DEVISED WITHOUT PUBLIC input in secret meetings between the state Department of Fish and Wildlife and 17 Washington tribes, and with the potential power to eliminate recreational salmon fishing along the Strait of Juan de Fuca and in Puget Sound, the Puget Sound Chinook Harvest Management Plan will be the topic of a state Fish and Wildlife Commission conference call Friday.
While the public still won’t be able to weigh in on the plan as part of Friday’s call, it’s a start, at least, at combating confidential, federal-judge-mediated negotiations that produced a plan that could see the elimination of much of recreational salmon fishing for the next decade.
The commission, a citizen panel appointed by the governor to set policy for Fish and Wildlife, will convene the call at 2 p.m. on Friday.
The public can listen to the work session, but there will be no opportunity for public comment. To participate in the call, contact the commission office at 360-902-2267 or email commission@dfw.wa.gov by 4 p.m. today.
Fish and Wildlife fish managers will brief commissioners on the Puget Sound Chinook Harvest Management Plan.
NOAA Fisheries is currently reviewing the proposed plan, which was submitted Dec. 1, 2017.
The plan defines management goals for state and tribal fisheries that have an impact on wild Puget Sound chinook salmon, which are listed for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act. Under that law, no fisheries affecting Puget Sound chinook can occur without a conservation plan approved by NOAA.
The plan is available at tinyurl.com/PDN-FishPlan.
Initial feedback
The federal agency has already provided some feedback on the plan, noting that several key salmon stocks would not meet NOAA’s new, more restrictive conservation objectives. NOAA is seeking more information from the state and tribes on the conservation objectives within the proposed plan.
Additional discussion about the harvest management plan will take place during the commission’s regularly scheduled meeting, Jan. 18-20, at Fish and Wildlife’s regional office in Ridgefield.
The plan has been panned by former Fish and Wildlife staffers, some of whom still advise the department on fishing policy.
Pat Patillo, a retired salmon policy advisor with Fish and Wildlife explained the plan’s overreach during a recent appearance on The Outdoor Line on 710 ESPN Seattle.
Patillo explained that mark-selective fishing for fin-clipped hatchery kings could be curtailed to protect federally-listed wild chinook stock.
That approach could face significant challenges under the new plan.
“With that limit on hatchery fish, it effectively eliminates selective fishing as a management tool for providing opportunity to catch all Puget Sound hatchery chinook,” Patillo said on the show.
Such a move would cripple hatchery king fishing in the summer and winter blackmouth fisheries across the Strait and in Puget Sound.
“These fish, hatchery fish and wild fish, are mixed with all the others in Puget Sound,” Patillo said. “So if you’ve got a constraint on your hatchery fish that are mass-marked — you can’t tell a mass-marked Stilly [Stillaguamish River] fish from a Green River fish, for example — so you’re, what’s the term? You pick it.”
And a science-based article on the pro-sportsfishing website Tidal Exchange written by Curt Kraemer, a former fish biologist for the state, and Brian Fleming takes aim at what the plan may mean for the Stillaguamish River.
The main point of the piece is the Stillaguamish, home of what is described as “the most constraining run of fish in Puget Sound,” will not see chinook recovery under the proposal, and predicts the plan would “delay the actual hard, decision-making work the fish need.”
The Stilly, a river that hasn’t been gilnetted for kings in 40 years, has failed to recover in the face of rampant habitat loss, as chinook returns have dipped from 1,500 30 years ago to the mid-800s in 2014 and 2015.
Of course, areas surrounding the Stillaguamish have exploded in human population in the past decades. The authors use the analogy that before human settlement, the Stillaguamish watershed was a 5-gallon bucket that produced runs of up to 50,000 chinook, but with logging, farming and encroaching development in a rapidly growing area, the bucket (habitat), now cracked and dented, can now only hold a pint of water no matter how much is poured in.
The paved paradise theory, in play.
It is available at tinyurl.com/PDN-StillyReview and it’s worth a read, even the comment section below the article has value as a tribal co-manager and concerned recreational anglers weigh in.
Crab report cards
Crab season closed Dec. 31 and recreational crabbers have until Feb. 1 to report their winter catch to Fish and Wildlife.
Non-compliance results in a $10 fine being applied to the next license purchase.
Cards must be reported online or returned whether or not the cardholder caught or fished for crab during the season.
Crabbers can report their catches online through a link at tinyurl.com/PDN-CrabCatch17 or send their catch record cards to WDFW CRC Unit, P.O.Box 43142, Olympia, WA, 98504.
Fish and Wildlife is seeking public input on proposed recommendations for the 2018-20 hunting seasons.
Through Feb. 14, Fish and Wildlife will accept comments from the public to help finalize proposed regulations for hunting seasons that begin this year.
To review and comment on the proposals, visit the department’s website starting Jan. 24 at tinyurl.com/PDN-Hunting1820.
Developed after extensive public involvement, the proposed hunting season rules are based on the objectives and strategies contained in the new 2015-21 Game Management Plan, said Anis Aoude, Fish and Wildlife game manager.
The plan is available on the department’s website at wdfw.wa.gov/publications/01676/.
“We appreciate the input we’ve received over the past months and encourage everyone interested in the 2018-20 hunting seasons to review and comment on the proposed rules before final action is taken,” Aoude said.
The state Fish and Wildlife Commission, also will take public comment on the proposed recommendations at its March 16-17 meeting at the Red Lion Hotel in Wenatchee. Final commission action is scheduled to take place at the April 12-16 meeting.
