Tag Archives: Pacific Fishery Management Council

PFMC plans transition for non-Indian commercial Area 2A halibut fishery; new season-setting process begins

The Pacific Fishery Management Council is requesting public comment on structuring the West Coast Area 2A non-Indian directed commercial halibut fishery for the upcoming year. The public is encouraged to comment at the September and November council meetings as management of this halibut fishery transitions from the International Pacific Halibut Commission, or IPHC, to the council. In June, the council committed to working closely with the IPHC and stakeholders on the transition. >click to read< 21:45

Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting June 19-25, 2019 in San Diego – Listen Live.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council and its advisory bodies will meet June 19-25, 2019 in San Diego, California, at the DoubleTree by Hilton San Diego – Mission Valley 7450 Hazard Center Drive San Diego, CA 92108. Agenda and Meeting Notice, >click here to read<>Listen to the meeting live >click to listen<, Enter the Webinar ID: 634-645-459 Please enter your email address (required). Visit Pacific Fishery Management Council >click<21:46

Human Population Growth Threatens Endangered Whales

The Puget Sound area surrounding the Salish Sea is expected to be home to almost 6 million more people by 2050, which would add between 33 and 150 square miles of paved area, according to the Washington Department of Commerce.  “Population growth is the top challenge for conserving habitat,” Jeff Davis, assistant director of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s habitat program, said Monday at the Southern Resident Killer Whale Task Force meeting.  Governor Jay Inslee convened the task force last year, asking it to provide recommendations to prevent the endangered whales’ extinction.>click to read<14:30

Fisheries Off West Coast States; Comprehensive Ecosystem-Based Amendment 1

Comprehensive Ecosystem-Based Amendment 1 (CEBA 1) amends the Pacific Fishery Management Council’s (Council’s) four fishery management plans (FMPs): the Coastal Pelagic Species (CPS) FMP, the Pacific Coast Groundfish FMP, the FMP for U.S. West Coast Highly Migratory Species (HMS), and the Pacific Coast Salmon FMP. CEBA 1 brings new ecosystem component species (collectively, “Shared EC Species”) into each of those FMPs and prohibits directed commercial fisheries for Shared EC Species within the U.S. West Coast Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The final rule defines and prohibits directed commercial fishing for Shared EC Species, and prohibits, with limited exceptions, at-sea processing of Shared EC Species. >click to read<10:08

King salmon arrives in stores, commanding royal prices; relief could come soon

King salmon, once as ubiquitous as burgers in backyard Bay Area barbecues, has commanded astonishingly high prices in recent years,,, Since the 2019 season opened on May 1, supply has been very limited, so prices have remained steep, reaching as high as $40 a pound in San Francisco.,,, That should start to change on Thursday, when 200 more miles of coast will open to commercial salmon fishing,… there will likely be more salmon on the market this summer is because some crab boats are planning to go out for salmon fishing, because the Dungeness crab fishery closed several months early as part of a settlement,,, >click to read<21:54

Charter fishing fleet casts wary eye toward possible fishing cutbacks to save orcas

Pacific Northwesterners are undeniably fond of their endangered resident killer whales. Many locals are also fans of salmon fishing, a hobby that sustains charter fishing fleets in coastal harbors from Neah Bay, Washington, to Brookings, Oregon. But now there is a chance future fishing trips on the ocean could be curtailed to leave more food for the killer whales. Regulators are preparing to reassess the Pacific salmon harvest and an environmental lawsuit seeks more action to save orcas. >click to read<

OCEAN SALMON: Council adopts new recommendations

The Pacific Fishery Management Council has adopted ocean salmon season recommendations that provide recreational and commercial opportunities for most of the Pacific Coast, and achieve conservation goals for the numerous individual salmon stocks on the West Coast. “Although some salmon stocks are returning in stronger numbers than last year, balancing fishing opportunities with conservation is always a challenge for the Council, its advisors, fishery stakeholders, and the public,” Pacific Fishery Management Council Executive Director Chuck Tracy said. >click to read<17:05

