Ep 135: Declining Salmon Populations and the Salmon Wars Project, with Cody McLaughlin
Cody McLaughlin is an Alaskan angler and salmon advocate. He recently released a new project, Salmon Wars, that focuses on threats to salmon and what can be done to mitigate population declines. In this episode, we discuss his attempts to complete state fish slams, the threats facing Alaskan salmon, why robust salmon populations matter, and what people can do to help.
Salmon Wars: link
Trout Stream Studios: link
Facebook: /troutstreamstudios
Instagram: @mclaugh1985
Twitter: @mclaugh19
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. This is episode 135 with Cody McLaughlin on declining salmon populations and the Salmon Wars Project. I start every episode by getting a background on my guests and how they got into the outdoors and into fishing. So walk me through how you got into fishing and maybe also how you got introduced to salmon, since I know that's what we're going to be talking about mostly today.
Cody
Yeah. Well, so I got introduced to the outdoors the same way that a lot of people do. And that was just, you know, through grandparents, parents that took me outdoors. The same thing I'm doing with my kids, you know, up here in Alaska. I'm an East Coast boy. So I've, you know, I started out my career with stock trout like a lot of people do you know fishing for smallmouth bass large mouth bass chasing I chased for years the the bass grand slam in new jersey I was trying to be one of the first New Jerseans to do that never got it done before moving out of the state but since then I've I've I found my home in Alaska about three years ago I moved up here and started chasing salmon, really. I got my first taste of salmon when I was working in Oregon in 2014 to 2016. So I lived there for two years, fell in love with the fish, thought they were just a tremendous resource. And I've always been a huge anadromous fish nerd. I keep a lot of anadromous fish books over here to my right. So when I was back east, I caught a lot of striped bass and a lot of a lot of American shad founding fish. And then, and then when I moved west, I would chase trout, or like steelhead trout, all five species of salmon. And, and so I, you know, I, I developed a lot of respect for the journey that anadromous fish are on. And that's kind of what sparked the, the passion for, you know, just advocating for anadromous fish and the specific needs that they have as an activist.
Katie
We're definitely going to come back to this, but I want to check in real quick. What species are included in the Bass Slam in New Jersey that you were attempting?
Cody
So IGFA slams, I'm a big nerd about those. I've actually got a salmon one right up here next to next to me so if you look into the IGFA slams there's you know different categories one of them is bass so the there you need to catch three species of a type of fish of a family of fish in one day one one calendar day so for instance you can catch only one slam in the whole state of new jersey and that is bass so you get a striped bass a smallmouth bass and a largemouth bass we You can get all three in one day. You qualify for the slam. And I've caught two more times than I can count. And I just, it's either I catch a smallmouth and a largemouth and can't catch a striper, or I catch a smallmouth and a striper and can't catch a largemouth to save my life. And the last time I tried it was three days in a row. I was into some schools of stripers early in the morning, got a smallmouth bass by noon, and I'm thinking to myself, I'm doing it today. and would just hop ponds until 11 o'clock at night. Nothing. And it was just, I was the most frustrating, like couple days fishing of my life. That was in 2019 was the last time I tried, really tried to do it in Jersey. And then I actually caught a super grand slam. That's when you catch four species. I have a family and there's five Pacific salmon species. So I caught four of them in one day. in one hour on the Talkeetna river in 2022 so and then my brother-in-law or my soon-to-be brother-in-law Timmy caught three so caught a caught a you know regular grand slam salmon at the same spot on the same river a year later like one one exact calendar year later that sounds like the spot to be then I guess yeah yeah I i got the hookup we went with a guide his name is Brian Mckay so big out to him he's a he's a good friend and he he will that guy knows that there are there are certain people that are just very fishy right like they have the fish brain my buddy Dominic back east is like he'll get you on striped bass and if you're in in Alaska and you want to get on salmon Brian will will have them hopping in the boat for you so and
Katie
so it sounds like there's the slams for all kinds of different families. I assume there's a trout one too like you know three species of a day I don't know if I don't know if char count you know does a brook trout count as a trout or char?
