Like the Title say's
The Sale for profit of ESA listed Chinook is now illegal!

Why is it ok for the WDFW to allow the sale for profit a fish
that is endangered?

If the WDFW doesn't want to do thier job by responsibly managing the salmon runs why not go around them.

Is it feasible to start an initiative to make it illegal to sell ESA listed fish for profit. It would seem in this State it could be an easy sell to the progressives in Seattle that control elections.

Yes. Contact your representative and make an appointment. Go speak with them and ask them to sponsor a bill to make the sale of ESA listed fish illegal. Go to Change.org and start a petition. Organize and fight. If you truly BELIVE down to your gonads in it, then fight.

Sure, that would be an easy sell to the Seattle Progressives. Why? Because it would have little to no impact on non-tribal fishers because they harvest few if any ESA listed Chinook and absolutely no impact on tribal fishers because they are not subject to State laws when legally fishing under the auspices of their individual tribe's Treaty rights.

See, everyone wins!

"Better to look good than be good."

I'd add to also make it illegal to purchase ESA listed fish. Making it broader to ESA animals in general probably wouldn't hurt either.

Does this mean the guys fishing off Alaska and BC will be taking scale samples of all the kings they catch to make sure they aren't ESA listed? Somehow, I doubt it. If nobody can tell it's ESA fish, nobody gets in trouble....

You know after fishing SE once or twice a year for the past 12 years I've felt guilty and considered taking scale samples to submit to help alleviate my guilt feelings but never knew to submit my samples to.....Oh well Fish on!

All good points!

Yes It should be illegal to sell/buy ESA listed fish!

Yes the tribes are immune, but if it was illegal to buy ESA listed Chinook it would be problematic!

As far as the Alaskan and BC fishers...... start by stopping the Washington commercials, it would save some fish and its a great start.

Bay wolf thank you for all of your efforts!!! That was a great effort to get the negotiations open.. I cant say enough.... The effort was the closest we have had to any major change with the status quo

The tribes are too powerful with casino money, the one party rule in Washington have allowed the tribes to own just about every one....
It just seems so ridiculous that you can go buy an ESA listed Chinook to throw on the barbeque but they are going to put a 10 year ban on selective fisherman paying to fish for hatchery fish...

The spotted owl shut down logging, loggers had to adapt and find another profession. There are bans on ivory in many countries.

Is this a bad idea? could it work? thoughts, ideas?

CITIES is an international treaty that is designed to stop trade in endangered species, at least internationally. That would be the route to take as then only sales "in-country" might be exempted.

I think the only way to save the resource is for commercial fishermen to go the way of market hunters. By the time market hunting was outlawed, the Buffalo were all but wiped out along with many waterfowl stocks. Salmon being out of site, the stocks would probably be gone before the general public noticed.

That would also take a lot of people accepting aquaculture as their fish source. I don't see that happening as long as a vocal and vested group is out their convincing people their $60/lb troll caught fish is healthier than their $10/lb farmed fish.

Would that essentially restrict the sale of Chinook from the West Coast of North America to those harvested from a marked selective fishery?

Interesting idea but we can't even get NOAA/NMFS to deal with large scale sales of illegally harvested wildlife under the Lacey Act. Pathetic!

I don't think you ought to feel guilty; you're certainly paying your way, which supports a lot of businesses along the way. I guess my point was that it's pretty hard (I'm sure you'll agree) to identify a wild salmon's origin without killing it.

Once again we in the recreational community allow ourselves to be divert addressing what is limit the region's wild Chinook abundances and instead focus our discussions on how to better split a dwindling resources.

It is popular to advocate for ending non-treaty commercial fisheries and all will be well. Just for fun I reviewed the 2017 pre-season fishery plan that came out of NOF. I focused on two Puget Sound stocks that have or are likely to limited recreational fisheries; Stillaguamish and Lake Washington.
Of the impacts in Washington Fisheries on the non-treaty side of the ledger 21% of the Stillaguamish and 26% of the Lake Washington impacts occurred in commercial fisheries. Of equal interest is that the majority of the commercial impacts occurred of the coast in troll fisheries.

If we truly want our fishing to improve we most be more effective advocates for habitat restoration. Over the last 3 decades in spite of 75% reduction in total fishing impacts (and yes that includes those northern fisheries) the status of the wild resource continues to decline at an alarming rate. In my opinion the future of any Puget Sound salmon fishing will depend on the tribal and non-tribal fishers (and the policy folks) putting aside this endless debate about what size of piece each gets from a shrinking pie and foraging alliances to work together on behalf of the resource through advocating for effective salmon recovery efforts.

