FireFish
02-13-2009, 07:07 PM
This is very good, have you seen this???
Feb 10, 2009
Washington Fish & Wildlife Commissioners
600 Capitol Way North
Olympia, Washington 98501-1091
Oregon Fish & Wildlife Commissioners
3406 Cherry Ave. NE
Salem, OR 97303
RE: Proposals for Enhancing Compliance and Law Enforcement in
the Columbia River Commercial Fishery
Dear Washington and Oregon Fish & Wildlife Commissioners,
This letter is authored and endorsed by a group of retired Fish and Wildlife Officers
with more than 300 years of experience combined, much of it on the Columbia River
enforcing sport and commercial fishing regulations. We are speaking out in this cooperative
effort in the hope that we can improve the working conditions and effectiveness of current,
thinly spread enforcement officers, promote conservation, and to improve the reporting
requirements for the Columbia River commercial fishery. Our proposed regulations will
bring urgently needed reforms to reduce the risk of illegal gillnetting and catch reporting on
the Columbia River, which effect many ESA-listed salmon and steelhead stocks, but we see no
reason why the proposed reforms should not apply to Puget Sound as well.
Since the Columbia River gillnet fishery began, the Fish & Wildlife officials on both
sides of the river have relied on gillnet fishermen to report their own catches of salmon and
sturgeon using “fish tickets.” The procedure assumes that fishermen will list their entire
catch on these tickets at the time they sell the fish to processors and they will include their
total poundage as well as the number of fish caught. The glaring defect in this reporting
system is that fishermen may legally possess these food fish on the water without recording
their catch at all. Gillnetters have no legal requirement to report a catch until it is either sold
to a buyer on the water or transported to a buyer off the river. By contrast, sport fishers must
record any retained salmon, steelhead or sturgeon immediately after catching it on a tag
purchased with their angling licenses.
This lack of immediate reporting requirement for commercial fishers greatly
complicates law enforcement efforts. Illegal fishing must be interdicted at the point of sale,
gift or other use, rather than at the time of the catch. Another aspect of the commercial
fishing laws, when joined with the lax catch reporting rule, invites a serious conflict of
interest. Commercial gillnetters must sell either to a wholesale dealer or to the holder of a
Limited Fish Seller’s Permit. The problem is that gillnetters themselves may hold both of
these types of licenses. With these licenses, they may then sell fish directly to the public.
Page 2 of 4
These licensing and self-reporting rules combine to create a nearly insurmountable
law enforcement challenge. No simple record keeping law prevents a gillnet fisherman from
retaining unrecorded fish for personal use, from transferring unrecorded fish to friends and
neighbors, or from selling unrecorded fish on the black market. Over the years, law
enforcement officers have attempted to interdict such practices, but the cases demand many
hours of surveillance and tracking. This is due to the fact that there is no reporting rule, as
with sport fishers, that would allow officers to check a catch, on the water when made, for
proper recording by the fisherman.
To this complicated matrix, add the fact that gillnetting is conducted at night. For law
enforcement reasons, sport fishing for sturgeon at night on the Columbia River has been
prohibited for more than two decades by both Washington and Oregon. Oregon prohibits
angling for salmon at night throughout the entire state. Washington restricts angling for
salmon at night in many areas of the state. The same standard should apply to the
commercial fishery, which is no less difficult to enforce than the sport fisheries, if not more
so. As with sport fishing, darkness compounds the enforcement challenges for the gillnet
fishery and makes the important work of protecting wild salmon and steelhead stocks from
over harvest or poaching even more difficult. Night fishing closures should be universal in all
areas for all users.
In the past, managers believed conflict among sport and commercial fishers justified
night gillnetting. This is no longer a valid argument. The number of fishing days has
decreased so dramatically for both sport and commercial fishing that there is ample time for
both groups to be on the water during the daylight.
Also, fishing areas are more concentrated now, as are the fish, dispelling the argument
that fishers cannot net fish as easily in the daylight. The 2008 Spring Chinook season
featured a day light gillnet fishery for the bulk of the season. Quotas were easily met and
enforcement officers were able to effectively monitor the fleet throughout the season.
Over the years, concerned citizens have tried to shed light on the conflicts of interest in
the reporting rules and the burdens posed by night gillnetting. Unfortunately, the
Commissioners and Departments have favored the flawed status quo, even while salmon and
steelhead runs continue their perilous declines. They have overlooked the basic conflict
inherent in a system that allows individual businessmen, with the most to gain from
subverting the system, to have unfettered control over the timing and accuracy of their catch
data reporting.
