TAKE ACTION FOR WILD STEELHEAD!!!!

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife will soon be making a decision regarding the future of the Snider Creek hatchery on the Olympic Peninsula's Sol Duc River. This decision will be driven in great part by the comment process so please read the alert below from the Wild Steelhead Coalition and take action for Wild Steelhead.

Despite the overwheming evidence that hatcheries harm wild fish, the reliance on hatchery programs  continues unabated. After decades of failed steelhead hatchery management policies you have a chance to win one for wild steelhead. The period for comments ends on June 30th so act now and tell the WDFW to close the Snider Creek Hatchery.

Please note the automated comment option via the Native Fish Society link below the WSC alert. It just takes a couple of minutes if you prefer not to cut and paste your own message to the WDFW. Either way just do it!!

The Wild Steelhead Coalition is asking for your help to create a wild steelhead reserve in the Sol Duc River.
 
We need you and your friends that are interested in saving wild steelhead in this river to write the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) quickly and tell them it is time to establish wild steelhead gene banks and management areas where wild fish can reproduce without the impacts of hatchery fish.  
 
This action will allow the early run of wild stocks to recover genetically and productively to a level similar to those of the 1950s—prior to hatcheries—and create an early fishery as valuable as the late winter run.  
 
Over the last 25 years the Snider Creek Hatchery on the Sol Duc River has negatively altered the genetics of the population, reduced its productivity and encouraged increased fishing effort for hatchery fish, which has been detrimental to the wild run.
 
We must break the old and very bad paradigm today of hatcheries being integral to steelhead fishing on every river or sit back and watch wild steelhead continue to decline in Washington and possibly become listed in the remaining open rivers just as they have in Puget Sound and the Columbia River tributaries. That’s five out of the seven major populations in Washington where wild steelhead are in major trouble and as a result, the fishing effort on the Olympic Peninsula has increased rapidly as other rivers in the state are closed.
 
Only careful scientific management, as we propose for the Sol Duc River, can stop the downturn in the wild stocks and initiate rebuilding toward recent historical levels.
 
Send a short message to the WDFW today: snidercreek@dfw.wa.gov
 
You can cut and paste this into your own email or use it to write you own message:
 
1.   Close the Snider Creek Hatchery

2.  Establish a wild gene bank and improved wild stock management area on the Sol Duc River

3.  Conservatively manage the Sol Duc wild steelhead stock for stock rebuilding, including gaining information on how to manage other wild stocks. This should include a full season fishing to understand how to conduct a fishery in wild stock only areas.

4.  If politically necessary, provide hatchery fish during the month of January in the Bogachiel River by splitting the production of the Bogachiel hatchery, planting half timed to return in December and half to return in January.  This hatchery is in an over-production mode and this action will help remove more hatchery fish from the Bogachiel spawning grounds.  We do not perceive that this change will further damage wild stocks in this river or elsewhere.  

5.    Do not move the hatchery to the Calawah River or establish a wild stock gene bank in the Clearwater River, a tributary to the Queets River.
 
If we lose this battle, we can assure ourselves that wild steelhead will remain fully impacted and continue to decline everywhere over time. This is the time to win a battle in the closing of a steelhead hatchery and begin their removal or reduction on other rivers that use them for steelhead. This decision will set a large example in how hatcheries are regarded in the efforts to recover Puget Sound wild steelhead and how Olympic Peninsula steelhead are managed in the future.
 
The period for comments ends on June 30, 2011 so please take five minutes for the fish and do this immediately.
 
Together we can help improve the wild steelhead runs in the Sol Duc River and continue the fight for wild fish for the future.
 
Sincerely,
 
Richard Simms, President
 
Richard Burge, VP of Science
 
Discontinue the Snider Creek Hatchery! (Via: Native Fish Society)

The Power of Advocacy

A coalition of companies and advocacy groups have been very active in recent months urging action by the Interior Department to extend the moratorium on uranium mining on the lands surrounding the Grand Canyon.

An ad hoc coalition put together by the Pew Environment Group recently purchased this ad in the New York Times advocating an extension of the moratorium and it was signed by a number of Outdoor Industry leaders.

Well score one for the good guys.

Two days ago Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced a six month extension of the moratorium and suggested he was leaning towards a full 20 year moratorium.

Needless to say the pro mining interests are not pleased.

Take Action - Oregon House Bill 2873 MUST DIE!

From the gang at The Caddis Fly comes this heads up about a really bad bill making its way to the Oregon House floor. The vote was originally scheduled for this past Friday but has now been delayed until Monday so there is still time to help kill this bill.

What House Bill 2873 does: HB 2873 prohibits the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife from requiring fish passage, screening or bypass devices when an “in-conduit” hydroelectric project is developed on manmade canal or diversion structure.

