Coming to a dinner plate near you

A nylon wall of death, more commonly known as a gill net, snared this wild 37 pound steelhead.

If you care to help preserve fish like this, please hit the Wild Steelhead Coalition link on the right sidebar and learn the steps you can take to preserve wild steelhead.

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)

Green Acre Radio - The Decline of Steelhead

In rivers throughout the Northwest, from the mighty Columbia to Seattle’s gritty Green River, wild steelhead populations are desperately hanging on. Listed as threatened, even hatchery efforts to increase their numbers are failing. Habitat loss, dams, and warming waters caused by climate change, appear to be sealing their fate. Green Acre Radio visits the Soos Creek Hatchery on the Green River and talks with wild steelhead advocates including veteran fisheries biologist, Don Chapman, who’s been monitoring the situation for 50 years.

LISTEN

Take Action - Ray's Boathouse Serving Wild Steelhead

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.

NO MORE WILD STEELHEAD AT PIKE PLACE FISH MARKET !!!!!

A great day here at Chum central.

The fish guys at  the Pike Place Fish Market market listened to your e-mails and made the right decision when it comes to wild steelhead.

We've read your emails, we've taken in the conversations at the market, we've had sustainability representatives speak at our meetings, and we've asked the tough questions to our suppliers. Our commitment is to make a difference and we can do that on many fronts, the supply of our seafood being one. We're constantly educating ourselves and understand sustainability to be a process and one that starts with no longer carrying wild steelhead.

Read their post here.

Thanks to everyone who took the time urge them to stop selling wild fish. A big thank you to Chris Ringlee over at The Gig Harbor Fly Shop for originally bringing the issue to our attention.

Send a comment thanking the the Fish Guys at the market.

Filleting Wild Steelhead Runs

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.