A recent case has exposed the ease with which these rules may be manipulated to
understate catch numbers and essentially swindle both States out of the poundage fees and
accurate harvest records they are due. After an expensive two year investigation, members
of Heuker Bros., Inc. a family owned commercial and wholesale fishing business near
Dodson, Oregon plead guilty to falsifying fish catch records on over 50 occasions. They
agreed to pay a $150,000 fine but will retain their licenses. They and the remainder of the
Page 3 of 4
fleet in Oregon and Washington may continue their gillnet fishing year after year, under the
same defective regulations.
Fish catch records are used for more than just calculating poundage fees, but have a
vital conservation role. Accurate records are important for monitoring quotas for various
groups of fishers on the river and to protect sensitive or ESA-listed fish stocks from over
harvest. Mandatory record keeping of bycatch, such as steelhead and sturgeon, is also
important to provide an accurate assessment of impacts on non-target species. The Heuker
brothers’ disregard for the resource, coupled with their ease in falsifying records,
demonstrate the inadequacy of this self-reporting system.
These commercial fishing rules must be corrected. Even in the current fiscal
environment there are simple, inexpensive ways to increase compliance and ease
enforcement. Reporting rules must be tightened, the conflicts of interest must be removed,
and night fishing must be prohibited.
An improved rule for documentation could state as follows:
Log books showing all catch activity while fishing shall be required. All fish must
be recorded upon removing the net from the water and prior to travel or
continuation of fishing (unless safety requires otherwise.) In any season where a
weekly limit applies, fish must be recorded immediately upon retention by the
fisher. All active fishers must carry this log book at all times while in possession of
food fish. The log books shall be subject to inspection at any time by any law
enforcement officer or employee of the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
A rule prohibiting night gillnetting could state as follows:
Fishing on the main stem of the Columbia River or in SAFE areas is permitted
during daylight hours only. No commercial fishing boat registered in Oregon or
Washington may travel on the main stem Columbia River during the hours of
darkness with fishing gear on board, except that such boats may be in transit to or
from fishing areas. Such transit may occur no sooner than one hour prior to
official daylight and no later than one hour after official sunset for the area in
which the day light fishing season is set. If a fisher is unable to comply with these
rules due to circumstances beyond the fisher’s control, the fisher must immediately
advise the United States Coast Guard of the situation on Channel 16.
Additional rules needed include:
For each and every boat engaged in gillnetting on a particular day, fishers shall
report their boat identification and license number to a Department of Fish &
Wildlife hotline and report their planned fishing location by zone.
Page 4 of 4
Boats engaged in the fishery should have identifying block character numbers on
the hull measuring 12 inches in height and of a color contrasting with the hull.
Any undersize fish or other fish not allowed to be kept under law or the season
rules shall be handled with care and safely returned to the water immediately, or
handled in accordance with rules for the tangle net fishery.
These proposed regulations are long past due, and we believe that serious enforcement
problems with the gillnet fishery will continue without your involvement and assistance. We
hope you will consider the above regulations for implementation as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Joe Schwab, OSP Fish & Wildlife, Ret.
CCA Oregon GRC, CRRAC
Jim Tuggle, WDFW Enforcement Sgt., Ret.
CCA Washington GRC, PSA
Ed Wickersham, USFWS Special Agent, Ret.,
Chair, CCA Washington GRC
Endorsed by:
Tom Ashmore, OSP Fish & Wildlife, Ret.
Glenn McDonald, OSP Fish & Wildlife, Ret.
Richard McDonald, Former OSP Fish & Wildlife, USFWS, Ret.
Tim Johnson, OSP Fish & Wildlife, Ret.
Roger Nelson, OSP Fish & Wildlife, Ret.
Mike DeBolt, OSP Fish and Wildlife, Ret.
Glen Smith, OSP Fish & Wildlife, Ret.
Steve Shaw, OSP Fish & Wildlife, Ret.
Phillip Knudsen, USFWS, Resident Agent In Charge, Washington, Ret.
Chuck Kohls, WDFW Enforcement, Captain, Ret.
Ken Jundt, WDFW Enforcement Sgt., Ret.
David Welch, WDFW Enforcement, Ret.
Gregg Powell, WDFW Enforcement, Ret.
