Taking Time Out from Selling Out to BP, Obama & Begich Sell Out to BF - Big Fish

Dennis Zaki and I have Sen. Mark Begich on tape, promising to not let Yukon River fishermen continue to have their livelihoods stolen from them by foreign-owned trawlers, raking up massive amounts of by-catch, including hundreds of thousands of Chinook salmon bound for the Yukon and other rivers, from the Bering Sea.

Not only did Sen. Begich lie to Dennis and me then - February 2009, he has not yet addressed Wednesday's announcement by NOAA's North Pacific Fisheries Council that they will allow a 60,000 fish per year Chinook bycatch, which will be an increase from the current average bycatch. But we can relax, because NOAA/NMFS is calling this increase a "decrease," so everything will just work out, see.

And, they will trust industry to police itself. That's working out so well right now in the Gulf of Mexico, isn't it, NOAA?

Here's a joint release from peoples devastated by this decision:

* Association of Village Council Presidents*
* Bering Sea Fishermen’s Association*
* Kawerak, Inc. *
* Tanana Chiefs Conference*
* Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Assoc.*

Contact: Mike Smith, Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC), (907)378‐2687
Myron Naneng, Association of Village Council Presidents (AVCP), (907)952‐5021
Loretta Bullard, Kawerak, Inc., (907)304‐4059
Karen Gillis, Bering Sea Fishermen’s Association (BSFA), (907)279‐6519
Becca Robbins Gisclair, Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Assoc. (360)303‐1866
Bering Sea Pollock Fishery Gets Priority Over Alaska’s Salmon Fisheries

New Chinook Salmon Bycatch Management System Preserves Status Quo, Won’t Reduce Bycatch

Today Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke approved a plan proposed by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (the Council) to manage Chinook salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery. The plan, called Amendment 91, allows the pollock fishery to catch up to 47,591 Chinook salmon in any year, and up to 60,000 Chinook salmon in any two out of seven years without penalty if they participate in an industry run “incentive plan.”

Groups throughout Western Alaska endorsed a lower cap including AVCP, the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN), TCC, Kawerak, the Western and Eastern Interior Regional Subsistence Advisory Councils (RACs), the Federal Subsistence Board, the Alaska Board of Fisheries, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Department of State and the Yukon River Panel.

“Amendment 91 completely ignores the unanimous recommendations from across Western Alaska for a cap of around 30,000 Chinook salmon,” said Myron Naneng, President of the Association of Village Council Presidents, “Western Alaskan tribes as well as those responsible for managing our fisheries in‐river spoke loudly and clearly, but our requests fell on deaf ears to both the Council and the Secretary of Commerce.”

The Bering Sea pollock fishery catches Chinook salmon as bycatch while fishing for pollock. These are the same salmon whose return we await each year, including those from the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers, Bristol Bay and Norton Sound, as well as Cook Inlet and the Pacific Northwest. These salmon cannot be retained by the pollock fishery and therefore must either be thrown back into the water—dead after hours in the nets—or saved for donation to food banks.

In 2007, the pollock fishery caught over 120,000 Chinook salmon as bycatch, in contrast to the 10‐year average (1997‐2006) of 43,328. According to recent estimates over 50% of the Chinook salmon caught as bycatch are bound for Western Alaska.

Low returns of Chinook salmon throughout Western Alaska have caused severe economic distress in recent years as subsistence harvests are restricted and small commercial fisheries are eliminated. The Yukon River Chinook salmon fishery was declared a fishery disaster for the 2008 and 2009 seasons by the Secretary of Commerce. “It is beyond unjust that the pollock fishery will be allowed to continue catching Chinook salmon virtually without limits offshore while in‐ river families sit on the banks watching their food and income swim by. This conservation burden should not be borne by rural residents, commercial and sport fishers alone,” said Becca Robbins Gisclair, Policy Director for the Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association.

The 60,000 upper limit approved in Amendment 91 has only been exceeded three times in the past eighteen years, and essentially preserves the status quo. Even the 47,591 cap in essence preserves the long‐term average bycatch. “Amendment 91 does little more than preserve the pollock fishery’s current bycatch numbers. The Council and National Marine Fisheries Service missed an opportunity here and disregarded their obligation to actually reduce bycatch. All that has been accomplished is to put the current numbers in regulation,” said Karen Gillis, Executive Director of the Bering Sea Fishermen’s Association.

Amendment 91 relies on a system of industry run incentive plans to reduce bycatch below the stated cap levels. However, the plans operate outside of Council/agency control with no guarantees of bycatch reduction. The plans have changed already from what was presented to the Council when they voted to approve Amendment 91 last April. “By relying on industry incentive plans as the primary means of bycatch reduction, the Council and NMFS have once again allowed industry to self regulate. We’ve seen how well this has worked for the banking and oil industries. [emphasis added]

Its irresponsible to leave the management of our precious salmon resources to an industry that just a few years ago, when regulatory measures were relaxed, caught over 120,000 Chinook salmon in one year,” said Loretta Bullard, President of Kawerak.

A coalition of Western Alaska groups had asked the Secretary to reject Amendment 91 because it did not meet NMFS’s legal requirements to reduce bycatch, nor the needs of subsistence users, nor the United States’ obligations under the Yukon River Salmon Agreement, and international treaty with Canada. “In approving Amendment 91, the Obama Administration has chosen to prioritize the economic interests of the pollock fishery over the needs of salmon users throughout the state. In doing so they’ve ignored an overwhelming message from Alaska’s tribal governments that the bycatch reduction measures of Amendment 91 will not provide our people and Chinook salmon populations with the protection they need and deserve. This is a very sad day for our Chinook salmon and the people who depend on them,” said Jerry Isaac, President of Tanana Chiefs Conference.