Restoring the puget sound!

[fishingboy]

We need all of western washington to help restore the puget sound. The hood Canal oxygen have been really poor. Some scuba divers and some marine bios. found dead or almost dead flounder, sea-star, sculpins, lingcod, sand lance,. And a lingcod spawned in september and there was a whole bunch of squid eggs exploded. Ans also dead octopus, and whole bunch of other marine life.












PLEASE GO GREEN!

[Bro-Rando]

The list of problems goes on and on. The Puget Sound Partnership just released their action plan for cleaning up the sound by 2020. This is an extremely ambitius goal and some of the things the plan calls for might not be the easiest to swallow. I'm not exactly sure what is said about recreational fishing, but I know representatives from anglers associations and the like were involved in the writing of the plan. My hope is that this action plan will all the government to begin placing some of the burden of salmon recovery, etc. on the shoulders of developers and polluters instead of always just decreasing the number of fish we can catch. Sacrifices might have to be made by the fishing community in order to reach these goals, but if this is the case they had damn well better be on top of stricter enforcement of shoreline permitting laws, mandatory stormwater reduction, etc. A healthy Puget Sound would benefit us all in so many ways.

If anyone is interested in getting more information on current programs invovled in protecting the sound or wants to get involved feel free to PM me. I can probably guide you in the right direction.

Without a properly functioning ecosystem there aren't going to be any fish to catch, so I encourage you all to find a way that YOU can help the sound.

[racfish]

As long as money talks in our great state ,they will never clean up Puget Sound and or Elliot bay.When all the big money businesses along the Duwamish continue to dump illegally in the river what good will cleaning the sound do?Its a crying shame that were warned not to eat fish,or shellfish from Elliot,Commencement,Skagit bay areas.
Ifin we want a cleaner sound then we must get out and clean up garbage when we see it.Stand infront of Boeing or Lonestar with signs condemming the polluters.Its a crime to dump in the river .Most companies do.From the tug companies leaking deisel fuel to the container ships opening their bilges.The state fines them 5,000.00 if they get caught even.5 grand dosent even hurt most big corps.If you want to teach these culprits a lesson fine them a million.Until then its gonna be up to us to clean what we can.JMO

[DaKanati]

Im no scientist but I do remember as a kid that the hoodcanal was loaded with kelp beds, seaweed, and lots of fish. Even in a fishbowl you have to have a plant. Does anybody evertalk about restoring the kelp, seaweed, or anything else instead of catching less fish?

[christopherbeebe]

Im no scientist but I do remember as a kid that the hoodcanal was loaded with kelp beds, seaweed, and lots of fish. Even in a fishbowl you have to have a plant. Does anybody evertalk about restoring the kelp, seaweed, or anything else instead of catching less fish?

i hear you on that one. i also remember some 15-20 years ago when we would go to the des moines pier and see the bull kelp beds all over. thats when fishing was good, what happened to all the kelp beds? i've noticed even in westport, the in shore bull kelp beds are almost all gone. working the kelp me and my dad used to limit out on rockfish within a couple hours back then, again 15 years ago. nowdays you really have to work for the seabass if you are shorebound. i seen a sign the other day about they are going to rebuild the artificial reef off of the saltwater state park in des moines complete with "artificial" bull kelp and other artificial things. thats all good and all our fish do need cover and structure, but why don't they work on RESTORING THE REAL KELP BEDS but thats JMO

[Fish-or-man?]

I'm pretty sure the entire health of the Puget Sound depends on healthy eelgrass beds. I know as a state we've lost about a 1/3 of our eelgrass beds (I'm sure it's a lot more dismal in Puget Sound). Marine invertebrates, herring, salmon fry, and crab all directly depend on eelgrass beds. Their indirect impact therefore must be hard to measure it's so big.

If you dredge, build near its habitat (make shadows), or screw with the bottom at all I think it pretty much wipes it out. So if we replant we need to protect habitat first. I recall the Puget Creek Restoration Society, out of Tacoma, had a very impressive eelgrass replanting program a few years back (it's probably still active).