The Outdoor Line Forum

It's not the whole enchilada but it is one step in the right direction!


Group Gains OK From Oregon Sec. Of State To Launch Non-Tribal Gill-Net Ban Initiative
Posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 (PST)

The Coastal Conservation Association on Tuesday gained permission from the Oregon Secretary of State to launch a drive that would ultimately aim to have voters ban the use of gill nets in the state’s waters for the non-tribal, commercial harvest of fish.

The organization last week submitted the signatures of nearly 2,000 petition sponsors and the Secretary of State’s office validated as registered voters 1,600 of those signatures. That’s well above the 1,000-signature threshold needed to launch a petition process.

The state Attorney General’s office is scheduled to issue a preliminary ballot title by Tuesday, July 26. Then comments will be accepted on the proposed initiative and preliminary ballot title through Aug. 9.

Once the comment period ends, the Attorney General’s office will consider the comments and draft a final ballot title, and outline what it sees as the pros and cons of the proposed initiative.

After the final ballot title is produced, CCA’s petitioners would then seek the 87,213 signatures needed to get the proposal on the November 2012 general election ballot. The petition drive will likely begin just after the New Year, according to Bryan Irwin, the CCA’s Pacific Northwest executive director. The CCA is a non-profit organization comprised of 17 coastal state chapters whose membership is comprised primarily recreational saltwater anglers.

The chief initiative petitioners are state Sens. Fred Girod, R-Stayton, and Rod Monroe, D-Portland and David Schamp, chairman of the Coastal Conservation Association's Oregon chapter board of directors.

The proposed Protect Our Salmon Act of 2012 says “the state still permits the use of commercial fishing nets that indiscriminately kill or injure large numbers of endangered wild salmon and other non-target fish and wildlife species.” The state’s freshwater commercial fishing occurs exclusively in the Columbia River.

The Columbia and its tributaries are home to 13 salmon and steelhead and salmon stocks that are listed under the Endangered Species Act. Commercial fisheries are co-managed by Oregon and Washington where the river represents the two states’ border. Irwin said his group would be pursuing options other than an initiative process in Washington, possibly working through that state’s Fish and Wildlife Commission, to gain a gill-net ban.

“Gillnets and tangle nets are specifically designed to snare fish by the gills or head and lead to the injury, suffocation and death of large numbers of endangered wild salmon and steelhead and other species that become entangled in the mesh,” the proposed initiative says.

The smaller mesh tangle nets have been required at times in recent years because they have been proven to have lesser post-release mortality rate than large-mesh gill nets. The tangle nets allow more unmarked salmon, which are likely to be of wild origin and ESA protected, to released back into the river.

The lower Columbia commercial harvest targets unprotected hatchery fish.

The petition encourages a switch to commercial gear such as seines and fish wheels, which are expected allow the release of unmarked fish with little post-release mortality.

The proposal seeks to revise state statutes to make it unlawful “to use a gillnet or tangle net to take salmon, steelhead, or other fish in the inland waters of the state of Oregon,” as well as “for a wholesaler, canner or buyer to buy or receive salmon, steelhead, or other fish taken by a gillnet or tangle net from the inland waters of the state of Oregon.”

The revisions to the state laws “do not apply to the use of gillnets or tangle nets pursuant to tribal fishing rights or salmon, steelhead or other fish taken by gillnet or tangle net pursuant to any tribal fishing rights in the inland waters of the state of Oregon,” the proposal says.

The proposed initiative says the 2012 Act would not affect:
“(1) The Columbia River Compact or fishing management agreements between the United States, Indian tribes and states.
“(2) Any tribal fishing rights, or the right to use any fishing gear in furtherance of tribal fishing rights, in the inland waters of Oregon.”

The proposal can be found at:
http://egov.sos.state.or.us/elec/web_ir ... 21..LSCYYY

The Oregon initiative effort is the CCA’s second. The first was ended in December 2009 when the final ballot title issued by the Oregon AG’s office proved to be unsatisfactory to the CCA.

The initiative proposed for the 2010 ballot, and its preliminary ballot title, drew 130 pages of comments from a tribes, commercial fishers and others. Many called the proposal a de facto ban on all commercial fishing in the Columbia, largely because at the time a shift to selective gear seemed to be unfeasible and likely unaffordable. The final ballot title reflected those comments.

Since that time the state of Oregon and Washington, and the Colville Tribes, have been experimenting with selective commercial gear such as purse and beach seines and the results are promising, Irwin said.

