BOF needs to see strong showing

Things are starting to heat up for the upcoming Alaska Board of Fisheries (BOF) meeting scheduled for Anchorage at the Egan Center from Feb. 20 through March 5. The Mat-Su Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Sportsmen’s Committee (MBRSC) expects to have a final draft of its 75-page booklet in the hands of a professional biologist consultant for printing and distribution to the BOF by week’s end.

This booklet contains background and makes recommendations on the major salmon fisheries concerns the MBRSC has identified for the Northern District of Cook Inlet and explains why certain proposals made by the MBRSC and others would help correct these problems. There are also some short explanations why other proposals before the BOF would only further erode and damage our salmon resources.

Several members of the MBRSC are planning to attend all or most of the two-week BOF meeting to participate in the process of making changes to the regulations that govern our Northern District fisheries. This involvement includes public testimony, committee participation in dealing with blocks of proposals, and both formal and informal meetings with board members to explain why supporting some proposals and opposing others would benefit the overall health of the Northern District salmon stocks.

The Alaska fish and game regulatory process is the most open process in the country for allowing an individual to influence how regulations are developed. Intelligent presentations by large numbers of users submitting written comments, testifying and/or participating in the committee process are critical in explaining the importance to the BOF of a dip-net fishery, for example. These personal use fisheries provide opportunity to gather food for Alaskan families. The alternative is allowing those same fish to end up in commercial nets and be sold for consumption in Japan or Europe or the Lower 48. Commercial fishing interests will be well represented at the meeting because they are interested in protecting their jobs and income.

A strong showing of Valley folks who use our Northern District fisheries for recreational purposes and to feed their families is critical if changes necessary toward correcting and improving our declining salmon stocks are to occur at this meeting. The BOF needs to hear that our salmon are at least as important, both economically and nutritionally, to the approximately 300,000 recreational and personal use fishers surrounding Cook Inlet as they are to the 1,000 or so commercial fishing permit holders.

The MBRSC will concentrate on six areas of concern: species management priorities, Northern District king salmon, coho sport fishing opportunity, Susitna sockeye stock of concern, a conservation corridor, and personal use fisheries.

The species management priorities include restoring language in the Upper Cook Inlet (UCI) Salmon Management Plan that addresses primary use and provides direction to department managers to minimize incidental harvest of non-targeted species. The MBRSC is asking: that early and late-run king and coho salmon be managed primarily for sport and guided sport fishermen; that all late-run Kenai, Kasilof and Northern District sockeye, chum, and pink salmon be managed primarily for commercial uses based on abundance; and, that commercial fisheries be managed to minimize the harvest of king and coho salmon and to provide personal use, sport, and guided sport fishermen with a reasonable opportunity to harvest the sockeye salmon resources.

For Northern District king salmon, the MBRSC supports: the recommendation by Fish and Game to classify six Northern District king runs as stocks of concern and further advocates the implementation of precautionary harvest strategies for those additional stocks that appear to be approaching stock of concern status; revising the Northern District King Salmon Management Plan to clarify that Northern Cook Inlet (NCI) king stocks are to be managed primarily for sport and guided sport uses in order to provide a reasonable opportunity to harvest these salmon over the entire run, as measured by the frequency on in-river restrictions; revising the Northern District King Salmon Management Plan to return regulations for the Northern District commercial set net fishery to those in place prior to 2002; closing Chuitna, Theodore and Lewis Rivers to king salmon fishing; maintaining the king salmon fishing closure at Alexander Creek; and, managing the eastside Susitna River fisheries as a unit (Regulatory Unit 2).

For coho sport fishing opportunity, the MBRSC supports returning to the historical sport fish harvest opportunity of three fish per day for coho throughout the season.

For Susitna sockeye stock of concern, the MBRSC suggests: changing the stock of concern designation for Susitna sockeye from a yield concern to a management concern; establishing a new Optimal Escapement Goal (OEG) based on the new Yentna DIDSON sonar using numbers consistent with the long-standing Bendix-based goals; eliminating the current linkage of the Susitna sockeye OEG to the Kenai sockeye run size; and, establishing a conservation corridor in the Central District drift gillnet fishery, involving mandatory restrictions during mid-July, to ensure that Susitna sockeye escapements are protected.

Regarding a conservation corridor, the MBRSC recommends; putting more Northern District sockeye and coho into their respective drainages and into the sport fishery; establishing an effective fish passage corridor for Northern District salmon stocks in the Central District Drift Gillnet Fishery Management Plan; ending the UCI commercial season on Aug. 5 to allow coho to enter UCI drainages; and, not encouraging expansion of the commercial fishery by targeting chum and pink salmon at the expense of coho.

For the personal use fisheries, the MBRSC recommends leaving them alone — these fisheries provide Alaskan residents with the best opportunity to harvest fish for their dinner tables.

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. You can leave him a message by e-mailing sports@frontiersman.com.