The economic value of the LCR salmon gillnet fishery is real money, but it's really just a small part of the entire income for the fishers...most make no money at this fishery, and in fact lose money.

The entire LCR gillnet fisheries gross a total of a little less than $4M, and that includes salmon, sturgeon, smelt, and shad.

I was unable to find a cost breakdown of how much of that $4M comes from each of those fisheries, but even if half of the money comes from the very short spring Chinook fishery (I think allotting it half the income is very generous on my part), it accounts for less than $2M of the total $13M that those commercial netters make.

It's interesting that Hatfield refers to the SAFE analysis...when independent economists and scientists reviewed the self-serving SAFE analysis, they found that it was fraught with inaccuracies, and failed to account for all of the economic costs of the SAFE program.

*SAFE is the Select Area Fishery Evaluation Project Economic Analysis, an economic analysis of a put-and-take commercial fisheries hatchery/netting project in the LCR.

When the IEAB looked at the analysis, they pointed out that the many costs of the fisheries were not accounted for, nor were the losses to recreational fishing economic benefits, nor were recreational fishing economic benefits explored.

Fish on...

Todd