News - Coastal Management Plan

From: Ian Fergusson [mailto:ian.fergusson@comcast.net]
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2014 3:52 PM
Subject: Coastal Management Plan

I have sent the comments on the Coastal Management Plan to the Commission for inclusion in the written record.

I will not be attending the Commission meeting, but I know others of you are. If someone wants to present verbal testimony, these are the major talking points as I see them, incorporating some points from Saturday’s meeting that were relayed to me. As Skip suggested, the letter will have been read by the Commission, so verbal testimony should briefly hit the major points:

We approve the plan in general, while retaining some concerns around specifics.

We favor the sliding scale harvest based on predicted abundance, and managed by region rather than river by river. 

We encourage ODFW to work closely with the Hatchery Research Center as proposed, with the emphasis being to further understand the impacts of hatchery fish on wild fish abundance and productivity.

We are concerned about further crowding of some rivers that already see heavy use.

We are disturbed by the lack of robust baseline data. 

We approve of the plan to begin intensive monitoring of the basins/species that are at the most risk: Elk River fall Chinook, South Umpqua Spring Chinook.We hope the lessons learned there can be applied elsewhere.

We urge ODFW to pursue funding for monitoring and research to guide management actions.

We continue to oppose expanding the harvest of wild steelhead beyond what is already in place. We have found little demand for wild steelhead harvest as long as significant uncertainty remains around abundance data. We think ODFW and law enforcement resources should be applied elsewhere.

 Ian

 CLICK HERE for the attached PDF Letter