Important questions regarding salmon fisheries

As I write this, the annual end-of-season meeting between the Matanuska Susitna Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission and ADF&G will be over. The meeting was scheduled for Jan. 24 in the borough assembly chambers in Palmer. I also am writing this prior to attending the actual meeting, so I can only speculate on how the meeting went.

The MSBFWC had submitted several questions, in writing, to the department asking about several different fisheries related topics. The department, in turn, has returned written answers to those questions. These answers will be discussed and follow-up questions will, I suspect, be the order of the day.

Two of the questions caught my eye and I’d like to present the department’s response to them. The first question is:” If a stock of concern has been listed for a number of years, what information or criteria does ADF&G need to take this stock off the concern list?” Currently, our Northern District has eight listed stocks of concern. Seven are king salmon and one is sockeye salmon. The sockeye stock has been listed for ten years.

The department’s answer is:” To remove a stock from SOC status, that stock should have met escapement or yield objectives over a recent four to five-year period and the escapements should fall throughout the range of the escapement goal….” The rest of the answer contains definitions of terms used to describe criteria which qualified the salmon stock to be declared a stock of concern.

I was pleased to read this answer because the department has finally listed a set of criteria in answer to this question. Historically, once a salmon stock was declared a SOC, there was no consistent established policy to remove the stock from that status. If memory serves, in a couple of cases, a stock was removed from SOC status after reaching the minimum escapement goal for only one year.

The other question I noticed was related but different. It goes:” When Susitna stock of yield concern goes away, given the tools available now, does ADF&G have what it needs to provide in-season abundance-based management of Susitna and Yentna rivers to support the subsistence, sport, commercial, and personal use fisheries?”

The department’s answer might surprise and even startle you. “No, the department does not have the tools necessary to provide in-season abundance-based management of Cook Inlet commercial fisheries or of the Tyonek Subdistrict subsistence fishery.” They go on to discuss a couple of management plans and how the Susitna/Yentna sockeye salmon are managed in an “after the fact” approach rather than using an in-season plan.

I think this question will need to be explored in greater depth to find out if the department has some ideas on how to achieve in-season management of this particular sockeye salmon run.

There are several other questions which I think will receive follow-up discussion, including one where the department explicitly assumed allocative authority by holding a commercial opening in an area in direct conflict with a Board of Fisheries specified management plan.

Also, if you haven’t heard, the BOF voted at their recently completed A-Y-K meeting, held in Anchorage, to move the Upper Cook Inlet meeting scheduled for February 2020, back to Anchorage.

The board usually votes where to hold meetings scheduled a couple of years ahead during their annual workshop meeting. At the 2017 workshop, the upcoming 2020 UCI meeting was discussed, and the vote decided an Anchorage location. Under some political influence from our previous governor, another vote was held in 2018 and the meeting location was moved to Kenai/Soldotna.

I don’t know why the topic surfaced again this time around, but it did, and the meeting was moved back to Anchorage. I guess I’ll wait until a couple of weeks before the actual meeting time before booking any hotels or travel, just in case!

We’ve experienced a few delayed earthquake related problems at the house. I had previously mentioned the toilet shaking loose from its flange. We got that repaired shortly after the earthquake. Starting a couple of weeks ago, we noticed that: a) the dishwasher drain pump quit pumping; b) the water heater elements quit working, and c) the kitchen stove oven compartment ruptured and was unusable.

We had to replace the dishwasher and the kitchen stove. The water heater was repairable with the replacement of both heating elements and their controls. I hope that’s the end of things breaking down from the shaking, but time will tell. I’m going to really be looking forward to the October PFD!