Proposal 192 is drawing the most interest. It would make a change in eastside Cook Inlet legal commercial fishing gear, replacing set gillnet gear with set beach seine nets.
Beach seining could be a way to allow fishermen to harvest sockeye salmon while safely releasing scarce king salmon, says this Alaska Department of Fish and Game commentary on Proposal 192.
But the proposal is expected to draw opposition.
3 comments:
Obviously this BOF knows nothing. Beach Seining wiped out the big kings on the Columbia River a 100 years ago, and the White Act of 1924 eliminated set nets territorial wide in Alaska. Maybe it's time to find someone who actually knows something about fishing to be appointed to the BOF?
I beg to differ. Overfishing (by all gear types) and habitat destruction wiped out the Columbia River runs. The Grand Coulee Dam alone eliminated salmonid access to HALF of the spawning grounds in the river system and marked the virtual extinction of the "June Hog" summer chinook. The once cold-water river is now a series of (sometimes dangerously) warm lakes and subject to spectacular fish kills during extended drought. Whether beach seining is economically viable is another discussion, but I guarantee a chinook released alive over the corkline after a 1/2 hour seine tow has a better chance of survival than one baking in the mud flats on the ebb.
Salmon don't do stress, and you can make any claim you like, with Kings in trouble statewide. The Alaska Supreme Court even discussed the set net ban in South East Alaska with their Matson v.CFEC opinion. "The Limited Entry Act gives the Commission broad powers to regulate entry into fisheries..." 785 P.2d 1200 1990. The Board of Fish doesn't even know who controls permits, just like their illegal Chignik Co-Op Circus. The clowns are very popular in the school teachers government, as the Alaska Supreme Court had written about for decades. "In 1972 the Board of Fish eliminated the set net fishery..." Do tell us why Washington State also banned Set Nets, Fish Wheels and Fish Traps on the Columbia River in 1935, before there was such thing as Grand Coolie Dam, another New Deal that brought back set nets to Alaska in 1941.
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