Tag Archives: Daily Astorian
The Columbia River Reform Plan – Letter: Thanks for reporting facts
After reading the letter “Don’t support gillnetting” (The Daily Astorian, March 7), I felt compelled to offer a factual response.,, The statement that the Columbia River endorsement fee on recreational licenses was intended to buy out or eliminate gillnetters is simply false. The money has been used for overall projected improvements to fisheries, including researching new off-channel select fishing areas (none were found viable), testing alternative gear (none proved to be better than gillnets), research and monitoring commercial fisheries, additional hatchery production to benefit both recreational and commercial fisheries, and commercial and recreational fisheries law enforcement. I am fairly confident most of the hardworking blue-collar commercial fishing families in the lower Columbia don’t worry much about the economy in Vancouver, Washington, where the author lives, but they sure care about their own, and so does The Daily Astorian. >click to read<10:43
Editorial: Fishing essential in monetary and cultural ways
For fishing communities, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s annual publication about commercial landings makes great reading. As we’ve observed in the past, “Fisheries of the United States” is interesting here in much the same way crop reports are a topic of fascination for farmers. Make no bones about it: Irrespective of decades of impressive economic diversification, the Lower Columbia and nearby places like Garibaldi, Newport, Willapa Bay and Westport, Washington, are fishing communities in essential cultural and monetary ways. Fishing dollars bounce around coastal towns and bolster the business climate in much the way fish fertilizer makes plants prosper. Analysis of multiyear trends points out some disturbing news about the strength of commercial fisheries on the Lower Columbia. The 2015 edition of the annual fisheries compendium from the National Marine Fisheries Service finds Astoria-area landings at something of a low ebb. Read the editorial here 09:10
