It’s now or never.
As sports and commercial halibut fisherman squabble the trawl fleet continues to destroy the resource while portraying themselves as saviors of the community.
Rumor on the docks here in Kodiak is a massive trawl tow of small halibut shoveled over dead. For more info go : http://tholepin.blogspot.com/ where bycatch is explained.
What would those 1lb ping pong paddle size fish have been worth to sport and commercial fisherman had they been allowed to grow. How many more state and local tax dollars would have been generated?
The worst part is the trawl fleet can catch their quotas without this waste. The Canadiens show us how they reduced their trawl bycatch of halibut 85% in one year while catching ALL their trawl quotas. But they’d rather kill the hostages, halibut, salmon and crab, so we’ll give in and give them IFQ’s worth billions.
Please go online and tell the NPFMC to enact individual vessel bycatch quotas which would keep the clean trawlers fishing and shut down the dirty ones.
The NPFMC is going to act on lowering bycatch at their June meeting. It’s now or never, send comments before May 30 to: npfmc.comments@noaa.gov.