Tweets,

I apologize for using this forum as a flaming-board. Please delete if
you read these postings to find out about birds.


On Fri, 20 Oct 1995, W. Edwards wrote:

> Initiative 640 is aimed at wasteful fishing practices.

As a state employee, I have been proscribed from making any statement
whatsoever on this subject. It would be interpreted as agency coersion
and attempts at manipulating the electorate.... Besides, I think Don
Baccus covered the arguements quite well.

> In the San Juan
> Islands in 1993 over 3500 seabirds were killed during the gill-net
> fishery and in 1994 over 3000 seabirds were killed during the gill-net
> fishery, ref "Biological Assessment of the Affects of the Puget Sound
> Area Non-treaty Commercial Salmon Net Fisheries on the Marbled Murrelet,
> March 3, 1995.

In a previous posting, I reported the finding from this paper to
Tweeters. The study looked *only* at the sockeye fishery in 1994, when the
fleet fished 14 days in the area (remember the fish "war" with Canada?)
rather than the 10-year average of 8 days/season or 1995's 6 days. It
was also quite apparent that in 1994, a year of warm-water anomaly, the
common murres from the failed/abandoned Oregon colonies returned in
numbers to the Straits and San Juans earlier than normal, and were in the
proximity of the fishery.

The Washington Sea Grant gillnet gear study this year (1995) were hard
put to find sufficient sea birds in the vicinity near which to test the
gear that they believe could avoid sea birds and still catch fish. I
talked with Ed Melvin of Sea Grant today and he was doubting that the
portion of the gear study proposed for central Puget Sound and Hood Canal
would be able to measure sea bird impacts - the birds there just aren't
where the fishers fish.

> Also killed were porpoises and seals.

One young-of-the-year porpoise was, unfortunately entangled and drowned.
Another was entangled and released. 2 Harbor seals were entangled and
released unharmed.

> The Canadians
> have also complained about this in 1993, The Vancouver Sun, August 3,
> 1993 and there was an editorial l or 2 days later in the Sun.

Mind you, the Canadians don't seem to think it's a big enough problem to
actually study the problem with their fisheries - intensive seine and gillnet
fisheries directed at the abundant Fraser sockeye and pink. We should
certainly welcome some *good* information from Can Dept Fisheries & Oceans
or the CWS.

> Total news
> blackout in the Seattle Papers.

Funny, I read about it in the Times/P-I, and in the Bremerton Sun.

> There is a Purse Seine Fishery at Apple Cove Point in Puget Sound, the
> targeted species is coho, coho catch is 43%, Chum catch is 32% and
> blackmouth/chinook catch is 25%. That is a dirty fishery!!

This is the paragraph that I wanted to address. This has been used by
the radical sportfishing press for a year or so to back their contentions.

I administer the research fishery at Apple Cove Point. This is a one-day-
per week effort through the coho salmon management period (early Sept. to
mid-October) where WDFW charters a purse seine vessel to fish - in an
area and at times closed to the commercial fishery - so that WDFW can
estimate the number of coho entering south Puget Sound, and improve upon
our pre-season forecasts (estimates made in April). We have conducted
this research since 1985, and the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission
has collected data on south Puget Sound's chum run there since 1980.

Coho and the early component of the healthy south Sound chum runs are
caught, with coho predominating in the earlier catches and chum
increasing later, as one expects according to their natural run timings.
The coho in south Sound are 80% hatchery-produced and have a generally
healthy natural component (with a few exceptions - Lk Washington
sometimes does not meet our escapement needs, etc), and the naturally-
produced chum runs are quite healthy.

Our research fishery takes scales for age determination, samples all coho
and chinook for coded-wire-tags (stock assessment and separation), and
does the usual measurements, etc that scientists do to all of the
organisms we collect. The catch (catch/set) is fairly well correlated
with total south Puget Sound coho run size, and serves as a good estimate
for abundance when commercial coho fisheries are not held - as in the past 3
years for the non-treaty fleet. Chinook ("blackmouth" to the local sport
fishery) are retained for sampling, which WDFW requires the commercial
seine fleet to release when they are less than 28 inches in length -
these account for 95%-plus of the chinook encountered.

Neither chum or coho are "bycatch" in the commercial fisheries here, both
are harvestable surplus beyond hatchery or natural escapement goals for
the region. Commercial salmon fisheries in south Puget Sound are
relatively clean; when coho were "targeted" the coho and early chum
catch made up about 95% of the catch, and the chum-directed fisheries
averaged 92% chum, with most of the rest being coho that had been
'reserved' in the non-treaty allocations.

This is NOT a dirty fishery. It is a research fishery, and I very much
resent the efforts of a political group to mis-use my data to
mis-represent a point to gain a vote or two!!

Mr "W Edwards" or "drew at " or whoever you are. Your political group has
several times made the claim that "whenever we are shown to be incorrect
in any of our statements, we will make a public retraction". You are
incorrect here, you were incorrect in any number of letters to the
editor, and in any number of debates you've held. I have refuted this
here and in the other presses since last February. Your organizations have
YET to retract any of the misinformation that you have given to the
public regarding MY data. Indeed, you continue to mis-represent my
work. I wish you would stop.

It makes me wonder what else of your information might be accurate?

Any of it?

For those Tweeters still reading, here's a bird thread... I collected
information on the purse seine impacts on sea birds in the WDFW test
fishery and in the south Puget Sound commercial salmon fishery. I
presented a paper at the 1992 Pacific Seabird Group annual meeting in
Seattle. Of the very few birds encountered, ~5% of those birds
encircled were actually entangled; ~5% of those entangled were injured
or killed. Dirty fishery? I guess dirt is where you find it....

Jon. Anderson
Olympia, WA
anderjda at dfw.wa.gov