Cody
well brook trout I think do count as a trout they they count certain char but not like arctic char because I would have already qualified for that so it's so that's a little weird but lake trout which are also a char count so that's there's actually two slams in Alaska, you can get a salmon slam, which is actually fairly simple to do, I think. Or I'm just incredibly lucky. Or you can get a trout slam, which nobody has done in Alaska history. I'm actually trying to be the first person to do it. That is a whole different story, journey. I actually spent several hours planning out the trip, and I have all the plans ready to go. I just need to find the time to set aside to do it with a, with a biologist who specializes in, in cutthroat trout, which is the last species. That's the toughest one to get. Cause they're a little bit more remote. The species or the, the, populations of them up here are a little bit more remote. So that's, that is a, another journey that over the next year or two, I'm going to be chasing down, trying to be the first person to slam down an IGFA slam for trout in the state. and what what are the three trout species in Alaska so cutthroat lake trout and rainbows
Katie
ah gotcha and how do you submit like I assume there there's some formal process that's beyond just emailing them saying I caught this
Cody
so no you got it so they have a form you have to fill out so you need witness statements or pictures of you with the fish all on the same day and then it helps if you have witness statements so they have they have individual people review them and stuff like that. Guides and captains are like a good way to, you know, get that done. But basically it's, you know, photos of you with the fish on the day. And then you submit through the IGFA website. I think you have to be a member as well. And then they have certain rules. So there's a bunch of rules involved, including like, I have to be wild fish, not stocked. And, you know, now wild, not native. So like brown trout count for the trout slam. And then, let's see, you know, just different stuff. Like nobody can like hold the pole for you. They can't cast and hook up and then hand it to you. Like that sort of thing.
Katie
Gotcha. Well, I know it's a bit of a tangent, but yeah, I always like hearing about, you know, these slams that exist either, you know, through organizations like this or statewide. It's kind of a popular thing these days. But back to Salmon. And I also want to hear how you kind of got into the space you're in now with your, you know, Trout Stream Studios and how you've kind of transitioned into more advocacy work for salmon. And we can dive into, you know, the problems they're facing and what can be done about it and things like that. But I just kind of want to hear your transition into this advocacy work with this.
Cody
Yeah. So I've always been a wildlife advocate. So my early career was actually in PR and politics, believe it or not. so I was a political operative I used to travel around the country which is how I ended up in Oregon for two years catching salmon always also been a very passionate hunter and fisherman so what you know how those two things kind of came together was I i was I had taken a hiatus from politics didn't want to do it anymore I thought to myself I just wanted to find this much simpler job and like hunting fish more, frankly, right? Because it's real tough when you're all the way through October, you're doing nothing but working. And, you know, those were some tough years of my life. So I gave up politics for a year. And then I got a call from a friend named Ron Jones, who was part of the Trappers Association back east. And this was when I moved back to New Jersey. And he said, look, like sportsmen in the state really need someone is like step up and help like organize and advocate because we're getting our teeth kicked in. You know, like this was when the governor was trying to ban the bear hunt. And it was, you know, there was just, there just wasn't a lot of like that professional political experience. And I've seen that around the country. Now there's more, more professional political people than ever on the conservation side and on the side of hunting and fishing nowadays, five, 10 years later. And that's a good thing. But back then, it was really like, you know, just regular guys trying to do the yeoman's work and struggling against deep pocketed, you know, big nonprofits, global nonprofits with millions of dollars behind them. So I decided to step in and help. And that's how I got into wildlife advocacy and activism and then moved away from New Jersey, moved to move to Alaska. And again, thought I was like, okay, this is it. I'm done now. So I've always been in the media space. So I transitioned pretty easily into producing podcasts. I produced the Congressional Sportsman's Foundations, the Sportsman's Voice podcast, different nonprofit organizations like that, Blood Origins, American Conservation Coalition's Coming Clean podcast, a podcast that you're going to be on, the Sportswoman Show. That's a project that was actually a brainchild of my eight-year-old daughter. And so I decided that I was just going to produce podcasts and write for outdoor magazines and stuff. And then do some digital media consulting and then hunt and fish the rest of the time. And then once again, you start looking at the news. You start seeing the King season shut down. The first year I was here was great fishing. They were liberalizing the seasons. And then every year after that, I'm seeing good friends that are guides and tackle shop owners and stuff struggling to put food on the table because we're conserving the resource by shutting down these seasons, which is something every fisherman agrees with. But they're not taking the same thing out on the trawl fleet, which is dumping over the side of this boat by the shovel full the same amount or more fish than is allocated to the sport fishermen in the state. Or even the subsistence fishermen in the state, which are supposed to take priority there. So that bothered me. And, you know, much like much like from that movie, The Godfather, you know, every time I try to get