“We decided to rewrite the initiative from scratch to address all of those concerns,” Irwin said.

Here we go!!!! Man! Would that be HUGE!!!

Will be watching this with great interest but do have a couple questions.


Without a corresponding change on the Washington side is this largely meaningless? Would it not be like the barbless hook situation where Washington's desire for barbless hooks in the salmon fisheries thwart by Oregon's unwillingness to agree?

I can see a ban on gill nets as a great win for the steelhead by-catch but don't see where changing the comercial gear type used will change the allocation of salmon to the commericial fleet. However the real question remains with the commercial fishing with gear with higher survival of ESA fish released what will happen to their reduced ESA impacts? Will those fish be allowed to reach the spawning grounds? Transfered to other fisheries? Or be used to increase the commercial catch while staying within the same (historic ESA impacts)?

If the past is any indication the potential answer to those questions worries me. What insights do others have that would calm my fears?

Tight lines
Curt

Good morning Curt,
I hear you and I believe this move will place greater pressure upon Washington State to follow suit.
Sometimes you have to slay the monsters one at a time and the end to wasteful, not-selective harvest methods in Oregon is a huge step in the right direction!

It will only help if more ESA fish make it to the spawning grounds...otherwise it's just moving the deck chairs around.

Fish on...

Todd

In my simple way of thinking, less gillnets equals less dead wild fish.
Less dead wild fish equals more wild fish on the spawning beds.
It's a simple as that.

If only it were that simple.

So long as the fisheries are limited by allowable ESA impacts, then the same amount of ESA fish will die...the only thing that changes is the amount of hatchery fish that are harvested while doing so.

That is also pretty simple, and also happens to be the way that LCR fisheries are prosecuted.

There will be tangential benefits to wild steelhead, and probably sturgeon, too...no problem with that...but there won't be any more ESA salmon spawning, and there will be a helluvalotta less hatchery fish for us to fish over.

Fish on...

Todd

To answer Curt, I think that most of the gill nets harvest on the Oregon side of the river and are not as productive on the Wa side and that is partly the thinking on this thing.

Todd, if commercial fishing is done selectively then why wouldn't we see more ESA listed fish?

No matter what, we do need to support this because the removal of any gill nets is a positive for multiple species of fish. This would also allow us to apply pressure to other user groups and the State of Wa.

Salmonhawk -

Not to speak for Todd but my understanding of the salmon management on the lower Columbia is that the various fisheries are limited by the total impacts on ESA stocks.. Using the spring Chinook as an example the non-treaty fishery is limited to roughly a 2% impact (2% of the run killed due to hooking/handling mortality) of the run (the exact % varies some depending on the run size). For example if the commercial fishery share of that allowable impact is say 0.8% it is that impact that limits the fishery. Ino ther words they get to continue to fish until that portion of the ESA listed fish die. If their handling mortalityof the ESA listed fish is lower (say from 50% ot 25%) they get to handle more of those fish until the reach their allowable impacts - the same number of listed fish will die however they will be able to catch a lot more hatchery fish (in the above example roughly twice as many). It may be a little more complicated than that when factoring the need to make sure the the tribal fisheries get their share.

Bototm line with lower handling mortality the same numbers of ESA listed fish will die (management of the fisheries seems always stives to reach that total allowable impacts) but in the process more hatchery fish will also die and how that hatchery fish pie is divided may also change

Just the reality of the Columbia river management.

Of course as always the case with fish management issue this has the potential to get even more interesting. I was at Washington'sWDFW commission meeting wher ethe commission decided to raise the sportsman's share of the allowable ESA impacts on those spring Chinook.. A key factor in that decision was that the "handling" mortality in the recreation fishery lower than that in the gill net fishery. That was important to the commission because the recreational fishery was able to remove more hatchery fish per dead listed fish (ESA impact) than the commercial fishery. It will be interesting to see where that discussion may go if a gear shift in the commerical fishery results in reduced handling mortality - especially if that mortality is as low or lower than the recreational fishery.

Though to be fair I do not belong to CCA so I probably don't see the big picture and may even have the details of the in-river management wrong.

Tight lines
Curt

That does help a little with my understanding but I think what we need to remember is that we are spending millions to try to recover wild fish and eliminating non-selective harvest methods is one great way to get us closer to recovery. If all we are concerned about is fishing then let's quit spending so much money on recovery and pump the rivers full. I think a case can be made for the latter but that's just me.