Options presented for Washington’s ocean salmon fisheries based on predictions

Fish managers released their options for Washington’s ocean salmon fisheries that reflect recent concerns over projected chinook stocks and optimism about improved returns of coho. Three options for ocean salmon fisheries were approved Tuesday for public review by the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC). Kyle Adicks, salmon fisheries policy lead for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife says that the three alternatives are designed to protect the low numbers of chinook expected to return to the Columbia River and Washington’s ocean waters. >click to read<13:00

Feds could restrict Pacific Ocean fishing over endangered orcas, NOAA letter says

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is taking a fresh look at whether new fishing restrictions are needed to help prevent the extinction of endangered southern resident killer whales that frequent Puget Sound. New evidence of the fish the whales depend on and the risk posed to orcas by depleted prey has caused the agency to write a letter of guidance to the Pacific Fishery Management Council, indicating the agency is examining whether new restrictions are needed—particularly on fisheries in the lower Columbia and Sacramento rivers and on fall-run chinook salmon in the Klamath River. >click to read<17:02

Reposted: Pacific Fishery Management Council meetng in Vancouver, WA, March 6-12, 2019

The Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) and its advisory bodies will meet March 6-12, 2019 in Vancouver, Washington at the Hilton Vancouver Washington, 301 W. Sixth Street, Vancouver, WA 98660.  Agenda and Meeting Notice, >click to read< Listen to the March Council meeting live <click to listen<16:20

Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting September 5-12, 2018 in Seattle

The Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) and its advisory bodies will meet September 5-12, 2018 in Seattle, Washington at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Seattle Airport 18740 International Boulevard Seattle, WA 98188. Detailed Agenda>click here< Listen to the June 2018 Meeting Internet Live Stream  Enter the Webinar ID – The PFMC meetings 2018 Webinar ID is: 530-089-227 Please enter your email address (required)>click here< PFMC meeting page >click here<19:54

Hoopa Valley Tribe Plans Federal Lawsuit to ‘Protect Salmon on the Brink of Extinction’

The Hoopa Valley Tribe (Tribe) today announced that it will file a lawsuit within 60 days unless federal agencies reduce the numbers of Endangered Species Act (ESA) listed Klamath-Trinity origin Coho salmon being killed in the Pacific Ocean. Klamath River origin Coho salmon have been listed as a ‘threatened species’ under the ESA since 1997. Without analysis or formal ESA re-consultation, regulations of the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) were changed this year to allow more Coho salmon to be injured or killed, although they are protected by the ESA. “We will not stand by while the federal agencies kill our salmon,” said Hoopa Tribal Chairman Ryan Jackson. >click to read<13:30

Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting in Spokane, Washington, June 7-13, 2018

The Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) and its advisory bodies will meet June 7-13, 2018 in Spokane, Washington to address issues related to groundfish, coastal pelagic species, and highly migratory species. Detailed Agenda>click here< Listen to the June 2018 Meeting Internet Live Stream >click here< PFMC home page >click here<07:32

Conservationists, West Coast bottom fishermen embrace ‘grand bargain’

People who love fresh Northwest seafood and the sea should take note of what happened this week in a hotel conference room by Portland’s airport. There, the Pacific Fishery Management Council approved a plan to protect more coral, sponges, reefs and other sensitive animals and formations from the nets of bottom trawlers who work off the West Coast. The measure also offers something for fishermen: a reopening of some prime fishing areas that had been off-limits. >click to read<18:22

PFMC Sets West Coast Salmon Season Dates

This week the Pacific Fishery Management Council adopted ocean salmon season recommendations that provide recreational and commercial opportunities for most of the Pacific coast, and achieve conservation goals for the numerous individual salmon stocks on the West Coast. The recommendation will be forwarded to the National Marine Fisheries Service for approval by May 1, 2018. “It has been another challenging year for the Council, its advisors, fishery stakeholders and the public as we strive to balance fishing opportunities with the conservation needs we are facing on Chinook and coho salmon stocks, both north and south of Cape Falcon,” said Council Executive Director Chuck Tracy. >click to read<17:52

New fishery rules could protect deep sea corals in California

The Pacific Fishery Management Council will decide Monday what happens to the underwater areas as part of an update to essential fish habitat for West Coast groundfish. “The Pacific Fishery Management Council will be making a decision on changing the areas that are opened or closed to West Coast groundfish bottom trawling,” said Kerry Griffin, a staff officer to the council, which regulates fisheries in federal waters from the Mexican border to the Canadian border, from three miles to 200 miles off shore. The proposal, scheduled for a vote Monday, >click to read<20:31

