Alaska Up Rest of W Coast Closed

[Barbender]

Here is some food for thought. This year there is talk of closing the entire west coast fishery from BC to California. Then there is this little interesting tid bit.

Alaska predicts salmon harvest of 137 million fish.
The 2008 commercial salmon harvest at 137 million fish is putting it in the upper half of harvests since 1960. Total harvest is expected at 47.1 million sockeye. 4.4 million coho. 66 million pink salmon 18.7 chum salmon and 672 000 chinook salmon, this is a increase of 110 000 fish over the 2007 season.

Makes you wonder doesn't it. Here the whole coast is almost completely out of salmon and Alaska is increasing their cath for 2008. I would love to do DNA testing on these fish and see where they originate from.

 

[SIR]

One could envisage a strategy where the US closes California, Washington and Oregon as a mechanism to apply pressure on Canada to close BC, then continues to harvest heavily in Alaska. South coast US fleet moves to Alaska, US economy maintained, Canada scr***d as usual in most US/Canada trade negotiations.

No supporting data, mearly a hypothtical thought... but would also love to see if the majority of the fish being scooped in Alaska are local hatchery fish.

 

[Dave H]

"but would also love to see if the majority of the fish being scooped in Alaska are local hatchery fish."

Some years back, when there was actually a couple of dollars made available for research, a very intensive coded wire tag program gave results indicating that 57% of the Chinook salmon headed back to the Quinsam River hatchery were intercepted by the SE Alaska troll fleet before they ever made it into Canadian waters.
Also, El Nino events tend to cause salmon to migrate further north to find cooler waters and food. That plays into the hands of the Alaskan groups too.
Hard for us to change that though.


Take care.