WSB OREHP meeting with DFW

[Saba Slayer]

It's some dry political stuff but somebody's got to do it...

Ocean Resources Enhancement and Hatchery Program (OREHP). Meeting 4/10

Kinda small meeting considering the recent Science review...Dallas Weaver, Bill Shedd, John Riordan, one commercial guy, myself, and a half a dozen folks on the conference call along with the DFW reps.

Mark from Hubbs gave some info on what's happening at Mission Bay and Carlsbad and some numbers...
114,320 released fish in 2017
40,000 tagged and ready in Carlsbad
31,000 in growouts along the coast
At Carlsbad they've downsized the brood-stock tanks from 4 to 3 and established one tank for the young new breeders...we have about 50 fish that are 20 years old so Hubbs is looking forward to doing some brood-stock gathering this year to get some new blood in the tank.
He discussed WSB larval studies, Walling behavior (bumping into the tank walls), Degassing systems (to get rid of the google eye that sometimes effects the fish) and some parallel Halibut research (Broodstock, Culture, Genetics, Lab Studies and a pilot release) Halibut stuff funded with the money from the Dick Laub grant that CCA helped establish.
One interesting fact...cultured Halibut do not bury well in the sand...so perhaps some studies on raising with a sand bottom might be needed. There has been lots of work done with flounder in Japan so there is a lot of info available out there in academia.

Mike from Hubbs was up next and he gave lots of numbers I won't bore you with about the gill net sampling and some studies in tag retention. He also talked about otolith sampling to gather info on the WSB. They have a couple of different methods involving cutting and counting the "rings" or grinding into powder and reading chemical markers and DNA. Otolith microchemistry is very expensive...!
Mark Okihiro (the Senior DFW Fish Pathologist) was up next and he said there was a small outbreak with the Oxnard fish but it was under control...he then proceeded to trash the program...IMHO he has never been a supporter of the DFW's WSB program. As long as I've been in the WSB meetings he has never offered a positive outlook or positive advise. I don't get it...it's the Departments program...you'd think they'd put someone in there that supported their own program.

Valerie the project manager from the DFW was up last and she talked about the budget and the funding which as usual is down...(one common comment from the Science Advisory Committee was about the lack of funding for the various aspects of the project).
She will be informing the DFG Commission on the SAC review and the upcoming public meetings at the next commission meeting in Ventura.
She also informed us that the DFW is contracting with Cal Sea Grant to put together these 3 meetings to inform the public and gather information on what the fishing community would like from the program and it's future. The meetings will be held in Santa Barbara/Ventura, LA/OC, and SD.
The Department says that they are looking for public input on the future direction of the WSB program...we pay for the majority of the funding with our saltwater stamp and the legislature has determined that the funds should stay in the hatchery program unless WE the FISHERMEN want to change it.
PLEASE ATTEND THESE MEETINGS TO HELP DETERMINE THE FUTURE DIRECTION OF THE WSB and The Ocean Resources Enhancement and Hatchery Program (OREHP).
We ended the meeting with a discussion on the scientific review and WE AGREED TO DISAGREE...we did agree to have a special OREHP advisory panel meeting again in June after the public meetings with the chair of the scientific review committee in attendance to get some answers and hash out a few more differences.

A WSB Fishery Management Plan meeting is this Friday with the DFW and it should be interesting to see the state of our WSB and any new reg changes that might be brewing...