Salmon deserve attention

The Mat-Su Basin Salmon Partnership Symposium titled “Healthy Salmon, Healthy Communities” was held last week in Palmer. The partnership was formed in 2005 to address the increasing impacts on salmon habitat in the Mat-Su from human use and development resulting from the high growth rate the borough has, and still is experiencing. More than 50 member groups comprised of government, business, landowners, fisheries stakeholders and private nonprofits make up the partnership.

According to the partnership, it “believes that thriving fish, healthy habitats and vibrant communities can co-exist in the Mat-Su Basin.” Their approach “emphasizes collaboration, cooperation and getting things done … (and are) part of a broader network of fish habitat partnerships across the U.S. and one of four Alaska partnerships under the National Fish Habitat Partnership, whose mission is to protect, restore and enhance the nation’s fish and aquatic communities through partnerships that foster fish habitat conservation and improve the quality of life for the American people. The history of salmon in other parts of the world indicates that salmon cannot persist in their full abundance unless stakeholders work together to protect salmon habitat.”

That is the background for the symposium. This year’s symposium keynote speaker, David Batker, an ecological economist, really set the tone with his presentation on the need to place a value on ecosystem components that are generally given no value or consideration in today’s decision-making processes. For example, most people see no value to a wetland area until it has been drained, filled and developed. That same wetland, protected and preserved, might be the single natural protection for a city from massive flooding while contributing to the water supply and the recreational esthetics of the community.

With that lead-in, the symposium heard presentations concerning the condition of various habitats around the Mat-Su basin, how local ecosystems are currently valued and how much people are willing to pay for conservation and access to recreation, understanding conflicts in the context of sustainability of Cook Inlet salmon fisheries, and differing views on why the Mat-Su has been experiencing significantly decreased salmon returns over the past several years.

Several presentations were made on ongoing work related to the proposed Susitna-Watana Hydroelectric Project and potential threats to salmon like climate change and invasive pike. Dozens of other salmon habitat related presentations were made, several in the form of posters because all presentation times were filled.

I enjoyed this symposium more than any of the previous ones I had attended because of the wide variety of topics presented and some of the open discussions that were facilitated during the symposium. I made a presentation on where have all the salmon gone, which was arguably the “controversial” topic of the event. I say that because my talk directly followed a presentation by a commercial fishing representative who laid the poor numbers of returning salmon to the Mat-Su directly at the feet of poor habitat with no mention of commercial fisheries interception as a possible contributing factor.

I pointed out that, while healthy habitat is critical to the continuation of healthy salmon runs and habitat problems do exist, fish have to actually be present to use that habitat. With 80 percent of all salmon returning to Cook Inlet being harvested in the commercial fisheries and an exploitation rate of between 50 to 75 percent of all salmon stocks in Cook Inlet by the commercial fleets, significant numbers of fish, especially in smaller and more discreet populations, are harvested and fail to return to their natal streams.

Are the commercial fishing fleets in Cook Inlet the bad guys here? I say a definite no. All consumptive user groups of Cook Inlet salmon are very good at what they do: the commercial harvesters, the sport anglers and guides, the dipnetters and the subsistence users. The problem as I see it is how these respective groups are managed in what they do. The responsibility for the management of the user groups falls directly on the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) for regulation management and the Alaska Board of Fisheries (BOF) for regulation implementation and development.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I retired from ADF&G and served a term on the BOF. I’m familiar with both entities. The BOF needs to understand the level of conservation concern that exists in the Mat-Su by listening to ADF&G present, without bias, what science they have and make the hard choices necessary to protect our salmon resources. ADF&G then needs to commit to do the work necessary to implement board decisions to recover the salmon resource. Anything less is unacceptable.

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.