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It is time for our 2023 membership campaign.   We would like to thank all the members who sent in your 2023 renewals in December and early January.  We also had a number of new members join over the last 5 weeks.  We appreciate your support!

Your membership fees go to pay our direct costs for our website and email server costs, legal zoom fees and non-profit filing fees.  We run a very tight budget to operate the GLSI.  Extra funds have been used in the past for lobbyists to fight for our fishery and our tagged head reward program.  It is also part of our mission to keep our members informed of all issues affecting our sport fishery and to fight for our interests.  Our Board of Directors are unpaid volunteers who donate their time attending meetings all across the midwest and advocating for our king and silver fishery.  We have pushed to stock more coho in Lake Huron to improve the salmon fishery there and coho catches are steadily improving, especially in the spring on the south end of Lake Huron.   When the steelhead egg take was cancelled due to covid, we advocated to replace the steelhead not being stocked with kings based on equivalencies and an extra 225,000 kings were stocked.  We have filed FOIA requests to promote transparency in how stocking decisions are made.  With the rebound of the forage base in Lake Michigan, we continue to push for increased king stocking and we are going up to 1 million kings in spring 2023.  We are actively engaged and financially supporting the Coalition to Protect Michigan Resources to get a fair and equitable Treaty of 1836 consent decree.

Our board of directors and officers are Ed Blissick, President and Treasurer.  Ed is a recreational angler out of Ludington.  Tom Andris, Secretary.  Tom is a rec angler and runs the annual Dreamweaver Charity Salmon Tournament at Muskegon.   The rest of our board is composed of Steve Collins, rec angler out of Ludington.  John Gudwer, charter captain out of Manistique.  Scott Keegstra, owner of Captain Chucks II in Ludington and Ed Erdelac, retired charter captain out of Portage, Indiana.

We paused the CWT reward program in 2022 to support the Coalition to Protect Michigan Resources who represent us in the Treaty of 1836 Consent Decree Negotiations.  Unfortunately the MDNR negotiation team has chosen to shut out sport anglers and our interests in these negotiations and the MDNR has agreed to support a massive expansion of tribal commercial gill netting.  This is now moving to a costly legal battle, and we need you more than ever to help fund the group who will be fighting for the Great Lakes sport anglers.  CPMR will be filing objections to the proposed decree in the 12th District Federal Court in Kalamazoo on January 20th.  They have also filed an appeal to the Federal Appellate Court in Cincinnati to become a full partner in the negotiations due to the MNDR actions.   Please renew your membership as soon as possible and encourage your friends to join the GLSI.  The proposed consent decree is not finalized, and we are not giving up the battle to stop the expansion of commercial gill nets and to guarantee an equally shared resource.   We need your support now more than ever to help fund this battle. 

Our basic membership is only $20 annually but if you can support us at a higher level, we sincerely appreciate it!  You can renew your GLSI membership at this link:
glsalmon.org/great-lakes-salmon-initiative-memberships/

Here are three other links with some of the latest info on the next steps in the battle over the consent decree:
Information on the upcoming January 20th court proceedings: 
protectmiresources.com/angling-conservat...1MhUqO4HSXCAFxfyTgtQ

How proposed consent decree can jeopardize our Great Lakes fisheries:
protectmiresources.com/new-consent-decre...FL3Zrf06IHI1x0HnmhlI

Possible consequences of the proposed consent decree:
protectmiresources.com/possible-conseque...bt1VGVn4fcS7m37o2jaM
 
 
 
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Our mailing address is:
Great Lakes Salmon Initiative
PO Box 189
Chelsea, MI 48118
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