Tag: Salmon Management

Being Frank: Certainty is Key

This year’s North of Falcon salmon management process, for the coast and Puget Sound, was tougher than it’s ever been.

North of Falcon is the key part of annual planning that brings state and tribal co-managers together with input from stakeholders to set fishing regulations north of the Oregon Coast cape of the same name.

As in years past, it was a give-and-take process of shaping fisheries to fit under the “impact lid” that helps us protect weak wild salmon stocks while, to the extent possible, harvesting abundant hatchery salmon. We are especially concerned about protecting Puget Sound chinook listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.

Being Frank: Hope

I was recently asked to sum up my aspirations for the new year in a single word. For me, the word is hope.

If I could give everyone a single gift, it would be hope, because it is the spawning ground of all worthy achievement and the source of light on our trail ahead. It is the primary source of human energy, and to be without it is worse than death.

I’m not referring to the trail our country has been on for the past six years—years of corporate self-indulgence at the expense of environmental investment. The achievements I speak of have nothing to do with drilling more oil wells or erecting taller buildings to further pad the wallets of the super rich.