out, they keep pulling me back in. So I it upset me to see that started getting involved, voicing myself and, you know, because I've never had a problem speaking up when I've got a problem with something that's part of being from New Jersey. I think it's something in the water over there. And so I started speaking up about it. And then, you know, I just, again, saw a need to do it. So I put together, you know, my activism, who are actually I wrote an article about it for Sport Fishing Magazine to try to raise some awareness about it around the country. Got a great response from that, both in the state and around the country, people reaching out, you know, saying that this that they had no idea, you know, that this was a problem. And so I've been thinking about it since I dropped that article and spent a few months planning and then a couple more months recording. And we're in the midst now of launching a podcast called Salmon Wars, which is going to be a, well, which is a limited run investigative series that's just exploring what's happening to like legendary Alaskan salmon, right? And if you're a fly fisherman, which is why I asked to be on this show to talk about it, If you're a person that fly fishes, you know, Alaska is undoubtedly high on your bucket list, right? Like there's legendary fishing up here and not just legendary salmon fishing, but all the fishing, all the legendary fly fishing up here is dependent on salmon as a species, right? Or as a group of species. Because guess what? All those big fat trout that I post on my Instagram that people are calling me from all over the country saying, hey, I'm coming up to Alaska. Can you show me where you caught that trout? They don't get that big unless there's teams and teams of salmon eggs floating down the river for them to munch on. You know what I mean? Or salmon flesh in the fall that's rotting off of the carcasses. There's a huge interdependence of the entire ecosystem of Alaska. It's not just birds. It's not just bears. The trees along the riverbanks, the trout that are in the streams with them, the grayling, all of them grow nice and fat off the salmon. And, you know, I could see kings being listed, king salmon chinooks being listed under ESU protection in my lifetime, or even in the next five to 10 years if something is not done about it. And I don't think it's a far cry to say that we could be looking at the same thing for silvers, chums, pretty much all of them. So I started examining that. And through the course of the series that I recorded, I interviewed experts. I interviewed people who were affected by it. I was trying to get all these perspectives and educate people about just present the facts. There's not enough salmon. How is this affecting a small mom and pop tackle shop owner and the economy of the Mat-Su Valley? right? There's not enough fish. How is this affecting somebody who's a subsistence user on the Yukon River, right? Those people cannot just go down to Costco and buy food, right? That is a remote area where food's not getting barged up to them. It's getting barged up to Alaska and then flown to them. So they're paying $10, $20 for cans and stuff like that, right? So, you know, exploring those perspectives, bringing them to an easily accessible place and then making sure that people are, you know, able to learn about this issue that's affecting Alaskans and, you know, and people across the Pacific Northwest, BC, all the way down to California. Like the West is salmon to some degree, right? And, you know, all the way into Idaho. Like if you think Idaho salmon stocks are going to recover if the fish aren't getting up the river through Oregon first, then you're sadly mistaken, you know? So that's kind of been my mission the last couple of years is to just make sure people are taking this to heart.
Katie
What is the state of the problem in Alaska compared to the Pacific Northwest? Is it pretty similar across the entire range of these salmon, or is it particularly bad in some places? I know it's not great anywhere, but are there pockets of where it's better and worse, or is it pretty consistent?
Cody
Yeah, so in the non-trawl areas of Alaska, salmon are doing great. They're moving up further north than they have before, where incidentally you can't trawl. they're you know they're in rivers up north like way up north I'm talking around the arctic circle that they've never been to before or at least that they've never been recorded before that's the good news right the bad news is that especially kings in pretty much any other part of the state they're they're really struggling so are the chums so the yukon river for instance where there's a lot of subsistence users which is why it gets a lot of press they're you know, they've been shut down for years and are shut down till at least 2025, as I understand it, perhaps longer for fishing for any take, right? But, you know, three to 100 miles offshore, you can still drag them up in a trawl net and then take them by the shovel full and chuck them over the side for the orcas, which then also get caught in your trawl net. So there is that. But so, you know, of the people I've spoken to, biologists, I had a leading salmon biologist on the podcast, guy by the name of John Warren Chuck with Oceana. And then, you know, just other people as well, activists, longtime fisheries policy people, Comfish guys. You know, the consensus seemed to be that of the human impacts on Alaska salmon, that trawl was a big one, right? especially the closer that they trawled to the mainland of Alaska, the more of those fish that were destined for Alaskan rivers. Everything else, Alaska does really well, actually. Habitat-wise, Alaska's doing great. They're not logging all of the riverbanks and stuff like that like they do in BC, which is affecting them. We're not damming up all of our rivers like they did down in Oregon and California and stuff for hydropower. So we're not making any of those mistakes up in Alaska, which is great. But, you know, you can have all the habitat in the world. But if there's no salmon to breed in them, then they're going to struggle to some degree.
Katie
What are the trawlers trawling for?
