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In this Newsletter Every day SEAGO takes care of your business in the uphill battle against bad legislation, bad appointments, and bad regulations. In fact, the main reason that you don’t have to live with crippling regulation changes amidst already severe economic conditions is that we took care of your business in Sitka, Anchorage, and Juneau this winter. But it’s important to point out that all our problems didn’t go away, We still face potentially onerous BOF appointments, definition-of-possession regulations that could literally put you out of business overnight, and rockfish allocations that could result in wide areas of the our coast closed to all sportfishing. SEAGO’s track record of results in support of your business doesn’t come for free. Now is the time to write your annual membership check and support our continued fight on your behalf. A summary of recent accomplishments and our 2009 plan can be viewed here. We need your financial support to continue as a strong voice for you. In recognition of the difficult economy, we have lowered our fees and created a flexible payment program for 2009. For charter fishing to survive and continue to make major contributions to the coastal communities of Alaska we need a well-funded organization and professional representation. Your participation is crucial to our continued success. Please click here now to join or to renew your membership. We thank you in advance for your continued support of our organization.
The sport fish momentum that has been building since the beginning of this year yielded results in the final days of the 2009 AK State legislative session. Multiple email, testimony, and letter writing campaigns were heard loud and clear in Juneau. In addition, a sport fish task force was established to meet one-on-one with legislators. Special thanks go out to Reuben Hanke & Ricky Gease from the Kenai River Sportfishing Association, KRSA, www.kenairiversportfishing.com, Larry Edfelt, and SEAGO board members Rick Bierman and Russell Thomas for their direct involvement. While the efforts on all the major initiatives were successful, it is clear that more work needs to be done to help Southeast legislators better understand the charter industry. Every single politician from SouthEast voted against our positions on all or most of the initiatives. Summary results are:
The recent political efforts by SEAGO management & Board have been picked up by various press agencies. Here are a couple of examples: Forbes Magazine News Article - "Palin's Alaska Fish Board nominee draws criticism": http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/04/14/ap6288843.html Anchorage Daily News Article - "Lawmakers reject Palin nominee for Fish Board": http://www.adn.com/news/politics/ap_politics/story/761977.html In addition we received positive remarks in the Ketchikan Daily News.
Throughout April, ADF&G announced regulation changes for Chinook, lingcod, rockfish, and more. Key highlights include: resident bag limit will be two king salmon 28 inches or greater in length, nonresident angler bag limit will be one king salmon 28 inches or greater; and the nonresident annual limit will be three king salmon, and ability to catch one trophy size lingcod in excess of 55 inches. Additional regulations are posted here and everyone is encouraged to read through the changes.
At the Sitka BOF meeting in February a proposal was introduced to change sport caught possession limits to a single daily bag limit. Such a rule change would shut down our industry. While the proposal failed at the BF meeting our opponents were able to keep the issue alive by calling for a BOF headed task force to address the issue on a statewide basis. SEAGO has requested both in person to the BOF Chairman and in writing to ADF&G to be a part of this task force. We currently see no biological or economic justification for changing the definition of possession. We are committed to fighting for sportfishing rights.
As part of the federal government economic stimulus package The Alaska legislature has formed a clearinghouse to help Alaskan organizations in identifying available competitive Federal American Recovery and Reinvestment (ARRA) grant opportunities. We have contacted this group to determine potential business stimulation programs that we might qualify for to assist sportfishing businesses during these difficult economic times. We will keep you up to-date on this initiative in future newsletters.
NMFS has sent the final one fish rule for Area 2C to Washington for final approval. We initiated a letter writing campaign to the Secretary of Commerce, Gary Locke and wrote on behalf of all SEAGO members in opposition to this measure. We argued that this proposed rule is not required for conservation purposes and will seriously damage the economy in Southeast Alaska. Right on this initiative’s coattails, comes the NMFS proposal for a moratorium/limited entry program which we have supported in the past. Look for more on this topic in our next newsletter.
Since the beginning of this year there has been a growing broad based coalition among sport fishing groups around the State. Finally, we are speaking with a unified voice and a common message to support sport fishing interests. Most recently more than a dozen groups including SEAGO board members, came together in Juneau under the leadership of the Kenai River Sportfishing Association (KRSA) to successfully lobby against a BOF appointment that would have upset the long established balance on the board. We see this as a sea change in the way fisheries will be managed in the future. SEAGO proudly joins this next generation movement to continue the fight for your interests. Organizing efforts are just getting underway and we will keep you informed on progress in upcoming newsletters.
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