Help recover pacific salmon runs that enhance real estate values in the nw
The cream is rising to the top. Homes in the pacific northwest, specifically Portland and Seattle, are holding their values, while other areas suffer. Portland, Oregon is one of the top 3 metropolitan real estate markets in the country. In fact, Portland is #2 in the country currently, for holding property values up.
Why is this a fact? Certainly it can be attributed to the quality of life.
Salmon is one of the reasons, as well as superior environmental attributes, that contribute to the quality of life in the pacific northwest. As we say, location, location, location. That is what makes strong real estate markets.
Those of us who live in the pacific northwest know why our homes are at the top of the list. We live here because of the quality of our salmon fishery, the water, our ocean, our rivers, the air, and the people, as well as other attributes unique to the pacific northwest.
I am going to digress a bit in this article however, to make a point that everyone concerned with the salmon runs in the pacific northwest should know. These salmon runs are major motivational reasons why companies and people choose to live here.
While this website is primarily an information source, with respect to solving groundwater problems with hand excavated french drains, that mandate needs to step aside for a minute, and this site needs to function as a soap box from which to discuss another important aspect of the quality of life in the pacific northwest. Our beloved salmon runs, and what is happening to them.
While I am quite sure that you have a formulated opinion on the subject, due to the information that the public receives on the subject, I doubt that you really understand what is going on under the table.
Our salmon runs are under siege by the commercial Alaskan fishery. The Alaskan commercial fisherman netters scoop them up before they can return to their natal rivers in the northwest.
It is a fact that the Alaskan commercial fishery lobby has more money than everyone combined in the sport fishery advocacy, and that they have a 100 year plus head start at lobby organization, buying legislators, and the manipulation of the national catch allocation for salmon, at the Washington D.C. level.
Their first catch right, because of location, combined with massive catches without limit, are at the root of our own salmon declines. Facts indicate that these commercial salmon harvest practices are damaging our own pacific northwest salmon returns much more than ever thought previously.
Recently documented catch information has shone a bright light on the truth of why our salmon runs are disappearing.
The fact is that while the Alaska commercial salmon fishery harvested a record spring-summer salmon catch in 2007, the northwest rivers suffered staggering losses of native and hatchery salmon. The Alaskan funded lobby, in Washington D.C. would like you to believe that it is our own bad management that is at the root of our salmon return problem.
The fact is that 88% of the fish harvested in Alaska by the commercial netters, without regard for allocation, were spawned, grown, and released from northwest Washington and Oregon rivers, not Alaskan rivers.
While these staggering facts are documented, the organized commercial fishing lobby in Alaska wants the sport fishermen of the northwest to continue to argue about how many fish our commercial Columbia river fishermen take. They have planted the agenda in the minds of the Washington D.C. law makers, as well as lined their pockets with cash to keep us talking about everything but the real cause of our salmon losses.
While the sport fishermen of the northwest blame the tribes, the spawning habitat, and distinction between fin clipped and non fin clipped salmon, the spill amounts that enhance the smolt survival over the Columbia River dams, the number of the dams, the length of the sport salmon catch season, the abilities of our state run fishery organizations, the cost of licenses, the Alaskan commercial lobby has the lions share of the catch, bagged and tagged.
The purpose of this information is to inform you of an organization that has been around for 35 years in the United States, fighting everywhere but the northwest, for sport fishing allocation and controls on commercial fishing, from the gulf of Mexico, to Florida, to the east coast oceans.
The organization has recently started a sport fishing advocacy in the pacific northwest, thanks to sport fishing legend Gary Loomis, who sold his rod building company G. Loomis, to the Shimano corporation, some years ago.
This organizational effort in the northwest has evolved to help us recover our right to have our salmon return to our pacific northwest rivers, rather than them being scooped and canned before they can return from Alaskan waters.
Most of my guide friends, my fellow sport fishermen, native fish organizations, writers, fishery advocates, fishing companies, and sport fishing advocates, have joined an organization that now has over 4000 northwest members in just over 1 year.
The name of the organization is the Coastal Conservation Association. The short name is CCA.
“While Nero fiddles, Rome burns”. We must change this to protect our lifestyle, our property values, and our diet. We must force the Washington D.C. legislature to look at the compelling evidence, and help control the commercial salmon harvesters in Alaska.
We are going to change the discussion to one of historical facts, with respect to what I have said above.
You can be part of the effort by joining CCA, with a $25. contribution. You may write CCA at 6919 Portwest, suite 100 Houston, Texas 77024 Ph# 1-800-201-3474 * Fax#713-626-5852 or log on to joinCCA.org or CCAPNW.org Help us preserve and restore our pacific northwest salmon runs. They are part of why the pacific northwest is standing tall in the US real estate market, while others are failing.