Cody
Pollock. Mostly pollock and ground fish. So what they call these, and this is the great joke about it, right? So bottom trawling, where they drag it on the bottom 100% of the time, right, is banned in most areas. So they ban it because it's an indiscriminate form of take. And you can, as anyone who's read USA Today this week, you can see where they drag on the bottom of the ocean from space because of the dust plumes that it... So they're dragging these tents the size of a mini mall or bigger across the bottom and just scooping up everything. So coral, one of the biggest... know I mean some of the they're destroying some of the best ocean habitat in the world and just because it's not in a tropical place like imagine if you went off to Florida keys and dragged a net the size of a mini mall and they could see it from space like the environmental groups would be howling but because it's in the frozen arctic north nobody seems to care and that's that bugs me but I digress so they're they're trawling for pollock basically Mcdonald's filet fish sandwiches or Pollock Row to send and sell over to China. So 80% of this fish actually goes to China from one of the fleets. I'm drawing a blank on the name of it, but I'll send it to you, including the show notes. We're buying 20% of it back, buying it back. By the way, it all gets shipped to China and then we have to buy it back from their processors. But, you know, it's not feeding American families, that's for sure. It's feeding the world to some degree. I mean, but most of the money that they're making off it is from, you know, pollock roe, caviar, things of that nature. And then, you know, they're making, I think, six cents a pound-ish off the pollock flesh itself. So, you know, they're just basically members of the cod family. They're a forage fish, much like a herring back east or something of that nature.
Katie
Is there a reason that they just toss the salmon? I know they're out there for pollock, but do they have specific, you know, licensing that allows them to only take some particular species? Like why, why toss the salmon if salmon would also be purchased for consumption?
Cody
Yeah. So, that's a great question. So you have, you have limits on commercial fisheries that, that only allow you to take certain types of fish on certain gear types, you know, much like we, we do as, as sport fishermen. So, you know, everybody knows what bycatch is. If you're, and if you don't, real quick, bycatch is whenever you catch a non-target species, right? So if you and I went out and we were throwing woolly buggers for trout and we caught, you know, a whitefish in the Colorado mountains, that would be bycatch, right? Now, certain times of the year or certain gear types and stuff, you're not allowed to catch the other species. So, you know, they then throw them overboard. And it's not just salmon. It's halibut. It's rockfish. It's, you know, crabs. It's starfish, something like three million pounds of starfish this year have been chucked overboard. All this stuff has been wasted. And again, you know, they banned bottom trawling, but they replaced it with what's called midwater trawling. And midwater trawling is a misnomer. that was a definition specifically designed by trawl reps on the North Pacific Marine Fisheries Council, where 80% of the... So it's allowed to be defined as midwater trawl as long as at least 20% of the time, it's not touching the bottom. So that means that 80% of the time, a midwater trawler can be dragging across the bottom just like a bottom trawler doing the same thing. But as long as I picked a net up a little bit, sometimes it's considered a midwater trawl, which is, you know, preposterous. I mean, so there, you know, there's a whole bunch of issues, regarding that, but you know, it's, it's for Pollock. They're the, they're these huge factory vessels. So, you know, they, they constantly have to feed the machine. So they're running longer seasons of the year. They're allowed in areas that no other type of, of fishing gears allowed. So like, for instance, in the halibut nursery, I know we're talking about salmon, but if If you were, you can't drop a line, I can't drop a line as a sport fisherman in the halibut nursery where halibut from all over the West Coast breed in and then, you know, their, their eggs and larvae like disseminate from this area. Right. So you can't drop a line as a long liner, as a troller, none of that stuff in the halibut nursery, but you can drag a giant net across the bottom and grind those halibut into chum. Totally acceptable.
Katie
is there a reason that they want to drag on the bottom? I don't know where pollock hang out but you know the whole 20 80 rule like why why what's the motivation to use that 80 percent of the time it can be on the bottom if you're not trying to get things like shrimp or other things that are on the bottom that you want to get down there. why pollock?
Cody
so there are ground fish and there are forage fish So the reason that there's so much bycatch and why I truly don't believe that like any mitigation, many mitigation efforts will, you know, aside from shortening their seasons and their take and all that stuff and limiting the amount of bycatch that they're allowed to do. right? I don't believe that many other solutions will truly fix it because salmon eat them, you know, chum and king salmon, one of the reasons that they're caught so much in these nets is because they're the most carnivorous of the salmon species, right? So they're going and eating, you know, they're not just eating pollock, but they're also attracted by all the pollock guts and and offal that gets tossed over the side of the vessel. So they end up following the vessels and then schooling up around these, these pollock and then getting scooped up all at once, which is why you see these huge spikes in the amount of salmon per day. If you look at the bycatch reports. So, you know, what'll happen is a huge school of salmon will chase in these, these, these pollock and then like the, they'll be attracted by the pollock or at least that's the, that's the working theory is that they're like attracted by the pollock guts, much like if you're baiting and whatnot. And then they get brought in, and then they get scooped up in the net as well as they make another pass.
