The International Pacific Halibbut Commission is meeting in Seattle January 25 through 29. Here is an opportunity to contact Executive Director Bruce Leaman bruce@iphc.washington.edu and make your concerns known about the wanton waste of halibut in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea by the American trawler fleet. While halibut stocks plummet and fishermen dependent on the resource continue to suffer economic impacts, the trawler fleet continues to decimate the halibut (and crab and salmon) stocks with impunity. By shear numbers of concerned citizens, perhaps if we add our voices to those in attendance who will be demanding changes in the way the IPHC and NMFS (No More Fish Sorry) calculate the real loss of halibut and habitat by the trawl fleet. Speak up now, loudly and often, before there is nothing left, like what has happened to the East Coast fisheries.
Keep yer flippers wet.
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Word from fellow fisher who attended IPHC meeting, says Canadians are friggin pissed when they were able to view the filthy trawler video. While the canadians have been able to reduce their halibut bycatch by 90%, american trawl sector gets away with outright slaughter of the halibut stocks. One should note that Area 2C/2B took signifcantly less of a drop from IPHC Staff recomendations....many who were present say these areas felt that they should not suffer for the misdeeds of trawl fishers to the west of them...you know with coast wide management and all. The message heard at the meeting is we need to get these dirty trawlers held accountable for their devastation of the halibut resource...AY
The 2C/2B people should wake up. That bycatch to the west impacts their areas, and taking higher quotas only makes the situation WORSE for the stocks in their areas! You may not like bycatch (ok, who does!) but don't be so high and mighty, and then make the resource suffer even more!
I sure as hell don't want the resource to suffer "even more." Where your high and mighty cheap shot comes from I don't knnow. Bottom line...dragging is killing our resources. Their bycatch has to be stopped. Is that too difficult to understand?
The impact the trawl fishers are doing affects all users, be it halibut, salmon of different species, crabs, sea lions etc. and most of all people from the AYK and southeastern part of Alaska. AYK area is very depended on the salmons return but the trawlers are preventing different age groups of salmon on their wintering habitat from returning each year to spawn and repopulate their numbers.
The trawlers get a lot of backup from lawyers and scientist because they can pay them big bucks in return for their services.
The letter below was a e-mail sent to Denby Lloyd, the AK Dept. of Fish and Game Commissioner. These developments are the run-up to meetings in the near future, maybe Monday. I got it from a friend and nobody wants to be indentified.
These halibut may include a large percentage of 'ping pong paddles' or 'chicken' halibut, ones under 10 lbs. You can do some figuring in your head and and get a very large poundage of mature halibut. And you can figure this isn't just the last four years. And what monetary value does that represent?
Last night at the IPHC party at the Edgewater Hotel, we were told by a halibut processor who attended Steve Hare's presentation to PAG that Steve admitted to them that the 100-million pounds of missing halibut that the IPHC cannot account for these past 4-years was caused by "un-reported GOA trawl bycatch." Steve NEVER told that to us fishermen on the Conference Board, which really stinks. I request 2-minutes tomorrow morning to put this on the record at our Observer Committee meeting at AFSC. Denby, this is grotesque and it suggests that the IPHC process, itself, is warped towards favoritism, which we have NEVER believed before, NOT ONCE. We trust Bruce and Greg. But Steve makes us wonder now. Plus, why wouldn't Jim and Ralphie come clean with us yesterday? Don't they think we can handle it?
Can you please call Steve on the carpet tomorrow and make him explain why he failed to fully-inform us fishermen and the Observer Committee of what he knew about the true status of our halibut stocks. Based just on what the Canadians told us yesterday, they'll insist on being compensated for this and we long-liners don't have the deep pockets to pay them off. I'll bet you they start ogling the trawlers ITQs or that $34-billion in the Alaska Permanent Fund (to get the Council's attention) just to bring this issue to a boil when they address the NPFMC in Portland next month. Trust me, they are really pissed off now and it seems unlikely they'll take it anymore(Remember Peter Finch's 1976 performance in "Network"? Double it!)
Don't mean to ruin your day,
TC
Steve Hare is not the problem, he is probably in deep doo for even mentioning the bycatch. The IPHC has ignored this for years, if not decades.
You want someone to blame? How about the National Marine Trawl Service and their reps on the IPHC over the years.
And don't forget Ralph Hoard who NEVER does anything unless it profits Icicle.
Icicle/Norway wants YOUR DINNER for the fatherland! They also invest heavily in farmed Salmon as they DESTROY NATURAL SALMON RUNS with their dragger by-catch!! THIS MUST STOP!! BEFORE WE STARVE ANY FURTHER!!
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