https://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Feds-OK-plan-to-cut-salmon-fishing-when-needed-16461635.php

Here's my favorite part:

"The fishing restrictions would extend from Puget Sound in Washington to Monterey Bay in central California, and they would be triggered when fewer than 966,000 chinook are forecast to return to Northwest rivers. The last time forecast chinook returns were that low was in 2007.

The restrictions would include reducing fishing quotas north of Cape Falcon in Oregon; delaying the start of the ocean commercial troll fishery between Cape Falcon and Monterey Bay; and closing parts of the Columbia River and Grays Harbor in Washington and the Klamath River and Monterey Bay to fishing much of the year."

Why is that my favorite part?

No mention of where the vast majority of those fish are actually being caught...Alaska.

Fish on...

Todd

No kidding. It's like the boat noise restrictions. Do something but don't do anything that will have an immediate and long-term benefit.

Saw that too. Apparently Alaska isn't part of the U.S. subject to U.S. fishing restrictions. And some will wonder why SRKWs are going extinct. Too little and far too late.

Somebody needs to start a campaign with some hollywood liberals crying about how Alaska and Canada are taking all the Salmon from the Orcas and how corrupt government is doing nothing to stop it. Most people have no idea what is really happening.

Alaska doesn't have the tribes to pick up the foregone opportunity. Notice they are not shutting down tribal fisheries, so these fish will still be caught. Then sold to the politically well connected fish processors, then eaten by the public. The tribes are part of nature and we on the other hand are not. This is what fishing in common is all about. The killer whales will sure appreciate that the commercial fisherman who catches "their" fish has a sticker on his boat issued by a tribe and not the state.

I would think the thinking of why the tribes are not curtailed is since most tribal fisheries are in river after the fish have already passed the SRKW there is no reason to curtail the tribes.

The tribes are considered to have an absolute right to fish, with some limitations. I would assume that when they say the tribes are allowed to fish over mixed stocks it would be for subsistence or in very limited numbers. That said, the coastal tribes would be getting screwed while the more powerful inland tribes would get most of the benefit.

This makes it easy at NOF. Plan to kill every harvestable fish north of Neah Bay, then close the all rec fisheries after the Chinook quota is met. All under the guise of saving the orcas. Pathetic is too kind.

Were it not for the fact that nearly all the commercials fishing in Alaska are from Seattle and Willapa Bay, we and the orcas would have a legitimate gripe with Alaska. As it stands, a select few, non-tribal Washingtonians are the keepers of whatever is left of the West Coast's salmon. They'll bitch up and down they aren't making enough money as they steadily pound the final nail. Nothing new to see here.

For the better part of 20 years government ( fed, state, tribal ) have been in absolute denial of the massive effect of over harvest on just about everything in the ocean. They promote so called salmon restoration that in the end benefits marine harvest but seldom the fish. We continue promote population growth that when taken as a whole the accumulative damage is not repairable. As to the tribes I say now what I said to Billy Frank years ago, " 50% of zero is zero " . Only the tribes have a chance to break this pattern and only in the federal courts. It sure as hell will not come from our state even with Guv Green Jeans who frankly I am not sure would know the difference between a halibut, salmon, shark, or Orca.

Heck, the Feds set Recovery Exploitation Rates for PS Chinook stocks and for three of those stocks the rate was above the rate for what they defined as MSY. They actually called fishing to extinction "recovery" so they could keep fishing. And, as one would expect, the State and Tribes went along.

But, Extinction in Not an Option.

No it isn't. Apparently it's the destination.

Extinction is the preferred alternative.