Clueless to crisis in our environment

Author Carl Hiaasen rips Florida Governor Rick Scott Clueless over the billions of gallons of cruddy water being dumped from Lake Okeechobee into the St. Lucie River, a criminal act of pollution that’s poisoning the St. Lucie Estuary and Indian River Lagoon.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/24/3581860/clueless-to-crisis-in-our-environment.html#storylink=cpy

LINK (via: Save The Tarpon)

8 Legs are Better than None

Following a public outcry after a diver strangled an octopus in Seattle last October, the Washington Fish and Wildlife commission implemented new rules restricting the recreational hunting of giant Pacific octopuses at seven popular diving sites. This, despite the octopus population being healthy and rules allowing a person with a valid state fishing license to harvest one giant Pacific octopus per day in most of Puget Sound.

Meanwhile, the very same Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission refuses to re-consider a rules change that would put a stop to the retention of wild steelhead. In 2004 the commission enacted a two year statewide ban on keeping wild steelhead but chose to walk back the rule in spite of supporters outnumbering opponents three-to-one at the committee hearing.

Somehow a public outcry works for the protection of Washington's giant octopi but not for its state fish.

Out-Dated Dam Killing Thousands Of Fish Near Tacoma

Right now there are tens of thousands of salmon - including endangered species - dying at the base of an out-dated dam on the White River east of Tacoma. The Buckley Diversion Dam is blocking their homeward journey to spawn in the Mt. Rainier watershed. Local tribes say the federal government is failing in its responsibility to transport the fish around the dams on this river.

(via: Northwest Public Radio)

The Army Corp does not agree that it operates the dam.

The EPA Watershed Assesment is a Science Document

Gina McCarthy, head of the EPA, talks about her trip to Alaska while at Portage Glacier and answers some questions regarding Bristol Bay.

Cheney pays $220 for fishing license ticket

U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Lynne Cheney posted a $220 bond in Ninth Circuit Court in Teton County on Monday on a charge of making a false statement to procure a fishing license.

LINK (via:Jackson Hole News & Guide)

Wildlife agencies face the limits of sportsmen-funded conservation

Declining western state fish and wildlife agency budgets are being further squeezed as a result of not being able to rely on fishing and hunting license fees increases.

In spite of 12 sportsmen and conservation groups like Wyoming Trout Unlimited, Wyoming Wildlife Federation, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, and the Muley Fanatic Foundation of Wyoming asking the state to charge more for hunting and fishing, Wyoming’s legislature had no appetite for putting more expenses on the backs of sportsmen. It would be a politically unpopular move in this time of intense budget scrutiny.

LINK (via: High Country News)