Katie
I know you don't make the rules, so you might not know the answer to this, but how come you're licensed to keep a certain amount of whatever species you're allotted, but it's fine if you catch other things as long as you throw them away. I just don't understand. You're not licensed to catch a salmon, kill it, and sell it, But it's fine as long as you just waste it instead. Like, this just seems like such a backwards rule. I just don't. Yes. I just do not understand the logic behind that.
Cody
It's almost like it was written by a lobbyist for the trawl organizations just to keep the fishery open longer to make more money. So if you're looking for a reason, there's a few billion of them. And they're all sitting at Trident HQ down in Seattle. So that is the long and short of it is that they keep redefining bycatch and fighting any efforts to to better define bycatch and and institute limits on it. Now, there's some limits that are just absurdly high. Right. Like, for instance, they're allowed to waste more halibut this year than is allocated to the sport fishing to the entire sport fishing fleet. That's charter operators and regular Joes that saved up their whole life to buy a boat. Right. So there's that same thing with salmon, king salmon. But in certain areas, there's actually no limit on chum bycatch, which is hilarious in the saddest, worst way possible. Right. Because you can't catch a single chum salmon. And those people, those people on the Yukon River, on the Kuskokwim River, they rely on that. not just for their food security of the region, but their entire culture is built around catching kings and chums, right? So you can't catch a single one on that river, but a couple of miles offshore, they have no limit on the amount of chum salmon that they can drag up in a net and then again, throw away like garbage, buy the shovel full. And there's videos online of them doing this because it's perfectly legal. It's not like I'm exposing some huge secret that nobody knows about right now. Like I'm just educating people about something that is it's hard to blame them for because it's perfectly legal practice. But at the same time, something that we need to maybe bring in line with the reality of the situation, which is that we're destroying these fisheries.
Katie
What are the different user groups of salmon? I know this is going to be a little bit different. Like, you know, for example, these trawlers, they're not they wouldn't be considered a user group, even though they're having a huge effect. but who are the user groups of directly salmon? I'm thinking sport anglers, subsistence, and commercial anglers that are actually targeting salmon, but are there other groups that I'm not thinking of?
Cody
Yeah, so there's four major user groups, if you will, of salmon, the way that I've identified them. And I would say five, but you just identified that we're not going to call Trawl a user group, which I actually agree with now that you've said it out loud, right? So setting aside, Trawl, you have the small comp fish guys, right? So those are your long liners, your set netters, things of that nature that, you know, they provide the wild Alaskan salmon packaged fish that you buy in your grocery store for $50 a pound or whatever it is. So they contribute to the economy. They actually pay a, and here's the funny thing, where they pay a tax. So all commercial fishermen pay a flesh landing tax on the fish that they catch in Alaskan waters to the state. So Pollock provides a huge amount of that tax revenue to the state, which is still only a couple million dollars. But only because of the volume at which they catch. Right. So they their fish is cheaper, but they catch a shitload more of it. Right. So they that's why they provide a lot more money. And that's why they're the big, big dog in the fight as far as money goes for lobbyists and lawyers and things of that nature. They don't pay any money on the stuff that they really make money on, which is any landing tax on, say, the row. So they can get six cents a pound for flesh, but they get five dollars a pound for pollock row. And they don't pay a landing tax on that to the state of Alaska. Whereas the real money in salmon fishing is salmon flesh. right nobody cares about salmon roe everybody wants a big you know big salmon filet to put on their burger or on their you know their salad or what have you right so that's why it's such a you know culinary treat around the country and around the world and king salmon are top of that list like they're you know historically pretty pretty highly prized of the of the salmon species. So you have, the small con fish guys that are catching, that are catching fish. That's a user group. you have the sport fishing guys. So that's, you know, people like me, fly fishermen, trollers, you know, like the sport fishing guides, right. you know, small, small businesses that rely on the salmon to, to, you know, including tackle shops, right? Like those, Those guys that have this thriving economy, tourism economy on the fish. Then you have the subsistence fishers. So these are people that are federally qualified subsistence fishermen. And I'm going to challenge the federal definition for a subsistence user and that pretty much every Alaskan is a subsistence salmon user. And here's why. You can't get high quality protein like you can salmon, you know, moose, etc. at the grocery store up here for less money or higher quality than if you caught it yourself. That's because all of our food up here is barged up here from somewhere else. Even in many cases, the salmon that is commercially caught up here will be processed in Seattle and then barged up here. So the vegetables we get, the food we get, the meat, most of it, there's a thriving and growing contingent of people that are that are growing Alaska-made food but Alaska has its own challenges for that which I'm not going to get into today but as it stands especially fish we're if if we if we as alaskans don't want to pay a huge premium for it you got to go catch that yourself and it is possible to do it right it's very accessible so you can save thousands of dollars a year fill in your freezer with salmon as long as they have resources available for you to catch but yes the subsistence users people who are filling their freezers and then the last one is really wildlife I would say is the final user group so that's your you know as we discussed earlier your bears your bald eagles your you know your trout your all these other fish that depend on salmon for survival strong salmon runs you know create a create a strong ecology in the state, which kind of feeds everything else about Alaska.
