Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
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.
Alaska commercial fishing news and notes
2 comments:
There won't be a halibut fishery if something drastic doesn't change, but it's unlikely anything will change. There are too many conflicting interests.
The power trawl contingent does not want a large halibut biomass because of problematic bycatch. They will object to any agenda that will help a halibut recovery. IFQ fishermen are in debt and can't afford a big fishery reduction. Management doesn't want to admit their mistakes — they will let halibut collapse, and blame environmental conditions.
That's not true. I am a halibut IFQ holder and have been since it started. I also trawl for cod and pollock. Fish for salmon also. I have a lot of friends that pretty much do the same. There's no way in hell that we want to go out and catch halibut in our trawls or any other bycatch for that matter. If trawlers that fish for cod fish at the right time there's pretty much no bycatch. The observer program can prove that. We have in the past and continue to try to fish right to avoid bycatch. One of the biggest issues is there always seems to be a couple bad apples in the bunch. I'm referring to WGOA fishing but even the Bering Sea trawlers have agreed to bycatch avoidance plans. There's definitely more than one culprit that is causing halibut decline and I think we all realize that. So please quit pointing at trawlers as the sole problem.
Post a Comment