Cc: Governor Chris Gregoire
Governor Ted Kulongoski
FireFish...;)
Feb 10, 2009
Washington Fish & Wildlife Commissioners
600 Capitol Way North
Olympia, Washington 98501-1091
Oregon Fish & Wildlife Commissioners
3406 Cherry Ave. NE
Salem, OR 97303
RE: Proposals for Enhancing Compliance and Law Enforcement in
the Columbia River Commercial Fishery
Dear Washington and Oregon Fish & Wildlife Commissioners,
This letter is authored and endorsed by a group of retired Fish and Wildlife Officers
with more than 300 years of experience combined, much of it on the Columbia River
enforcing sport and commercial fishing regulations. We are speaking out in this cooperative
effort in the hope that we can improve the working conditions and effectiveness of current,
thinly spread enforcement officers, promote conservation, and to improve the reporting
requirements for the Columbia River commercial fishery. Our proposed regulations will
bring urgently needed reforms to reduce the risk of illegal gillnetting and catch reporting on
the Columbia River, which effect many ESA-listed salmon and steelhead stocks, but we see no
reason why the proposed reforms should not apply to Puget Sound as well.
Since the Columbia River gillnet fishery began, the Fish & Wildlife officials on both
sides of the river have relied on gillnet fishermen to report their own catches of salmon and
sturgeon using “fish tickets.” The procedure assumes that fishermen will list their entire
catch on these tickets at the time they sell the fish to processors and they will include their
total poundage as well as the number of fish caught. The glaring defect in this reporting
system is that fishermen may legally possess these food fish on the water without recording
their catch at all. Gillnetters have no legal requirement to report a catch until it is either sold
to a buyer on the water or transported to a buyer off the river. By contrast, sport fishers must
record any retained salmon, steelhead or sturgeon immediately after catching it on a tag
purchased with their angling licenses.
This lack of immediate reporting requirement for commercial fishers greatly
complicates law enforcement efforts. Illegal fishing must be interdicted at the point of sale,
gift or other use, rather than at the time of the catch. Another aspect of the commercial
fishing laws, when joined with the lax catch reporting rule, invites a serious conflict of
interest. Commercial gillnetters must sell either to a wholesale dealer or to the holder of a
Limited Fish Seller’s Permit. The problem is that gillnetters themselves may hold both of
these types of licenses. With these licenses, they may then sell fish directly to the public.
Page 2 of 4
These licensing and self-reporting rules combine to create a nearly insurmountable
law enforcement challenge. No simple record keeping law prevents a gillnet fisherman from
retaining unrecorded fish for personal use, from transferring unrecorded fish to friends and
neighbors, or from selling unrecorded fish on the black market. Over the years, law
enforcement officers have attempted to interdict such practices, but the cases demand many
hours of surveillance and tracking. This is due to the fact that there is no reporting rule, as
with sport fishers, that would allow officers to check a catch, on the water when made, for
proper recording by the fisherman.
To this complicated matrix, add the fact that gillnetting is conducted at night. For law
enforcement reasons, sport fishing for sturgeon at night on the Columbia River has been
prohibited for more than two decades by both Washington and Oregon. Oregon prohibits
angling for salmon at night throughout the entire state. Washington restricts angling for
salmon at night in many areas of the state. The same standard should apply to the
commercial fishery, which is no less difficult to enforce than the sport fisheries, if not more
so. As with sport fishing, darkness compounds the enforcement challenges for the gillnet
fishery and makes the important work of protecting wild salmon and steelhead stocks from
over harvest or poaching even more difficult. Night fishing closures should be universal in all
areas for all users.
In the past, managers believed conflict among sport and commercial fishers justified
night gillnetting. This is no longer a valid argument. The number of fishing days has
decreased so dramatically for both sport and commercial fishing that there is ample time for
both groups to be on the water during the daylight.
Also, fishing areas are more concentrated now, as are the fish, dispelling the argument
that fishers cannot net fish as easily in the daylight. The 2008 Spring Chinook season
featured a day light gillnet fishery for the bulk of the season. Quotas were easily met and
enforcement officers were able to effectively monitor the fleet throughout the season.
Over the years, concerned citizens have tried to shed light on the conflicts of interest in
the reporting rules and the burdens posed by night gillnetting. Unfortunately, the
Commissioners and Departments have favored the flawed status quo, even while salmon and
steelhead runs continue their perilous declines. They have overlooked the basic conflict
inherent in a system that allows individual businessmen, with the most to gain from
subverting the system, to have unfettered control over the timing and accuracy of their catch
data reporting.
