Herring Fishery
Dear Editor: I submitted this comment to the ADF&G regarding the 2018 herring fishery. All comments have to be in by Dec. 28.
I am submitting these comments on the herring proposals, not because I think it will do any good in a rigged system. My husband has jumped through this herring hoop to find out there is no equity in the system of selecting a Sitka Advisory Board to make recommendations when the board can only ever represent commercial interests. He says I am wasting my time and the only way the herring can be saved is to litigate. He says the Native people and subsistence users go through this every year and litigation is the only way anything will change.
To be honest NONE of the proposals are acceptable. Let me tell you folks that climate change is a GAME CHANGER. It is not an “I’m gonna have to come up with a new MODEL” or “we are have to change where we dip the net” or a “we are going to have to reduce the amount taken,” but it is a GAME CHANGER and if not, GAME OVER! Do you listen to the Fisheries Report on the radio (I assume you must contribute)? They say, “in the salmon hatcheries, the fish are doing fine, it’s when they get in the ocean they are dying.” Think about it, my daughter explained it a good way. She explained that the ocean has warmed on average 2 degrees Celsius and 2 degrees Celsius is warmer than 2 degrees Fahrenheit. Think about your body. Would you survive with a temperature of almost 101 instead of 98.6? Think about how you feel at the higher temperature. In the enormous “blobs” of warm water that we have had in the past in the Pacific, the temperature is even higher. No doubt about it, from the Fisheries Report many types of fish populations are being affected. You as fish managers are burdened with the job of saving fish populations in an extremely rapid changing environment. You owe it to yourself to watch “Chasing Coral” because it illustrates how fast organisms can die off (a number of days) because of the speed of the environmental change that is occurring in the ocean. No one dealing with keeping the herring population from collapsing, should do so without reading the herring synthesis. Here’s the link: http://herringsynthesis.research.pdx.edu/final_docs/HerringSynthesisFINAL102710.pdf. Managers and advisory committee members need to understand history before they jump on this “climate changing locomotive” and make decisions on preventing the impending collapse of the Sitka herring fishery.
If this is not enough of worry, consider what the extreme ocean temperature is doing to the plankton. They are getting hit not only from uninhabitable temperatures but also extreme northern water ocean acidification. Which shell is going to melt first, the shell of a crustacean zooplankton copepod or a clam? The plankton don’t have the ability to dive when the water gets too warm like the herring do. They have to live in the photic zone. Since herring, salmon, and so many creatures depend on plankton to live, there has to be a slowdown of destruction in whatever way we can make it happen in this very fragile ocean ecosystem.
We need to listen to the Native people who have been telling you from day one to shut this herring fishery down! I know men who died attending one herring meeting after another explaining how important forage fish are to this marine ecosystem. Elders have told you that it is a keystone species and to kill the whole fish BEFORE it has laid it’s eggs is WRONG! Everyone knows that is wrong. Then where does the waste go? Did I hear something about farm fish food? That can’t possibly be true. We are against fish farming here in Alaska, right? The Lingit have a special herring story, ceremony, sacred rock, and haunting herring song. All to a tiny fish that is part of a giant foundation of the Sitka Sound (and Gulf of Alaska) ecosystem. The Haida stopped a herring fishery by asserting their sovereign rights. My husband and family are Sitka Tribe members. I think he is right, the system is rigged and ligation is the only path. I hear that there are Natives in Bella Bella who will share what they did to stop their fishery and to assert their sovereignty. The local Native people have contributed their herring data for hundreds of years but somehow their data is inferior to a biology degree and a position at ADF&G? In my opinion, in a little shift in educating you, Sitka Tribe has developed a top notch Natural Resource Protection arm that is compiling their own data on everything from local plankton populations to a wide variety of natural resources. I hope you compare your data with theirs and consider theirs. I imagine STA might be going to follow your protocol and pick proposal #99 from your list of supposedly best eight herring proposals. But I don’t believe in the process, I don’t think it is fair and I hope STA chooses to ride this process to the beach until the new herring quota comes out and if it is anything short of closing down the commercial herring fishery they need to marshal support in this community to seek other alternatives in it’s fight to save the sacred herring. There is help out there for tribes to exert their sovereignty. I listed just a few at the end of this comment.
But first, I am writing this comment. I am hoping that you reject ALL these proposals and do what you know is right. Give these herring a chance to survive in this constant game changing ocean and to grow and multiply if they can or to die a slow death.
I would like to point out that ADF&G research is not the only research that is being done on herring. The Sitka Conservation Society brought in a herring researcher from the Pacific Northwest last year and he had an enormous amount of data of DNA in herring stocks around Puget Sound and up to Alaska. And it all pointed to the collapse of herring populations due to overfishing and wiping out whole DNA strains. There is so much riding on your shoulders; too much really. If I were you, I would listen to the people who have a personal relationship with the herring. Listen to the herring song!
Help for Alaska tribes to assert their sovereignty:
Alaska Law Help is a legal firm that deals with fishing and hunting rights, here’s the link: https://alaskalawhelp.org/issues/native-american-issues.
The National Congress of American Indians specializes in Native fishing and hunting rights: http://www.ncai.org/resources/resolutions/federal-recognition-of-alaska-native-hunting-and-fishing-rights.
The Sea Shepherd Justice is a wonderful organization that secures justice for the sea: https://seashepherdlegal.org/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAyNjRBRCpARIsAPDBnn3BPgSzorbHTANK_sn9MSG18GB3GhDariw4jHQsXhDffmNUrFDxKG4aAmUyEALw_wcB.
Native Americans need the protection of the court otherwise they are left with broken promises or they are left with their hat in their hand in unfair commercial interest committees that ignore their interests.
Patricia Dick, Sitka,
Sooktushaa (adopted Kiks.adi)
Legislature Per Diem
Dear Editor: Lots of conversation about the transparency and ethics, and lack thereof, in our Alaska Legislature. Five items are on a petition for citizens to sign or not. My favorite one is: 1. Ban legislators from collecting per diem payments if they have not passed a budget within the 121 days of the beginning of the regular session. Currently legislators can claim per diem stipends of $295 a day for each day they are in special session and for each non-legislative day in which they work a certain number of hours. Given the number of days the Legislature was in special session this year, legislators could receive up to $35,000 each in per diem payments from that alone. They are salaried at $55,000 annually for their regular legislative affairs and receive per diem during regular session for food and lodging expenses. Yes, legislators should be compensated for the work they do in service to their constituents. BUT – do the math: 40 House and 20 Senate members getting $35,000 for special sessions = $2.1 million for sitting on their behinds, most of them hiding from passing the budget! Great Googly Moogly!! The others: 2. Expand conflict of interest reporting requirements; 3. Deny state funding of overseas trips by legislators; 4. Prohibit lobbyists from buying alcohol or extravagant meals of legislators; and 5. Restrict money that foreign-influenced corporations can spend on state and local candidates.
More info staceywayneak@gmail.com and jonathan.s.kt@gmail.com. Thank you.
Jeff Budd, Sitka
