The salmon divide

PALMER — David Martin, President of the United Cook Inlet Drift Association, is tired of the “fish wars,” a term that’s been applied to battles over allocation in the Cook Inlet at previous Alaska Board of Fisheries meetings.

The upcoming Board of Fisheries meeting on Cook Inlet finfish, which occurs every three years, is set for Feb. 23 through March 8 at the Anchorage Sheraton Hotel.

“I’m not going to do a tit-for-tat allocation battle back and forth,” Martin said. “That doesn’t benefit anybody.”

At the meeting, the board will consider a bulky list of proposals – 174 to be exact.

Just four of those come from the Mat-Su Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission.

The commission’s main goal is keeping a conservation corridor in place that allows salmon escapement through the center of Cook Inlet up toward the Northern District and ultimately, popular angling destinations like the Little Susitna and Deshka rivers, as well as Jim and Willow creeks.

“Cook Inlet is a fully allocated fishery,” MSB Fish and Game Commission member and District 1 Assembly member Jim Sykes said. “The amount of fish they think is sustainable is already allocated. All these groups have a slice of the pie that Alaska Fish and Game thinks is sustainable. So if somebody gets more fish, somebody else gets less.”

Sykes said the corridor means commercial driftnetters to the south take less within the conservation corridor in the short-term. But, he said, they’re allowed to fish closer to shore to make up for the increased escapement, and overall, stocks will increase in the long-term because more fish will make it to lakes and rivers to spawn.

“What we’re proposing is yes, there’s a possibility that less will be caught in commercial driftnet,” Sykes said. “But if we restore our runs, then that’s not going to be the case. That is the main focus. We were successful in getting this corridor established. We’ve tried to get as much scientific information as possible to see if it’s working. And it looks like it’s working. So we want to keep it in place.”

Both Sykes and Martin said they want to move discussions at the Board of Fisheries meeting out of the realm of political battles, and keep it firmly in the arena of science-based fisheries management that benefits everyone.

But they disagree on what the scientific research points to, exactly.

Sykes said research supports keeping the conservation corridor, instituted in 2011 and expanded in 2014, in place.

Martin said it doesn’t.

“Well, we opposed it at the time because the science didn’t justify it,” Martin said. “It was an experimental proposal by the northern district to put more fish in the Mat Valley. The data didn’t support that. And the new data that we’ve had – there’s a genetic report out that verifies that the corridor is inefficient.”

The report, “Temporal and Spatial Distributions of Kenai River and Susitna River Sockeye Salmon and Coho Salmon in Upper Cook Inlet: Implications for Management,” was released earlier this month. Sykes also cited the same report, placing it in context of research he says supports the importance of the corridor.

Sykes said the borough fish and game commission has 17 studies that have been funded in part with borough money, and in part with monies from partners such as the Salmon Partnership.

He echoed Martin’s commitment to science-based fisheries management, and a distaste for political wrangling.

“It’s so easy to get into a nasty argument over fish, because everybody always wants more,” Sykes said. “But we try to keep it based on the science and based in reality, so we don’t get into the political aspects of it.”

Sykes said that 2015 was a good year in fishing for the Mat-Su, but 2016 was a downer, with the Jim Creek area boasting a small showing of the silvers, also called coho, that the Mat-Su primarily relies on. He said that, of the 14 “stocks of concern” in Alaska (fisheries where low numbers garner the designation from ADF&G) eight are in the Mat-Su.

He said it will take more time, commensurate with the life cycle of salmon, to determine the full effect of the conservation corridor. Coho and sockeye take four to five years to reach maturity before spawning. Salmon can spend several years in the marine environment, however, before they return to spawn and die in their lakes and rivers of origin.

Martin said the commercial driftnet impact to Mat-Su salmon is insignificant, and that the real threats to Mat-Su stocks come from invasive species such as pike and elodea, and rising temperatures in freshwater bodies that kill developing fish.

He pointed to elodea introduced to Alexander Lake and discovered by ADF&G in 2014. He said a slowed response from the state allowed the invasive aquatic plant to proliferate, and that UCIDA is supporting a legislative bill to allow the state to mount an emergency response to invasive species, the same way it does for an oil spill.

“That’s going to affect fish production of all species, even trout,” Martin said. “And in its combination with the northern pike, it’s a death to other fish species. Pike will be able to hide in it, and in these shallow lakes in the Susitna drainage, it will choke the lakes off and be detrimental to boat traffic. Even float planes. It’s a big problem in Europe. That’s where people need to be focusing their attention, instead of restricting the commercial fisheries, which isn’t the cause of any problems for fish production in the freshwaters.”

Sykes said he hopes people from the Mat-Su will participate in the meeting itself.

“This meeting only happens every three years,” he said. “It’s an amazing process. The people make these proposals, and get to weigh in on them. I just learned last night they’re going to accept PDF files up until the meeting starts, and after that you’ll have to fill out a card to make public comments Friday and Saturday, and if necessary Sunday. I think it’s really important for the people from Mat-Su to tell their story.”