UkeeDreamin
Well-Known Member
Report is on the IPHC page and can be accessed by selecting the list of reports supporting the annual meetings this week.
As harvest is an indicator of relative encounters year over year, in absence of other data showing a marked increase, ala 50% increase in encounters resulting in release mortality, then the data I showed and my summary of it is as valid as any data available on this issue, unless DFO is hiding available data.
As you know, GLG, the regs haven’t changed substantially in the last few years with a slot, max size and annual limit. The max size being tweaked down by a few cms isn’t a valid rationale for a 50% increase in release mortality allocated to the rec sector. It also ignores a lot of evidence that total effort targeting halibut, due to these same strict regs, has been scaled back SIGNIFICANTLY. If anything, with the current regs and anglers response to them we should have expected a noticeable reduction in total halibut encounters and thus a reduction in release mortality. As such, the 50% increase sticks out like a sore thumb!
The wonky release mortality numbers used by DFO look suspiciously like they were fudged to bring the rec totals as close to the rec allocation as possible with the hopes no one was looking closely at the data or going to ask questions. Just like the DFOs manufactured issues of prawn and clam rec harvest “pressures” with no data to back it up, all of us should be standing up and calling BS on these release mortality #’s that have no data supporting them!!!
Cheers!
Ukee
As harvest is an indicator of relative encounters year over year, in absence of other data showing a marked increase, ala 50% increase in encounters resulting in release mortality, then the data I showed and my summary of it is as valid as any data available on this issue, unless DFO is hiding available data.
As you know, GLG, the regs haven’t changed substantially in the last few years with a slot, max size and annual limit. The max size being tweaked down by a few cms isn’t a valid rationale for a 50% increase in release mortality allocated to the rec sector. It also ignores a lot of evidence that total effort targeting halibut, due to these same strict regs, has been scaled back SIGNIFICANTLY. If anything, with the current regs and anglers response to them we should have expected a noticeable reduction in total halibut encounters and thus a reduction in release mortality. As such, the 50% increase sticks out like a sore thumb!
The wonky release mortality numbers used by DFO look suspiciously like they were fudged to bring the rec totals as close to the rec allocation as possible with the hopes no one was looking closely at the data or going to ask questions. Just like the DFOs manufactured issues of prawn and clam rec harvest “pressures” with no data to back it up, all of us should be standing up and calling BS on these release mortality #’s that have no data supporting them!!!
Cheers!
Ukee
