Allowable fishing for chinook salmon in the waters of Canada and
Southeast Alaska will be cut back significantly this year as a
result of a revised 10-year Pacific Salmon Treaty between the
United States and Canada.
Chinook salmon // Photo:
NOAA Fisheries
The goal of the updated treaty is to increase the number of
adult chinook returning to Washington and Oregon waters, where they
will be available to feed a declining population of endangered
orcas while increasing the number of fish spawning in the streams,
according to Phil Anderson, a U.S. negotiator on the Pacific Salmon
Commission.
Most chinook hatched in Washington and Oregon travel north
through Canada and into Alaska, making them vulnerable to fishing
when they return. Changes to the treaty should reduce Canadian
harvests on those stocks by about 12.5 percent and Alaskan harvests
by about 7.5 percent, Phil told me. Those numbers are cutbacks from
actual harvests in recent years, he said, so they don’t tell the
complete story.
I’d like to offer my personal congratulations to Phil Anderson,
who was appointed yesterday as the permanent director of the
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Phil
Anderson
Phil has been acting as interim director since Jeff Koenings
left the job in December.
I’ve known Phil since about 1992, when I began covering the
annual meetings of the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which
establishes fishing seasons for the Pacific Northwest.
Phil had been running a commercial charterboat business out of
Westport and was very knowledgeable about harvest levels and the
need to protect salmon. I believe he was chairman of the PFMC when
I first met him.
In 1994, he took a job with WDFW and led the annual negotiations
that establish allocations between tribal and nontribal fishers, as
well as among various non-Indian fishing groups.
I recall numerous times when he stood in front of tough fishing
groups and skeptical tribal representatives and explained calmly
how answers would come if people followed the science and kept
working together.
Phil has always been willing to explain complex management
issues to me, and I’m grateful for that.
Even when he finds himself under fire — as he did recently in
dealing with the proposed Lake Tahuyeh boat launch and human waste
on the Skokomish River — Anderson does not shy away from tough
questions and takes responsibility for departmental actions. It’s a
pleasure to interview leaders like that.
So I wish him well in his new job, which seems to be one of the
hottest seats in state government. Pleasing all the fish and
wildlife interests and the Legislature is impossible, almost by
definition, but Phil has a rare quality of juggling many concerns
at once and trying to come up with fair solutions.
For more details about his background, comments from the Fish
and Wildlife Commission and job issues, check out the commission’s
news release. See also a story today by Jeffrey P. Mayor in
The
News Tribune.
