Big sobby tears for the commericals. I read this with interest as pretty much every commerical fisherman in AK blames farming on the collapse of their industry. Not surprising for an ADN article at all.

I agree with Rich, it's going by the wayside and quite frankly, they've done a lot by glutting the market themselves.

I agree that fish farms are far from perfect, but I think the pro's outweigh the cons.

It peaked my interest as they mentioned that a Cook Inlet processor was involved. Here's a link to the state's number for the commerical fishery in Cook Inlet:

http://csfish.adfg.state.ak.us/Mariner/UCICATCHXAREAmp.php

See those 6,900 kings taken from the Kasilof section? I guarantee you that the catch is likely double that. It's a well known fact amongst area locals that the majority of kings get given away or are used for personal use. In addition, the dropout rate of them in the nets is very high. So let's be conservative and make that number 10,000 kings ... but it's probably substantially more.

Those 10,000 kings come off the mouth of a river that has no Biological Escapement Goal and absolutely no data whatsoever regarding run strength of a magnificent run of kings.

In addition, the headwaters of this river have been planted with sockeye to increase the number of sockeye returning to the river and thus increasing the amount of netting days WITHOUT ANY REGARD for the netting's impact on a wild run of kings.

I don't have much sympathy, sorry. And you thought only Washington State was screwed up in their management!!