About that vote to increase the GOA king salmon bycatch cap...
"Balsiger's enthusiasm over the final package — he called it a "fabulous step" — was a sharp contrast against Campbell's disappointment and raised a few eyebrows in the room because Balsiger's wife, Heather McCarty, has repeatedly lobbied the council on behalf of Kodiak processor Pacific Seafoods for the least restrictive cap possible."
Good journalism here: http://alaskajournal.com/stories/061711/fis_gccsa.shtml
Balsiger should immediately resign. He should have recused himself. Who can doubt the Council's corrupted condition with such behavior? Where is Eric Schwaab's leadership. Jane Lubchenko? So they approve of this kind of behavior by their caporegimes?
NMFS...No More Fish Sorry.
Keep yer flippers wet.
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9 comments:
If anyone had "raised eyebrows" they are naive fools or just feigning shock.
This has been going on for over twenty years.
My favorite was when Joe Kyle was put on the NPFMC as a CDQ rep. He then took on new clients (Trident etc) for his consulting business while being a voting member.
Every vote became an opportunity to recruit new clients, the proverbial license to print money.
This is not illegal, just part of the council design.
20 years ago there wasn't internet and independent media coverage of every detail.
I believe the difference people see here is that Balsiger is the federal rep on the council, not an industry stakeholder, and he swung the vote on what was purely an allocative decision.
I wonder what he'll say about reduced Halibut by-catch?
Someone needs to throw some gasoline on this fire.
So was there any mention at the meeting about whether 30% observer coverage was accurately reflecting the by-catch?
It is pretty clear that since there is so much at stake with the pollock fishery that juggling of observers to fulfill the coverage is advantageous. Furthermore, observers have to be aboard for 30% of the fishing year's 'quarters' rather than the 'seasons' as A, B, C, and D. So if you can get your observation obligation fulfilled in the 1st quarter where A and B season occur, perhaps the B season doesn't even get observed. The complexity is an advantage to the trawl fleet as it boggles most minds and gives lots of weasel room for gaming.
Observed by-catch data is assumed to extrapolate Chinook catch accurately. With the cap in place, according to the NPFMC, operators will have to avoid areas of high by-catch and fish elsewhere. This is not entirely true with 30% observer coverage however. Vessel operators will simply fish on areas that reflect lower chinook by-catch when they have observers on board and then fish where ever they can harvest the largest volume of target species the other 70% of their fishing days. These boats are using their sorting belts during Pollock they are fishing so dirty. If you thought the generous allocation of Chinooks was a joke, the real jokes on you because even 22,500 or 15,000 wouldn't change the fact that 30% coverage DOES NOT ACCURATELY REFLECT BY-CATCH, NO MATTER THE TARGET SPECIES!
True. True. True.
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