Tell Congress to save our Hatcheries!!!

[Fishnut]

We dearly need your help more than ever for us to keep our fishing livelihood alive for us and future generations. Please read and sign.
Our organizations have been fighting to save our hatcheries that were built for mitigation for lost habitat and to have dams for power.
Please help us help ourselves and sign the petition. It is time to stick together more than ever,
Ron Garner

http://www.saveourhatcheries.org/petiti ... -programs/

[Fishnut]

I tried for a week non stop to get through to Patty Murrays office for her to pressure NOAA/NMFS to expedite the Steelhead HGMPs. I have many friends in all fishing aspects and one came through for us. We have reached out to everyone to help us. Tribes, sports groups, and even commercial fishing groups. The tribes are engaging with us.

The Ocean Commercial Fisheries stepped up and supported us with letters from the trollers to the commercial crabbers, to get the HGMPs passed to keep our hatcheries open. The last great act, with time running out, was a friend Greg Mueller, the executive director of Washington Trollers Association.

At wits end and very beat at this point, a long time friend that we have dealt with for ocean fisheries called me to go over ocean issues. After going over fisheries issues I told him that I was not getting through to Patty Murrays office and she was the only hope that we had to force NOAA to put more staff on so as not to run the clock out on Steelhead. After a week on not getting through I was getting hopeless.

Greg told me that he had a meeting with Murrays staff in two days and to get him the info. He had an hour and a half and did not need all of it to go through the issue they were dealing with. I sent it to Greg and went over it with him and he carried the message forward for us. A Coastal Commercial entity tried to help us with the Puget Sound Steelhead. I am forever grateful. I had one of Murrays staff finally get back to me too, so I was able to get this message through at two shots.

Hatcheries are being blamed when Seals and Sealions are wiping out our fish.
Greg brought this up to Murrays staff.

55% of the Strait of Georgia chinook and coho are being eaten by harbor seals
There are now 40,000 harbor seals in the Strait of Georgia

The US side of the Salish Sea has 20,000 Harbor seals and Long Live the Kings has a study that is showing the same thing. They are eating our salmon and steelhead.

These studies only show harbor seals and does not account for the sea lions.

There was a tagging study done for steelhead in the South Sound. Out of every 10 steelhead tagged, between 8 and 9 of the tages ended up found in seal scat!

But hatcheries are being blamed as the culprit. The coast has the same problems with the sealions.

My letter to Murray




Subject: Please contact NMFS to Expedite HGMPs. Last chance to save one of our hatchery systems!

Dear Senator Murray:

I am contacting you on behalf of Puget Sound Anglers, the largest sport fishing/conservation club in Washington State, consisting of 16 chapters state wide and thousands of members. We have been working in cooperation with other sport fishing groups, coastal commercial fishery associations, Puget Sound Indian tribes, and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW)to save the Puget Sound early winter hatchery steelhead program that has been in existence for more than 60 years, benefiting sport and tribal fisheries. Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC), an anti-hatchery group based in Duvall, Washington, is seeking to shut down this hatchery program as well as other steelhead and salmon hatcheries through litigation. Your office was provided a copy of the attached January 26, 2016 letter from Washington State senators to Mr. Daniel Ashe, Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Ms. Eileen Sobeck, Assistant Administrator For Fisheries, NOAA Fisheries. The state senate letter fully describes the issues and likely ramifications of not receiving by April 1, 2016 federal approval of the five Hatchery Genetic Management Plans (HGMPs) that comprise the existing Puget Sound early winter hatchery steelhead program . I discussed this with Mr. David Hodges of your Vancouver, WA office on Tuesday, February 16, 2016.

Because the clock is close to running out, we urgently ask that your office contact today, Ms. Sobeck and Mr. Will Stelle-NOAA-Fisheries Regional Administrator, West Coast Region, requesting that NOAA-Fisheries expedite their existing work schedule for the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for this program as well as completion of the Record of Decision such that the five HGMPs are approved by no later than April 1. While the regional office has added some staff, this has not been enough to expedite the schedule. More are required. Specifically, we are asking that Mr. Rob Jones and Ms. Alison Purzell, of the respective Portland, OR and Lacey, WA. NOAA-F offices, be assigned immediately to join other staff now working on the approval documents. Also, we ask that overtime be authorized as needed. Our deepening concern is that NOAA Fisheries will not complete the federal approval process in time to release by May 1 more than 600,000 steelhead smolts from five hatcheries serving the Dungeness, Nooksack, Stillaguamish, Skykomish, and Snoqualmie watersheds, when those juvenile steelhead are physically ready to be released into their respective rivers. If released much later than May 1, the smolts will residualize and not migrate to the ocean to become adult steelhead. That would mean there would be no steelhead broodstock returning in two or three years. Because of WFC litigation in 2014 this is the third and final year without smolts releases. Approval by April 1 is required to allow federal, state, and tribal attorneys time to respond to anticipated WFC litigation following federal approval of the HGMPs.

Washington’s steelhead and salmon hatcheries are under growing attacks through-out the state, including most recently the Mitchell Act Columbia River Basin hatcheries. Our NOAA West Coast Regional Administrator, Will Stelle, is leaving his position shortly. Our NOAA Assistant Regional Administrator Bob Turner may be retiring soon. Please make sure that they take care of the early winter Puget Sound hatchery steelhead program before they go. In a House hearing Mr. Jim Scott, special assistant to the WDFW director, told the Washington House Natural Resources and Agriculture Committee that our coastal hatchery system fisheries are worth $9 Billion and the Puget Sound and Strait fisheries worth $2 Billion, annually. That provides a sense of the economic impact of our hatchery programs. The social and culture values are incalculable. Salmon is one of our special northwest icons that attracts millions of visitors each year. We want this to be part of the northwest scene for future generations. Without hatcheries our fisheries will pretty much end.

Thank you so much for your consideration of our request and assisting us and affected Puget Sound Indian Tribes in this critical mater. This steelhead hatchery failure will lead and set precedence for the fall of the rest of our hatcheries in Washington State. We are all in this together and cannot afford to let this pave the road to the failure of Tribal Treaty Rights we have with the tribes.

Sincerely yours,
Ron Garner
President-Puget Sound Anglers State Board
President-PSA Education, Fisheries, and Conservation Chapter
NOAA Puget Sound Rockfish Board member
WDFW Puget Sound Crab Advisor
WDFW Puget Sound Shrimp Advisor
WDFW Coastal and Puget Sound Halibut & Bottomfish Advisor
NW Straits Derelict Gear Advisor
Fish NW Board Member

CC: Jim Unsworth, Director, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
Randy Kinley, Lummi Indian Tribe, Ray Fryberg, Tulalip Indian Tribe
WDFW Commission, Senator Kirk Pearson, Congressman Denny Heck,
Congressman Derek Kilmer