After hearing Sandra O’Neill talk about how resident Chinook are so much more contaminated with PCBs and PDBEs than offshore Chinook, I’m wondering if WDFW shouldn’t encourage harvesting of all blackmouth in a manner that maximizes the sequesteration of bioaccumulating toxins in landfills and/or humans. Maybe we could limit recreational, commerical, and tribal catch of the cleanest Chinook and chum so that orcas have plenty of clean fish to eat and thereby minimize the flux of additional polllutants into their bodies?
Or maybe we should keep orcas from coming into Puget Sound to forage for toxic fish? Of course, we need to clarify with Sandra where North Puget Sound ends (and toxic fish are less prevalent) versus where Georgia Basin and the Strait of Juan de Fuca begin…
This from the latest email announcement from the WDFW Weekender Report (November 12-25, 2008):
Once the weather does improve, Steve Thiesfeld, WDFW fish biologist, recommends fishing for blackmouth salmon – resident chinook – in marine areas 9 (Admiralty Inlet) and 10 (Seattle/Bremerton). Anglers fishing Marine Area 10 can keep one chinook as part of a two-salmon daily limit. Those fishing in Marine Area 9 also have a two-salmon daily limit but can keep up to two hatchery chinook per day. Wild chinook salmon, which have an intact adipose fin, cannot be brought aboard the boat in Marine Area 9.
Thiesfeld reminds anglers that there are still a lot of shakers out in the Sound, and suggests using larger spoons and plugs to minimize the catch of those juvenile chinook. “Treat those fish with extreme care when releasing them because they are next year’s crop of blackmouth,” he said.