Commercials and Tribes Continue to Harvest All Year Long 1

I've always heard stories about what the fishing used to be like in Puget Sound.  Plenty of salmon to be caught, true cod and rockfish were plentiful, and prized dungeness crab were able to be harvested recreationally all year long.  Whatever happened to the good ole days?  Well I think I have an answer, continued commercial harvest methods that are unsustainable.  These methods are a plight on our resource and the State of Washington refuses to do anything about it.  Not only does the state refuse to pass laws and make rules to change or eleminate commercial harvest in Puget Sound, they don't even make it mandatory to mark and report lost nets and traps.  These lost nets and traps continue to kill for years on end and do unimaginable damage to our resource.

Fortunately, we do have a hero, there is actually some of the stimulus money doing some good.  The Northwest Straits Commission was granted 4.5 million dollars over an 18 month period to remove derelict gear from the bottom of the Puget Sound.  To date, 2,835 nets have been removed, over 438 acres of habitat have been restored, and 1,921 derelict crab pots have been removed.  Unfortunately, they now estimate that there are 25% more nets and untold amounts of crab gear remain on the bottom.  Oh, did I mention that we are only talking about 100 feet of water or less?  How many nets do you think are below 100ft?     

At this point, 148,931 animals, 43 marine mammals, 756 birds, thousands of live and dead fish and over 215 different species have been found.  I can't imagine how many they have killed over the years.  How long will this continue?  I have to push down barbs on hooks, deal with limited or no harvest and short seasons all because of indiscriminate harvest methods that commercial and tribal fisherman continue to use.  How can we ever recover some of the threatened or endangered species when this is taking place?  I am tired of the recreational fisherman getting the blame for the situation we find ourselves in, it's time we defend ourselves and make our voice heard LOUDER THAN EVER!!!!!!