Ray's Boathouse has Olympic Peninsula wild steelhead on their menu.
Here is a letter courtesy of Osprey Steelhead News that you can e-mail to Ray's to let them know it is just not cool to be serving wild steelhead. If you're not from the area you should still send an e-mail and add that you will not patronize Ray's if you ever visit the Seattle area unless they stop the practice.
Send to rays@rays.com
Hello,
It has come to my attention that your restaurant is serving wild steelhead from the Queets River (and presumably other rivers) from the Quinault Indian Tribe. Wild steelhead are endangered species act listed throughout much of their range in the United States. In Washington State, stocks of steelhead in the Columbia River, Snake River, and all of Puget Sound have been listed under the ESA within the last 20 years. Steelhead in other areas in Washington continue to decline. In coastal areas on the Olympic Peninsula where the Quinaults and other tribes fish, rivers are largely protected in the Olympic National Park, so freshwater habitat is in very good condition. Yet in recent years several of the rivers including the Hoh, Queets, Quileute (including the Sol Duc, Bogahciel and Calawah), and others, have failed to meet the minimum spawning escapement goals established by the state. The Hoh river has failed to meet its goal the majority of years recently, and in 2009 none of the above mentioned rivers met their goals, and the Queets missed its goal by more than 1/2, meaning that less than half the minimum number of fish needed to spawn to produce the next generation did so. This failure to meet escapement goals is a major conservation issue and could result in coastal stocks being ESA listed eventually too. Yet it is totally preventable. In all of the cases where escapement goals were not met, had tribal harvest been curtailed, escapement would have been met, meaning that the run was large enough to meet the goals but due to irresponsible and unsustainable tribal overharvest, the runs did not meet their goals. I am very disappointed to see your fine restaurant supporting this unsustainable harvest of wild steelhead and would ask that your restaurant take it off the menu immediately. All of the data I have referenced above is available from the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife if you would like to see it for yourself. Please stop serving wild steelhead. Thank you.
Sincerely,
xxxxxx
(Via: Osprey Steelhead News)
You can also go to the Ray's page on Urban Spoon and scroll down to the first review, which takes them to task for serving wild steel, and hit recommend.
Thanks for the help.
Update on Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 12:29PM by
El Guapo
Whistling past the graveyard
Osprey has an update.
If you sent an email to Ray's boathouse yesterday regarding their decision to serve steelhead on their menu, chances are you got a form letter from Peter Birk explaining that Ray's is committed to providing sustainable locally harvested sea food to its customers and that steelhead are not ESA listed on the Peninsula and therefore the fishery is sustainable. While the point is valid we have to ask ourselves, do we really want to be harvesting the last non-listed stocks of wild steelhead in Washington State.
