Small shards of humor are intruding into flu enforced idleness – sure signs of a return to sparkling good health.
It being Winter and tired of the steady onslaught of pending litigation, decline in fisheries, and coupled with knowledge that the Golden Years appear to have been replaced by the Golden Shower, I’m looking for something light and irreverent for a change.
##### Lodge at the ### River offers a top-notch dining experience, featuring dishes such as wasabi and sesame crusted halibut filet with a ginger miso vin blanc or pepper-rubbed grilled lamb loin medallions with a fresh California bing cherry compote. It has its own private-label wines as well, grown, produced and bottled in San Luis Obispo, Calif.
Fairly staid, traditionalist approach. Ascots and Port on the verandah, liveried servants serving fish to an above average clientele who’ve been lectured all day on why they can’t keep any …
We’ve endured a couple hundred years of the above – does the downturn in the economy imply fermented soy beans are the new frugal ?
… arrested three Mexican nationals and seized more than 1,300 pounds of marijuana off a fishing vessel near the northern end of South Padre Island Sunday ..
Then again, this expedition sounds like the more active, predatory angling experience, featuring sunburns and the New Age outdoorsman. Camouflage, night vision goggles, and extreme something or other – cottonmouth most likely.
Care to guess which one has the Orvis endorsement?
… and while the cloying effects of Nyquil are still an aftertaste, did I read it correctly that the Alaskan Trout Unlimited organization is praising Target for removing farmed Salmon from the shelves and replacing it with wild Alaskan fish?
“We want to market Bristol Bay salmon so it is as well-known as Copper River salmon,” said Paula Dobbyn,” spokeswoman for TU in Alaska. “
It’s the first time I’ve seen a conservation organization insisting we kill and eat the last remaining wild Salmon run in the US. Conventional conservation practices reborn under heat lamps and all you can eat.
It begs the question, how many Harvard-educated hedge fund managers did it take to dream up this humdinger. I suppose that once we’ve eaten them all we can buy Salmon Credit swaps – redeemable at the Pebble mine office …
… and if that salmon was hatchery bred (as are 80% of the Pacific Salmon in the lower 48) will it get an asterisk on the label?
A renewable resource isn’t – until we’ve shown the proper restraint for fifty years and there’s still some left. Politicians claim it to be so, scientists pound the table as fact, industry gives us a wide toothy smile, but the only renewable resource on the planet is hunger.
Tags: Alaska TU, Target, Harvard educated, salmon credit swap, bristol bay salmon, pebble mine, Orvis
With 126 years of commercial fishing in Bristol Bay, and the most intensively and actively managed, escapement-first commercial salmon fishery in the world, it is a GREAT thing that Target is buying Bbay reds and they are not sailing past the domestic markets anymore.
G_Smolt,
I love you to death, bud – but Bristol Bay salmon are on the decline like all wild stocks.
“A substantial increase in the world’s supply of farmed salmon over the last decade and a decline in the productivity of Bristol Bay sockeye salmon stocks threaten the economic viability of one of the world’s great salmon fisheries and the region that depends on it.”
All the resource rich states are headed into the same commercial abyss, akin to what was done with trees, buffalo, and every other commercially viable freebie that dare to cast a shadow.
Not sure where you read that, but it isn’t true.
http://www.cf.adfg.state.ak.us/geninfo/finfish/salmon/catchval/history/sockeye1878-2008.gif
Fact of the matter is, the 7 largest runs of sockeye on record (since 1878) have happened in the last 20 years.
Last years total run was in excess of 40 million fish, and the 2010 forecast is for 40+ million fish.
Love you too, Keith, but I love the truth more. And the truth is, whoever wrote the sentence that you are quoting doesn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground.
The graphic you cited is the size of the harvest of the commercial industry, not the health of the run itself.
Bristol Bay salmon accounted for 13% of the worlds supply in 1980, and now accounts for less than 3%. The reason for the decline in catch is not due to the size of the run – but due to the decline in imports to Japan (who are importing Siberian salmon instead, and the increase in farmed salmon sales.