California Wetfish Producers Association: Sardine Fishery Collapse Latest Fake News

This Sunday, April 8, the Pacific Fishery Management Council is meeting in Portland to debate the fate of the West Coast sardine fishery, after the 2018 sardine stock assessment estimated the biomass has declined by 97 percent since 2006. According to the California Wetfish Producers Association, the only problem with that finding is it belies reality. “Fishermen are seeing more sardines, not less, especially in nearshore waters. And they’ve been seeing this population spike for several years now,” said Diane Pleschner-Steele, executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association (CWPA). “This stock assessment was an update that was not allowed to include any new methods and was based primarily on a single acoustic survey,,, >click to read<21:15

Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting in Portland, Oregon April 5-11

The Pacific Fishery Management Council and its advisory bodies will meet April 5-11, 2018 in Portland, Oregon. Meeting Notice With Detailed Agenda >click here<  >click here<to listen to the Live Stream starting Friday, April 6, 2018 beginning at approximately 9:00 AM Pacific Time Enter the Webinar ID code : 530-089-227) PFMC link21:05

As the Pacific sardine population keeps dropping, the feds come under scrutiny

On April 8, the Pacific Fishery Management Council – a body of appointed officials that regulates fisheries off the West Coast – will be presented with the draft assessment of the sardine population from roughly southern California to Canada. The news it brings is neither good for fishermen nor the local marine ecosystem: The estimated number of sardines in July 2018 – which dictates policy for the 2018-19 fishing year – is 52,065 metric tons, an approximately 97-percent drop from 2006, the most recent peak. What is in dispute: the accuracy of the population assessment, and how we got here.>click to read<15:30

Pacific Fishery Management Council Chooses Salmon Season Options

The Pacific Fishery Management Council has adopted for public review three alternatives for the 2018 salmon seasons off the West Coast of the United States. The Council will select a final alternative at its next meeting in Portland, Oregon April 6-11. Detailed information about season starting dates, areas open, and catch limits for all three alternatives are available on the Council’s website at www.pcouncil.org. >click to read< 12:20

Support HR-200 – Chinook Salmon ‘Overfished’? Not So Fast, Say Fishermen

For fishery regulators, it is official: The Sacramento River’s fall-run Chinook salmon are “overfished.”,,, “Are you kidding me? They aren’t overfished!” exclaimed Half Moon Bay commercial fisher Kirk Lombard, irate upon hearing about the designation. “Fishing isn’t the problem. They had a few terrible years with almost no water.”,,, The reason the term is used, then, is because of a federal law – the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976. This law, which sets the framework for managing sustainable fisheries, states that a population of fish that falls below a predetermined minimum population level is “overfished.” Support HR-200 >click to read< 10:24

California’s Salmon Industry Set to Take Another Hit

Fisheries managers will impose the toughest restrictions on California’s salmon harvest in nearly a decade, hobbling the billion-dollar industry that depends on it. This year’s fall salmon run is estimated to be only a quarter of normal on California’s Sacramento River, due mostly to drought conditions and warmer ocean temperatures. As a result, officials at the Pacific Fishery Management Council last week moved to cut the commercial season by as much as a third of its standard length. >click to read< 10:42

Has California’s salmon fishery hit bottom?

A third straight year of low king salmon runs is expected to deliver another blow to one of the North Coast’s most iconic and lucrative fisheries, wildlife managers indicated Thursday, as both regulators and fishermen faced the prospect of a federally -mandated plan to reverse the trend and rebuild key stocks. The grim news comes amid a dramatic, years-long decline in the state’s commercial salmon landings, which are down 97 percent last year from their most recent peak, in 2013, when they hit 12.7 million pounds. The full picture for commercial and sport seasons won’t be clear for several more weeks,,, >click to read< 13:01

D.B. Pleschner: Is court the right place to determine ‘best available science’?

