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Liz Hamilton, Executive Director, NSIA
2008 Columbia River Spring Chinook—
The Good Old Days?
Remarkably
large numbers of spring Chinook jacks passed over Bonneville
dam this year—more than 1,600 jacks! And that number has
scientists at the Northwest Sportfishing Industry
Association (NSIA) excited about next year’s prospects.
Fishery managers make their official forecast this month,
but a simple jack-to-adult predictor suggests that 2008
returns could surpass 300,000 adults, on parr with the large
returns of 2001 and 2002.
An official at ODFW once commented, “you’ll
never see those numbers again.” To NSIA,that was not an
acceptable claim. We know the spring chinook jacks that
returned are an indicator of the river conditions
experienced during their outmigration—good flows and
spilling water over the Columbia River dams have
historically predicted strong adult returns. The NSIA is a
party in the Biological Opinion litigation currently in
federal court, successfully seeking necessary improvements
in river conditions for migrating salmon. The 2005
court-ordered spill played a significant role in the
improved fish passage conditions in 2006. Add slightly
enhanced flow, and the fish responded. Additionally, NSIA
sued to protect the leading science institution for Columbia
Basin fishery resources, the Fish Passage Center (FPC).
Withouta lawsuit, Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) would have
zeroed out the FPC.
The bad news? Sports anglers could be shut down
So what is the problem? Already twice since 2002, the
Washington and Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commissions have
taken fishing time away from the selective sport fishery by
transfering ESA impacts to the non-selective gillnetters.
Unless you get involved and support change, we are in for
more of the same: Sport fishers out, gillnets in.
An arcane and unfair situation, with unnecessary by-catch
and millions of dollars lost in economic opportunities,
license sales and jobs.
The Commissions will meet in February 2008
to set a new sharing agreement between sports anglers and
the commercial gillnets. (Feb. 8, in Salem.
Feb. 2, in Olympia.) Between now and then, you’ve got to get
involved if you want to revisit the fishing from 2001 and
2002 in the main stem Columbia. Nearly all the sport-fishing
clubs in Washington and Oregon are going to weigh in.
Do you belong to one?
There are three areas that are of concern
with the status quo management of the Columbia River
fisheries:
The primary concern is conservation
It’s clear, we are not going to gillnet our way to
recovering fragile stocks of Columbia Basin salmon. With
by-catch of steelhead, sturgeon and wild fish, there are
times when throw-backs equal kept fish. The gillnet fishery
is front-loaded and highly effective, sometimes accessing
all their fish in one single tide. Front-loading puts the
nets in early (Feb. and March) for the highest prices, but
it has often shortchanged the sport season when the Chinook
do not show up as expected. Finally, the release mortalities
from a gillnet are four times as high as a sport-released
fish (40% vs 10%). This means three hatchery fish are left
in the water for every wild fish caught in a gillnet. With
rising river temperatures from climate change, this high
mortality rate will almost certainly climb.
It’s about fairness
Tens of thousands of sports anglers are shut down to allow
the gillnet fleet into the river. Anglers are footing the
bill to “sit on the beach” and watch the commercials fish.
What makes this even less “equitable” is that approximately
60% of all salmon and steelhead landed in Oregon are sold
commercially. Add in the fish caught commercially off
California, Washington, Alaska or raised in fish farms.
Taking the gillnet fleet off the river would have little to
no impact on markets.
A
new economy would blossom
The States of Washington and Oregon are leaving millions in
lost revenues, jobs and licenses by not nurturing their
sportfishing and tourism economies. Instability and poor
fishing seasons are driving local and tourism dollars out
of the NW and to other places.
Future population trends will have millions
more living in the Northwest. Will we have a future for our
fishery resources?
There
is a better way!
Millions of dollars have been invested in Columbia River
selective commercial fisheries. Marked hatchery fish are
released from off-channel net pens in the lower river. When
the adults return to these sites they are not commingled
with the wild fish. These select-area, mop-up fisheries are
a great conservation value— limited impact on wild fish and
effective at keeping hatchery fish off the spawning beds.
The beauty of this win-win fishery is that the lower-river
fish processors can actually have more fish than they do
today, hatchery fish can be accessed with better
conservation,
it’s selective
and the economically valuable sport fishery will have
stability and predictability.
. . . Every other coastal state
has eliminated freshwater
gillnetting . . .
Every other coastal state has eliminated freshwater
gillnetting,
but it took committed involvement from the sport-fishing and
conservation communities to change the status quo. It will
take a thousand voices—yours, mine and everyone who cares
about the future of sport fishing. Only you can ensure that
future: E-mail your state legislators today. Find your
State Representative and State Senator in Olympia at:
http://dfind.leg.wa.gov/dfinder.cfm. Find your Oregon
legislators at http://www.leg.state.or.us/findlegsltr/findset.htm.
Copy the Governor, too. Be a part of the solution, be heard
and together we can make a difference that will last
lifetimes.
Yours in service, Liz Hamilton, Executive Director
Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association
P.O. Box 4
Oregon City, OR 97045
(503) 631-8859
(866) 315-NSIA
nsializ@aol.com
www.nsiafishing.org
“Dedicated to the preservation, restoration
and enhancement of sport fisheries and the
businesses dependent upon them.”
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