Write the Governor todayâ€"In the subject line, put: I SPORT FISH AND I VOTE! If you don’t tell her there is a problem, she won’t know! Be polite, be short and be accurate! All the highlighted text should be either changed to fit you more personally or deleted before you send it. You will have to copy and paste your completed letter into the contact portion of the Governors web site listed below.
Gov. Chris Gregoire
http://www.governor.wa.gov/contact/default.asp cc: E-mail to Your Legislator in Olympia, your Senator and both Representatives
http://dfind.leg.wa.gov/dfinder.cfm and cc: the Fish and Wildlife Commission
[email protected]
Honorable Gov. Gregoire,
My name is xxxxxxxxxxxxxI live in Washington, and thoroughly enjoy fishing in our state, My family and I enjoy fishing and would like to continue to do so. I am writing because this is an emergency! License sales are dramatically down, sport fishing jobs are being lost, not only do our fish, Sportsmen, and the sport fishing industry need your help! In order to turn things around, the sport fishery needs your support and backing to stay open in the Columbia into May.
1) Conservation: We cannot gillnet our way to recovery: 1) Bycatch (Wild and hatchery Steelhead & Sturgeon), 2) Front loaded fisheries 3) Rising river temperatures will increase gillnetters already high release mortalities. 4) Sport fishing removes 3 times as many hatchery fish from the spawning beds for the same wild fish protection as gillnets do (Because of selective sport fishing, our release mortality is 10%, Gillnet release mortalities are 40%)
2) Equity: or fairness. The current distribution is not right. The current plan does not provide any benefit to Washington State Sportsmen; less than seventy Washington commercial fishermen receive up to 50% of the allocation of which they at times take more. While tens of thousands of sport fishermen get what is left. More often than not fisheries are opened to the commercial fleet first, only after they have caught a given percent of their share does the Sportsmen have a opportunity.
3) Economics: By closing down sport fisheries to conduct gillnet fisheries, not only are we hampering recovery, we are losing millions in economic benefits and jobs to the state of Washington.
We have a vision:
The gillnetters can continue to fish, and remain as an important harvest tool, by fishing selectively in the terminal fishing areas. We need to expand selective sport fisheries, as well as expand select area terminal gillnet fisheries! By doing this we can all get what we want and our local economies need.
More time with our fishing gear in the water!
The recent so called solutions have been of the all or nothing approach and that does not work. We need a commission that we look at the facts and see that Sportsmen pour millions of dollars a year into our states recreational fisheries, and the local economies around them, this cannot be over looked.
I understand and am thankful that the Commission in Washington IS conservation oriented, but as the old saying says “It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks.� Fish in particular the Salmon and Steelhead can no longer afford being held hostage to 60 year old management plans. There are now more Sportsmen that travel further and invest far more dollars in their passion of fishing than in the past years. The Commission needs to recognize that Sportsmen as a group are large and are extremely influential in the economy of Washington State.
Governor Gregoire, thank you for taking the time to hear my concerns. You have often stated that sport fishing is our heritage as well as a past time that you yourself have enjoyed, and an economic engine for our state. Both are in trouble and need your attention right now! I will be happy to find answers to any questions you may have.
Thank You for your continued help and support,
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