Thanks to Jim Borrow for the photo. Purse seiners often make a brief appearance off West Seattle this time of year, fishing for chum salmon. The state Department of Fish and Wildlife website says this area is open for purse-seine fishing until 6 tonight.
If we are going to see any type of recovery for our loved PNW Salmon, then NETTING off any type, by everyone, needs to stop.
Yeah – Maybe a larger conversation is needed?Are these salmon food chain for orcas? Would this be better for fishermen? What does the purse seine bring?
They bring food to the table and wages to the workers running them, that’s what.
And authorities wonder how to save our endangered Orca population. Perhaps a temporary fishing moratorium? nah….that makes too much sense.
If you really want to save the Salmon then Californians need to stay in California, and stop building more homes over the watersheds that the Salmon rely on for cool flowing water to breed in. Stop introducing more sewage into the waterways from Urban infill and view happy worshipers of Bal who are taking out the interurban tree canopy causing more flooding and overflow of the waste water treatment plants
California also needs to not expand their salmon fishing catch like they did this year and along with lowering the price of salmon there.
Chum salmon are one of the five species of salmon that appear in Puget Sound, late in the year, and are the last to spawn. They are a species eaten by our resident Orcas, though Chinook are preferred. The Orcas reported on Wednesday the 15th definitely were feeding. We watched them with binoculars, circling, splashing and occasionally breaching as the group headed north from Alki Pt, across the entrance of Elliot Bay toward Discovery Park/Magnolia. Here’s a link to the 5 salmon species found in Puget Sound: http://salmonuniversity.com/resources/species-identification
Maybe we should tear down more dams that produce green energy with no CO2 production to save the Oraca’s salmon to dine on. We could swap them out for Nuclear power plants.
Jobs for a few humans is no justification for the decimation of several
other species. Unlike salmon and orca, humans are not endangered,
except by their own behavior. I’m surprised that this type of fishing
is still allowed, but officials would rather see sea lions shot than say
no to fishermen.
I agree with john & anonyme. BAN ALL FISHING-PERIOD. No sport fishing, no commercial fishing no 1st nations fishing. No human needs to eat fish. ALL fish MUST be for orca’s ONLY!!
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