Salty
2010-10-23 01:00:36
Thanks for this post. Any readers of this post who cares about king salmon should read it. Remember that the way we handled this problem in SE Alaska was to prohibit groundfish trawling first in Federal Waters in a program spearheaded by Alaska Longliners and Linda Behnken, and then in State waters of SE spearheaded by the Alaska Marine Conservation Council.
While it is both politically and economically impossible to accomplish I believe the way to deal with groundfish trawling in most of the waters off Alaska is to treat them like high seas salmon gillnetting or salmon traps. A method of fish harvesting that is unacceptable in this time in many areas of Alaskan waters.
Quick, can any reader tell me the maximum size of a groundfish trawl permitted to be towed in either the Bering Sea or Gulf of Alaska?
carojae
2010-10-23 17:34:29
Don't know whether to agree or say,
What is this, the best available information? lol This is old news and they seem to brush it off every year.
On the otherhand, if it was the Alaskan troller screwing up, then you'd see a judgment handed down from a out of state court system.
:| JMHO
Salty
2010-10-24 05:19:39
Do you know how they determine whether a trawler is "bottom trawling", which is prohibited in the Bering Sea Pollock Fishery, or Pelagic trawling, which is permitted.
Right, by the # of crab that come up in the trawl.
Do you know what the size limit on trawls is in the Gulf of Alaska?
Right again, there is no size limit. It is legal to tow a trawl that stretches from Yakutat to Seward across the Gulf of Alaska. Kind of ming boggling to think about when we as trollers have to deal with barbless hooks, line limits, surf lines, etc.
Finally, at one time in my life I made a couple of 8 minute videos to be shown at our booth at various fisheries shows, like comfish in Kodiak. While putting together those videos of the effect of bottom trawls on bottom habitat I viewed literally hundreds of hours of underwater video of trawls bouncing along the bottom, sponge and coral beds before and after being trawled over, and video of crabs and fish being caught in the leading edge of the trawl.
To me bottom trawling is an unacceptable method of fish harvesting in most areas off Alaska. No one should ever be allowed to run a trawl through beautiful sponge beds that go on for acres and acres with sponges several feet across and tall.
King salmon by-catch is just one of the problems with trawling off of Alaska.
ericv
2010-10-24 17:24:02
Entropy,
Thank you for sharing the link you posted. I spent some time trolling the site this morning and was enlightened and enraged at the same time. I've always been aware of the destruction of trawling, especially bottom trawls but that website with its video clips and other creditable data made me realize just how much I did not know. I knew King salmon were bycatch, but had no idea that the numbers were so tragically high. All this bycatch data is just a brief snapshot of a much bigger picture as the on board observers on these trawlers are not there 24/7. Image what takes place when they are not on board.
Not only is the undersea, indiscriminated corporate driven mining and rape of aquatic dwellers bad for Alaska, just imagine on a global scale of what is being done. I would encourage all viewers of this site to take a look at the website and bookmark it.
At times I rail against technology and the cyber world we have become, but "Entropy" brings to light the value of this technology to open our eyes and ears to access the work of others on our behalf. A big thanks again to Jon for this site, it has opened up the world for us to read and share things that matter.
Eric "F/V New Hope" Van Cise - Sitka, Alaska
shakers
2010-12-09 08:17:47
The Question is, what are we as a fleet going to do about it????
Carol W
2010-12-09 15:55:51
What are we going to do as a fleet? Is a damn good question and kind of like David going up against Golliath, however this is a battle we need to stand up and fight with our halibut quota being cut so drastically and restrictions that keep us from harvesting and raising more coho each one of these Kings are vital to our very survival.
keep your hand on it
Tom
shakers
2010-12-09 22:57:22
The Council is meeting this week, in Anchorage. I really think we need to have a push to raise this issue.
If we as a fleet caught 60 thousand of another fleets bread a butter, folks would be upset, right?
yak2you2
2010-12-10 00:15:49
Writing letters to the NPFMC is the next logical step, but it does feel like a David VS. Goliath type battle, and it feels like the deck is pre-stacked at any of the board levels. I don't see this one ending anywhere short of the courthouse. I am actually surprised a lawsuit hasn't been filed yet. For all the impact they have on our fishery, it is but the tip of the iceberg compared to the damage they really do. Their affects on things closer to the bottom get exponentially worse. The numbers of crab and halibut destroyed by them is just sickening.
Though I don't condone it, I can at least understand a fisherman's reluctance to attack another fisherman, but what makes no sense to me at all is, where is everybody else??? Where's the usual environmental organizations, or native organizations? These guys were documented with 800,000 chum salmon by-catch a couple of years ago. They have single handedly destroyed the Yukon river stocks in my opinion. This has left 2000 miles of people who have depended on that river in dire straits, and I don't understand why none of them are making all kinds of noise about it.
For what it's worth I did send in my letter of complaint as an individual.