Tribes Want Pinnipeds

https://www.knkx.org/environment/2022-11...on-act-turns-50

Interesting. I believe that the Tribes would encounter significant PR backlash if they killed a bunch of pinnipeds even if they used the whole animal. I think they would lose a lot of support from the "Green" community who support Indigenous Peoples on a knee-jerk reaction. It would be political suicide, I think. Better to get the Gubmint to do something as we can all blame them and they have a bad reputation anyway.

I think the biggest problem is that Sea lions taste horrible. I was told be a tribal member that the best way to describe the taste was to take a chunk of black tar. Throw it in to a barrel of dead fish and let it soak in the rotting fish for a week or two. Then after the tar has soaked up enough of the rotting fish, heat up the tar to make it soft and eat it. Rancid, super chewy fat. Getting enough tribal members to eat it could become a problem.

As I recall, the Makah had issues with the whale. Not eating something for a century apparently changed tastes. Pretty sure that there are subsistence cultures that eat pinniped and like it. An acquired taste.

Seal liver tastes exactly like venison liver. Did a taste test one afternoon on anchor and didn’t tell the crew. We were all surprised. The rest went in the pots. Tanner crab like red meat.

I tried the whale. The slice of meat I was given was awesome, much like elk. I was told the blubber or fat is what has the bad taste. I was given the whale by the same person who told me how bad seal was. He loved the whale, would not eat the seal.

I think it's time to change the law. The balance has clearly swung too far in the other direction.

Still, I can't help but think how this is ultimately just one more problem that is exacerbated by perennial overfishing of salmon in the open ocean....

Humans, through overfishing and overpopulation, lie at the root of the problem. One of our major problems as a species is we can't see or think in a holistic manner.

Those seals, with their big brown eyes, are so cute and cuddly. Those anchovies, menhaden, herring, etc. make wonderful food for my chicken and so on. We see everything in pieces and really don't see, or want to see, the big picture.

Look at the recent threads here about how recs catch/kill so damn few fish in fresh water that they aren't a problem. The trawlers say the same thing; there is just a minuscule amount of Chinook in our catch. We are never the problem, they are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5foZIKuEWQ

This is at the root of the problem. There is a desire to harvest pinnipeds, but there is significant concern for being the "first" to do so. The funny thing is the "Green" community very openly supports "Tribal treaty rights" and "the tribes" in general, but very few understand that that means supporting both robust hatchery outputs, as well as robust harvest opportunities, both of which are at the core of the "treaty rights" they tokenize on their soapbox.

Add to that the backlash they get when they harvest whales up in AK.

A # of years back I was at the Mill Creek NOF meeting. It was the 1st year that WDFW brought up Orcas and the impact they could have on our fishing. The discussion included the lack of fish for the Oras and what was influencing that lack of fish. Many things were discussed including predation on salmon by the pinnipeds. At the time I said the best solution to taking out pinnipeds would be to get the tribes and the Save the Orca people on the same page. Between the 2 of them I think they could sell the public.

There are too many people who place warm and cuddly ahead of fish. We'll see how the decision for SRKWs and AK Chinook actually plays out.

When a couple of seals washed up on Seattle area beaches the TV news people were all over it and the resulting incriminations about those **XX!! killers from the Greenies.....but no mention of the possibility that it might have been tribal folks protecting their fisheries.

Without going into great detail the comments about studying pinniped numbers and impacts to death is on target. Lots of different studies have been accomplished to include the fairly recent peer reviewed Chasco study and report. Those folks adjusted Puget Sound Chinook smolt/juvenile losses to adult equivalents and concluded that seals predate twice the Chinook that SRKW Orcas consume and six times what all humans harvest. As I recall the smolt losses were between 25-30% of all Puget Sound outbound Chinook; both hatchery and wild.

That takes us to the WDFW rep's observations about the relatively small number of seals in the Stilly. I suspect he was under observing but the real issue seems to be the hundreds of hungry pinnipeds outside the river mouth. Keep in mind that it was just a fish (or was it half a fish) in the modeling which resulted in a reduced marked selective fishery.

While I do think we need to take a much broader view of predator management as it affects salmonids, if one were to reduce the pinnipeds so that SRKWs would get more food that could easily put zero added fish in the river, on the grounds, or in sportie's bags. Just moving the food around on the plate without adding to it.

Still, it would be a move in the right direction for whales and some fish might leak through.
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A better analagy might be that it would be reducing the number of plates with the likelihood that more fish would get through - and especially those ESA listed "wild" fish that can't go in the sporties' bag.

Oh, and we can and should be increasing hatchery output.

Tribes want.

I was told 20 years ago, it was up t0 us to make life choices.