1. Elections. With no opposition, the SEAS board remains the same. Remember, there are elections every year. The call for nominations comes out September 1. Elections occur in mid October through mid-November on years when someone opposes at least one of the board members.
2. Board of Fish. All of the anti-seine proposals were withdrawn in a joint agreement between USAG and SEAS. The 58 foot limit proposal ( not introduced nor supported by SEAS) as well as the 2 net proposal (supported and written by SEAS) will remain on the Board of Fish docket.
SEAS was assisted with $10,000 in support by PSVOA for the Ketchikan Board of Fish meeting Feb 25- March 5. We have 2 very large suites on Creek Street, just below the meeting area by the Cape Fox Lodge. While we are confident that we will avoid the acrimony a USAG-SEAS fight would have promoted, we could still use all the support and brainpower there for the seine fishery.
3. Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction. The Kootznahoo Corporation has filed an injunction with the Federal Government and will be presenting it's options for closing down Chatham Strait to commercial purse seining. The issue will be before the SE Regional Advisory Council to attempt to usurp state management of our fishery.
4. The SRA and the Buyback. It appears that there is consensus for the SRA board to accept the latest bid program. The official numbers and permit holders chosen in this 2nd round will be available very soon, after the SRA board has submitted the names to the NMFS Financial Services Division, who will then conduct the vote. Since the last time we posted, the very first round was rejected due to some technical flaw in the first round of bids. So a 2nd round was begun immediately, November 28-December 28, and it is this round that we await the details of the consensus agreement amongst the 7 board members of the SRA.
5. Winter Traction. It appears that we may likely have lost some of our record pink salmon spawners contributions due to the massive flooding conditions we had from August through the fall. Now we got lucky with no first freeze prior to today. Yet today we are looking at sub-zero temperatures into the next week, dropping to 20-30 below zero wind-chill conditions in northern Southeast. So it's off to what this pink-tracker thinks will be a sub-par season in 2013, unless the temp eases up and we slide into a warmer spring. On a very positive note, the snowpack from this winter should give us lots of extra boost for our watersheds if we encounter any drought conditions this spring, summer or fall.
6. Favorite post on the fleet consolidation program. ..
The enabling federal law did not include processors paying for the seiner buyback.....deckboss, june 15... 926am... (you guessed it, anonymous)
Their point here is that our bill in the spring of 2010, which made it a processor fish ticket responsibility to collect the 3% assessment, was unfair. Somehow, although we will be paying it in the imputed fish price, this poster thinks that we got the processors to pay the entire thing.
Of course that's another good reason to support the program.
I forgot to add that Kootznahoo wants to close down Hidden Falls hatchery and Peril Strait as well as Chatham Strait.
ReplyDeletebobbyt
What is this Kootznahoo Corporation, I googled it, is it a Native cooperation out of Angoon? What would be the point of closing down these key huge areas?
ReplyDeleteCollin B. Martens
While this request from Kootznahoo includes all sockeye systems in Chatham Strait, the focus has been on the Kanalku system in Kootznahoo Inlet. Kanalku had seen a striking decline in spawners in the early 2000's, down to the 200+ level. The 3 most recent years of spawners were approx 2900 in 2009, 2500 in 2010 and 750 in 2012. The Federal research on Kanalku has shown that up to 70% of adult sockeye reaching the creek don't make it up the falls (there is a 16 foot jump to make) when high water conditions are prevalent. But when low water conditions exist, like 2010 and 2009, most all of the adult sockeye make it to the lake.
ReplyDeleteKootznahoo is the Angoon native corporation. When my good friend Floyd Kookesh (we obviously agree to disagree on this topic) was the vice-chair of the the SE RAC the Angoon faction talked the Southeast Regional Advisory Council (SE RAC) into filing for Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (ETJ) twice but failed to garner a single vote at the Statewide Federal RAC.
Back then there were weak Kanalku runs and now we have seen the 2 highest escapement counts in the history of Kanalku out of the past 3 years so we're pretty impressed with both the productivity as well as the mixed stock management that produced such an amazing result.
So this is really absurd. Surf through the past newsletters and see if you can get more of the history of Kanalku if you'd like. I'm not sure how many more words I can get on here, but seiners, as you well know, have been fishing outside the sockeye bubbles and corridors and have given up access to millions and millions of pinks to pass these sockeye through in June and the first 2-3 weeks of July.
So while we pass 95% of the sockeye through, there is speculation that we perhaps catch 5% or higher single digits of sockeye. The point of them closing down all of Chatham Strait is so that they can get the last 5-10% back.
Ironic when they just sit (they've refused to build a fish ladder for a half dozen years now) and watch up to 70% of the Kanalku sockeye die because they cannot jump the falls and yet they want to shut us down because we supposedly catch 5-10%.
Of course there is no scale sampling, no tagging, and so no evidence that the purse seine fleet has EVER caught a single Kanalku sockeye.
IOU c call cousin. Will talk.
bobbyt
Oh, I've been asked a few questions about the list of names for the buyback. I believe they will be released shortly but the CFEC has to sign off and there are a few outstanding loans or irregularities on some of the CFEC permit numbers to clarify prior to translating the list from permit numbers into names.
ReplyDeleteThe SRA still doesn't know who the bidders were and have yet to see the names themselves. Obviously the vast majority had bid last round and alot of folks told other folks what they bid so it's not a complete mystery. But the SRA, in order to be impartial and totally fair to all permit holders, determined the right amount of permits with the dollar amounts without knowing a single name.
BT