Ludger (Lu) W. Dochtermann, Kodiak, AK Responds to NOAA TIGHTENS HALIBUT BYCATCH LIMITS FOR GULF OF ALASKA GROUNDFISH FISHERIES.
To: Dr. James W. Balsiger, Regional Administrator, National Marine Fisheries Service, Alaska Region, & United States Commissioner, International Pacific Halibut Commission.
Dear Jim: While NOAA puts a public spokesperson name on the news release for Amendment 95, let’s face facts — you are the Alaska administrator, and a voting member of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. Accordingly, your news release was considered insensitive and not well received by disappointed GOA hook and line halibut fishermen: on line with other pro-trawler actions by the NPFMC and NMFS/NOAA. Amendment 95 is not fair and equitable in practice. You and the agency and NPFMC are not doing what is feasible, not obeying the UN FAO precautionary principle, not balancing the economic impact among sectors, not doing what is best for overall national benefit and not serving USA consumers. Read more here 14:30
Every country on the planet with successful fisheries management has had to severely restrict or ban bottom trawling. As a fishing method it has an enormous potential for the destruction of habitat, target species, and incidental species (By-catch). This fact is well known and has been proven on a global scale.
Fishing around Kodiak for cod and flatfish with bottom trawl gear I threw many boatloads of dead halibut over the side. We would destroy hundreds of thousands of dollars of fine, marketable fish in order to retain ten to twenty thousand dollars of fish we could keep. I justified my participation with the belief that, “If I didn’t do the job, someone else would.” That reasoning finally stopped working for me and I refused to work in that fishery. I have never had any regrets. Keep fighting the good fight Lu