The June 5 letter “Tribal gillnets don’t qualify as sustainable” is not accurate. Gillnets, tribal or nontribal are much more effective in controlling inshore bycatch than recreational hook-and-line fisheries. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS, also known as NOAA Fisheries) provides an annual “no jeopardy” decision as to how many salmon listed under Endangered Species Act (ESA) may be taken in both recreational and commercial fisheries fishing on abundant stocks. Allowable kills or mortalities of these fish are called “impacts.” The recreational share of the impacts on this non-target bycatch is 70-80% of the allowable total kills of those fish. The commercial share uses the remaining impacts.

Both tribal and non-tribal gillnet fisheries use time, area and mesh size as selective tools. That translates to the time when we fish, where we fish and the size of mesh of the gear we fish that is most appropriate to reduce bycatch as much as possible. These selectivity measures make the inshore net fisheries orders of magnitude more efficient in avoiding non-target bycatch. Selective harvest is ultimately about dead fish that are caught along with healthy hatchery and wild populations. Fishing around most non-target stocks i.e. avoiding them, means not having to encounter them at all. The hook-and-line fishery, by contrast, has to release wild or natural fish that are caught, if they are listed species. Moreover, just releasing those fish back into the water does not imply that there aren’t mortalities in the released fish, and there may be significant numbers of them, depending upon water temperature and other circumstances. If the recreational fishery is more selective than gillnets, it would not need to be allocated the lion’s share of the impacts in order to conduct their fishery.

But there is a much larger issue looming. The recreational sector can indeed kill most of the allowable impacts but cannot begin to harvest the hatchery and healthy natural populations. As a result, there are large surpluses of hatchery-origin fish returning to hatcheries as adults. This situation has moved the industrial sector, such as hydro, and others to wonder why hatchery production and water and habitat that could be put to more “meaningful” use is being “wasted” on huge surpluses. Put another way, “Why are we providing fish that the commercial fishery is not allowed to catch, due to not being allocated more impacts, and the recreational fishery cannot begin to access, despite having the major portion of the impacts?” The consumer is also short-changed in this situation, in that fish that could have been sold on the market for human consumption become hatchery surplus instead.

The above situation is what is “not sustainable.” Reduction of the numbers of hatchery salmonids produced and habitat alterations is already occurring on the Columbia and elsewhere where hatchery production is utilized. By contrast, the largest salmon fishery on the planet is Bristol Bay, Alaska, where there are no dams on the rivers and virtually no human development. It has supported Native American gillnet fisheries for thousands of years, and commercial gillnet fisheries for well over a century. To call it sustainable is an understatement. It works because the habitat is intact.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife provides an informative paper on selective harvest and alternative gear, called the Subsection C Report to Legislature, Dec. 1, 2022, available on their website. I suggest anyone sincerely interested in this topic should read it. The science is very clear about selectivity and gear potential. It is a very good counterpoint to internet gossip.

KENT MARTIN

Skamokawa