I would like to commend President Bush’s recent stand on the increased regulation of bottom trawling on the high seas. I would encourage him to consider supporting drastically increased regulation of bottom trawling in all waters of the United States as well.

Bottom trawling is a very wasteful and destructive method of commercial fishing. It is wasteful because it is very indiscriminate in the catch it brings to the surface. Much of the catch is discarded dead back into the ocean and only the target specie is retained. This is an insane method to catch fish.

Bottom trawling is destructive as it destroys the ocean floor as huge trawls and doors to spread the nets are dragged along the bottom. It is long past time to have this practice highly regulated if not abolished.

I have been involved in the commercial fishing industry in Alaska for 51 years. I am now 60 years old. In that time I have owned many different vessels, from a 50-foot salmon seiner to a 102-foot Bering Sea crab boat. Presently I own a 60-foot combination boat.

I earn most of my income from the halibut longline fishery, which is also a bottom fishery, but with individual hooks instead of a trawl hauled across the bottom. In a whole season, catching 200,000 pounds of halibut, we catch a few hundred pounds of fish we don’t sell to a processor. Nearly all the fish unable to be sold are returned to the water alive.

While the president doesn’t get high marks from the environmental community, I would expect as an active, outdoor person, the environment is an important concern to him. His stand against bottom trawling on the high seas and the inshore waters of the United States of America would be an incredibly important step for the environmental health of the world’s oceans.