Tag Archives: Columbia River salmon reforms

Washington to negotiate on Columbia River salmon reforms

With time running short to adopt 2017 fishing seasons, the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission on Friday delegated authority to director Jim Unsworth to negotiate the differences with Oregon regarding the controversial Columbia River salmon reforms. The Washington commission also intends to write a letter to its Oregon counterparts proposing a face-to-face meeting and to ask about Oregon’s commitment to shifting commercial fishing in the fall in the lower Columbia away from gillnets to gear allowing release of wild fish.,, In January, Washington modified its policy to allow for two more years of gillnetting between Woodland and Beacon Rock. Also in January, Oregon’s commission adopted rules much more friendly to commercial fishing. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown then scolded her commission and told it to adopt rules closer to those adopted by Washington. Read the article here 11:20

Thirty-six Washington Lawmakers back Columbia River salmon reforms

Thirty-six Washington lawmakers have signed on to a letter urging the state Fish and Wildlife Commission to push ahead in January with full implementation of the bistate Columbia River salmon reforms. Reforms adopted by Washington and Oregon in early 2013 allocated more chinook salmon to sportsmen in the main Columbia and restricted gillnetting to off-channel sites like Youngs Bay near Astoria. The reforms also called for commercial fishing that remained in the main Columbia to be done with live-capture methods — such as purse seines and beach seines — designed to harvest hatchery stocks and release wild fish.” Oregon is proposing to undo the plan based on a desire to significantly increase commercial gillnet fishing industry profits, rather than ensuring the viability of the commercial fishing industry as defined in the bistate agreement,’’ according to the letter. Read the story here 16:56

Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission discusses salmon fishing reforms

Washington-Department-of-Fish-and-Wildlife3Washington’s Fish and Wildlife Commission was briefed Saturday on the Columbia River salmon reforms, but took no action. Kyle Adicks of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife told the commission that studies have shown beach seines and purse seines have a higher mortality rate on released salmon than anticipated, complicating intentions to use them to replace gillnets.A new study of salmon and steelhead release mortality has been designed and the state is looking for money to pay for the research. “One of the issues if we do implement that study and mortality rates are lower than expected we still have the previous studies that TAC (Columbia River Technical Advisory Committee) and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) might not just want to put aside,’’ Adicks said. “They’ll want to consider all the information.’’ Read the rest here 15:58