Fisheries debate continues

Happy Independence Day!

Remember to thank a veteran or active military person for their service to maintain this holiday tradition for well over 200 years. If you celebrate with fireworks, please use care. We don’t need any injuries from reckless or careless use and we certainly don’t need a repeat of the Miller’s Reach fire. I don’t want to go through that again.

Over the last few weeks in this column, I mentioned how a recent speaker at a Valley chamber of commerce luncheon discussed the economic value of the sports fishing industry to the Cook Inlet area. In another column, I mentioned how a hatchery group doing work in the Northern District didn’t include commercial interception and harvest of the majority of returning Northern District salmon as a possible cause of our weak salmon returns of late.

A spokesman for the Cook Inlet commercial salmon fishing industry took exception to those columns and wrote a spectrum article explaining why he disagreed. Parts of his rebuttal were unprofessional with personal attacks and much of what he said about the topic in general was just plain false. A response is being prepared by some members of the Matanuska Susitna Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission. I have heard that the Kenai River Sportfishing Association might be preparing a rebuttal to the economic statements made in the commercial fisheries spokesman’s article as well.

I have never (let me repeat that) never called for the elimination of a commercial fishery, as charged in the spectrum article. I have repeatedly stated that for proper resource management in Cook Inlet, the commercial and sport fishing industries, and personal use and subsistence fisheries need to be managed in a manner to protect the salmon resources to keep the populations strong, healthy, and vibrant. A healthy salmon population means more fish for all users.

This whole back-and-forth over Cook Inlet fisheries allocations is nothing new. It’s been happening for decades. The current changing political climate of Cook Inlet fisheries involves the dynamics of human population growth around Cook Inlet and the demands of these folks for a fair share of the common property salmon fishery resources found there. It all boils down to a fair allocation of a finite amount of salmon resource among hundreds of thousands of users represented by many different user groups.

By law, subsistence users have priority over all others to the harvest of a common property natural resource. The reality is that there isn’t much subsistence harvest of salmon in Cook Inlet. There are tens of thousands of personal use harvesters, but current law recognizes personal use in the same category as sport or commercial fishing. Don’t forget the non-consumptive users who are content to know the fish are continuing a natural cycle as old as time.

So who decides this “fair allocation” of the salmon resource?

The Alaska Board of Fisheries has that unenviable task. They rely on information provided by government agencies and user groups regarding the health of the resource and the economic impact provided to local and state economies while harvesting the resource.

A surprising twist was added to this whole discussion this past week when Craig Medred reported on June 30 in the Alaska Dispatch, in an article entitled, “Turns out sport fisheries top commercial in total value,” that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has been “cooking the books” in a major economic report. The report titled, “Fisheries Economics of the U.S.” from last April by the Department of Commerce, trumpeted federal success in boosting the value of US commercial fisheries while slamming the value of the nation’s sport fisheries.

This information was presented in various forms all over the country as fact. Under pressure from recreational fishing groups, NMFS is now admitting that the reported commercial industry economic values were inflated by adding a significant amount of imported seafood value. The total value of commercial seafood in the US was more than doubled by including the value of imported farmed salmon, a commodity which is unpopular with Alaskan commercial fishermen. NMFS has further admitted that the report was written to portray this fisheries financial picture as domestic when, in reality, it was a global view.

Kind of makes you wonder who you can trust any more, doesn’t it?

I think we’re on the edge of finding long-term management solutions which will address salmon population health and fair user allocations in Cook Inlet. Some adjustments may be needed, but we’re close. Time will tell.

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.