Just an idea.

[Dave M]

Ban Nets! Allow commercial fishing, but with a rod and reel.
Commercial fisherman , native and non native can do it the hard way.
Cull the predators. Not saying kill them all, just control them.
Seals, Sealions and Seabird(Cormorants).
End commercial fishing for foage fish. Herring, Anchovies and any other Forage fish.
As I write this I am on the Edmonds to Kingston ferry. I see a half dozen seiners between Edmonds and Richmond Beach.

 

[mcswny]

 

[tkww]

The real solution is to uncouple WDFW funding from harvest. You'll never convince them to do the best thing because their budget is tied to the not-best options.

 

[Salmo_g]

The real solution is to uncouple WDFW funding from harvest. You'll never convince them to do the best thing because their budget is tied to the not-best options.

WDFW's budget is tied to doing what WDFW thinks WDFW has always done, even when they haven't always done it but think so anyway, and state legislators who believe it. That is the General Fund appropriation; most of the rest comes from the Wildlife Fund, which is where hunting and fishing license fees are deposited and then doled out to the department. And then there is mitigation funding and contracts. Funding has no tie to measurable conservation nor to constituent responsiveness. Nor to harvest of anything for that matter. The Department's business plan keeps working, so I don't expect them to change it.

 

[fatbillybob]

I think I read somewhere, sealions are now found deep up the columbia river. When I was a kid we caught legal sized halibut and yellowtail in the Redondo harbor. The seals came and the the 1974 marine mammals act protected them. They eat all the fish and moved on. There are almost no fish in the harbor today. That's not Climate change. That's mismanagement of public resource.