Yes that is not near as much fun as taking part in a debating society and will require real work but from where I'm sitting that appears to be the only path forward if our grand kids are going to have an opportunity to fish!

Curt

Habitat restoration includes spawning fish. As Jeff Cederholm said, "Salmon are habitat". We are allowing something like 5% of the pre-industrial fishing escapement and that's not a problem? The food base fisheries are slamming those numbers down. The ocean itself is changing.

Until the fish runs show consistent increases we are willing too many in too many different ways.

I have noted before that a WDFW (current leadership) told a constituent that if they fixed habitat on their property that any additional fish were for killing, not spawning. Culverts an barriers are being removed and escapement goals at best are kept constant; in many cases the co-managers continue to lower them.

Lastly, this [Bleeeeep!] habitat in Puget Sound has produced (so I have been told) increasing anadromous cutthroat and native char and pinks. The MSY goal for the Puyallup for pinks was 19,000 and it did well when escapements exceeded half a million.

Yes, we need to fix habitat. That will REQUIRE dealing with human population. We also need to deal with the whole ecosystem and balance the species (pinnipeds for an easy, low-hanging fruit example) and we have to deal with the whole range of species from clams and krill on up.

The mistake we make, and WDFW supports this fully, is that we keep all of the issues in nuclear-hardened silos where there is no cross-communication.

While generally agreeing with your perspectives I can't totally let go of the number crunching so let's address one set of numbers not included in your post. Of the total impacts occurring in WA fisheries on those most at risk stocks what is the split between (non-selective) tribal and non-tribal?

It is simply disingenuous to discuss how to reduce impacts without looking at all of the data.

Anyone have numbers on the Alaskan/BC fishing fleet size vs year? Just searching around it looks like the AK fleet has increased from 8600 boats in 2014 to 9400 in 2017. Source 1 2 . I'm not really sure how a that squares with decreased impacts in Alaska.

Smalma and I tend to look at things differently. Different perspectives. If your goal is to recover/restore Chinook then restoring habitat is the key. They need quality habitat and we must fix it. And, we have time. Wild fish are surviving at low levels and will, ultimately, respond to better conditions.

Killer Whales don't have that option. They are starving. They aborting young. Polulations don't stay stable, much less recover, under those conditions. If, by some magic wand, all the habitat that affects Chinook was repaired by 6/30/20 (need time to do the work) it would not be until the adults return in 2024 that the whales would see more food. IF productivity immediately increased, harvest did not increase, and pinnipeds were controlled. The only way to turn them around is to stop all fisheries on immature Chinook. If you still believe that "too many" fish would spawn you can kill them in the rivers and keep the current goals.

If we continue on the current course, the STKW are doomed.

Also, Smalma notes harvests have been significantly cut back. I don't know the answer, but how much of the cutback is due to reductions on hatchery planting? Can't call those reductions "conservation". How much has the rate that is applied to, say Nisqually Chinook, changed since listing?

As I recall the output of Chinook from WA hatcheries has decreased about 60% from 1985. That only qualifies as "conservation" if you are supporting a decrease in hatchery fish competing with and diluting the genetics of true wild fish (if there is truly any such fish returning to Puget Sound rivers).

If one considers smolt predation by the over abundance of harbor seals as a habitat issue then an immediate reduction in those seal numbers before May 2018 should result in an improved return of both wild and hatchery produced adults earlier than 2024. Maybe by 2021?

Anyway, NOAA doesn't seem willing or able to take the initiative
so Rome burns while Nero fiddles on both ESA listed Chinook stocks and, more visibly, ESA listed Orca.

I don't trust numbers that come form our co-managers...

As far as choosing habitat over ending commercial fishing that is a no brainer.. WE CAN STOP COMMERCAIL FISHING RIGHT NOW!!
habitat is much more complicated and time consuming. If we are in a critical situation with ESA listed Chinook we have to prioritize.
SELECTIVE fishers who give back 10 fold should have priority!! End commercial harvest!!

Habitat is important but the same people who allow the sale of ESA listed fish are the same PEOPLE that chooses to push outrageous clean energy taxes without any plan to improve habitat! Lets start with Jay Inslee enough said!

That's gonna be pretty tough when NOAA-F intentionally manages these ESA listed species for purposeful "take".... for example, at rates of 41% exploitation on ESA-listed Lower Columbia tule chinook and 65% on ESA-listed Snake River all chinook.

Here's a good peek at who's taking them...

TULES:
https://data.wa.gov/dataset/Lower-Columbia-Fall-Tule-Chinook/pqm4-r4gr

SNAKE FALLS:
https://data.wa.gov/dataset/Snake-River-Fall-Chinook/7dcp-g2ff

Salmon seems to one of the few species where ESA allows totally avoidable "take". I say avoidable because they can be taken in the river, when separate. Other ESA "takes" tend to be of a truly incidental nature.

