Board of Fish deals blow to rebuilding salmon stocks

By a 4-3 vote on Wednesday, the Alaska Board of Fisheries dealt a significant blow to the Northern District's attempts to rebuild their dwindling salmon stocks.

Proposal 85 asked the board to throw out the existing Central District Drift Gillnet Fishery Management Plan and return the drift fleet to what would amount to a basically unrestricted fishery. The board had no intention of going that far, but the commercially oriented board members wanted to give the fleet something.

The drifters had complained during public testimony and committee work that they were forced to inefficiently harvest salmon by being restricted to the expanded harvest zones first created by the board in 2011. These zones were created to concentrate commercial harvest on the Kenai and Kasilof sockeye stocks closer to the river mouths while significantly reducing the interception of northern stocks passing through the middle of the inlet.

Pulling the drift fleet out of the center of Cook Inlet did reduce the efficiency of any single net set. The drifters had learned, over time, exactly where to target salmon in the central inlet and could often plug their nets with a single set. This closure of the center of the inlet and the preferred drift fleet fishing areas, in turn, increased effort and expense in harvesting the fish in the harvest zones. However, some of the better catches in recent memory occurred using this management approach. In 2014, for example, the drift fleet had their ninth best year since 1960.

Northern District representatives, including the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission presented solid facts, ADF&G reports, and scientific data supporting the reality that salmon stocks are depressed in the Mat-Su. Scientific data was also presented showing that the conservation corridor/harvest zone management approach currently being used in the Central District was moving more salmon north.

Board members John Jensen, board chair from Petersburg, Sue Jefferies from Kodiak, and Robert Ruffner from Soldotna engineered a substitute approach (referred to as Record Copy 146) which would give the drift fleet an additional 12-hour opening area wide during the peak of the mixed stock salmon movement through the Central District.

On the surface, a single 12-hour opening doesn't sound like a big deal. However, when board member Payton asked the department managers what that opening would likely translate into in fish numbers, the answer was unexpected to many people. According to the Commercial Fisheries Division Management Coordinator for Cook Inlet, approximately 50,000 sockeye and 5,000 coho could be harvested, on average during that single 12-hour period.

The board spent more than two hours deliberating the original proposal and the substitute language found in RC 146. During that deliberation, member Payton stated, "We need to do what's best for the fish." That sentiment was echoed by all board members, including the three who engineered the reallocation of the resource. Orville Huntington, from Huslia, was the fourth member to vote in support of the give away.

At one point, when it appeared the substitute language was going to be adopted, member Payton asked the department if it would be fair to say that these 50,000 reds and 5,000 coho were being given to the drift fleet at the expense of the sport, guided sport, personal use dipnetters, subsistence users and Northern District set net fishery. The department answered that this change would be a reallocation from these five user groups to the drift fleet. The loss of these fish as potential broodstock was also mentioned.

During board deliberations, Chairman Jensen was on record stating, "It appears the conservation corridor is working to move more fish north, so we're saving fish, but are we saving too many fish?" Jensen further stated that, "If I had my way, I'd give the drifters two extra periods!"

Reed Morisky from Fairbanks, Al Cain from Anchorage, and Israel Payton from Wasilla argued strongly to retain the conservation corridor/ extended harvest zone management plan with no changes. Information was presented that the drifters were making as much or more money over the five years the conservation corridor approach has been in place as they were prior to the conservation corridor/harvest zone plan adoption. This five-year average income was significantly higher than the previous 20-year average.

After the vote was taken, member Cain stated that he was just beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel on reversing the depressed salmon returns to the Northern District. Using that analogy, this writer sees the light moved much further back in the tunnel.

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. This column is the opinion of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman or its parent company, Wick Communications. You can leave Delo a message by emailing sports@frontiersman.com.