Officials meet to discus fisheries

This past Wednesday, Rep. Mark Neuman hosted a town hall meeting about Upper Cook Inlet salmon fisheries. The purpose of the meeting was for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to summarize the good and the bad in both the commercial and sports fisheries in the Northern District of Cook Inlet for the 2009 season.

Sen. Linda Menard attended the first half of the meeting and Rep. Carl Gatto was present for a short time.

Staffers from both Sen. Charlie Huggins and Rep. Bill Stoltz’s offices also attended. Several members of the Mat-Su Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Sportsman’s Committee, the Matanuska Valley Fish and Game Advisory Committee and the Susitna Valley Fish and Game Advisory Committee were in the audience. Rod Arno of the Alaska Outdoor Council also listened in.

The Sports Fish Division was represented by Charlie Swanton, director; Lisa Evans, assistant director; James Hasbrouck, southcentral regional manager; and Tom Vania, southcentral management coordinator.

The Commercial Fisheries Division was represented by John Hilsinger, director; Jeff Regnart, southcentral regional supervisor; and Jeff Fox, the Upper Cook Inlet area management biologist.

The major issues discussed involved the king, silver, and sockeye salmon returns to Northern District systems. The king salmon returns were poor, with only 8 of 17 systems surveyed achieving the minimum escapement goal. Silver salmon runs were generally good, with some exceptions, and were considered to be average to slightly above average in run strength district wide. Much of the discussion revolved around sockeye salmon and the “new” enumeration methods ADF&G introduced for the 2009 season. Two of the monitored sockeye systems made escapement while a third system did not.

A similar pre-season meeting was held this past May to discussion the season’s expectations and the new sockeye management scheme. I criticized ADF&G in this column for making, in my opinion, a poor presentation of their management programs and giving weak answers to some very specific and detailed questions from the public at that meeting.

This time, I want to praise the department for coming prepared to answer many of the public’s questions. There is still a significant difference of opinion between the public and ADF&G about a proper management scheme for the Northern District’s salmon returns, but I was pleased to see the way ADF&G staff faced the questions head-on and gave the best answers they had available.

Many of the public’s questions don’t yet have a specific answer because of on-going research and biological variables which are beyond staff’s ability to predict, at least at this time. I think the ADF&G staff did a good job of explaining this when those type questions were raised. Staff also admitted when they didn’t know an answer.

I’m sure several members of the public were not happy to hear many of the department’s responses to their questions — the news wasn’t very good in several areas.

One point which was never clearly made in the May meeting but which was finally clarified in this meeting was that this new sockeye enumeration program is an interim scheme. Several major problems with the old sonar indexing system were recognized over time. The new approach is an attempt to improve the accuracy of enumerating sockeye returns in the Northern District. Much research effort is being expended to decide if this new methodology is a real improvement over the old sonar approach. If it isn’t, a different approach will be tried in the future.

I was interested in listening to several questions from the public which were quite specific in detail and to ADF&G’s response to those questions.

One questioner pointed out some significant weaknesses in the data the department used to establish escapement goals for the new sockeye enumeration program and asked if the department was aware of these weaknesses. ADF&G responded that they were aware of the problems and had had the program and data reviewed by outside sources, who concurred that ADF&G was using a reasonable approach and the best data available. Unfortunately, the reality of fisheries management requires using the data one has rather than the data one would like to have.

Another questioner pointed out the need to relocate the weir on the Little Susitna River to allow the data collected to be used as an in-season management tool. The current weir location is too far upriver to allow the data to have any meaningful in-season management applications. Staff committed to pursuing the goal of getting the weir relocated.

Several members of the public made the point that the king salmon sports fishing industry in the valley was off by 40 to 50 percent this past season and wanted to know what to expect for next year. Concerns were also voiced about the possible effects of the 2006 flood on future king salmon returns. Staff sympathized with the loss of business and recognized how damaging it was to the local economy. They also emphasized that it was too soon to predict what management actions might be necessary for next year’s Chinook returns.

While none of the problems were solved at this meeting, I was glad to see the give-and-take discussion and explanation which was presented.

I hope everybody came away with a better understanding of the “other guy’s” perspective!

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.