Back from the big evening in Olympia. Lots of feedback to Staff regarding the plan. I think the safest thing to say is that everyone wants to see rockfish recover.

Virtually all attendees who provided comments for the record asked for an extension and Staff indicated it was being considered. My caveat here and now is to provide your comments on the current plan as presented because the final date of 19 Nov is the final until and unless changed.

Many comments about the need to flesh out the plan so that stakeholders fully understand magnitude of some of the ideas in the plan as they may impact other fisheries (areas, time, depth, gear, etc.) Lots of resistance to MPAs as being permanent and restricted; more support for Rockfish Recovery Areas that meet recovery requirements and have periodic reviews and subject to a "sunset" time table.

As for seal total food consumption figures they will check out their 5 million pounds versus the 28,616,000 pounds one can calculate from their own component data. The issue of how much of that is rockfish is not clear and hopefully they will provide better information. Also, if they still cannot analyze and incorporate predator (seal) reduction into the action plan they should at least identify the actual numbers (and species) of rockfish lost to seals and explain why no action is being built into the plan. Call that a need for full disclosure. They did say that most of those taken by seals are probably Puget Sound rockfish (the species) but even if the % of rockfish of concern is low the sheer amount of fish involved means the impact on those of concern could still be quite high compared to the other stressors.

There was a point made in the slide presentation that the plan has to be realistic with a recognition that there are funding limitations.

Finally, there was a comment regarding lack of economic impact in the DEIS.