Slug, in another post, you wrote…

“In the Kasilof section, which seems to be the area of most controversy, there were 14278 total kings taken in the comm. fishery or 8566 adults. For the last year I could find sport catch records of the catch was 8000 in the early season alone. There is absolutely no doubt that the sport and personal use fisheries kill more kings than the commercial fisheries. All for the amusement of a very few.”

Even though your numbers are not exactly totally accurate, i.e.; commercial figures cover a whole season while sport figures are for part of the season. Let’s do a little cost/benefit analysis, shall we?


Commercial catch first. 14278 total kings with 8566 adults. That means that 41% of the fish killed by the commercials were by-catch. Now, how many fishermen did that support? 50 boats? OK, 5 crew per boat means 250 fishermen shared 8566 adult kings for 34.25 fish per fishers. Now let’s try to figure out what benefit to society and the economy was derived by this fishery. Around here, Boeing uses a figure of 3.5 jobs per Boeing worker, so if we use that argument, 875 people in the local economy derived benefit from the commercial catch.

Now let’s look at the sport numbers. Sport catch 8000. No by catch here since sporties aren’t allowed to Kill what they don’t count. At two fish per sporty, 4000 people derived direct benefit from these 8000 fish. Now, many had to hire local guides to harvest their catch. So, what do you think, 1000 jobs directly tied to sport fishing? I bet I’m way low on that number. Now how about the side benefit. 3.5 x 1000 = 3500 jobs.
This doesn’t look to me like “All for the amusement of a very few.”

Commercial fishing will never approach the total benefit to the local economy derived from sport and personal use fishing. It is too efficient and only benefits the few who actually participate. Prices are already depressed due to a world wide over supply of fish meat, mostly from European Aquaculture (fish farms). In the mean time, the damage done to the local resource by commercial fishing will ultimately result in the collapse of fish stocks to the point where neither group will be able to derive benefit. Don’t think so? Just look to the New England states or the Sword fishery down in Florida. Commercial harvest has a sorry track record of destroying the thing that sustains them.
That’s the real evil of commercial harvest.
G.

GREAT POST !

I've been thinking that for years, but it will take more than years to fix it!

Math Lesson number two:

Using last year's average sockeye weight and this year's prices we're looking at $18 million as the total ex-vessel value for Cook Inlet sal;mon harvest in 2004. Compare this to over $400 million in direct sportfish expenditures and it seems a bit ridiculous that we even have nets.... doesn't it?



Let's put it this way..... would the state give away a $33.00 barrel of oil for $1.50?

Things that make you go HMMMM....

You folks are on the right track but the real deal is that the commercial fishing industry has LOBBYISTS.....and politicians get MILLIONS of dollars from commercial fishing PACs....Sports fishermen have not had lobbyists and have not had PACs.....That means we LOSE.

Good News: Now there is a sportsfishing PAC in Washington atleast and there is a movement afoot to raise the money needed for a fuoll time sports fishing lobbyist. AND..there is finally a group of folks working to support the politicians who support us. I suspect if we had that kind of effort supported by the hundreds of thousands of sports fishers 20 years ago we would not be in the backseat like we are today.

So next time you see something lopsided like this post think about donating a couple of bucks to the PAC and maybe one of these days we will have the clout to reverse things.

The math lesson is moot. The figure that Slug uses for the sport catch is from the May / June early-run sport fishery. This fishery has 10+ fold more traffic than the July fishery and the harvest is primarily of hatchery-origin fish to begin with, not wild kings.

Slug, can you please direct me to where you get the split number for adults vs. non-adults?

Since 20" is the legal definitiion of an adult in Alaska and I haven't seen any true jacks by legal definition in the second run to speak of, I'm curious to how the commercials get so many????????????