Thanks Ron for clearing that question up.

I saw what I thought are two flaws in Mark's article. First, since US v WA, why do we need a non-treaty fleet to supply salmon to the marketplace for that part of the public that doesn't go fishing for themselves? Seems like the treaty fleet is more than capable of supplying the market. Trying to preserve an anachronistic status quo just leaves all of us - commercial and recreational - on the non-treaty side fighting for a share. Which leads to flaw number 2, making the pie bigger so everyone gets all the fish that they want or need. Ain't never gonna' happen, no matter how big the pie is. The big pie train left the station long ago, never to return. I'm not saying that runs cannot increase or that the pie cannot be made larger. It just can't be made into the kind of large that would be necessary to satisfy everyone.

Maybe not since the beginning of time, but for most of recent history, people have been competing for scarce resources, be it good land, oil, or fish. And that's not going to change. The refusal to acknowledge that the time in history for a viable non-treaty gillnet fleet in WA state has come and gone just prolongs the pain of making the decisions that are consistent with this reality.

Sg

For those who may not know Fishinnut he is the President of the PSA State Board and also president of the Sno-King Chapter hence in a position to respond.

My personal opinion of Mr. Cedargreen's article is that it attempts to justify
the status quo. In the article he mentions WDFW supporting both Tribal and state fisheries with the State's fisheries being both commercial and recreational. Okay, agree with that. But when he wrote that the resource is a public resource and that the State's commercial fishery provides fish to the State's non-fishing citizens he pointedly fails to recognize that the Tribal fishery is virtually all commercial. He also failed to engage on the reality that the general funds going to WDFW (you know, the dollars from those non-fishing citizens which used to help support WDFW's hatchery operations) have been cut dramatically over the last several bienniums.


Edit: Salmo snuck in while I was (slowly) thinking also hitting on the concept that the Tribal fishery needs to be recognized. Begs the question of whether the legislative mandate that WDFW manage for commercial harvest in addition to recreational use is met by the tribal fishery.

In short, pablum for the masses and a failure to recognize that what used to be in terms of who is paying for what has changed. Time to look at that old paradigm.

One other observation. His article seems to suggest that commercial fisheries be stopped. I don't read it that way; it addresses prioritization tied to proportion of funding.

And this is different from what Trout Unlimited did to I-696 Ban All Nets, HOW?

Here is Mark's Letter to the Editor in the Daily World. ( Aberdeen's Newspaper )

Mark Cedergreen

Last week an op-ed was published in the Aberdeen Daily World that solicited support for a legislative bill that would transfer fishing opportunity from commercial fisheries to recreational fisheries, basically for purely economic gain. I would like to counter that proposal. My opinion is my own and does not necessarily represent the views of all of the folks I work for.

To begin with, there are volumes of reasons not to embark on the path that House Bill 1660 would lead into. I will deal with just a few here.

First, salmon and our other fishery resources are public property. They don’t belong to any particular subset of the public. They are managed by the state and the tribes. Tribal fishing rights are settled by federal law. The federal government manages in matters relating to the Endangered Species Act and fisheries that occur in the ocean outside state waters. The state works with their co-managers, the tribes, to set seasons and allocations that are allowed by federal law, specifically in the federal Magnuson Act governing fisheries and fair allocation principles on a national scale.

The state also allocates harvest among non-tribal harvesters that have been developed over decades of negotiations and participatory government in the fishery arena. These were developed using principles that include not just economics but social and cultural considerations. Recreational fisheries provide economic, social, and cultural benefits. So do commercial fisheries. Some of the public choose to catch and consume the harvest individually. Others choose to share in the resource benefits by going to the market or a restaurant. To argue, based solely on economics, that one mode of participation is superior to another and that the other mode should be severely constrained or eliminated leads toward privatizing the resource for a small subset of the public.

Second, the economic values and tax revenue claims made by the authors of the op-ed are misleading at best. Numerous economic studies have been done over the years. The conclusions drawn are various and usually leave out important contrary information that might compromise the results sought by the sponsors/financiers of a particular study. Many times I’ve heard the argument that “I’m more valuable than you, therefore you should be eliminated and what you have given to me.” That’s a rather myopic mindset that lacks consideration of a host of other important considerations related to social and cultural values, particularly in the coastal communities that the legislators sponsoring the sport priority profess to benefit. Those considerations are too numerous to expand upon here. Additionally, there is the “law of unintended consequences” that so often rears its ugly head after the fact, particularly for policies that are not well thought out, and negates any benefits of the action.

