Anyone concerned about our fisheries should not buy commercially caught fish.

i agree 100 percent.

I can verify Salmo's take on the early Sitka Kings, absolutely delicious! Was up there last week and came home with some nice fillets. BBQ'd some up for the family over the weekend.

It was the best fresh king I've tasted in the past couple of years and I guess that's because I haven't caught a Columbia Springer in a couple of years.

BD

Stilly bum,

I disagree with you. Your absolute: "Anyone concerned about our fisheries should not buy commercially caught fish." implies that any and all commercial fishing, anywhere, anytime, is inherently bad for any fish population. In that context, I'd have to conclude that any and all consumptive recreational fishing is inherently bad for any fish population as well.

No fish ever benefited from being caught. And it is just as dead whether caught commercially or by hook and line. What counts is whether the fishery is managed so as to avoid over-fishing, which is known to reduce productivity of a fish population. I don't have a problem with buying commercially caught fish, just as I don't have a problem with taking home a sport caught fish, when it is from a population that is managed so as to achieve spawning escapement goals that sustain the productivity of the run.

I do agree that regulatory managers should give sport fishing a preference over commercial fishing because sport fishing spreads the resource opportunity among a greater proportion of the resource owners. There are many healthy salmon populations, especailly in Alaska, that can support fish harvests greater than what the recreational fishery can impose. What, then, is the problem with a well-regulated commercial fishery that extends that resource benefit to commercial fishermen and their customers, who are also the resource owners (limited to U.S. citizens, actually)?

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

I dunno Salmo G,

I think I'm with Stilly bum on this one.

Commercial fishing is the commercialization of wild animals.

If you look at the precedent set by commerical harvest of wild game and birds, it doesn't look good for wild fish.

For instance what happened to the carolina parakeet, passenger pigeon, whales, american bison, ducks, geese, deer, elk, and turkey populations in this country?

They were hunted to extinction, or near extinction until market hunting was banned.

Those that survived the market hunters have recovered nicely since market hunting was banned.

Don't think fishing and hunting are the same?
I disagree a dead animals is still dead whether killed by a hunter or fisher.

harvest is harvest.

If you want a fish example, look at Stiped Bass on the East Coast. The population was decimated by overharvest, mainly commmerical. They banned commercial fishing and the population has since rebounded.

I'm sure if commercial harvest of salmon was banned, salmon too would recover to a great extent wherever enough habitat remains.

Just to be clear, by banning commerical I mean no more catching salmon to sell. I recognize that the tribes will never reliquish their right to commercially harvest salmon, I'm speaking in hypothetical terms here.

Geoduck,

I think I share your concern. However, the thing about market hunting leading to depletions and extinctions is that it wasn't regulated. Banning a practice is one form of regulation. Limiting harvests to a level that can be sustained by a population is a restrictive form of regulation, just not as restrictive as a ban.

Do you really believe that the healthy runs of pink, chum, and sockeye salmon cannot support a harvest? Can a fish population support a sport harvest but not a commercial harvest. Many of us appear to have a pre-conceived notion that sport harvests are lower, and therefore, not harmful to a population, whereas commercial harvests are much larger, and therefore very detrimental to a population, leading to depletion and extinction. This simply isn't true. Overharvest, whatever the method, is just that, overharvest.

If you consider steelhead for a moment, we may have a useful example. I know it's not popular here, and I don't support the idea myself - for other reasons, but the healthiest populations of wild steelhead in WA state on on the coast, and they are subjected to both sport and commercial harvest. OK, but why are wild steelhead populations in SW WA in the tank? No commercial harvest of significance there (excepting the late winters that get whacked by the re-emerging spring chinook gillnet fishery). But SW wild steelhead have been depressed since the early 1990s if not longer. We might say that habitat is degraded, but that's not news; habitat degradation is rampant throughout the state. Besides, you can produce wild salmon and steelhead even from fairly poor habitat, just not as many of them - with fewer or no harvestable surplus, of course.

Try this example: recent recreational ocean harvests off the WA coast have been higher than the commercial harvests. If so, how is it that commercial fishing is inherently worse for those salmon populations than recreational fishing. This seems to support my contention, that the amount of harvest, not the harvest method, is the real issue affecting the health of a fish population.

My point here is that harvest, regardless of whether it is sport or commercial, needs to be regulated so as to achieve necessary spawning escapements. In which case a dead fish IS just as dead whether it is caught commercially or recreationally, and therefore, it is not available to the spawning population.

One last hypothetical example. Fish population X averages a run size of 10,000 fish. We have years of data that indicates a healthy, conservative spawning escapement should number 6,000 fish. That leaves 4,000 fish to be harvested, or not. It's a social and environmental choice, really. If the 4,000 fish are harvested commercially, how is that any more harmful to the population than if the are caught recreationally by hook and line? I can think of "but ifs", however, there should be no functional difference to the sustainability of the population.

Many of us believe in our hearts that commercial fishing, as contrasted to recreational fishing is more detrimental to fish populations, without knowing just what factors are affecting the populations. What you know in your heart is not debatable, but that doesn't make your knowledge right. It's critical thinking, and what you can know in your head, that permits us to understand how systems, like ecosystems, and population dynamics work.

As a personal note, I am picky about what commercially caught salmon I buy, avoiding any that I don't think should be targeted for harvest.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

I suppose if you're limiting this discussion to commericially harvested salmon, then I would agree with Salmo's line of thought. I have worked on a catcher processor (between college) that drag's the bottom for cod. Those things drug up everything on the bottom, bicatch was huge and it was utterly disgusting. While the gill netters may be able to target species more so than purse-seigners and definitely more that the dragging fleet, they still must get bicatch (haven't worked a commercial salmon boat).

The thing that differentiates a comercial harvests from sports harvest is that when somebodies livelihood is depending on maximizing the harvest, they are very resistant to any sort of reduction in opportunity even when the evidence clearly supports such regulation.

Sports fishers are much more receptive to regulation for the fishes sake (it only a hobby, not their livelihood).

Commericialization of a public resource in general doesn't lead to good managment of the resource. Look at public forests, mineral deposits, and fish. Thankfully large wild animals are now spared from overt commerical harvest.

Salmo G,
I'm sure you are well aware of the political pressures brought to bear by commericial fishers on fisheries managment agencies. Many managment decisions are made based on politics, not what is best for the fish.

The simple political ineptitude of sportsfishers makes them easier on fish populations!
This is because fisheries managers can regulate sports catches more easily, without as much political interference from the sportsfishers. However, I think this is starting to change.

My $.02

I'm sorry to be the one to break this to you Geoduck, but there's a plethora of lengthy threads here concerning Washington Trout that could lead one to believe otherwise...