Oregon Public Broadcasting

There’s grumbling and dismay today in fishing harbors from Vancouver Island to southeast Alaska.  It contrasts with the pleasure heard around here over a new salmon fishing deal.

Treaty negotiators got Alaska and Canada to agree to significant cuts in their salmon harvest so that more threatened fish make it back to Oregon and Washington rivers to spawn.

Tim Bristol works for Trout Unlimited in Juneau. He says southeast Alaska fishermen are carrying too much of the burden for solving a problem they didn’t create.

Tim Bristol: “I don’t know how much more you can ask fishermen to take.  You know, they’re sitting on the beach in the Northwest and California and the trollers, it looks like, are taking another huge hit here. Sooner or later we’re going to have to get everybody to step back and take that big picture look and start asking our friends in the Northwest to make the sacrifices that they seem to be so fond of asking us to make.”

The proposed treaty terms include big payouts to fishing boat owners to lessen their pain.  The agreement hinges on the U.S. Congress finding $30 million to compensate West Coast Canadian fishers and another $7 million for southeast Alaska.