Anglers Battle Public Misconceptions
By Dr. Jeff Koenings, WDFW Director
The Trout and Salmon Leader, Director's Column
July 2000

We've all been there.

We're at a business meeting, a luncheon, a get-together at a neighbor's house. The talk turns to salmon and the efforts now underway to recover threatened and endangered wild stocks.

Then, from the back of the room, comes the question.

"Isn't it true that the easiest way to recover wild salmon is simply to stop harvesting all fish for several years?" someone asks. It's hard to pick up a newspaper or turn on a televison or radio these days without seeing or hearing a story about salmon recovery. And with reason.

Restoring our wild salmon stocks is arguably the most complex and controversial public policy issue the Pacific Northwest has ever faced. Despite this intense public debate, however, many people still have major misconceptions about fishers, the fishing industry and what it will actually take to save our wild salmon.

Many still believe that simply halting fishing for a period of time is the answer to rebuilding troubled runs.

Sustainable fisheries

Why is this? Why are so many people apparently unaware of the fact that we can recover wild salmon stocks and have sustainable fisheries at the same time?

One reason, undoubtedly, is that we are victims of our own past practices. There is no denying, for example, that once-common fishing practices could have played a significant role in the depletion of some wild salmon stocks. Additionally, it's true that many of the state's salmon hatcheries in the past actually impeded wild salmon runs by posing obstacles for the fish as they attempted to swim upstream or downstream. Yet the fishing industry has gone through fundamental change in recent years, transforming itself with the goal of protecting weak and endangered stocks.

Through coded wire tags, mass marking, genetic testing and other scientific techniques, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), with industry support is now capable of monitoring wild stocks and restrict fishing accordingly.

Repositioning hatcheries.

At the same time, fisheries have been restructured to avoid intercepting weak wild stocks while allowing citizens to fish for strong wild stocks and plentiful hatchery fish. And WDFW has begun the job of repositioning our hatcheries to provide for the recovery of wild fish stocks as well as sustainable fisheries. Indeed, approximately a third of our state's hatcheries are now used for wild stock recovery.

It is also to some people's benefit not to recognize the fact that the fishing industry has undergone a metamorphosis. Instead, it is easier for these people to persist in making the industry the scapegoat for declining wild salmon stocks. Yet some people refuse to accept the fact that we must reverse the trend of habitat destruction to save our fish. It is much easier to point the finger elsewhere. In the long term, of course, education is the key to overturning the misconceptions many now have about the fishing industry.

Just as professional sports organizations know the key to building adult support for their respective sport is to get children involved in playing the sport at an early age, we must become active in the education process.

Fishing clinics and workshops designed to teach youngsters the principles of fishing are effective tools. But we also must make sure instructors receive the information they need to teach children about the science used to guide our fisheries. We must also teach conservation ethics.

Only then will we be assured of facing a new generation of adults who understand - and support- the fishing industry.

In the short term, I believe we must bolster our efforts on several fronts if we are to change misconceptions about the fishing industry.

First, we must make more of an effort to get our message out to the mainstream media, to unravel the technical jargon and scientific concepts and tell a compelling story about the changes that have occurred-and still are occurring-in the industry and how sustainable fisheries and wild salmon recovery are compatible.

Groups like Trout Unlimited should be leaders in promoting sustainable fisheries as well as working toward recovering salmon. All to often, it seems, fishers only make the news when an allocation controversy erupts, thereby adding to the misconception in some people's minds that the only thing fishers care about is making sure they get their share. That simply is not true, but who better to tell the real story?

Second, we must bolster our efforts to work on the local level. Salmon recovery is an extremely diffuse issue with the potential to reach, directly or indirectly, the lives of an overwhelming majority of Washingtonians.

Many of the decisions affecting the future of salmon recovery-and the future of fishing-will be made by people with little or no background in how fisheries are actually conducted.

As such, we must increase our exposure in various public arenas, including planning commission, city council, and other local government venues where many of the votes impacting salmon recovery and the fishing industry will be cast.

And third, we must also work to build new coalitions with groups that only a few years ago we may have thought we had nothing in common, groups that will inevitably be drawn into the salmon recovery effort by virtue of changing land use and other practices. Suburban homeowner associations come to mind.

There is a saying: perception is everything. As the battle for salmon recovery accelerates, that is not only worth keeping in mind, but doing something about.

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