Catie Quinn, KSRM Radio
http://radiokenai.net/58757/
April 24th, 2013
Posted: April 24, 2013 at 9:00 am
This is a tough one for me. I’ve wrestled with these questions I’m going to present for weeks and months now, and I still can’t find an explanation for both sides of the story.
So, let me lay out what I do know…
For whatever reasons Kenai River Sportfishing Association wanted Vince Webster off of the Board of Fish, but the reasons they gave to legislators don’t hold water. Here is the list of reasons, as emailed from KRSA. My questions are entered in italics…
• He directly participated in precariously and unnecessarily lowering the escapement goal of Kenai River king salmon during a time of record low abundance and uncertain future production. This was a unanimous Board decision, based on a recommendation from the Alaska Department of Fish & Game.
• As an experienced member on the BOF, Mr. Webster was tasked to co-chair a Cook Inlet king salmon task force. Its mission was essentially to identify the best mix of fishing opportunity during times of low king salmon abundance and the best means of attaining the escapement goal. Unfortunately, the final work product of the task force failed. The process he was tasked to oversee ended in deadlock. This was also true of Tom Kluberton.
• The failure of the task force rests in large part with Mr. Webster. A canceled December meeting wasted valuable time that could have been used to address ADFG processes to establish escapement goals. Subsequent meetings offered no forward progress and squandered valuable time, resources and energy of participants. This was also true of Tom Kluberton.
Due to copyright law, the Alaska Salmon Alliance cannot repost articles in full. You can read this editorial in its entirety here.
Ricky Gease editorial that is generating the responses.
http://peninsulaclarion.com/opinion/2013-04-24/basic-fish-management-principles-ignored
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