On Sunday February 27th while in Hermiston I picked up a copy of the Tri-City Herald. What caught my eye was the front page story titled “Sustaining Tradition” Sturgeon help support tribal fisherman, but Columbia River runs are declining. The story is about two Yakima Native Americans, who fish near Celilo. The article addresses how the Native American fisherman, fish mostly for salmon, but during the winter make extra money “hauling in white sturgeon”. They don’t eat there catch, and are “fetching $2 a pound in town right now”. “Our people never did eat sturgeon too much.” “Although the Columbia River tribes didn’t depend on sturgeon then, the fish play a important role today”.
The numbers of fish being caught is what really startled me in the story. It states “About 2,000 to 3,000 sturgeon are taken from Bonneville Dam to John Day”. According to Kevin Kappenmen, a fisheries biologist for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. “The Portland-based agency manages fishing four the four Columbia River treaty tribes. Below Bonneville Dam, about 40,000 to 50,000 sturgeon are taken commercially by non-native fishers.” Kappenman is quoted extensively in the article, and continues to discuss the plight of sturgeon in the pools above Bonneville.
The Native American tribal fisherman is fishing with gill nets, and can keep fish only between four feet and five feet in length. How many other sturgeon are they killing in there nets that are never accounted for? If the commercial fisherman below Bonneville have length restrictions, and take as stated in the article 40,000 to 50,000 sturgeon then how many are they really killing?
The sports fisherman have very small quotas compared to these numbers and very few of our incidental catch, shakers and oversize die. Then there is defiantly something wrong with the picture here, or don’t I get it.
To view the entire article go to the following link,
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/lo...-6091095c.html
:whazzup:
Tri-City Herald "Sustaining Tradition"
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