fishermen are still alive. Put them under oath.
NMFS allows and acts upon testimony from people who are not under oath, and often not even fishermen who witness what is going on at sea.
Well paid attorneys testifying and lobbyists are not good witnesses as to what goes on at sea, especially if their testimony contains no penalties if their testimony is untruthful.
Lets see if the trawl industry support sworn testimony and public disclosure of observer complaints and all observer data.
Perverse logic and perverse management to allow the pollock trawl fleet to continue fishing while king salmon escapement goals and subsistence harvesting goals will not be met. Some Yukon River commercial king harvesters have stood down for 15 continuous years already. Yukon Territory First Nation subsistence king harvesters have voluntarily stood down for about 5 years.
The Destroyer Fleets of Elliot Bay and Dog Bay are dragging up king salmon about 9 months per year.
There is very little King by-catch now because there is very little Kings left in the ocean! Do the math
Do the McMath?
http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/supplierstories.html#/fish
I can remember asking NPFMC chair Eric Olson about chinook bycatch.
But his reaction to my question is the part I'll never forget.
Chinook are not safe as long as he and his allies run things.
It's just so sad that the feds have ceded all responsibility to this crowd.
8:59 you got that right,thats what it is.
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