A Board of Fisheries meeting report

The Alaska Board of Fisheries held its 2016-2017 organizational meeting last week in Soldotna. Four of us from the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission attended the three day meeting to address three non-regulatory proposals we had submitted and to observe goings on and network with other interested individuals.

In my opinion, no earth-shattering things came out of that meeting, with one small exception I’ll get to shortly. Most of the agenda was relatively routine. Two agenda change requests which would have had some bearing on Valley residents were heard and debated. Neither ACR was accepted nor any board generated proposals developed regarding these items.

The first ACR concerned the size and power of boats allowed while participating in the personal use dip-net fishery on the Kenai River. The second ACR asked to eliminate the depth specifications on commercial drift gill nets. The BOF decided that, while both ACR’s had merit for discussion, they should be regular proposals submitted in cycle for public input and BOF discussion, not last minute add-ons.

The discussion of our three non-regulatory proposals took some time and covered a good amount of ground. However, the BOF left out one critical step on each proposal. That critical step involved directly asking the Alaska Department of Fish and Game if they would take action on any of the requests contained in the proposals.

\For instance, one proposal asked that the Shell Lake sockeye population be declared a stock of conservation concern. There is very sound scientific evidence that a designation of that highest level is justified. When ADFG presented their list of SOC designations, Shell Lake wasn’t even mentioned. Nobody from the BOF specifically asked the department why.

ADFG did recommend that the Susitna-Yentna sockeye population be continued as a stock of yield concern. We had asked, in a second proposal, that the designation be elevated to a management concern. I don’t think ADFG was willing to elevate the ranking because they were also proposing a reduction in escapement goal numbers for the Susitna-Yentna stocks. Again, nobody from the BOF asked why ADFG was not considering the elevation in status.

Our third proposal asked the BOF to ask ADFG to follow the Sustainable Salmon Fisheries Policy regulation and start including in any new action plan a section that contained measureable objectives and goals to delist that population from the SOC designation over time. Action plans are mandated when a SOC is declared.

This proposal generated a lot of discussion and was, in my opinion, well received by the BOF, ADFG, and the public in attendance. The BOF even added a section to their miscellaneous items agenda at the end of the meeting to further explore the topic.

But, again, the discussion ended without a direct question from the BOF to ADFG asking if they would begin abiding by this regulation.

As soon as the meeting adjourned, I approached both the Director of the Division of Sport Fish, Tom Brookover, and the Director of the Commercial Fisheries Division, Scott Kelley, who were standing together, and directly asked the overlooked question. Brookover commented that they were waiting for the BOF to ask them the question and the board never did.

Both Brookover and Kelley said they thought the inclusion of measureable delisting criteria in an action plan was a good idea. They both committed to do so in any new action plans coming in the future. Brookover then stated that the department plans to introduce all the old action plans into the record at the Upper Cook Inlet BOF meeting and ask the BOF if they would like to review the plans for updating and inclusion of measureable criteria. I was thrilled to hear this offer and told them I thought this was a great idea.

Because of deadlines, this summary will be submitted for publication prior to the meeting with ADFG in Wasilla on Oct. 27. I’ll report on the results of that meeting in a future column. This end of season meeting has become a regular fall activity where the department summarizes the 2016 fishing season, both sport and commercial, in Cook Inlet, and explains why the department made some of their management decisions affecting the final returns to Upper Cook Inlet river systems.

I understand there will be several borough assembly folks and some state legislators, or their representatives, present for the meeting. Candidates running for state office were also invited. This meeting is always interesting to listen to as the various questions are addressed by ADFG.