Very compelling review by Washington trout, read on-
Washington Trout’s Review of Initiative 696
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> Initiative 696 has been reviewed with respect to the following two issues: (1) is overfishing currently a major problem; and (2) will this approach solve the problem. The answer to both of these is a definite “yes”, but not for the reasons commonly assumed or promoted.
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> It is important to realize that no specific fishing gear or “fishery” has any intrinsic ability to cause overfishing, although the potential to do this increases with the effectiveness or fishing power of the
fishery. Some long-term fisheries never caused overfishing simply because they did not have the ability to capture enough fish.
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> Overfishing can always be traced directly to the agencies that are legally responsible for managing the resources. A common ruse
employed by these same agencies (to deflect criticism) is to blame the problem
on overcapitalization of the fishing fleets. This is merely an obtuse admission that they were unable to handle their job.
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> The failure of management agencies can be traced to two factors. The technical staff is commonly populated by individuals who call
themselves “fisheries biologists” and “harvest managers” (as opposed to fish biologists and escapement managers). They firmly believe that user groups are their “clients”, not the resource. Any uncertainties in the data are resolved in terms of continued exploitation (putting the
burden of proof on the resource - the root cause of overfishing throughout the world). People at the policy making level have these same perspectives. In any agency, such as the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
(or Commission), it soon becomes impossible for any individual to remain in a key fish management position for any length of time in the absence of this basic philosophy. The pressures from user groups and legislators are too great to resist. Thus, passage of the Initiative would prevent a great deal of future overfishing simply because it would take away many of the options that are currently available to managers. With the exceptions of leadership from Don Moos (WDF late 1970’s) and Bern Shanks, the management agency has always been “captured” by the user groups, in the same manner that grazing interests captured the Bureau of Land
Management. The point is that user groups cause overfishing by their collective political pressure, not their fishing gear. This is the real reason that bans on net fishing in other states have markedly curbed
overfishing.
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> In Washington salmon fisheries, overfishing takes three forms. The first is those cases of simple management failure. For example, prior to 1998, state and Tribal managers failed to achieve their own agreed-to spawning escapement goal for Snohomish chinook for 18 consecutive
years. You cannot set this type of record by accident - it takes definite planning. The second type of overfishing occurs in the so-called hatchery fish management zones where wild stocks are deliberately and consistently overfished in order to fully harvest comingled hatchery fish. The third type of overfishing is the long-term genetic impact from the continual harvest selection of larger fish and, in the case of chinook, older fish. The Initiative would partially address each of these types of overfishing.
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> In order to examine specific effects, it is first necessary to look briefly at fishing gear selectivity. Each gillnet mesh size has its own particular bell-shaped selectivity curve for a certain size or shape of fish. Thus, it is possible to selectively harvest small fish such as pink salmon while minimizing the landed harvest of chinook salmon. What is not commonly realized is that the two “shoulders” of this bell-shaped curve represent areas with significant gillnet drop-out rates. Thus, if you fish a Fraser River sockeye net for the somewhat smaller Lake Washington sockeye, 30 to 40 percent of the fish will drop-out of the gear and be lost. These unseen and largely ignored losses occur throughout the state’s gillnet fisheries and are much more detrimental than the more publicized incidental captures of marine mammals and birds. The Initiative would eliminate the non-treaty part of the problem.
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> The second important element of gear selectivity occurs with hook-and-line gear. The gear itself continually selects the larger individuals within any available fish population and this is further exacerbated by the widespread use of minimum size limits.
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> Significant mortalities occur when undetected small salmon are drug
past the point of total exhaustion (with commercial gear and sport downriggers). However, when we proceed to look at individual geographic areas and fisheries, it appears that the Initiative will have little
practical effect on solving these problems.
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>Commercial troll salmon fishery - The Initiative would eliminate this gear type within the three mile limit of state jurisdiction. However, nearly all of
the troll catch is normally made outside of three miles and the fishery is managed by the federal government. The fishery would probably continue with little change and it can be anticipated that federal law would
force the state to allow landings of troll catches at Washington ports.