But, back when the various inland cutthroat were listed the state's were able to convince the Feds that down listing to Threatened gave them the flexibility to have C&R fisheries, do restorations (remove exotics, replace with cutts) and so on. The state's argued, among other things, that if they could allow some angling that public support would increase. Damn if it hasn't worked pretty well, too. There are now lots more opportunities to fish for these fish that were, a few decades ago, down to a couple of tiny populations.

Salmon are just too important, today, to really be concerned about tomorrow.

A couple of links. The first is to the Lacey Act. The second is a historical summary of federal statutes

Lacey Act

https://www.fws.gov/international/laws-treaties-agreements/us-conservation-laws/lacey-act.html

https://training.fws.gov/History/TimelinesLawEnforcement.html

I think making it illegal to buy ESA listed fish would be possible?
Even if the tribes could still buy them, it might do something.

The State can regulate its citizens. So, they could make the possession of ESA species illegal. But, they would have to define listed species. Say they made it illegal to possess an ESA listed species. How would you prove that the Chinook or steelhead in your possession is not part of an ESU? Especially if you bring that fish in from Canada, Alaska, Oregon, California, or Idaho.

The fun part would be that you could buy a listed animal on reservation (legally) but then couldn't leave the reservation with it.

Mebbe time to put OP steel on the ESA list?

And what would it change? The Tribes would still chase the hatchery fish and have an incidental harvest.

There are others on here far more versed in the Lacey Act than am I so if anything following is in error please gently correct me. That said, it is my understanding that the Lacey Act makes it a Federal crime to sell illegally harvested wildlife (fish, game, shellfish etc).

Just because a species is ESA listed does not necessarily make its harvest and commercial sale illegal; that is where NOAA/NMFS (for marine species) permitting comes into play.

From a different angle the Lacey Act is not limited to illegal harvest and sale of ESA listed species. It does apply to the sale of all illegally harvested wildlife to include but not limited to salmon, crab and geoduck.

One final aspect is that the Lacey Act also covers illegal harvest/sale by tribal members.

So when will NOAA/NMFS law enforcement and Federal prosecutors step in on what is reported to be massive illegal harvest and sale of WA wildlife? Your area of responsibility Mr. Thom! What are you going to do about it????

At a fixed ESA impact of say 10-15%, would that not be considerably less than the current kill rate on wild steel?

Or do we just play it smart like the Canadians and wait til we're down to 177 fish and try to fast-track the protections at that juncture?

As the run declines, the co-managers will be able to demonstrate that the habitat capacity has been reduced so that the current population is at carrying capacity. Steelhead are just to complex, too interrelated with salmon, and just too difficult to manage.

Even if you set the annual exploitation rate at X, the real rate is higher because some fraction of the fish harvested in year 1 would have returned in year 2, 3, etc. Those are mostly females and significantly more fecund so the true impact is even higher.

In the last century, when I last worked Lacey Act violations, it would come to the forefront when the illegally taken wildlife had crossed a state or federal boundary.

It could be argued that crossing a reservation boundary commits the Federal violation even within the state. Same for crossing a BLM, NP, or USFS boundary. An in-state violation is a bit of a reach and probably not too many Federal prosecutors would go down that road. When crossing a state or international boundary, that becomes a stronger case. Even better when multiple states are crossed as each would/could add to the progression of the case.

We did a lot of interstate joint state/federal check stations. Most states have what could be termed a "mini-Lacey" act where the possession of wildlife, taken illegally in another state, is illegal in the state where the violation was discovered. I have a fond memory of a check station on I-70 in Nebraska one year. Generally speaking, the violation was handled by the host state, in this case NE. The suspect had taken a deer illegally in UT, passed through CO, and hit the check station in NE. Turned out it was a UT officer canine team that detected the deer hidden in the trailer. The violator was advised that he had committed violations in UT, CO (possession and transportation across state lines), NE (same as CO), and then was advised of his options - NE, CO, UT or a Lacey Act. He lit up like a marlin hitting a bait and told us in no uncertain terms that if he was home in Texas he wouldn't be treated in such a manner. The TX officer assigned to the check station (we tried to bring in officers from surrounding states where hunting season were going on or just ending plus an invitation was extended to officers from destination states where the hunters lived),who had listened to the whole discussion then stepped up, identified himself as a TX warden and kindly said something to the effect of "Son, you would have the same problems in TX, now which agency would you like to deal with." As I recall, the NE ticket was chosen because it was the lowest fine amount. The deer was seized, went to a local food bank, and the violator went on down the road.