Gillnets Kill: Washington Senate Committee Considers SB 5127

New Commercial Gear for the PNW? Enter the WWF SmartGear Competition

WWF's International Smart Gear Competition, first held in 2005, brings together the fishing industry, research institutes, universities, and government, to inspire and reward practical, innovative fishing gear designs that reduce bycatch - the accidental catch and related deaths of sea turtles, birds, marine mammals, cetaceans and non-target fish species in fishing gear such as longlines and nets.

This most pressing threat to marine life requires a wide-ranging, multidisciplinary response, and WWF believes the Smart Gear competition will help catalyze that response by encouraging creative thinkers everywhere to share their ideas. Applicants are asked to submit their ideas for modified fishing gears and procedures that increase selectivity for target fish species and reduce bycatch for other species. The competition is open to eligible entrants from any background, and entrants have included gear technologists, fishermen, engineers, chemists, and inventors.

An international panel made up of gear technologists, fisheries experts, representatives of the seafood industry, fishermen, scientists, researchers and conservationists judges the entries. The judges are guided by the following criteria:

* Does it reduce bycatch of nontarget fish and other species, especially vulnerable and/or endangered species?

* Is the idea innovative and original?

* Is the idea practical and is the idea easy to use?

* Is the idea cost-effective?

* Will it allow fishermen to maintain or increase profitability?

* Could the idea actually be developed?

The Smart Gear Competition is intended to inspire people to seek creative new ways to solve bycatch problems and to advance the best of those ideas. We hope that critical examination by the world's leading experts will highlights the best ideas in the world, advance effective solutions to make fishing 'smarter' and bring attention to the bycatch problem worldwide. For more details see: http://www.smartgear.panda.org

Cutting Oregon's Net Losses: Seven Reasons to Eliminate the Lower Columbia Gillnet Fishery

Read the paper I wrote in 1989 during one of the initiative petition drives to eliminate the nets (Click here.) When I began to seriously research this fishery, I was truly appalled at what I found. Frankly, it was difficult to stop at only the "Seven Reasons." The most astonishing thing to me was the history of the gillnetting monopoly. If you look at the historical roots, you'll see that the initial grant of this monopoly came about by outright fraud against the citizens of Oregon. The paper is now almost 20 years old, and I am saddened to see how little progress we've made to demand a non-lethal selective harvest method for anadromous fish in the Pacific Northwest. For pete's sake people, these fish come right back to where they were spawned. Why in the world do we need to put lethal nets out on mixed stocks including highly endangered Salmon and Steelhead runs? It is time to take a serious look at this fishery and ask why it was ever allowed in the first place.

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Sunday, March 8, 2009

Washington Senate Committee Considers SB 5127

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