TU Yanks Whole State of Washington’s Charter
- This topic has 3 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated Nov 18, 2005 at 7:39 pm by
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Hey guys-
I will certainly have to write about this one in the next AA and be more judicious, so I am going on record as saying that while this was heavyhanded, I think it was basically good.
It’s hard to comment with much insight on an issue I haven’t been following up to now, but it certainly sounds like bad politics. By yanking the charter, it’s unlikely that TU will encourage more conservation. It’s also tough to do a lot of new membership recruiting without already having strong presence in the state. How do you get new people to come to a meeting for a non-existent charter?
Finally, I wonder how this will affect TU’s ability to push important environmental litigation in that area of the country. TU has long been a central force in resisting dam building, water use issues, and other problems that hurt anadromous fisheries. Does TU’s charter revocation impact its standing to do so in the future? It would be awful for TU to lose its traction in an area like Washington, which is so central to U.S. fishery management of Pacific salmon and steelhead.
Besides, without sport fishermen, all you have left is commercial fishing and hog-wild native netting. Those groups haven’t ever been very concerned with preserving wild fish stocks. If TU is serious about conservation, it should take responsibility for educating its membership accordingly – rather than just taking all its marbles and going back East.
I guess my biggest gripe with TU is that too many members think it is a club for fly fishing, not cold water fisheries conservation. If you want a fly fishing club, fine, but change the name and the charter. The local Cumberland Chapter’s meeting last month featured a presentation on flyfishing in the Gulf for redfish. Sounds fun, but what does it have to do with trout, cold water, or conservation in general? If you have enough fly fishermen get together, talking about fly fishing, and bashing spin fishermen and “bait chunkers” all day long, people eventually get the feeling you care less about conservation and more about fly fishing snobbery.
This has turned into a general rant, I guess, but I think TU would better advance its overall conservation goals by doing more outreach to non-flyfishermen. I cared strongly about conservation decades before I ever picked up a long rod, and many others do too.
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