A recent case has exposed the ease with which these rules may be manipulated to
understate catch numbers and essentially swindle both States out of the poundage fees and
accurate harvest records they are due. After an expensive two year investigation, members
of Heuker Bros., Inc. a family owned commercial and wholesale fishing business near
Dodson, Oregon plead guilty to falsifying fish catch records on over 50 occasions. They
agreed to pay a $150,000 fine but will retain their licenses. They and the remainder of the
Page 3 of 4
fleet in Oregon and Washington may continue their gillnet fishing year after year, under the
same defective regulations.
Fish catch records are used for more than just calculating poundage fees, but have a
vital conservation role. Accurate records are important for monitoring quotas for various
groups of fishers on the river and to protect sensitive or ESA-listed fish stocks from over
harvest. Mandatory record keeping of bycatch, such as steelhead and sturgeon, is also
important to provide an accurate assessment of impacts on non-target species. The Heuker
brothers’ disregard for the resource, coupled with their ease in falsifying records,
demonstrate the inadequacy of this self-reporting system.
These commercial fishing rules must be corrected. Even in the current fiscal
environment there are simple, inexpensive ways to increase compliance and ease
enforcement. Reporting rules must be tightened, the conflicts of interest must be removed,
and night fishing must be prohibited.
An improved rule for documentation could state as follows:
Log books showing all catch activity while fishing shall be required. All fish must
be recorded upon removing the net from the water and prior to travel or
continuation of fishing (unless safety requires otherwise.) In any season where a
weekly limit applies, fish must be recorded immediately upon retention by the
fisher. All active fishers must carry this log book at all times while in possession of
food fish. The log books shall be subject to inspection at any time by any law
enforcement officer or employee of the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
A rule prohibiting night gillnetting could state as follows:
Fishing on the main stem of the Columbia River or in SAFE areas is permitted
during daylight hours only. No commercial fishing boat registered in Oregon or
Washington may travel on the main stem Columbia River during the hours of
darkness with fishing gear on board, except that such boats may be in transit to or
from fishing areas. Such transit may occur no sooner than one hour prior to
official daylight and no later than one hour after official sunset for the area in
which the day light fishing season is set. If a fisher is unable to comply with these
rules due to circumstances beyond the fisher’s control, the fisher must immediately
advise the United States Coast Guard of the situation on Channel 16.
Additional rules needed include:
For each and every boat engaged in gillnetting on a particular day, fishers shall
report their boat identification and license number to a Department of Fish &
Wildlife hotline and report their planned fishing location by zone.
Page 4 of 4
Boats engaged in the fishery should have identifying block character numbers on
the hull measuring 12 inches in height and of a color contrasting with the hull.
Any undersize fish or other fish not allowed to be kept under law or the season
rules shall be handled with care and safely returned to the water immediately, or
handled in accordance with rules for the tangle net fishery.
These proposed regulations are long past due, and we believe that serious enforcement
problems with the gillnet fishery will continue without your involvement and assistance. We
hope you will consider the above regulations for implementation as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Joe Schwab, OSP Fish & Wildlife, Ret.
CCA Oregon GRC, CRRAC
Jim Tuggle, WDFW Enforcement Sgt., Ret.
CCA Washington GRC, PSA
Ed Wickersham, USFWS Special Agent, Ret.,
Chair, CCA Washington GRC
Endorsed by:
Tom Ashmore, OSP Fish & Wildlife, Ret.
Glenn McDonald, OSP Fish & Wildlife, Ret.
Richard McDonald, Former OSP Fish & Wildlife, USFWS, Ret.
Tim Johnson, OSP Fish & Wildlife, Ret.
Roger Nelson, OSP Fish & Wildlife, Ret.
Mike DeBolt, OSP Fish and Wildlife, Ret.
Glen Smith, OSP Fish & Wildlife, Ret.
Steve Shaw, OSP Fish & Wildlife, Ret.
Phillip Knudsen, USFWS, Resident Agent In Charge, Washington, Ret.
Chuck Kohls, WDFW Enforcement, Captain, Ret.
Ken Jundt, WDFW Enforcement Sgt., Ret.
David Welch, WDFW Enforcement, Ret.
Gregg Powell, WDFW Enforcement, Ret.
Cc: Governor Chris Gregoire
Governor Ted Kulongoski
FireFish...;)