Vermillion Rockfish.

Rockfish populations are in trouble, and the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife is writing the first Puget Sound Rockfish Conservation Plan. This is a major step in protecting rockfish. Like the killer whale and salmon recovery plans, it creates a coordinated plan for recovery.

The plan is currently a draft, and comments are being accepted until January 4, 2010.

Why are comments important?

Based on the science we’ve conducted over the last decade, SeaDoc strongly agrees with some aspects of the plan and strongly disagrees with others. In the last ten years we’ve funded or conducted almost $700,000 in scientific research into the status, biology, and recovery of rockfish in the Salish Sea. Based on that science, SeaDoc strongly supports the proposed plan to managing fisheries in Puget Sound to ensure the health and productivity of all rockfish.

Also based on that science, SeaDoc questions the plan’s proposal to take no formal action to “protect and restore the functions of all rockfishes in the complex marine ecosystem and food web in Puget Sound.” As we have shown (Gaydos, et al., 2008), understanding the food web and accounting for ecosystem connectivity are critical ecological principles for designing healthy ecosystems.

We strongly disagree with the proposed plan to enhance the population of rockfish by creating artificial reefs and utilizing hatchery production. There’s no data that shows that rockfish are functionally incapable of reproducing, or that habitat availability is a limiting factor for recovery. These are expensive and ecologically-ungrounded tools.

The Puget Sound Rockfish Conservation Plan will set the course for future conservation efforts. It’s important to get it right.

What you can do: (this data can be found at http://www.seadocsociety.org/rockfish-comments)

Read the plan. It’s 105 pages, and fairly dense.

Or just look at a 2-page excerpt showing a chart of the basic recommendations.

Read Chief Scientist Joe Gaydos’s comments on behalf of the SeaDoc Society.

Make your own comments on the web site of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Why our work matters

Healthy ecosystems support economic prosperity. The Salish Sea provides abundant natural capital that contributes substantially to the financial prosperity of the region. Unhealthy ecosystems cost money because we lose the opportunity to benefit from them. The Salish Sea’s deteriorating health threatens our economic well being and quality of life. SeaDoc uses science to find solutions to the problems facing the fish, wildlife and people of the Salish Sea.