The Anchorage Daily News reports that king salmon runs are failing to reach minimum escapement goals on two of the most famous king salmon rivers in Alaska.
www.adn.com/2010/03/20/1192593/poor-returns-shut-2-kodiak-king.html
This should not come as a surprise, as we have reported here that continued unobserved trawler operations in the Gulf of Alaska, the Shelikof Strait, and the Bering Sea are catching tens of thousands of king salmon every year thus depleting the spawning stocks and starving northern Alaska villages. This a perfect opportunity for the sport fishermen of the world to demand 100% observer coverage on all trawling operations in the Gulf of Alaska. While the Bering Sea is already covered, the NMFS and the NPFMC simply turn their backs on their responsibilities to the king salmon resource while allowing continued pollock trawling for giant profits. The fact is that the Kodiak pollock trawlers are out in front of the Karluk River today, cleaning out the feeder kings.
Friends should never allow friends to eat artificial crab, fillet o fish, or any other form of pollock. For whitefish, insist on hook caught fish only.
So not only are the Gulf of Alaska trawlers destroying halibut, purportedly making dirty tows on young halibut simply to destroy what they see as a resource that restricts their growth, but hammering the rising stocks of tanner crab and the depleted king crab, both with bottom trawls and with supposedly mid water or pelagic trawls. How else does X get the belly of his pelagic trawl ripped out with crab pots?
The destruction of king salmon is just another pawn in the game of trawling the Gulf of Alaska to death. Demand 100% rock solid observer data to stop the wholesale destruction of these precious resources.
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Just looked up the trawler bycatch rates so far this year.....as of 3/13 they had killed 7318 chinook total in 2010 in the Gulf. Last week alone was 1827 chinook. Look it up on NOAA alaska groundfish catch reports. Shaping up to be a BAD year for chinook around Kodiak.
So figure at best 30% observer coverage (the actual figure is lower), 50% of which the observer is off deck, indisposed, or busy with their sampling, and you see that the reported chinook catch is only 15% of the actual catch, or as high as 41,000 chinook.
So let me get this straight, a handful of trawlers who are currently fishing pollack on the west side of Kodiak(Karluk) are allowed to take as many chinook as they encounter. These trawlers who are primarily Newport Oregon vessels do not give a shit about the bycatch be it intended or not. Where is the outrage from sport fishermen and lodge owners who are effectively shut down for the spring. Where is the fairness. Trawlers should carry the weight of conservation like all others. But like always these pirates get a free pass. All those who rely on the chinook/tanner crab/halibut being killed by these abominations should be outraged at this criminal behavior. Bycatch for the GOA is on the agenda of the NPFMC for the 12th of April in Anchorage. Let us be heard loud and clear....we want hard caps and 100% observed coverage on all methods of mobile gear(trawlers), be it pelagic or hard on the bottom.
The sport guys you mention are the same guys that should be outraged over halibut bycatch. Mention the sports industry to any trawl sector rep and watch them run. Look at the east coast RFA excitement during the charter halibut issues at NPFMC. Those guys need to team up with the commercial halibut guys and go after the bycatch issue. Hell hath no fury like a sports fisherman denied his fish!
www.fakr.noaa.gov/npfmc/Agendas/410agenda.pdf
Letters to the NPFMC are due tomorrow, Tuesday, March 30, 2010 by 5 PM. These can be faxed and will be available to the Council and public for the meeting. Git 'er done! You know the draggers will have plenty of their testimony to convince the Council so they can continue to plunder our resources.
A big thank you is due to the Kodiak drag/trawl fleet and julie bonney. With the annual contribution of trawl halibut bycatch, Kodiak and not Homer, is and has been the number one port for halibut deliveries in Alaska since the inception of IFQ. THANK YOU guys you deserve the recognition for your contribution.
Check out Anchorage Daily News yesterday, May 5 th. Three more rivers closed to king salmon fishing both commercial and sport users. Don't know, but have to believe the trawl caught bycatch of king salmon in the kodiak trawl fishery, in some part, played a role in closure. Support for hard caps(King Salmon) and 100% observers, with 100% retention of all species to include the sea lions being caught by trawlers. Happy days are here again!!!!
and their heading north to continue the destruction of all habitats, even the habitats of the multi-billion lowly of the lowest pollock fish.
trawlers dont catch sea lions in there nets , thats the dumbest thing you have said. Trawlers in Kodiak are fine with have 100% coverage 100% retention and a individual king salmon cap. However this can not happen because the same people that want these things to happen fight so that the fishery cant be rationalized. In the bearing sea where this is already in place the king salmon by catch is not even a problem for most of the boats. Factory trawlers are another issue but a regular catcher trawler in the bearing sea catch less then 100 kings for the hole season where they are catching millions of pounds of pollock.
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