Dismayed by local turnout

I attended a public meeting earlier this week at the state Fish and Game office in Palmer. The meeting had been announced in the newspaper, and the purpose was to explain the approach the department is taking this year in managing both the commercial and sport harvest of king salmon in the Northern District of Cook Inlet.

Several of the fisheries managers from Soldotna and Anchorage joined the Palmer staff in explaining the department’s position and why the steps taken were being implemented. The meeting began with a summary of king salmon return strengths for the past couple of years and what the projections are for this year about the same as last year with a glimmer of hope the runs might be a little stronger. Only two of the 17 systems monitored in the Northern District made escapement goals in 2010, and only five in 2011.

New emergency order restrictions were itemized with some explanation why those particular restrictions were selected and what was hoped would be accomplished. This was covered for both the sports restrictions on inriver users and the commercial restrictions for the Northern District setnetters. As an aside to Cook Inlet, the managers stated that so far this season, king salmon returns are weak both in Southeast Alaska and for the early commercial openers near the mouth of the Copper River. It was stressed, however, that the season is still early and it is too soon to access general run strengths based on these results.

There were several questions from the public regarding the king salmon situation. The topic of enhancing the depleted runs with hatchery stocking was raised. Hatcheries are a valuable tool in certain well-defined situations, but are not a panacea to cure all the ills of a fishery. The managers explained potential genetic consequences of introducing hatchery fish on top of a wild run and other factors that suggest why stocking has not been used already.

The managers then moved on to explain the sockeye outlook for Cook Inlet this coming season. Crescent River (down 27 percent), Fish Creek (down 27 percent), Kasilof River (down 21 percent) and the Susitna River (down 50 percent) are all projected to be below their 20-year average returns for 2012. The Kenai River is projected to be up 6 percent over its 20-year average run, with a projection of 4 million sockeyes returning. It was disheartening to hear the Susitna projection given that system has been a stock of yield concern since 2008.

The next agenda item involved explaining some of the research work planned for the Northern District. This summer will be the last for coho and chum abundance and spawner distribution studies in the Susitna River drainages. All the managers expressed interest in continuing these studies, but the current study will yield some good research data applicable to future management decisions. The status of the Little Susitna weir was explained along with future projected inseason management for both king and coho salmon from that weir.

Mention was made of a new future project studying king salmon spawner distribution in Susitna River drainages as part of the work regarding the proposed power generation dam on the upper Susitna. Mention was also made of a cooperative project between Sport Fish and Commercial Fisheries Divisions using weirs on the Lewis and Chuitna Rivers to better monitor king salmon runs in those systems. There was discussion of the expanded offshore test fishery project that the Division of Commercial Fisheries uses to project sockeye run strengths as the season progresses and why the project was expanded and what is hoped to be learned from the expansion.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the new and improved level of cooperation between the two major fisheries divisions within the department. I hope they continue to expand on that cooperative spirit for the benefit of our fisheries resources and their user groups.

I was disappointed in the number of public who attended this publicized meeting. There were seven fisheries managers from Anchorage, Soldotna and Palmer present to address these management issues. If you count the wildlife trooper who attended to learn more about the fisheries in this area and the game biologist present for the same reason, plus the guy from Soldotna who drove up to learn about our Northern District concerns, there were six members of the public in attendance. Two of the others were from Anchorage, I believe. I was the only Valley “civilian” in attendance, which is pretty sad.

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