Katie
And tell me also a little bit about the economy around it. Like, I don't know if you have numbers off the top of your head. It's fine if you don't have them. But, you know, how how big of an impact does this do salmon specifically have on Alaska's economy?
Cody
Yeah, so salmon, you got to think that that millions of salmon every year caught in in this in the state. And so that's a, I mean, think about when you, the way that you, let me back up for a second. Think about the way that you picture Alaska every time that somebody mentions the state to you. So when I moved up to Alaska, salmon was the first thing out of every person's mouth that they were talking about. Oh, you're going to go catch big salmon, blah, blah, blah. It's an iconic fish. All five species, really, right, are iconic fish for the region. So our entire tourism economy essentially is built on it. You can go down to Colorado and have just as good skiing as you can flying up to Alaska. But Alaska's environment is 10 times more harsh. OK, so we do have excellent skiing lodges. I'm not knocking any of that stuff. We have excellent, you know, water sports. You can four wheel up here, all of that stuff. Whoop-dee-doo. But the tourism economy in the state of Alaska is built on the back of the salmon. And I mean, and I say that with a straight face because even the hunting, again, as we just went over, strong salmon runs equals strong ecology. So if you're coming up here to spend $60,000 to hunt a grizzly bear, if we don't have good strong salmon runs in the state, those bears are going to struggle because a major part of their food source for a major part of the year are in fact salmon. So, you know, the entire economy, the entire tourism economy in the state is built on wildlife and salmon. So, you know, aside from cruise ships and stuff, you're talking about tens of millions of dollars every year, right here in the Mat-Su Valley. I talked at length about it with my guest in episode two of Salmon Wars, AJ Hoffman. So he estimated it through different reports and stuff that he had looked at a $10 million in economic impact just to the Matsu Valley, which is the area that I live in. The loss of salmon that we've already had. So like loss of season. So there's loss of dates, loss of, you know, so if guides are, there's, you know, 30 or 40 sport fishing guide companies operating in just a Matsu Valley, if they're all canceling, you know, 30 or 40 trips a year from, from people outside of the state to come up to the area and fish, that's, you know, that's having a huge impact on the economy, on the hotels in the area, on the restaurants in the area, everybody that, you know, works to serve the same area. And then you extrapolate that out across all the different other areas of the state, like the Kenai Peninsula, another big destination for sport fishermen. And they're, they're hit with a double whammy because they're also canceling a lot of halibut trips down there too. Cause last year we lost two days of the week that you couldn't sport fish for halibut. Meanwhile, they're, you know, they're dragging up halibut and chucking them over the side as trash.
Katie
And I, I, next I kind of want to go to, I guess what I would call like the meat of the conversation, which is like, why is it happening? And, and what is there to do about it? I know we've mentioned, we've talked extensively about trawling, so we don't have to cover that again, but that's obviously not the only cause of the salmon decline. So what other causes are there? And then after that, maybe we'll wrap up with what can be done, what can an individual do, what do we need to do as a community, and things like that. So let's just start with what other things are causing the salmon decline.
