Saturday, December 29, 2012

Friday, December 28, 2012

WDFW Proposal #15

 
Awesome Wild Resident Rainbow - UC River - American Reach


Having eaten once-abundant forage species like peamouth, pikeminnow and whitefish to the verge within Lake Roosevelt and the American-Canadian Reach segment of the Columbia above Lake Roosevelt, the out-of-control population of illegally introduced walleye rely increasingly more on native salmonids spawned in the Reach and LR tributaries as a source of prey, and as well, a despairingly high percentage of LR net-pen raised trout and kokanee. Sadly, it may already be too late for spawning populations of native strain kokanee. The redband and kokanee net-pen programs have, it comes to light, been costly and ultimately near-futile, with around 90% of net-pen fish eaten by walleye and smallmouth bass before reaching maturity. here’s the latest findings from Lake Roosevelt:
We may be on the verge of losing a unique genome and the greatest native trout fishery in our state, and somewould argue, the lower ’48. And for no good reason but for pure, slow moving ignorance fortified with short-sighted faux-economic politics. As recently as 1990, while I and other locals foresaw the collapse of our native fishery due to walleye predation, local fisheries agencies still thought that “managing” the Lake Roosevelt-UC drainage as a walleye fishery was a good idea, an easy mitigation for lost anadromous stocks, and they are still holding one foot on that base, and that in spite of the most recent studies showing that walleye predation could and may destroy this fishery – and then, in turn, without sufficient feed, the artificial walleye fishery itself will collapse. We see the process accelerating. WDFW recognizes it and has finally moved to ask public input on solutions. Of the suggestions WDFW puts forth, I and other UCNFA writers agree that only one of the proposals might have the impact needed to save the UC native trout fishery, and that is to remove ALL restrictions on the take of walleye and smallmouth bass. WDFW have set up a site outlining the proposal, and a box to take your comments. Our native salmonid fishery is at the tipping point. I urge you to take a minute to let the department know your opinion. December 15th is the deadline for comments. Your input right now is crucial to the future of the Columbia’s native fish. Your voice is stronger than you may know. Please
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