The Alaska Board of Fisheries met in Cordova last week and issued multiple decisions – including deciding against hatchery reduction and pollock trawling, and expanding herring and crab fisheries.
The Board convenes to consider regional proposals every three years. This year’s proposal book, available on the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) website, drew attention from across the state due to inclusions of controversial proposals related to hatcheries and trawl gear operation.
The Board met from Dec. 10-16 in Cordova.
Proposal 78 to reduce hatchery production
Proposal 78, which the Board decided against, was highly anticipated in the community. If adopted it would have resulted in a 25% reduction in hatchery production in Prince William Sound. Groups supportive of the proposal cited claims that hatchery pink and chum salmon production leads to lower returns of other species of salmon, such as kings, due to over-competition in the ocean for food resources. The Board overwhelmingly disagreed with the premise of the proposal and made several comments during discussion to their logic opposing it.
“To say that this is based on pseudoscience implies that it’s at least semi-based on science but this is not, it’s crap,” said member Gerad Godfrey. “This approach, while it’s a different attack on the hatchery program … the idea that you’re just going to strife with all the user groups in Alaska just because your returns aren’t showing up … this is not the answer.”
Board member Mike Wood also weighed in on the topic posing the question of whether this reduction would result in concrete results of better returns.
“Is the squeeze worth the juice? The impact on this community would be massive, but would it solve the problem?” he asked.
Wood and other members expressed their frustration with what they feel has been a repetitive theme around hatchery reduction proposals throughout the state.
“I don’t ever want to see this proposal again in front of us,” he said.
In the end Proposal 78 failed 1-5, with Board member Stan Zuray the sole “yes” vote.
Stacked permit proposals
Several other proposals (56, 57, 73 & 74) were brought before the board that petitioned for the allowance of stacked permits in both the seine and gillnet fisheries, which all failed unanimously.
Permit stacking allows multiple permits to be fished from one vessel at the same time with the benefit of that vessel being able to extend their net. The gillnet stacking proposals would have allowed for an extension of up to 50 fathoms of net onto the current regulation of 150 fathoms. Seine permit stacking has been allowed in Prince William Sound since the last board cycle in 2021, wherein two permits were allowed to be fished with one vessel given those permits were held by the captain and a crewmember. The new proposals 73 and 74 brought forth would have made it possible for the captain to hold both permits solely under their name.
During discussion, Board of Fisheries members expressed concerns about disenfranchisement to young people trying to enter the fishery, arguing against permit consolidation. None of the proposed stacking regulations were agreed on by the board, which voted against them all.
Cordova Board Member Tom Carpenter commented that, rather than allow for stacking to reduce latent permits, he felt there should be an optimal permit study conducted by the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission. He also said members of the public commented on both sides of the issue.
“I’ve probably had about 100 people approach me over the past month on this … and it was pretty much 50/50,” he said.
Pollock trawling reduction
Four additional proposals focusing on limiting pollock trawling in Prince William Sound, which also failed, drew attention from across the state preceding the meeting. Both individual trawl harvesters from Kodiak, and a group supporting the proposals, Salmon State, traveled to Cordova to give testimony.
The topic garnered a lot of back-and-forth questioning, during which both the Board and community members present learned about the logistics and challenges of trawling in Prince William Sound.
For many locals in Cordova, discussion of the fishery was a new topic. With no trawl vessel port out of Cordova and a lack of year-round processing capability, the winter fishery does not land on the shore – resulting in low visibility of the fishery for the local community.
Cordova District Fishermen’s United (CDFU) did not take a stance on any of the trawling proposals – both because they have no trawl gear type members, and because they said focus on other issues took precedence.
“I thought this was a good example of the Board relying on the department for information,” CDFU board member Michael Hand said. “For CDFU, we were spread really thin on getting the Board to understand the complexity of our priority proposals and the trawl question was a distraction to more local issues involving salmon and groundfish …. I felt the importance of the small boats in groundfish got looked over.”
Herring and crab decisions
The commercial fleet of Area E saw wins during this cycle as well, when the Board supported expanding the herring and crab fisheries.
Proposals 96-102 aimed to develop a herring fishery for bait herring in the region. The fishery was prosecuted for the first time in decades this past winter. The board passed proposals that would support this developing herring fishery in the Sound and nearby Kayak Island regions.
As for crab, the board voted to repeal the Area E Tanner crab management plan, a long-term effort on behalf of CDFU to redevelop the fishery with new survey methodology and guidelines. Tanner crab subsistence was also expanded in Prince William Sound, and a subsistence dungeness crab fishery was reopened after a more than a 30-year closure.
The next Board of Fisheries cycle of the region will take place in 2027.
Kinsey Brown is a Cordova Times freelance reporter. She’s also a co-chair at the Alaska Marine Conservation Council and a commercial harvester on the F/V Lucid Dream.
