All tangled in the nets on the Columbia

by The Editorial Board of the Oregonian
Saturday April 11, 2009, 3:44 PM
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/04/all_tangled_in_the_nets_on_the.html

Threatened salmon are dying, sportfishing is crimped and an outdoor retail chain goes belly up

It stinks what passes for salmon harvest policy on the Columbia River. Everyone smells it -- lawmakers, gill-netters, sport fishermen, fish commissioners -- but all the Northwest has done is hold its collective nose.

Here's what's going on: Oregon and Washington still allow gill nets, the least selective way to fish, in the main stem of the Columbia River. The gill-netters can't help but catch and kill threatened species of salmon and steelhead. This incidental take of federally protected fish forces the curtailment of sportfishing, gutting a major Northwest industry. Guides, boat dealers and tackle manufacturers are hurting; just this week one of the region's largest retailers of fishing equipment, Joe's Sports, Outdoor & More, went out of business.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of hatchery salmon roll upriver, flooding into spawning areas and interfering with the recovery of the threatened wild species of salmon and steelhead.

All of this makes no sense, none, yet it keeps going on. The gill-netters, backed by the seafood processors and restaurants they supply, have spent decades now locked in a fierce dispute with sport fishermen over the relative share of fish that each side is allowed to harvest. This tug of war has so poisoned river policy that both sides cannot recognize that their stubborn stances are hurting them both, and damaging wild salmon.

Snip. Read more here: http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/04/all_tangled_in_the_nets_on_the.html

There is room now, and always will be, for commercial salmon fishing on the Columbia River, if properly managed. Ultimately, though, gill-nets must be moved out of the main stem of the river. If it ever made sense to allow nonselective fishing on threatened salmon and steelhead, then kick everybody off the river while hatchery fish surge upstream, it doesn't any longer. All it does now is stink.