ENDORSEMENT: Toss gill-net ban overboard-Measure 81 seeks to benefit sport-fishing industry- The Register-Guard
With recreational sport-fishing advocates backing away from their initiative to ban gill nets, with Gov. John Kitzhaber asking the state Fish and Wildlife Commission to consider moving gill-netters off of the Columbia River’s main stem and into shallow side areas and with tribes that hold treaty fishing rights solidly in opposition, Oregon voters should cast a confident vote against Measure 81 in the Nov. 6 election.
The measure’s sponsors, a curious coalition of conservation groups, wealthy sport fishermen and businesses that cater to them, have inaccurately depicted the 200 commercial gill-netters who work the Columbia as indiscriminate killers of marine life who threaten endangered salmon runs. http://www.registerguard.com/web/opinion/28835455-47/gill-measure-ban-netters-columbia.html.csp
Gill nets that select hatchery fish over wild? Really? You expect anyone to believe that?
Sport fishermen contribute many millions more in tax revenues than the gill netters. Why is the Opiner Of The Day advocating for reducing tax revenues? Sport fishermen are able to individually select and release wild fish.
“Five Generations” of gill netting doesn’t justify the practice any more than hundreds of generations of whaling justified their slaughter.
Restaurants and processors can get fish from commercial hatcheries.
Thats five generations of fishermen harvesting the citizens resource for them. Not everyone is capable of catching their own fish, and depend on commercial fishermen to do that for them. Commercial Hatchery’s Pig Iron? No thanks. It’s junk.
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