WDFW NEWS RELEASE
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
600 Capitol Way North, Olympia, WA 98501-1091
http://wdfw.wa.gov/

July 9, 2012
Contact: WDFW Region 5 Office, (360) 696-6211

State managers schedule public meetings
to discuss Columbia River sturgeon fisheries

OLYMPIA - Fishery managers from Washington and Oregon have scheduled six public meetings this month to discuss possible changes in those states' white sturgeon fisheries in 2013 and ensuing years.

Each meeting will begin with an update on the status of white sturgeon populations, followed by a public discussion of possible options for future management of the fishery.

Responding to recent declines in the abundance of white sturgeon on the Columbia River, both states have reduced catch guidelines by 30 to 40 percent in each of the past three years. Harvest levels have also declined for sturgeon in coastal fisheries and in Puget Sound.

"It's no secret that catch guidelines for white sturgeon have declined significantly in recent years," said Brad James, sturgeon manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW). "We would like to hear from the fishing public how they would prefer we structure future seasons and regulations to reflect those changes."

James said key topics of discussion will include season length, number of retention days per week, fishing gear and catch allocation.

Dates and locations of the six public meetings are:

July 17 - Portland: Sheraton Portland Airport Hotel, 8235 N.E. Airport Way, 6:30-8:30 p.m. (Contact: 360-906-6700)
July 18 - Longview: Cowlitz PUD, 961 12th Ave., 6:30-8:30 p.m. (Contact: 360-906-6700)
July 19 - Astoria: The Loft at the Red Building, 20 Basin Street, 6-8 p.m. (Contact: 360-906-6700)
July 24 - Raymond: Elks Lodge #1292, 326 Third St., 6-8 p.m. (Contact: 360-249-4628)
July 26 - Mill Creek: 16018 Mill Creek Blvd., 6-8 p.m. (Contact: 425-775-1311)
July 31 - Montesano: City Hall, 112 N. Main St., 6-8 p.m. (Contact: 360-249-4628)

Maybe WDFW can get it right this time around instead of putting the commission in between a rock and a hard place with an allocation issue instead of a conservation issue.

The sturgeon allocation issue for Puget Sound which ended in an inequitable solution with our counterparts of Grays Harbor, Tillamook Bay, and the rest of the Oregon Coast, which by the way all have the same app. take since catch records were started in PS in 2001.

This time, conservation should be the issue with these salt water areas along with the Columbia River included.
As a conservation issue--- all areas should be shut down---- period!

These are fish that can live to be over one hundred years old and take up to 25 years to reproduce. If WDFW and others wait as long as before to step in to protect the CR smelt, the sturgeon can vanish forever due to their slow growth and slow maturity compared to the river smelt.
It makes little sense to continue taking eggs and meat from this non sustainable resource.

Something needs to be done now before our 200 million year old dinosaurs are gone forever on WDFW, ODFW, and feds watch.

Is this how the system is supposed to work instead of an out of the blue rule change proposal with no input accepted at the regional meetings?

I guess when there is a commercial component involved then all areas are involved in decision making instead of an out of the blue----rules change like what happened in Puget Sound on the sturgeon allocation issue.

A calculated risk that the recreational fishermen wouldn’t take that decision to court as an arbitrary and capricious act by WDFW.

Which it is.

LL your forgetting one thing. Tribal harvest will continue as it is the last thing to go based on court decisions, so any conservation will be implemented on the non tribal fisheries. So harvest will continue regardless of how, when, where, and how it happens by the tribes.

Ya I know,

I wouldn’t want to hear in the news that tribal members are dying do to no C&S fishing.

For example:
No deaths have been reported up here in PS due to lack of steelhead and less than stellar to no subsistence catches.

I’m sure we are all relieved to hear that.