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I was back home in Alaska recently after a very long time (10 years, before that 15) hadn't been back much. the amount of marine mammals back in PWS is bonkers.

I was back home in Alaska recently after a very long time (10 years, before that 15) hadn't been back much. the amount of marine mammals back in PWS is bonkers. I do know that they've been scooping up hatchery fry like crazy. I mean, hide a hatchery from a bunch of whales, right? At least that seemed to be a theory on the recent shittiness of the seine season, who knows. I haven't fished in 25 years.

BMc2020 4y ago
Can you translate that to English?
- hinoki 4y ago
  I understood most of it and looked up the rest. PWS - Prince William Sound, a large bay in Alaska. Bonkers - crazy, so a large amount. Fry - juvenile fish Seine - a type of net that hangs vertically in the water used to corral fish. Only allowed at certain times of year? So fish farms feed whales, which also eat everything else, greatly reducing wild fish populations.
  - weeksie 4y ago
    Yup, that's pretty much exactly it. As for our regulations, Fish and Game determines when to open a region for a specific fishery, in the example we're using, it's purse seining, as you've correctly gathered. The decision to open or close is made based on "escapement" numbers, i.e. the estimated number of fish who have made it back up their origin river to spawn. In the case of hatcheries, that's easy to determine, but they've been using a sonar system named Bendix since the 70s or so to figure out the rivers.
- weeksie 4y ago
  there are a lot more marine mammals than there used to be. They're eating a ton of hatchery fish according to (many) anecdotal accounts. I also overheard a few Fish and Game guys putting forward that theory regarding the very bad returns during the Prince William Sound seine fishery. I'd never seen so many otters, seals, and orcas as I had in my return trip. With a lot more predators, it's a stretch to think that could be contributing. So while environmental contamination is never a bad bet, I'd be surprised if that's all it was. The people who say stuff like "overfishing" in regard to Alaskan fisheries (some of the best managed in the world) have no idea what they're talking about. Fucken English enough for ya?

BMc2020 4y ago

Can you translate that to English?

hinoki 4y ago
I understood most of it and looked up the rest. PWS - Prince William Sound, a large bay in Alaska. Bonkers - crazy, so a large amount. Fry - juvenile fish Seine - a type of net that hangs vertically in the water used to corral fish. Only allowed at certain times of year? So fish farms feed whales, which also eat everything else, greatly reducing wild fish populations.
- weeksie 4y ago
  Yup, that's pretty much exactly it. As for our regulations, Fish and Game determines when to open a region for a specific fishery, in the example we're using, it's purse seining, as you've correctly gathered. The decision to open or close is made based on "escapement" numbers, i.e. the estimated number of fish who have made it back up their origin river to spawn. In the case of hatcheries, that's easy to determine, but they've been using a sonar system named Bendix since the 70s or so to figure out the rivers.
weeksie 4y ago
there are a lot more marine mammals than there used to be. They're eating a ton of hatchery fish according to (many) anecdotal accounts. I also overheard a few Fish and Game guys putting forward that theory regarding the very bad returns during the Prince William Sound seine fishery. I'd never seen so many otters, seals, and orcas as I had in my return trip. With a lot more predators, it's a stretch to think that could be contributing. So while environmental contamination is never a bad bet, I'd be surprised if that's all it was. The people who say stuff like "overfishing" in regard to Alaskan fisheries (some of the best managed in the world) have no idea what they're talking about. Fucken English enough for ya?