High water puts Alaska in hot water over salmon
Ian Stewart/Yukon News
Salmon fishing on the Chilkoot River in Haines, Alaska, in October 2006.
Alaska is changing its management methods after overseeing one of the worst salmon runs in years.
Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans received a letter from Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game in September and the Joint Technical Committee, which is made up of both Americans and Canadians, met last week in Whitehorse to discuss the run.
The first pulse of fish was harvested this year, and, as a result, escapement requirements were not met, Alaskan officials said in the letter.
Next year, they may allow the first pulse to have free passage, managers said.
Free passage for the first pulse was a technique championed by the Yukon Sub-Salmon Committee two years ago. It was tried, and worked.
This year, high water levels and cold weather was supposed to curb the fish harvest, said Alaska fisheries manager Steve Hayes.
This, combined with the projected count, shaped the management techniques used this year, he said.
“We expected the run to be below average, but we did expect escapement to be met,” Hayes said.
Many fishers along the river criticized Alaska for opening the summer chum commercial fishery. The openings resulted in an accidental catch of at least 10,000 Chinook – one quarter of which were predicted to be Canada-bound.
Net mesh-sizes, small time slots and heavy surveillance were all in effect to ensure Chinook were not being targeted by the commercial openings, said Hayes.
“We’ve had a poor run since 1998,” he said. “I fully expect, based on what we’ve been seeing with these poor runs, is that we will be looking at a conservative type of management next year. I can’t say what it will look like until I meet with the fishermen to come up with the plan, but I’m pretty positive there will be some type of reductions on the Alaskan side of the fishery.”
The Alaskans are receptive to Canadian needs, said Yukon’s area chief of resource management with DFO and committee co-chair Steven Smith.
“They wrote us a letter in black and white saying they will take positive measures,” he said.
“We have the benefit of seeing what comes up before our fisheries begin so we appreciate the challenges the US have, but we would like to see more in-season management action when it is obvious it should happen,” said Smith.
Yukon can only manage the fish that cross the border, but both sides are working to the same objective, he said.
Alaskans have pledged to move quicker on things that need to happen when the run is moving – not just stick to a plan established before they see what actually comes in from the ocean, Smith said.
“I do believe things will change.”
This year’s run has been one of the worst on record with only about 31,000 fish making it to the spawning grounds.
The Joint Technical Committee advises the Yukon River Panel who are responsible for the actual policy, legislation and funding. The committee will meet again in February, before the panel’s meeting in March.
Contact Roxanne Stasyszyn at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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Part One
Where did all the Chinook salmon go?
According to Alaska biologist Steve Hayes, it is the small commercial fishery at the mouth of the Yukon River, but is that the truth?
Nope. Look what Alaska does not even mention.
A three year undercover investigation of illegal fishing reveals the following significant, and widespread illegal fishing.
Stan Pruszenski, special agent in charge for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska, said the investigation found that illegal sales are widespread.
… Sold “significant quantities for a lot of money,”
Subsistence fishermen say there’s not enough to feed their families, but federal agents have accused some subsistence users of abusing their rights.
It’s called customary trade. Under state law it’s illegal to sell subsistence salmon. Federal law say it is permitted, but only if it’s a subsistence user selling to another subsistence user.
The feds say that’s not what’s happening on the Yukon.
The truth is this illegal fishery has been ongoing for over a decade, and not single arrest. Each fish is worth $200. A backpack full of smoked salmon is worth $1.500.
Alaska has turned a blind eye to this illegal fishery for years now. The poor fishermen at the mouth of the river have nothing to do with this illegal fishing, but Alaska’s biologists conveniently point to them to you’re your focus off the truth, which is rampant and uncontrolled poaching in the Fairbanks area.
Part Two
The last three years the commercial harvest at the mouth of the river caught 5% of the harvestable surplus. Subsistence fishermen and illegal fishermen have harvested 95% of the harvestable surplus.
Mathematically impossible for the small commercial fishery to be the cause of the missing Chinooks salmon.
Each commercial fishermen has to fill out a form in triplicate signed by two parties for every fish each day.
Subsistence fishermen on the other hand is asked long after the season, how many fish they caught. It is the honor system.
Just imagine asking an illegal fisherman how many fish they caught. Do you really think they are going to tell the truth?
Most of this illegal fishing takes place around Fairbanks and almost exclusively on Canadian bound fish.
I know one man who caught 1,000 Chinook salmon last year.worth $180,000 at retail.
Did Alaska manager Steve Hayes even mention this? Nope.
It actually gets worse. Many of these Chinook salmon are caught with set gillnets along the river banks. These special type of gillnets in river systems were cited as one of the main causes of the Fraser missing over 1 million fish in 2004. These type of unattended nets catch salmon, which then start falling out after 2 hours, and many of these nets are left unattended for over 24 hours. As a result there is tremendous wastage with these types of nets.
Often killing 5 fish, and 4 of these fish die and fall to the bottom of the river.
-continued-
Part Three
Anchored gillnets in rivers are unjustifiably wasteful. These are different nets than used at the mouth of the river which are drift nets, and do not allow hardly any fish to drop out.
This wasteful method of capturing salmon should be banned, as they are in the Fraser. You can read this report at
Link:http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/Content/HOC/committee/381/fopo/reports/rp1698791/foporp02/11-cp-e.htm
Fishwheels are also used in catching salmon in the Yukon. They are a far more environmentally friendly method of catching salmon, but only if they are manned at all times, so that salmon that are endangered can be returned into the river. Fishwheels could easily return the endangered large Chinooks back into the river.
It gets even worse yet. A fisheries disaster was declared on the Yukon, and financial assistance is being provided to buy these illegal fishermen new nets. The same wasteful nets like these, were banned in the Fraser River.
Unbelievably, there are 345 of these nets in the upper Yukon and the US government is buying these illegal fishermen 1,000 new nets to use this year. Tripling the number of nets this year.
Did Alaska’s Steve Hayes mention this?
If you would like to protest this stupid decision to buy illegal fishermen triple the number of nets that they have today, by all means email Jane Lubchenko at jane.lubchenco@noaa,gov.
Did you see this information coming from the Alaskan biologists?
Nope,they are not honest.
-continued-
Part Four
Native Alaskan who are poaching this fish around the Fairbanks area are playing the race card to make excuses for this rampant illegal fishing.
“We are just poor starving villagers trying to feed their families”
Don’t fall for this sob story. The truth is that when one group abuses the resource by illegal fishing, all the other users pay the price … and all the other users on the Yukon in both Alaska and Canada are very poor villagers too.
The poor honest fishermen are paying the price on both sides of the border.
Want to do something, then write Jane.Lubchenko at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) call Governor Parnell at 907.465.3500 or DFO at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Tell them that you want the illegal fishing in Alaska to stop.
Tell them that you want the wasteful anchored gillnets in the Yukon River banned.
Tell them that you want fish wheels to be used and manned with the largest Chinooks placed back in the river. Tell them that you want the Alaskan harvest to be documented daily and accurately.
Tell them that you want illegal fishermen arrested, because if you do not, this illegal fishing will get worse until there are no fish left in the Yukon.
Tell them that illegal fishermen should not be getting new nets, and tell them that TRIPLING the number of nets in the Yukon is irresponsible.
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