Tag Archives: Kent Martin
On the “Kitzhaber Plan” – Promises have not been kept
Until recently, the Columbia River gillnet fishery was a major economic driver in Wahkiakum County and the lower Columbia. The policy focused instead on recreational fishing priority, and has marginalized a fishery that sustained communities in our county and neighboring counties for 150 years. The result is that salmon have been transferred to a mostly non-local transient recreational fleet and away from local residents and economies. >click to read<10:05
Current fishery situation is not sustainable – Kent Martin
I feel compelled to comment on the article in the Eagle (12/21/17) from the Columbia Basin Bulletin, “Group Tests Fish Trap above Cathlamet.” I attended the Wild Fish Conservancy presentation to the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission and noted several inaccuracies, and the CBB added a few more. 1. Fish traps were never the “massive” harvest technology on the Columbia. They were outlawed in 1936 in Washington and 1948 in Oregon because many, if not most, were vertically integrated with the fish packers, and were being used to manipulate fish prices. I confronted one of the Wild Fish Conservancy people on this, and he admitted this was the case.,,, click here to read the story 10:43
Columbia River fisheries: Expect declines in hatchery production, Kent Martin, Skamokawa
I was interested to see the pictures of beach seining in last week’s Eagle. I was troubled, however, by the third caption which read, “Fishery managers hope the seines will be less lethal to endangered wild salmon than gillnets.” The implication here seems to be that there exists a conservation issue with gillnets. If that were the case, then the projected savings in wild salmon would be credited to spawning escapements. Read the rest here 12:13
