So says the Bristol bay Times:
http://thebristolbaytimes.com/article/1125higher_quotas_spawn_need_for_cleaner
Keep yer flippers wet.
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About Me
- Wiglaf
- A local rock-perching observer of Gulf of Alaska fisheries who is fed up with the lies and deceptions rampant in Kodiak regarding the world's dirtiest fishing gear type, trawling. Unless bycatch and benthic damage are brought under control, the short term profits of trawling will result in the death of the Goose that lays the golden eggs...the Gulf of Alaska. Join us in our fight to overthrow the corporate oligarchs and democratize Alaska fisheries for long term sustainability.
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7 comments:
"the NPFMC action also will require full retention of all salmon species by all vessels fishing in the Pollock trawl fisheries, allowing for collection of scientific data or biological samples. Full retention is a key prerequisite to estimating the representative composition, by stock of origin, of chinook salmon caught as bycatch in the Gulf Pollock fishery"
And how will they ensure compliance for the 70% of days that are unobserved? Some local trawlers are claiming that they caught only a dozen or so chinook this year. No evidence stands against them to refute their claim as they were able to successfully hide their by-catch by bringing observers to clean areas. The only way to ensure 100% retention of all by-catch is through the use of Cameras like they did for the Westcoast hake. Only then can the true numbers be calculated.
As if it's that bad.
Dear As If,
It's actually worse. For instance, the juvenile pollock excluders work quite well at excluding the juveniles, but they kill a high percentage of the excluded young pollock. So while the dragger comes to the dock with a higher percentage of larger fish, the juveniles excluded from the the catch and, more importantly, from the accounting, are dead. The question then becomes, if king salmon excluders can be made to fit the smaller GOA trawls, will they do the same thing? King salmon during their feeding stages of life are not as resilient as some other fish to handling, like pollock, they lose scales and go into shock and die from being slammed against the meshes of nets. So if excluders do keep the catch apparently cleaner, are they just a means of more effectively hiding the indiscriminant killing of nontargeted fish that trawling almost always entails? Until these questions are definitively answered, a push for the panacea of any kind of excluder is premature. Excluders simply hide evidence. Hiding or withholding evidence is usually a crime.
Is that fact or just some bullshit you made up?
Investigate. It is fact in regard to juvenile pollock excluders. It is speculation in regard to king salmon excluders. But the importance of these devices as means of avoiding bycatch requires verification of released fish survival. Peer reviewed science is minimal for this verification.
So there is economic incentive to avoid or hide by-catch. This leads to underreported and observed catches of non-target species. How do you remove this incentive? Pay them to bring the smalls and chinooks to town?
Who pays? Consumers? A new fish tax?
Lots of places (Europe) require full retention of all catch, but if you load up on unwanted bycatch there is a huge incentive to dump it, since bringing it to town is expensive, in terms of fuel, crew, and lost fishing time and disposal. Besides, if it is a prohibited species catch, you catch might close a season. So there is a strong incentive to cheat. We need video cameras and more on board observers. Sorting belts on vessels should be prohibited. All catch should be retained. Individual vessels need to have bycatch caps to encourage clean fishing. Resource health and survival hang in the balance.
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