Volunteer Experts Needed For Klamath Sucker Delisting

Klamath Herald & News (Letter to the Editor) ^ | 2/7/02 | James L. Buchal

[Iconoclast2]

On May 19, 2002, Bush appointee Steve Williams, Director of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, ruled that there was no reason to reconsider the "endangered" listing for Klamath Basin suckers. He rejected the Congressional testimony of biologist David Vogel (hired by the Klamath Water Users Association) that either the listing was a fraud to begin with, or there had been a remarkable recovery. Government biologists couldn't find suckers in 1988, when they listed them, and yet in the 1990s, they counted hundreds of thousands of them.

Six Klamath Basin residents challenged the Bush Administration's denial of their petition in Federal court. On January 14, 2003, United States District Judge Anna Brown granted the Federal Government a protective order against any and all discovery in the case. Judge Brown set a deadline of March 14, 2003 for the Bush Administration to file for summary judgment dismissing the case; plaintiffs will have to file papers resisting the motion by April 11th.

Unfortunately, the petitioners may not be able to rely upon Vogel to defend his Congressional conclusions because local leaders deem the important task of fighting California's lies about the fish die-off to be a higher priority for his time. Nor can plaintiffs afford to hire other expert witnesses. However, Federal law says that anyone may be "qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education".

Many of you in the community have personal experience and expert knowledge about just how abundant the suckers are. Or you know someone else who can testify that suckers are not endangered, and can encourage them to participate. Local experts can explain to Judge Brown that "threats" to suckers from water quality problems are not serious, because suckers as a species easily survive large fish die-offs. Local experts can explain to Judge Brown that habitat problems do not threaten the suckers either. The Web page http://www.buchal.com/Klamath/delisting.htm identifies areas where testimony is needed, includes a declaration form for use in submitting testimony, and explains how easy it is for you to put your views on this important issue before the Court.

[Iconoclast2]

Sounds like we need someone like you who has fished the Williamson River and Upper Klamath Lake for years. I was hoping to flush someone out with these posts.

[blackie]

Thanks for the ping, farmfriend ... abolish the ESA!

Be Well - Be Armed - Be Safe - Molon Labe!

[AuntB]

Thanks for posting this! I'll check out your website and see if I can come up with something logical to submit.

[hubel458]

We are working on it.Buchal has the map of the location
of the suckers in the lake from telemetry studies.We will
show that the fish congregate in upper part of lake, that very few get washed out through Link dam or A- Canal, and lots of other good stuff.A lot of the research is written for scientists, and lawyers. We will put it in plain English.Of course the best way to get the suckers delisted
is to get proper fish passage around Chiloquin dam.That will be the main greenie argument that the biggest part of the suckers spawning grounds are not available due to the lack of that passage.But that gets to the Catch 22 Grampa
refers to, is that if suckers get up Williamson-Sprague in great numbers a lot of other fish will be decimated.Anybody
with info, please help.Ed Hubel.

[AuntB]

Hi amom...Rosie is in the hospital. There's a prayer thread running now.

[AuntB]

My daddy and I used to fish (rather, gig them because there were SO many)these things...we called them mullet... out of Klamath Lake when I was 5...that would be 50 years ago.....there I go giving my age away.

How about suggesting that the so called "Klamath tribes", mostly made up of white people invited into the tribe, have a limit on the suckerfish instead of hauling off truckloads of them for furtilzer?? They need to delist the suckerfish and the Klamath Tribe. The tribe was "delisted" until recently. Did you know there were only 800 to 1200 of these people when white man first laid eyes on them. Now the "tribe" boasts that the tribe has grown by 4000%....this in the same breath that says white man killed off their tribe. This is from their website:

the Klamath Tribes signed their Treaty in 1864 with the United States of America. at the time of termination in 1954, the Klamath Tribes were the second wealthiest tribe in the nation. the Klamath Tribes has over a growth rate of over 4000% in the past 16 years since Restoration in 1986. http://www.klamathtribes.org/dyk.html

[amom]

Thanks AuntB. She is out now and recouperating...getting ready to do what they went in for the last time but couldn't cause of a nick on the aeorta. I was just hoping she'd see my post and if she had the energy she could help. A shot in the dark as it were.

Hugs to you and I hope you and yours are doing well.

[AuntB]

Thanks, amom. The last thread I read today said she was still in the hospital...I'm SO glad she's out of there. Something tells me most of us would not make very good patients. I'm going to check the KF research threads; her posts should be there.

Good bumping into you!

[Grampa Dave]

I have never fished on Klamath Lake, I'm not much of a lake fisherman. Archie Bunker on steroids is our resident expert on Klamath Lake.

Due to a shoulder injury, I have not been able to fish the Williamson for about 3 years. Thanks to some new two fly handed rods, I plan to come up this summer when the big trout go up stream.

There is a fly shop on 97 in the heart of the Williamson River, and they would be your best experts to where you may be heading.

You need to contact Archie Bunker on Steroids re fising in/on Klamath Lake.