Cody
Yeah, so I've heard a number of issues. And again, I've explored them all in the Salmon Wars series. So I encourage people to go check that out. It's resource and good learning experience for me personally, as I was exploring this issue. So a few major factors are affecting salmon across the West, especially here in Alaska. So number one, we already talked about overtake and overharvesting. There's a few other ones as well. Bad management plans by the North Pacific Marine Fisheries Council. And even to some degree in state where, you know, there's a lot of disagreement from biologists around the country about the way that we manage salmon, right? Like we're, you know, we've been in this 50-year experiment of, you know, using historical data on how many, and estimates on how many salmon are returning to manage expectations rather than managing for growth or, you know, or sustainability in the resource, right? So bad management, which is a matter of policy, which means that if you want to have an impact on that, just what I'm urging people to do is reach out to your legislator and just let them know that you care about this issue, right? Because, you know, 50 senators and 435 congresspeople are the only ones that can really rein in the Commerce Department and the North Pacific Marine Fisheries Council. So aside from that, climate is another one, right? And I know that that's almost a sin to say sometimes depending on what kind of you know what what tribe what political tribe you put yourself in but hear me out okay we all know as fishermen that that habitat is you know what the number one thing that contributes to the success of any species so you know we need to have the correct ocean ecology in order for salmon to have a chance to thrive once they get out to get out into the ocean. Yes, we can stop all the, we can and we should, it's what I just spent 40 minutes talking about, stop the overtake, the indiscriminate harvest, throwing them away like trash, all that stuff. But once we stop that, we still need to make sure that they've got food, shelter, you know, and the right conditions to keep them in the ocean long enough to grow big and strong so that they can come back up the rivers big and strong and that we're, you know, contributing to strong genetics there on the genetic front. Hatcheries are creating a huge issue, not just down on some of the... Now, it's a lot worse problem in Oregon, Washington. Anybody who's seen that Patagonia documentary will know about that. But it's even affecting up here. We see a lot of competition from hatcheries with our wild fish. And again, Alaska is the bellwether for this because it's the last true, truly wild run of salmon. OK, everywhere else is so hatchery and it's increasingly Alaska, too. Right. But everywhere else is so hatchery enhanced or hatch like it's just they're all hatchery frankenfish. And I'm not trying to put down hatcheries because I understand that they they they have a place. But we need to stop relying on hatchery enhancement because there are some serious problems that that science has already identified with the way that we manage fish through hatcheries. So hatcheries are a problem. And then obviously habitat. You know, I saw an article just the other day about Idaho and and Snake River Dam removal. All that stuff is is important. And we need to, what I really want to close with is, I have a bookshelf over here of anadromous fish books. One of my favorite ones is called The President's Salmon. And it's a great book that I think is a great lesson that if anyone cares about Western salmon, you need to read The President's Salmon. Because we've been through this before. So we had a strong run of Atlantic salmon on the East Coast that are now ESU protected and have been for 30 years. Right. So it used to be common practice on the East Coast for the first Atlantic salmon to be caught on the Penobscot River in Maine to be gifted to the president of the United States to be to be eaten. That was a, that was a, and I'm 31 years old and that has happened while I have been alive. Okay. I believe George HW Bush or Clinton might've been the last one to receive a salmon. Okay. When ESU protection hit, that's, that all stopped obviously. Right. but they, those salmon struggled and declined and declined and declined to where there was a couple hundred fish every year. And then all of a sudden there's, you know, to this day, 30 years later, there's still, you know a few fish not a few hundred not a few thousand not a few million fish entering the Penobscot River every year in Maine right and they're extirpated in every other river system so we still have a chance to restore the Atlantic salmon but I don't want to be to be the person that you know catches the last king salmon on the way out the door right so we need to learn that lesson everybody needs to read that everybody needs to read that book and you know like learn that we're that that we have the capacity right now to fix these issues but only if we give them the attention they deserve
Katie
Is there a uniform opinion throughout Alaska, I know obviously not every single person's gonna think the same thing, but like if you talk to the average alaskan did they all kind of have to share the same sentiment about salmon or are there people you talk to that are are you know I guess anti-salmon is the only way I could think to describe bit like is that is that a sentiment that exists up there or is it pretty unified no listen that
Cody
you could start a salmon party in Alaska and I mean that's how that's howMary Peltola won congress and like I'm i'm not a huge fan of you know of her like we we stand pretty diametrically opposed on all of their politics but but she she made the case that you know that she was with the fish party right like that's what I think that's what she called it and it worked right like that That was a huge populist movement that was driven by her speaking out against trawling, right? And I'm encouraging other candidates in Alaska, right, if you're listening to this. You got to take a lesson out of that book and then maybe follow through with it if you really want people to stick with you for the long term, stake out this fight and win it. If you bring one home, I think you'll see it because there's huge grassroots support for salmon up here for a good reason, right? Like, again, I just talked about the importance of even if you're not a huge fisherman in this state, right? Like I had Heather from Heather's Choice. She's done in Anchorage. Heather's Choice, a big, you know, dried foods package company that she started. She was on Shark Tank and everything. I had her on the Sportswoman show, which is another show that my company produces. And she said a story that, you know, Gabby asked her if she was a big outdoorsman, fisherman, whatever. She's like, nope. But my family fished salmon for the freezer. And that's Alaska in a nutshell, right? Even if you're a big hiker, rafter, adventure sports person, and you're just like, I don't care about fishing, you still, I can almost guarantee you, go down to the river and catch salmon to put in your freezer. You know, it's so that it is 100%. I would say there's definitely nobody anti salmon in Alaska. You might get run out of town for suggesting it. But, you know, people are pretty pro salmon. And there's a huge populace moving about that too. On Facebook, there's a group called Stop Alaskan Trawler Bycatch, largely Alaskan group, 36,000 members and counting, I think, on there. And the guy that runs that, David Bays, he was on the Salmon Wars show as well. And that guy is just, he's a sport fishing guide at a homer, really smart guy, was a high school biology teacher that quit to become a sport fishing guide. And has just been tracking the issue for a while knows the numbers and the information better than anybody in the world. I had a long conversation with him and I thought I was, I walked away and I've spoken to him many times before. I interviewed him before I wrote my article for Sport Fishing Magazine and I still learned something while I was on that show with him.
