Tuesday, April 13, 2010

What Happened To The Halibut, Dad?

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Well, Child, people didn't take care of them and they were all killed. It was a sad day when the largest, most magnificent fish in the North Pacific Ocean were destroyed by men who didn't care what they caught in their trawls.
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But, Dad, why didn't you stop them?
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I tried, Child, but we couldn't get the rule makers to see the importance of taking care of the Ocean and the fish that we depend upon. They let too many baby halibut get killed by the trawlers and didn't see that those little fish were the future. Now all we have left are the pictures of those big flat fish. See that king crab on the wall there? That's what happened to them, too.
*** Trawl bycatch in January 2010 (note size of halibut)
The eagles are feasting on king salmon, crab legs lie scattered about.
IPHC data shows...

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Keep yer flippers wet.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

angrylongliner said...

Kodiak not Homer has been and will always be the #1 Halibut port. One needs to add in the 4.4 million pounds(15-17 million $$$ in lost revenue annually) of trawl caught halibut bycatch the Kodiak trawl fleet shamefully discards at sea every year. Thanks goes out to the Alaska Whitefish Trawlers Assoc. and Julie B. for their contribution.

Anonymous said...

Unbelievable this is occurring this day and age. truly insane. The only thing that will stop this is disclosure, your site is doing a dam fine job. All over America "green" is the word, unsustainable practices are a thing of the past with global over population and resource depletion. it won't be much longer word gets to the rest of the world NOAA/NMFS bent over backwards under corporate pressure, sold out. Keep up the exposure, truth always prevails.

Anonymous said...

Very good report. Thx for publishing the info.
Could you provide us with a reference to the source? Is it online-- could we have a link?

Wiglaf said...

Source hotlink has been added to the blog article. Photo credit unknown; suspect disgruntled crew. Some crew have ethics, eh?

Anonymous said...

God bless the crew who have the courage and ethics to turn the tide on the owners who disrespect the life that gives us life. GDI

Wiglaf said...

The owners and their slave skippers can not continue without the cooperation of the crew. We know of emails that warn skippers to keep the cameras off the deck and to monitor the crews carefully. Many are the crew who have quit when they see the terrible waste that goes with trawling. Are there clean trawlers out there? Best make yourselves known or go down with your diry mates.

Anonymous said...

I know one crewman in the early 90's who said everyone was banned from going topside only essential crew was allowed up there(factory trawler), absolutely no cameras were allowed. Another crewman I know spoke of at least 30 stellers hauled up most were shot dead

Anonymous said...

Thanks for putting these graphs up. When I came to Kodiak looking for a fishing job all by buddies said whatever you do, don't get on a halibut boat. 20 day trips for not much fish.

This was the result of foreign trawling. Then the US put observers on them and sent the dirty ones home.

The halibut got a break and came back big time.

I was under the illusion that our domestic trawlers were better but look at the under 32 bycatch graph.

No wonder halibut quotas are going down coastwide. Look at areas 4, 3B and 3A. Who plays Dean on the Dean Martin show???

Naomi said...

please email me... i am a university student doing a report on use of individual transferable quotas in Alaska halibut fisheries...

andrew.schein "at" gmail "dot" com
or aschein "at" stanford "dot" edu

Andrew said...

Please get in touch with me... I'm an environmental economics student doing a radio report on Alaska's halibut fisheries and would love to get an opinion criticizing the system. So far everyone has been supportive, and I know that doesn't reflect the reality on the ground.

Thank you!
-Andrew Schein

andrew "dot" schein "at" gmail "dot" com
aschein "at" stanford "dot" edu

ian ivanoff said...

I have only recently been told about your site and am disgusted at the waste show in these picture. How can I contribute to end this?

Wiglaf said...

Ian,

One person can do little to change this system that promotes resource destruction while mouthing good management. But by pasting on Facebook, by spreading the word, you can leverage your concern into group pressure upon your state representatives, policy makers. Public exposure is not something these folks want, the more the general public knows about these problems, the more heat you bring to bear upon the policy makers.