Like other trollers in the region, Wrangell fishermen are critical of a Seattle-based federal judge’s ruling that could shut down the Southeast commercial king salmon fishery, which supports about 40 trollers in town.
Brian Merritt is a troller and a teacher at Evergreen Elementary. He estimates that 35% of his income comes from kings, but losing the fishery is more than just a financial loss. For him, kings are the smartest, biggest and the most engaging species of salmon to fish for.
“Dog salmon are dumber than a stump and anyone can catch them,” he said. “Trolling is game of the mind where you’re always trying to outsmart the fish. … It’s a wonderful victory if you find out what they’re biting at that day.”
Merritt thinks the ruling is “totally ridiculous” and “a knee-jerk reaction” from the Wild Fish Conservancy that lacks a strong scientific basis. He is not convinced that king salmon caught by Alaska trollers will be the make-or-break element in the diet of a southern resident killer whale, determining if it lives or dies.
“Their argument is that if we knock them (king salmon) off up here in Southeast Alaska, there will be less for the killer whales to eat when they come down there,” he said. “That is true, but how much less?”
In 2020, the Wild Fish Conservancy, a Washington-based nonprofit organization, filed a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service. The conservancy claimed that an environmental analysis NMFS conducted in 2019 failed to allow enough chinook, or king salmon, to return to Puget Sound and feed an endangered population of killer whales.
On May 2, U.S. District Judge Richard Jones ordered NMFS to redo its environmental analysis, effectively closing the fishery until a new analysis is complete or the judge’s decision is put on hold pending appeal.
The state of Alaska has appealed the decision and asked that the ruling not go into effect until the appeal plays out.
It’s unclear whether a new NMFS analysis will be released in time for the July 1 summer season or if the court will grant a hold on the ruling. In the meantime, trollers have been plunged into a state of uncertainty.
Merritt is concerned that the timing of the ruling — just over a month away from the opening of the fishery — will leave trollers scrambling, especially if they haven’t diversified their fisheries.
For trollers thinking of switching to gillnetting this season, “there is not much room to shuffle their eggs,” he explained. The switch takes time and lots of money for a gillnet permit, gear and possibly a new boat. New gillnetters also won’t recoup nearly as much on that investment as experienced ones would. “They’re not going to know their rear from a hot rock,” he said.
He hopes the appeal will allow trollers to fish the upcoming season while NMFS develops a new biological opinion that would convince the judge to allow the Southeast fishery to continue. If the ruling is delayed, trollers could “sort of halfway prepare instead of this kick in the stomach,” Merritt said.
His brother, Steve Merritt, started trolling in 1984 in Wrangell, though he is now based in Craig. King salmon make up 60% to 70% of his annual income and for trollers like him, the ruling could be “devastating.”
“We’re just kind of waiting and hoping the NMFS will get the biological opinion rewritten and submitted and we can go fishing before the end of July,” he said. “If (the ruling) remains permanent, if it actually doesn’t change at all, I don’t see much future in me trolling anyway.”
He hasn’t made alternative plans for the summer in case the ruling remains in effect. “I can’t even think about it being permanent,” he said. “I’ve been doing this for 40 years. It’s too tough to even think about.”
For Chris Guggenbickler, of Wrangell’s state Fish and Game advisory committee, the ruling doesn’t present an immediate threat because his income is diversified across a wide variety of fisheries. Last year was the first year he trolled kings. However, he is concerned that displaced king salmon trollers will put pressure on other fisheries that remain open.
“I fish chums as well,” he said. “It’s going to take a larger portion of the fleet and put them into the chum areas. So there’s going to be more competition in those areas as well. … There’s a lot of people who have boats and families and need to support them. They’re going to move where they can fish … which will definitely congest the chum fisheries.”
He feels that the ruling “is not looking at the whole picture.”
“The amount of king salmon the troll fishery takes up here isn’t the difference between whether the killer whale population is sustainable or not,” he added.
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