Katie
Just to wrap up, what can an individual do? I know you mentioned calling representatives, but I hear things like climate change. It's hard to picture what you can do as an individual. You're just like, that sounds so much bigger than I am. But obviously, if a lot of people did individual things, change can be made. So if you had to give two or three recommendations of how somebody could make a difference, whether or not they live in Alaska, what would you recommend for them?
Cody
Yep. Look for the Wild Alaska Pollock logo and then do not buy any of it. Seriously, don't buy fish sticks. Don't buy McDonald's fish fillets. Don't buy the fish sandwiches from your major fast food retailers, that if you want to help salmon in the state of Alaska, and not just Alaska, because people treat Alaska like it's a different country, still part of the United States. If you want to protect United States resources, stop buying pollock and ground fish from that fishery. And I would say, I would even venture to say, if you can avoid Trident Seafoods altogether, I would. So avoid the wild Alaska pollock is number one. Number two, just be conscientious about what you're buying, right? So supporting. So if it pays, it stays, right? That's the whole point of the North American model of wildlife conservation, right? That's why we have licenses and things of that nature. So if you're looking for seafood to buy, buy wild Alaskan salmon. The more economic value that we can bring to the salmon out of this state, the more it's going to pay to better manage those resources because of the demand, right? So avoid the pollock, buy the salmon, which I know can be, especially in these inflationary times, is a tall order, but I'm begging you to consider it, right? Or if you can't afford the salmon, complain about not being able to afford salmon to your senator and stop buying the pollock, okay? Buy something else. So aside from that, a couple other things you can do. Activism is easier than ever. I know a lot of people complain about keyboard activism. I love keyboard activists because I think that they are the only ones that are making real change in this country at this exact juncture. And I'm telling you that as a professional political operative. My job for 10 years was to piss people off on the internet and get them to make commentary on things because it works. Okay. So telling you, if you want to make change in this country, don't let the naysayers talk you out of it, get angry and say something to somebody about it. You can find the Stop Alaska Trawler Bycatch Facebook group on Facebook, obviously, huge grassroots group could use your support and your voice, share the articles. And when you see it, take a listen to the Salmon Wars podcast, there's a huge amount of information in there, including policy options and stuff that people can take or people can ask for when they're having these conversations. And just, you know, get angry about it, right? Like tell McDonald's, you know, on that Facebook post that you don't want them to sell the fish sandwich anymore. You know, that stuff actually has a bigger impact than I think most people give themselves credit for.
Katie
And where can people find Salmon Wars Project and any other links or anything like that that you want to share with people?
Cody
Sure. I will send you some links to put into the show notes. But you can find Salmon Wars, S-A-L-M-O-N-W-A-R-S, on your podcatcher of choice. So that's Apple, Spotify, etc. If you subscribe, you'll get updated when all of those episodes drop because there's more coming. You can find more information at troutstreamstudios.com. That is my company. We're producing that show and a number of others. And I'll be updating that. So Salmon Wars is actually a project that I'm doing free of charge, a passion project. So instead of paying for a website, I'm just putting all that information on my website to save myself some money. But you are welcome to check that out there. There's a ton of information in all the show notes about how to get more involved, what's happening to the salmon, and what we can do about it. So I would encourage you to check that out. And then obviously that Stop Lash, Control, or Bycatch Facebook group, you can look there. You can also reach me on social media. I think it's McLaugh1985 on Instagram, McLaugh19 on Twitter, and then you can find Trash Stream Studios on Facebook. So if you ever have any questions, I'm an open book. I'm not afraid to speak my mind. So I will definitely respond if you reach out.
Katie
All right. Awesome. Well, Cody, I appreciate you coming out and talking about this. It's kind of sometimes it feels like doom and gloom, but I know it's a really important topic, regardless of whether you fish for salmon. Like you said, it just affects so many different parts of our lives and just they have such intrinsic value, too. So even with the doom and gloom, I appreciate you taking the time to come and talk to people about this. And hopefully there's some hope in there and what people can do to make a difference. So thank you.
Cody
Thank you so much for having me, Katie.
Katie
all right that's a wrap thank you all for listening if you want to find all the other episodes as well as show notes you can find those on fishuntamed.com you'll also find the contact link there if you want to reach out to me and you can also find me on instagram at fish untamed if you want to support the show you can give it a follow on apple podcasts or your favorite podcasting app and if you'd like to leave a review it would be greatly appreciated but otherwise thank you all again for listening i'll be back here in two weeks with another Take care, everybody.
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