Thought I'd pass this along....

http://www.pewenvironment.org/campaigns/...13/take-action/

Although looking at forage fish is a good idea, read this closely. The study says, essentially, "Let's stay where we are with fisheries, and don't open any new fisheries, until we can define sustainable fishing levels".

Most "sustainable" fisheries lower the population of spawners down to about a third, or less, of the unfished population. That has to reduce the ability of the system to support predators. That is fine, if we want to eliminate the predators. But, if we want to utilize some of them (salmon, tuna, rockfish) ten maybe we should leave their food alone.

OK.... so how many passed on opening up the link (or closed it) because of the name?

Seen that a few days ago, but didn't know any thing about the group.

They like marine reserves.

Dont take them for granted.

Makes sense to save the baitfish for bigger fish. I think they harvest these forage fish to feed to aquaculture-raised fish in net pens and ponds.

I'm thinking it falls under the "Ocean conditions" part of the equation in anadromous fish returns.

Whether or not you like PEW is irrelevant.

In this case, they are merely just another vehicle to bring folks to a MUCH bigger and more important objective. We've already overharvested every major large predatory fish stock in the ocean. Fishing down the food chain will only make it tougher for those predator species to recover.

We already over-exploit salmon at every life stage, we've fukked up their migratory corridors to spawning/rearing grounds, and we've totally destroyed their inland habitats. We starve the juveniles for lack of adult escapement and marine derived nutrients. Now we want to starve adults and subadults in their ocean feeding grounds.

Stupid is as stupid does.

JFC.... sign the GD petition.

Done.

I don't give a flippin' fuk what anybody says.... this $hit is NOT sustainable.

Done

I knew when I saw the name Pew there would be some resistance, but like you said; "Just sign the Fnnn petition"

Done


Fishy

Done.

Signed, sealed, delivered.

fool

This is long overdue. With the ESA listing of Columbia River smelt as threatened, it would be great if NMFS could begin to rein in the large purse sieners who operate just off the coast of WA, OR, and most certainly AK. Swallowing large schools of bait fish (read "food for Pacific salmon") to be processed into cat food or pellet feed for hatchery fish is beyond belief.

done.

Done - we also need to quit allowing the fishing of krill off our coast. That's fishing even lower on the food chain and much of it goes into Japanese fish food.

Even if this were environmentally sustainable its economically stupid.

They get something like a $0.001 a pound for sardines. even if the conversion of sardine to chinook is 1/1000 on a weight/weight basis, the economic value is in the chinook (or tuna, or whatever predator of sardines you prefer).

Thanks for the link, signed and sent.

Doc, at the risk of pissing you off a bit...those cases of herring that show up at your house every fall come out of a net that looks just like that one in the picture.

Fish on...

Todd

Yes, I realize that.

Hence the trend to use less and less as the years go by.... and making sure when herring is used that maximum utility is extracted from each brined bait.

Unused troll baits are saved for the next trip.

When trolling is done, any remaining brined herring are recycled into bait wraps for plugs.

Less is best. Conservation is still the key.