Fisheries managers know that over 90 percent of the chinook caught in the Alaska troll fisheries come from the Pacific Northwest. Chinook will feed in the Gulf of Alaska for up to six years. We fish them there for 10 months of the year. Not many chinook survive for six years with that fishing pressure. Those fisheries have contributed to the destruction of the chinook populations in the Pacific Northwest, leading to younger hence smaller and fewer chinook.
NOAA Fisheries has known this for decades and continues to facilitate those unsustainable destructive fishing practices. They invest hundreds of millions of public dollars in habitat while they enable commercial fishing practices that ensure there are no fish for that improved habitat.
If we are to save chinook and orcas and fill that habitat we must terminate the Alaska troll fisheries. The fisheries managers have known this for years yet they stubbornly resist.
