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The Alaska Board of Fisheries will meet in Sitka February 17-26. Their agenda is crowded by more than 150 proposals, many of which could seriously hurt your business. Please read this bulletin carefully and then make plans to come to Sitka and join the fight to save your business and our industry. And if your business is on the Outer Coast, pay critical attention to the DSR story, below.
If you think your business will have a tough time this year, consider how it will be if these regulations are part of your marketing plan and overhead:
In total, SEAGO is opposing more than 40 proposals on your behalf. This misuse of the BOF process to attack our industry is without precedent. What’s more, accompanying these ideas are boatloads of false accusations against the charter industry. The fact is, we need your help to fend off these bad ideas. We will post SEAGO’s pre-meeting response to the BOF on our website and you can read it there. If we don't succeed in persuading the BOF to increase the sport allocation of Demersal Shelf Rockfish, (mostly Yelloweye), we will see sport fishing closures on the outer coast this summer. Proposal 341, put forward by SEAGO, requests a shift in allocation of Demersal Shelf Rockfish for the sport fishery from 16% to 25%. This is a critical issue, especially for Sitka, P.O.W., and Elfin Cove charter operators, but is in the greater interest of Alaskans to allocate public resources in this way. A small shift between industries will avert a complete devastation to the tourism-based businesses and the charter fishing industry on the Outer Coast. Even though the sport limits for DSR have already been drastically reduced, the sport fishery allocation in the Southeast Outside Subdistrict is simply too small to be met under normal fishing effort. Since DSR are an unavoidable bycatch of fishing for salmon and halibut, the BOF is confronted with a choice between shifting a small allocation from the commercial longline fishery to sport, or imposing time and area closures on all sport fishing, at least in the Southeast Outside Subdistrict. The latter choice would have disastrous effects on all charter businesses in these areas. We simply must convince the BOF to support the SEAGO proposal. Benjamin Franklin said “We all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” He said that as he signed the Declaration of Independence, but if he were a charter fishing operator in Alaska, he would be saying it now! The commercial fishing groups are challenging us today in a naked display of political power. Apparently they think they can bully and deceive the Board of Fisheries into adopting policies that have no basis in fact, no value in conservation, and no honest purpose other then a vendetta to slander and constrain charter fishing. SEAGO has organized to defend your interests, but to wage this battle we need you on the field. We need you in the audience or at the podium or both. Here is the schedule and the plan:
You are needed any day and every day you can spare. The most critical timeframe is from Monday night through Friday. SEAGO will have its own private room for charter fishers for coordinating and preparation, and we will coach you if needed. Bring your stories of how you’ve served the greater good of Alaska, bring pictures of your kids, bring a copy of your business loans or your mortgage. It’s time for the charter industry to tell OUR side of the story: we are good for conservation and good for Alaska. We’re proud of our contribution, and it’s time we are recognized for it. It’s time to fight. Help us plan. Call John Blair at (925) 366-6638 or email us at jblair@executivestrategies.com and let us know whether or not you can attend. If you need lodging, let us know. Please forward this special bulletin to other supporters and ask them to attend, too! |