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Date Posted: 01:42:11 02/24/07 Sat
Author: Don Johnson (WHO OWNS ALASKA'S SURPLUS HALIBUT RESOURCE)
Subject: WHO OWNS ALASKA'S SURPLUS HALIBUT RESOURCE

WHO OWNS ALASKA'S SURPLUS HALIBUT RESOURCE
YOU OR THE LONGLINERS?

Our future halibut question will no doubt be; "how many did you have to throw back to
finally get that 60 pounder?".
The reply; "Oh I don't know, maybe 30 or 40, I can't really remember".

Have you ever had the unfortunate opportunity to fish a lake or river which only
had midget fish, which just happen to all be the same size?
You could sit there all day and land as many as you want but you never took
any home because they were to small...
This is the current unfortunate direction which has been charted for Alaska's
future public halibut fisheries. Can you imagine going halibut fishing on Cook Inlet
in 2020 and only being able to catch halibut weighing between 5 -15 pounds?
Believe it or not this may to be the final destination of Alaska's current halibut management.

The total public "daily or annual" bag limits of halibut must constantly decrease
into the future in order to continue to allow the commercial fishing industry to feed all the
restaurants on planet earth. It is as simple as that! Either Alaskan's get their common use
halibut fisheries rights trampled or folks all over the planet will have to trim back there
taste for Alaskan halibut. The reason this allocation collision is taking place is because
the Alaskan public is desiring more access to its own common fisheries property.

In the past Alaskan's have not demanded dramatic increase within their fisheries.
As tourism and subsistence elements increase within Alaska, it is natural that the
Alaskan public would desire additional fish to satisfy these needs. The problem is that
commercial fishermen have swatted on these previously unused public fisheries
resources, and now believe that they own them!
This is much like swatters traveling across America back hundreds of years ago
and upon stumbling onto some cattle ranchers beautiful land, deciding to build a
shack and call it home. Back then ranchers did not have much tolerance for
swatters rights and either just ran them off or went and got the law to.

Alaskans appear to have become much less aware of the swatter factor, especially
when it comes to their fisheries. Alaskans fisheries are a common property entity and
being a jointly owned affair seems to have confused some residents. Many Alaskan
residents have absolutely no idea as to who really owns their public fisheries.
They hear numbers like a 90 % / 10%, commercial long liners / public split on
the harvestable halibut resource, and they have no idea that they own the entire
resource and are only being granted 10% of it.
They hear about the public having their halibut bag limits chopped in half and assume
that the powers involved know what they are doing and that it must be necessary.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. The powers that be are the commercial
longliner industry and they fully understand that the Alaskan public owns 100%
of its Alaska fisheries. They know that they could be completely banned from
Alaska waters someday but they are not going to let the Alaskan public find that out.

The 2007 mid-January decision by the International Pacific Halibut Commission, IPHC
to limit charter customers to a single halibut per day, is getting tons of positive feedback
from commercial longliners and ounces of negative feedback from charter operators.
Longliners have stamped it as a great way to "SAVE" the halibut resource as the IPHC
saves a few hundred thousand pounds of halibut while allowing longliners to "bycatch"
waste millions of pounds per year. Also one halibut per day for the public is a drop in the
bucket when you consider the flood of halibut our longliners dump onto our domestic
and foreign fish markets.

Don't let anyone confuse you; this is nothing but a money issue.
As long liners attempt to proclaim that they are fishing for millions of lower 48 states
restaurants, they are in reality only fishing for their own bank accounts. These markets
exist because longliners created them. If those markets did not have halibut to purchase, they
would be purchasing some other type of fish. It could be a farmed salmon or halibut,
it could even be replaced with chicken or beef. The point is that this halibut market
WAS CREATED BY LONGLINERS and it absorbed buyers from other markets.
If there were no more halibut, these restaurants would not go out of business, they
would just change their menus and continue. The point is that the survival of these outside
businesses is not dependent on Alaska's fisheries resources, ALASKAN RESIDENTS ARE!
Chopping resident Alaskan fisheries access by 50%, be it for one day or from June 15 - 30
or from June 15 through July, is not the real issue. The real issue is that you are chopping
resident Alaskan's fisheries access so that some lower 48 restaurant will not be
INCONVENIENCED into altering its menu, and that is simply pathetic.

Longliners are out there claiming that they are just filling orders for millions of
lower 48 customers "and that is simply a manipulative lie".
That would be like saying the guy who broke into your house and stole your TV set,
was just out there filling orders for some pawn shop. Would you believe that?
Longliners are in fact stealing Alaska's surplus halibut resource while claiming that
they own it through a confusing blur of complex "local and international"
commissions and allocation procedures.

“They did everything right,” said Linda Banker, executive director of the
Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association in Sitka, noting that the IPHC
action also included a reduction in the commercial harvest in Southeast.

Of coarse they did everything right! When the majority of IPHC seats are
held by longliner fishermen what else would they do? Would they admit to
successfully confusing the public into believing that it really does not own
Alaska's entire surplus halibut resource?

Linda Behnken also stated that the sport harvest taken by charter customers
of Southeast Alaska was 46 percent over its allocation in 2006, while the
commercial catch has been under its allocation for a decade. “If we go over
(the limit) we pay huge penalties and it is taken out of OUR QUOTA for the
following year,” she said. “For the last three years in Southeast the guided
sport has gone over its guideline harvest level.” GHL.

Longliners have to believe in there own fairytale because if they don't there
house of dollar bills collapses. It is pure a 100% brainwashed assumption
that they deserve or OWN any of Alaska's halibut but that is the "OUR QUOTA"
assumption which is woven between the lines of Linda Behnken's statements.
All longliners statements on halibut allocation are based on the false assumption that they
deserve or OWN the majority of everyones publicly own halibut fisheries.
This is a masterful brainwashing action which has been successful up to this point.
Longliners have successfully been able to keep the general public off of its IPHC
and North Pacific Fishery Management Council, NPFMC and the end result of this
action is the fact that the Alaskan public will now have its access to its own public
halibut resource blocked.

There is no question about it, the Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association and
longliners in general, are claiming that THEY OWN Alaska's public halibut fisheries resource.
The only question that is still up in the air is, are you going to continue to do nothing
about it or are you going to get involved in Alaska's halibut resource issue?
Longliner continue to hope that you are to busy or have better things to do.

In 2020 are you going to be complaining that the longliners forced the public to wipe
most of Alaska's near shore, big halibut by dumping rediculas bag limits on its charter boats?
Will you be satisfied catching hundreds of midget halibut?

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