Thanks for the heads-up. We stayed for 50 speakers and then had to leave to file our story, so unfortunately we missed hearing your comments and those of the other speakers you refer to. We’ve changed the story accordingly.

Deborah

PERHAPS what Joel was REALLY doing, is (again SEE my 1st post) to MUDDY the waters so greedy, irresponsible developers, and their avaricious land owners, can take ALL the blame. Throughout the 19th and 20 century, it has become possible to HARVEST all that one can grab, reap the profits and leave the mess to the taxpayer. Know how much EXTRA we pay for the bloody dams/logging/toxic chemical farming, so special interests can get more Federal and State money for their pockets? The Indians ravaged their reservation land for profits; now YOU and I are paying SELECT tribes $90 million over 10 years to restore THEIR ravaged habitat. We KNOW the politicians have ZERO enforcement interests – it cuts down on campaign contributions – but

As I said in the 1st post:”…BOTH (commercial fisherman AND special interest landowners) have a mantra they shout like Mao’s Red Guards – FIRST, LOUDEST and LONGEST; ‘Not ME! NOT ME! It’s those…..(fill in the blank.).’ Next, these whiners, will be asking for their Federal + State Bail Out!, because, ’some one took all ‘their’ fish.

THANK YOU for helping PREOVE my point, Joel…much appreciated.

I spoke at the meeting and also support the No-Go Zone. Earlier in the evening here was an interesting suggestion on kayaks to limited group size and require kayakers to stay within 100 feet from shore and and then move to shore when whales are present. If there were strong enforcment on this ( meaning violatoers get substantial fines, then it seems workable). I also think all customers should have to sign agreement acknowledging their understanding of the new rules and penalties for enforcement. I don’t know what the scientists think about this one, but if they think it would work, it might make sense.

Can large commercial harvests of salmon be conducted in Puget Sound? Yes. Exhibit A is the Pink Salmon run of 2009. Why were the Pink Salmon able to come back in such large numbers when Chinook and Sockeye are still struggling? Pink salmon have much less dependence on freshwater habitat than Chinook or Sockeye. When habitat loss is less of a problem for a salmon run, traditional management is shown to work. For species that are highly dependent on freshwater habitat that is badly damaged as all watersheds in Puget Sound, harvest management can not work miracles. Habitat dependent salmon can only return in numbers that the stream can support.

“Pumpkineater” also mentions habitat destruction from commercial fishing. I’d like to have “pumpkineater” demonstrate how he clear cuts 5,000 acres in the Skagit River Watershed with a seine net. Or how you pave 200 acres of parking lot around Alderwood Mall with a gill net. Habitat destruction in Puget Sound is a consequence of people trying to make a place to live and work without paying attention to the needs of salmon.

Finally, the largest local source of chinook for the SRKW was the Columbia and Snake River. The federal government recently published a Biological Opinion on the Federal Power System – the dams. The Biological Opinion does not declare jeopardy for the SRKW due to low salmon populations in the Columbia River. However, the SRKW Biological Opinion states that the loss of salmon as available prey from the Columbia River contributes to the stress on orcas. The Biological Opinion for the Columbia and Snake Rivers fails SRKW and salmon because it does not increase salmon populations because it does not sufficiently increase the available healthy habitat and because it continues to ignore the damaging effects of the dams. In particular the Biological Opinion does not attempt to study the removal of the four lower Snake River dams until salmon populations fall to critically low numbers and until all salmon harvest has been further restricted or eliminated – a timeline that will recover neither salmon nor SRKW.

1. Establish a hypothesis (Boating and fishing harm orcas off San Juan Island);
2. Establish controlled experiments that can be repeated to prove the hypothesis (Does the data irrefutably support that boats and fishing cause harm to the orcas?); and
3. Can these experiments be repeated by other researchers?

Based on these fundamental requirements, there is a logical chasm that has been leapt from their hypothesis to their conclusions. Basic flaws include a failure to connect the decline in orca population to fishing and boat traffic off the West Side. Where is the direct correlation? What other variables may contribute to a decline, if any, such as declining fish runs, water temperatures from El Nino and La Nina? Is there truly a decline? How has the study shown that no fishing or boating in any other area has increased orca populations? Has this hypothesis been proven using the same experiments by other researchers? The list of questions goes on and on. It would be astounding if these scientists can honestly look themselves in the mirror and be proud of their work and still call themselves scientists. They’ve failed Science 101.

We’ve entered an era of pop science, which draws an illogical conclusion based on a predetermined outcome that is founded in political beliefs.