Read the following petition, fill out the form below and hit submit
Mr. Eric Olson, Chairman
North Pacific Fishery Management Council
605 West 4th Avenue, Suite 306
Anchorage, AK 99504
Dear Chairman Olson,
For several decades now, western Alaska organizations, communities and individuals have worked tirelessly with the Council to try to put meaningful limits on Chinook salmon bycatch. To date, all of these measures have failed to provide the necessary, long-term protections for Chinook salmon and the western Alaska communities that depend on them. While some of our recommendations on the proposed Chinook salmon bycatch measures may differ in regard to the details of the alternatives and options, our positions all share several common themes:
- The need for a bycatch limit, in the form of a hard cap, that will do more than just keep obscenely high bycatch years from occurring; a cap that is far lower than the 68,392 proposed in the Preliminary Preferred Alternative.
- Regulations that will, once and for all, provide the needed protections for Chinook salmon that we depend upon. We do not want to be back before the Council in 3, 5 or 10 years arguing once again that the previous measures have failed. This has gone on long enough.
- Regulations that will continue to minimize Chinook salmon bycatch beyond what is adopted now, with the ultimate goal of zero bycatch or as close to zero as is practicable, recognizing that the pollock industry would need some time to modify their harvesting practices and gear.
Within the various recommendations we see an opportunity for the Council to break from the perception of simply protecting status quo for the pollock fishery. As demonstrated by the Council’s many previous attempts to address Chinook salmon bycatch over the years this is a crucial moment to put this issue to rest with some finality.
Respectfully,