Third, I would propose a more sensible alternative to a sport fishing priority policy. I have been party to many endeavors where the allocation combatants have joined together to work toward increasing the size of the “pie” rather that battling over diminishing opportunity. The success of a campaign to produce more resource, which is an attainable goal, is maximized when fishery resource harvesters unite to enhance the resource for everyone as opposed to the strife of an allocation battle. Higher resource abundance tends to dampen debate over who gets to catch it. I’ve always wondered how the outcome of a quest to fully fund fish production, engaged in by those who are usually at odds with each other, would be received by those who control the purse strings. Maybe we’ll never know.

I would submit that one thing is for sure. The passage of House bill 1660 (Senate companion bill SB 5844) would do far more damage to fishery management, coastal communities, and ultimately the fishery resource than any of us can currently imagine. I would urge the public to contact their Washington state legislators at 1-800-562-6000 and urge them to oppose both HB 1660 and SB 5844.

Mark Cedergreen has been the executive director of the Westport Charterboat Association since 1995. Prior to that he and his family were engaged in the charter boat business in Westport since 1956. He has also served on various fishery advisory boards, state and federal, including nine years as a voting member of the Pacific Fishery Management Council. - See more at: http://thedailyworld.com/opinion/columni...h.zaePt7sk.dpuf

I suck at converting the pdf format. lol

The bill is aimed at equitably sharing the financial burden of managing the public resource.

If it is about equitably sharing the financial burden then a lot of landowners and inland communities should be on board. They pay the cost for habitat protection. Does this mean, if it passes, that they get the benefit, too? The fish come back to their streams?

You seem to be implying that the fish are not returning to those streams. Fact is that in recent years there have been significant increases in both numbers of fish returning, rivers where those returns are occurring, and related fishing opportunities. Icicle River Chinook, Yakima River, and main stem Columbia for sockeye just to name a few. You might want to check out the CR Endorsement report which was recently released.

And the CR has sport priority. For inside waters anyway.

Ask the folks in GH or WB, or even PS if they get the fish back to their streams or if any increase in returns is taken in fisheries outside the streams.

True, if one is talking about only the State's share.

I was responding to your post which referred to land owners and inland communities; took both to be "inland."

As to the rest, not sure exactly what your point might be.

Well, you heard many of our fish are traded to Canada for Alaskan take.

The Director, WDFW, "represents" the State in the PFMC and US/Canada negotiations. Perhaps they need to allow more salmon return to home waters.

When WDFW was directly asked by a WB landowner if their habitat restoration project would result in more fish on the spawning grounds the answer was no, we'll catch them outside.

The point is the landowner is being asked to spend money to benefit somebody else. While I agree that we all have greater responsibilities to society, it should not be simply a one-way street.

This hits the nail directly on the head. What percentage of "adult" fish produced in Washington that are ready for harvest are intercepted in Canadian and Alaskan waters each year? Anybody?

Without any increase in fish numbers, trying to state that WB and GH would become world class fishing destinations is sort of pointless, isn't it? Divvying up 500 kings over escapement and promoting that as a world class fishing population of fish doesn't ring true either.

Anyway, lots of good people here with differences of opinion on what needs to be done. I wish you the best on your option, but this still isn't going to pass.

Okay, your point is now clear even if there are no details supporting that the individual in question was actually spending his own money on restoration (could be on his property but funded by others). But, again, the point is made.

And I agree!

But let's not forget all of the land owners whose use of their property has been limited by law in the name of habitat protection and fish restoration without compensation.

Managers at all levels need to work together to ensure that all of those efforts are rewarded by spawning numbers well in excess of minimums.

Going from memory it is about 48% of the harvestable adults taken in intercept fisheries. Some on the coast but most are AK & BC.

I've heard harvest amounts as high as 60-70%, but have no information source.

Lotsa good info here...

http://www.piscatorialpursuits.com/forum...html#Post922160

From the PFMC/PSC re exploitation of coastal WA chinook. Queets is the PSC indicator stock for WA Coast and GH is... well.... GH. Bastages take about half of all pre-harvest adult production



For GH, that historically translates to 75% of the kings bonked for the box. Some years it's been a lot worse.

Check out these CWT recoveries from the 2003-2005 brood years ( representing returns as recent;y as 2011)



And here's comparative pre-terminal interception data for GH, Queets, CR URB's, and Willapa...



NOT pretty.

"leads toward privatizing the resource for a small subset of the public."

...like the present bias towards commercial fishermen?