May 1, 1998

Peninsula Daily News

To the editor:

Several meetings ago, the Dungeness River Management Team (DRMT) approved a letter urging the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) to keep closed a special season on the Straits. Last year the Department allowed a two-week opening to give the resorts out in Seiku and Clallam Bay a much needed economic boost. A problem results because this fishery includes summer run Dungeness Chinook salmon--a species in the process of being declared endangered by the federal government

In the DRMT’s discussions about wording the letter, the consensus of the committee was "no fishing" language would be too strong. The concern was that WDFW would interpret this phrase to mean no tribal net fishery for Fraser River Sockeye salmon. But some of the incidental catch in this fishery are those same endangered Dungeness Chinook.

Last summer WDFW put observers on the non-tribal net fleet to check the extent of incidental catch. They were aghast! The fishery was shut down immediately.

WDFW does not monitor tribes. Tribes, being sovereign, have their own enforcement and management policies. Twenty-eight tribes and one state equals twenty-nine managers of the salmon resource with little coordination and co-operation. No one at WDFW even knows the boundaries where various tribes have jurisdiction.

Three years ago the Tacoma News Tribune ran a story about tribal dumping-- the tossing back of incidental species in order to prolong sockeye fishing. A year later a local Realtor stumbled across several hundred salmon carcasses laying in a field walking distance from the DRMT’s meeting place at the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribal Center. By the time a WDFW representative responded to the complaint, a week had gone by and scavengers had eaten the evidence.

Suggesting shortcomings of co-management is politically incorrect. Maintaining political correctness is more important than the fish. The DRMT certainly appears disingenuous when they talk about desiring to see salmon restored. Are consensus groups the best way to bring salmon back?

Steve Marble