Overall both your Alaska Fish & Game site and the University of Alaska both cite the decline in the run size – to wit:
Alaska Fish & Game:
http://www.sf.adfg.state.ak.us/Management/Areas.cfm/FA/BB.forecast
Sockeye salmon are the most abundant of the Pacific salmon species to spawn in Bristol Bay, which is the world’s largest producer of sockeye salmon. Keep in mind that while recent Bristol Bay sockeye returns have been low (with resultant restrictions in commercial fisheries) nearly all of the Bristol Bay drainages provide abundant opportunities for the sport angler. The most popular sport fisheries occur in the Naknek and Kvichak drainages, but very good to excellent fishing can be found in the drainages of the Wood River lakes, and the Nushagak, Togiak, Egegik, and Ugashik rivers as well.
The Division of Commercial Fisheries has forecast a total return of 33.8 million sockeye salmon for Bristol Bay in 2009. This prediction is 4% smaller than the previous 10-year mean of total runs (35.2 million). Based on the forecast, the entire season is expected to proceed under published sport fishing regulations.
Great Document from the Alaska Commercial Fisheries explaining why the commercial harvests fluctuate because of salmon prices – not salmon numbers.
http://www.cfec.state.ak.us/pita/Knapp_BB_Price_Projections_Oct04_Exec_Summary.pdf
G_Smolt,
On the other hand I’m happy to concede this scientific point to you – as once we enter the baliwick of science we’re liable to find we’re both wrong …
… science never being able to agree on anything – or at least so’s we understand them.
My point was objecting to a conservation organization promoting killing anything – I find that both humorous and extraordinary.
Besides, you and I both know we could settle this by one of your rivers – with a couple of “coachsoccers” and tall boys – entirely unscientific, and more accurate …
“Bristol Bay salmon accounted for 13% of the worlds supply in 1980, and now accounts for less than 3%.”
Due to the shocking rise in salmon aquaculture, not the decline in Bbay salmon production. There were 22 million sockeye harvested in 1980, and 30 million in 2009.
“The Division of Commercial Fisheries has forecast a total return of 33.8 million sockeye salmon for Bristol Bay in 2009. This prediction is 4% smaller than the previous 10-year mean of total runs (35.2 million).”
Old data. The 2009 run topped out at 40+ million fish. Matter of fact, here’s what adfg had to say about that:
“Bristol Bay’s sockeye salmon harvest of 30.9 million fish was the 7th largest since statehood. The exvessel value of $127.6 million was higher than the 2008 Bristol Bay value of $116.7 million”
The graphic cited is a measure of the total run, and with a management plan based on escapement-triggered harvest (see also: Pink salmon shutdown of 2007), the efficiencies of modern fleets have no bearing on the subject. Whether you harvest salmon one at a time or by the millions, NO ONE harvests until the escapement triggers are met.
The post 200-mile-limit era has shown a massive fluctuation in run sizes – 1973’s total run of fewer than 7 million sockeye statewide contrasts starkly with 1993’s 80-million plus run.
Are the runs down from the modern-era highs of the mid 90’s? Yes.
Are they still higher than at any other 10 year period in the modern era? Yes.
If the 2010 predictions bear fruit, it will be the 7th consecutive year of 40+ million sockeye returning to the bay. In this day and age of kill it all, screw the consequences, I would like to think that the fact that there is a sustainable wild sockeye harvest of this magnitude is because of proper management of healthy stock…not the exploitation of a dwindling resource.
As for Gunnar, well…he is an economist, not a biologist. ‘Nuff said.
K-
Yes. Come on up and I will show you the salmon in all their glory.
As for TU AK and WhyWild’s vote for your fork…
The more demand there is for wild salmon, the more capital invested in the procurement of wild salmon. More capital = more local (bay, ak) jobs and infrastructure, and more local jobs and a dependent economy means more and tighter management to ensure the health of the stock on which all is built.
For them that’s interested, G_Smolt is the author of the mouth watering fantasies at the Neil Creek Chronicle blog.
http://neilcreekchronicles.blogspot.com/
… and is the latest addition to the crowd at Buster Wants to Fish.
http://busterwantstofish.com/
It’s the deceit of words that makes my blood boil. Call it spin, double speak, or lies, we are lead to believe what we cannot see for ourselves. There is very little trust, for me, in news print and reporting in general any more.
Everyone wants it all, and no one wants to admit the final price.