Thursday
May062010
Filleting Wild Steelhead Runs
Thursday, May 6, 2010 at 12:02AM 
As we all know, most rivers on the Olympic Peninsula and throughout the Puget Sound region are experiencing radical declines in wild steelhead populations. So given that Pacific Northwest wild steelhead populations are collapsing, it is total BS that the fish chuckers at Seattle's Pike Place Fish Market offer wild steelhead for purchase. By selling wild steelhead, the Pike Place Fish Market, one of the most well known fish retailers in the world, is sending the wrong message to its customers and contributing to the demise of these magnificent fish.
Send a comment to the market and urge them to stop selling...... and throwing wild steelhead.
Reader Comments (34)
Their Response:
I have received your email and will forward it to the owner. Please know that we don't buy any illegal or endangered steelhead. The Native Americans pretty much run the commercial steelhead industry in Washington and are highly regulated by the state. It is not illegal for them to catch and or sell wild fish. The fish are coming from rivers on the Olympic Peninsula, and if you check the link I sent you, you can see that the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife are not concerned with Steelhead populations in this area. Thanks for your concern. Anders @ Pike Place Fish
My Response:
I take issue with a statement that since steelhead thrive in one small area of their historic range that it is ok to commercially harvest there. How does this fit? "There used to be 20mm bison in the American west. Now there are 4000 in Yellowstone Park. Let's let the natives kill 50% of the bison each year since they killed some historically." Do you sell whale meat historically killed by Japanese and still legally done? Do you sell sea turtles, once common practice? Steelhead on the Oly Peninsula are a tiny fraction of the historic steelhead range. You are correct that WA Fish and Wildlife "are not concerned with steelhead populations in that area".
WA F&W doesn't care and is too political to do anything anyway, the public doesn't know better and buys what you sell. Our politicians have been awol on the issue since the first dam, and the natives would net every last one of these fish if they could.
As a very well known and public fish slinger, the best option is to go straight to the fish is supply and cut off the market there. No market = almost no netting. Maybe you can band together with fish markets in the Seattle/Sound area and as a group make a difference.
deerhawk—
gracious thanks for looking in on and after the little river. i wasn't aware you were up there counting redds and monitoring temps.
again, thanks.
-btf
Their response:
I have received your email and will forward it to the owner. Please know that we don't buy any illegal or endangered steelhead. The Native Americans pretty much run the commercial steelhead industry in Washington and are highly regulated by the state. It is not illegal for them to catch and or sell wild fish. The fish are coming from rivers on the Olympic Peninsula, and if you check the link I sent you, you can see that the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife are not concerned with Steelhead populations in this area. Thanks for your concern. Anders @ Pike Place Fish
http://wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/diversty/soc/soc.htm
Sam - nice positive response, and great comparison with the American Bison. Just to let you know, I will be stealing that analogy next time the conversation comes up.
Fish'n Terp,
When someone responds that we kill bison in montana with a controlled hunt, make sure you let them know that that's because bison are restricted to 1% of their historic habitat, only inside the park. The cattlemen have convinced the MT FWP that bison spread brucelosis but somehow elk don't.
Nice work Chum. Consumer activism is extremely powerful. It doesn’t take a genius to point out the fact that politics sometimes fails to protect resources against economic mechanisms. A couple hundred well placed emails is a great thing.
Morrons!!!
Consider leaving a review on their Yelp page. http://www.yelp.com/biz/pike-place-fish-market-seattle-2
Check it, they've listened, and are no longer selling steelhead!
http://pikeplacefishguys.blogspot.com/2010/05/no-more-steelhead-at-ppfm.html