komonews.com
Just so everyone knows, original post/article was from early May.Ruling might cancel Alaska commercial king salmon season
A ruling from a U.S. judge in Seattle could effectively shut down commercial king salmon trolling in Southeast Alaska
The thing about this is that NOAA agrees that the fishery adversely affects Columbia and PS stocks and SRKW. They just say the mitigation (more hatchery releases) will work. I guess that remains to be seen. A precautionary approach would be chill out on the fishery while the appeals and additional scrutiny gets sorted out, and while some data can be collected on whether or not the mitigation is sufficient. Except, as it is now, when there are more fish in the ocean, and the fishing is good, the trollers fish more and catch more fish. So, that’s just one of a number of challenges for the mitigation to overcome in order for it to actually be effective.
Yup, they fish and have an awesome season, then we get shut down here on the Columbia. Love our current system
Yeah, about those hatchery mitigation salmon, who pays to produce them? The AK fishermen? Not likely. It's easy for NMFS to say, as government agencies are notoriously immune from sorting the who pays for what and for whom scenario. Salmon fishing is a massive welfare scheme where commercial fishermen feed at the public trough. Why do we pay for this nonsense?