A U.S. District Court judge recently ruled that the federal government’s catch limit for California’s central stock of anchovy — currently 25,000 metric tons — is far too high. But instead of weighing all the facts, the judge ignored them, shunned the established precedent of deference to federal agencies’ scientific determinations and instead endorsed the flawed arguments of the advocacy group Oceana. So what happened? >click to read< 21:55

Ocean perch stock rebuilt, could lead to more commercial fishing opportunities in 2019

Federal restrictions designed to protect Pacific ocean perch from overfishing have worked well enough for the Pacific Fishery Management Council to consider the fishery “rebuilt,” meaning it will relax restrictions. Once the new rules take effect in 2019 it should have significant economic value to the coast, experts say. “It’s a big deal for fisheries along the coast,” said Phil Anderson, who works with Ocean Gold Seafood in Westport and serves as chairman of the Pacific Fishery Management Council. click here to read the story 09:47

D.B. Pleschner: Nearshore anchovy abundance not proof fishery is collapsing

Recently, Dr. William Sydeman of the Farallon Institute, published a study claiming that the abundance of anchovy near shore — especially in places like Monterey — is evidence that the population is collapsing. Sydeman’s logic is based on an old argument that collapsed populations always shrink inshore. But there’s one big problem with that theory — it’s unsupported by scientific evidence.,,,  The bottom line: environmental groups with an anti-fishing agenda are already gearing up to hot-box the Pacific Fishery Management Council in spring 2018, lobbying for a steep reduction in anchovy harvest limits, employing whatever colorful, sensational pictures they can paint. click here to read the story 20:58

Oregon, California senators step up pressure on Trump administration to approve salmon emergency cash

Oregon and California’s four senators, all Democrats, stepped up the pressure on the Trump administration Wednesday to approve disaster assistance for salmon fishermen along 200 miles of coastline. In April, the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which manages coastal salmon seasons, recommended closing coastal and commercial salmon fishing entirely along an area equal to roughly half of Oregon’s coastline. Govs. Kate Brown of Oregon and Jerry Brown of California requested emergency funding relief in May, to no avail. click here to read the story 11:51

Lawsuit seeks to protect whales, turtles from California gillnets

Oceana filed a lawsuit seeking to force U.S. fisheries managers to implement plans for restricting the number of whales and turtles permitted to be inadvertently snared in drift gillnets used for catching swordfish off California’s coast. The proposed rule, endorsed in 2015 by the Pacific Fishery Management Council, would place numerical limits on “bycatch” of whales and other marine creatures, and suspend swordfish gillnet operations if any of the caps are exceeded.  The regulation was expected to gain final approval from the National Marine Fisheries Service. But it was withdrawn last month after the Commerce Department agency determined the cost to the commercial fishing industry outweighed conservation benefits, agency spokesman Michael Milstein said on Thursday. click here to read the story 17:11 Geoff Shester, a senior scientist at Oceana, who was “furious” when he found out the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had decided to against adopting the rule. (lmao!) click here to read 17:13

US cancels new protection for endangered West Coast whales

The Trump administration on Monday threw out a new rule intended to limit the numbers of endangered whales and sea turtles getting caught in fishing nets off the West Coast, even though the fishing industry had proposed the measure. The National Marine Fisheries Service said it decided the new protection was not warranted. The action is one of the first by the Trump administration targeting protections for threatened species off the Pacific coast, said Catherine Kilduff, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity conservation group. The regulation was designed to reduce the numbers of humpback whales, leatherback sea turtles and other large creatures that accidentally become tangled in mile-long nets set adrift by commercial fishermen overnight to catch swordfish off California and Oregon. click here to read the article  (read between the lines, folks) 18:00

 

Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting in Spokane, Washington June 7‐14, 2017

The Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) and its advisory bodies will meet June 7‐14, 2017 in Spokane, Washington to address issues related to groundfish, coastal pelagic species (CPS), highly migratory species (HMS), Pacific halibut, and habitat matters.  For agenda item topics, please click to see the June 7-14, 2017 Meeting Notice WITH Detailed Agenda The Council meeting will be live‐streamed. Click here to Listen to the Live Audio Stream.  Enter the Webinar ID The April 2017 Webinar ID is: 897-986-459 Please enter your email address (required) The meeting will be broadcast live starting at approximately 9 am Pacific Time on Friday, June 9, 2017 For more info, click here  18:32