The development of hydroelectric facilities on existing manmade canals and diversion structures (otherwise known as in-conduit hydro) has long been allowed under Oregon law (ORS Chapter 543). In 2007, HB 2785 was adopted to allow an expedited process for the development this type of power. This new law allowed for a much quicker approval process—providing an incentive to develop this type of power – but only if key resource protections were in place. Fish passage and screening were contemplated from the outset as a minimum condition and were agreed to by the Oregon Water Resources Congress (the proponent of HB 2873), the Oregon Farm Bureau, conservation groups, state agencies, and others. This agreement was the basis for conservation groups to not oppose the 2007 bill.

Nice of those folks at the Oregon Water Resource Congress to go back on the deal eh?

Caddis Fly has all the details as well as a cut and paste e-mail.

Take Action to Protect the Grand Canyon

This short video makes a compelling case for the Obama administration’s proposal to protect 1 million acres of public land surrounding Grand Canyon from new uranium mining.

By visiting this website, protectgrandcanyon.org, you can send the administration an email in support of those protections; that email will be considered in the government’s formal environmental analysis. May 4th is the last day the government will be accepting public comments, so please act today! 

It only takes a minute.

NRDC Anti Pebble Push

The National Resources Defense Council is currently gathering 100,000 signatures urging Rio Tinto to abandon the Pebble Mine Project in Bristol Bay. The NRDC plans to deliver the signatures at an upcoming Rio Tinto shareholder meeting.

Add your name to the list.

Some others have their panties in a bunch about Linda Jackson of the EPA attending former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's reception for Pebble Mine opponents.

Wahhhhhhh!

Take Action for Striped Bass

This just in from Stripers Forever.

We apologize for the short notice on this Call For Action, but it is a chance for you to have a positive influence on how striped bass are managed. All indications and data suggest that the coastwide recreational catch of striped bass has been declining since 2006 – an eye-popping 70% drop in just 5 years. Add to that the poor spawning year classes since 2003, and the resulting lack of recruitment of young fish into the population, and the future does not look very promising. The striped bass population is being propped up by the good year classes of late 1990’s, plus 2001 and 2003, but if these now legal bass are overfished, as they are being now, and are not replaced, we could witness an epic crash in the striped bass population over the next 5-10 years.

There are real problems with the fisheries management plan for striped bass and it all starts with commercial and recreational fishing mortality rates that are too high, and triggers for management board action that are unrealistic. Action by the Striped Bass Management Board is like turning an ocean liner – it takes forever. So while the population continues to decline precipitously, the Striped Bass Management Board appears to be unresponsive. All of this scares the daylights out of us at Stripers Forever, and is all the more reason why gamefish status for striped bass is critical.

But there is something you can do to help – RIGHT NOW!

On Wednesday March 23, 2011, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board will hold their winter/spring 2011 meeting at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Alexandria, Virginia. Stripers Forever learned recently of a very important agenda item for this board meeting which is a proposal by the Maine Department of Natural Resources requesting that the board consider initiating an addendum to the Interstate Fisheries Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass to reduce coastwide mortality on striped bass. Other state marine fisheries directors, including Massachusetts, are recognizing the problems with the striped bass population and the lack of response from the management board. The board will be discussing this agenda item and taking possible action next week. It is unknown how many states will support this proposal, but we need as many fishermen as possible to urge your own state’s representative to the Striped Bass Management Board to support it. We also need you to contact the ASMFC directly in support of this proposal.

Attached is a PDF file with all the members of the Striped Bass Management Board. We suggest you start by emailing your own state director, then other board members from your state if possible.

PDF ATTACHED HERE: StripedBassBoard2011

It is critical for you to email Robert Beal, the ASMFC’s interstate fisheries management plan coordinator for striped bass at rbeal@asmfc.org.

Here is some sample language. Please cut and paste it into an email and send it to as many of your state’s representatives on the Striped Bass Management Board as you can, as well as Robert Beal at the ASMFC.

Dear _______________,

I am writing with serious concerns about the current trends in the data for the coastal striped bass population. Specifically I am very disturbed by the fact that the over all recreational catch of striped bass on the Atlantic coast has decreased by 70% since 2006. Concurrently, the Young of the Year index from the Maryland sections of the Chesapeake Bay have been very poor since 2003, resulting in extremely low recruitment into the coastal striped bass population. It is my strong belief that current fishing mortality rates set by the Interstate Fisheries Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass are too high and are resulting in unsustainable levels of striped bass mortality.

I strongly support the proposal by the Maine Department of Natural Resources that asks the Striped Bass Management Board to create an addendum to reduce coastwide mortality on striped bass. I am aware this is an agenda item for the Striped Bass Management Board at the ASMFC Winter/Spring 2011 Meeting in Alexandria, Virginia on March 23. I want to go on record as supporting this proposal and I urge the Striped Bass Management Board to take positive action to move forward with generating a new addendum to Amendment 6 of the Interstate Fisheries Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass that will address reducing coastwide striped bass mortality as soon as possible.

Thank you.

Signed,

Your Name

Your Address