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> Columbia River gillnet fishery - This fishery is jointly managed with the state of Oregon under the Columbia River Compact. The Initiative would ban fishing in Washington waters but many of the same fish could still
be harvested in Oregon waters. However, this would be far from a complete shift since the historical fisheries by Treaty and non-treaty
fisherman have been isolated above and below Bonneville Dam, respectively. This will be a classic case where overfishing will be curtailed by taking away the prerogatives of the managers. currently, hatchery fish management zones exist for all lower river fall chinook, spring chinook and coho stocks (the only other salmon present are ESA listed chum). In the absence of the Initiative, it is not realistic to expect any change despite the Wild Salmonid Policy. With the Initiative, the managers would have no choice.
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>Willapa Bay gillnet fishery - This represents the “cleanest” case in
the entire state since there is no Treaty Indian fishery, no shared responsibility with Oregon and all chinook and coho stocks are
currently managed for the full harvest of hatchery fish (only chum salmon are managed for natural production). The Initiative would force managers to implement the Wild Salmonid Policy. It will never happen otherwise.
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>Grays Harbor gillnet fishery - All Grays Harbor salmon stocks are currently managed for natural production and the primary impact of the Initiative would be to shift the harvest of surplus production to the Treaty Indian gillnet fishery and the on-treaty recreational fishery. There would be new positive incentives for state managers to seek higher, more conservative spawning ground escapement objectives. For example,
it is much easier for any inefficient fishery that is second in line (river recreational) to achieve its share of the harvest if the available fish population is larger and the numerical share is relatively small. This same incentive has always existed with steelhead, but, for obvious reasons, was never publicized (Tribal managers would never have agreed to anything that was clearly above MSH). In developing the steelhead escapement methodology, conservative values for biological parameters were deliberately incorporated. Thus, steelhead are already being managed with “MSH plus” spawning escapement objectives.
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>Olympic Peninsula - There are no existing non-treaty fisheries that would be eliminated by the Initiative. Status quo with or without.
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>Puget Sound commercial net fisheries - The existing non-treaty purse seine and gillnet fisheries would be eliminated by the Initiative but a small, geographically restricted reef net fishery would be retained. This latter fishery is relatively “clean” in terms of being able to release wild salmon unharmed and could be expanded in the future by legislative action to increase both the allowable fishing area and
number of participants. However, the main effect of the Initiative would be to shift the harvest of surplus production from non-treaty purse seine and gillnet fisheries to Treaty Indian purse seine, gillnet, and beach seine fisheries and non-treaty recreational fisheries. As noted for Grays Harbor, there would be a new positive incentive for state managers to seek higher, more conservative spawning ground objectives. In addition, Puget Sound has numerous existing hatchery fish management zone salmon stocks and there would be a new push by state managers to implement the Wild Salmonid Policy and convert these to natural production management. It is significant to note that hatchery fish management zones never evolved in steelhead management when the major sharing entities were limited to those intended by the Initiative (Treaty Indian and non-treaty recreational).
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> Non-salmonid fisheries - The Initiative would eliminate a number of existing non-salmonid fisheries. The main effect would be on the northern Puget Sound bottom trawl fishery, which has been severely restricted in recent years. Their recent history has been one of taking WDFW to court to force additional fishing time while using the former AD for marine fish as their technical witness. The fishery is of
marginal economic value and presents a number of bycatch problems, would also be eliminated. The two gear types that would be retained in Puget Sound are both used to capture herring for sport bait. On the Washington coast, trawl gear would be eliminated but most of the fishery is outside of the three miles and is managed by the federal government. As was noted for troll salmon, landings in Washington ports would probably have to be allowed. Finally, the gear used to harvest Columbia River smelt would also be banned. This is a positive change since a petition was filed
in July to list this resource under the Endangered Species Act.
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