Some of the Southeast commercial troll fishery’s allocation of migratory king salmon will be shifted to the nonresident/resident sport fishery following a 5-2 vote by the Alaska Board of Fisheries on the 10th day of its 13-day meeting in Ketchikan.
Board members voted on Thursday, Feb. 6, to adopt state regulatory language shifting the allocation from the 80%/20% troll/sport split that’s been in place since 1996 to a new 77%/23% split for the troll and sport fisheries, respectively.
Reducing the troll allocation is an acknowledgment by the board of the continued growth in the nonresident (charter) sport harvest.
The Wrangell Fish and Game Advisory Committee supported the existing 80/20 split, while acknowledging that the growing charter catch across Southeast is a serious problem.
State Board Chair Märit Carlson-Van Dort, of Anchorage, led the first troll/sport allocation change in almost 30 years by opening consideration of an even deeper cut to the trollers’ share, a 75/25 split.
Board Member Mike Wood, of Talkeetna, proposed an amendment making it a 77/23 allocation, which was approved.
There are no Southeast Alaska residents on the fisheries board, which is appointed by the governor.
Amid the discussion to amend the allocation between troll and sport harvests, Carlson-Van Dort proposed changes to the regulations to require that the Alaska Department of Fish and Game use in-season management to keep the overall sport sector from exceeding its allocation by first placing harvest limits on nonresident sport harvest.
Nonresident harvest has comprised about 75% of the sport harvest in recent years.
Under a system that places limits first on the catch by nonresidents, the department “would then project what the resident harvest is going to be in that season, given the allocation (and) the expected harvest rates, and then the remaining allocation could go to the nonresident sector, which the department has broad authority to establish, bag, possession, annual limits and season dates to stay within the sport fish allocation by adjusting the nonresident management provisions,” Patrick Fowler, the department’s Southeast Regional fisheries management coordinator, explained to the board.
For months ahead of the meeting, Southeast fishery stakeholders had mulled 18 regulatory proposals regarding the state’s allocation of migratory king between the troll and sport sectors, a topic of contention in recent years.
Alaska hatchery-bred kings are not covered by the U.S.-Canada salmon treaty, which governs wild stocks of the migratory fish.
Some audience members in Ketchikan’s Ted Ferry Civic Center groaned and shouted as Board Member Greg Svendsen, of Anchorage, described how the overall annual revenue in the sport harvest sector stacks up against the commercial troll sector, mispronouncing troll as “trawl” during his remarks. He cited a guided sport industry-funded report that indicated a guided sport harvested king salmon has substantially greater economic benefit than a troll-caught king.
Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang explained how, under the regulatory language provided in the change, he would each year “subtract” the projected resident sport fish harvest “off of the sport fish allocation, and I’ll be managing the charter, the nonresident sport fishery in-season to ensure that the overall sport allocation isn’t exceeded.”
He added, “I’m going to be managing the nonresidents sport fishery conservatively.”
Wood said the reallocation to 77/23 “is a management buffer that comes from the troll fleet to make sure that the resident (sport fishermen) have fish, especially in a time of low abundance.”
Speaking in opposition, Board Member Tom Carpenter, of Cordova, said, “I do not feel that this 3% buffer is going to guarantee the residents a king salmon priority when it comes to, especially the inside waters,” most of which are closed until June 15 due to chinook “stocks of concern.”
Carpenter later said that the reduction of troll quota would “affect very small communities in Southeast Alaska, from Pelican all the way down to Ketchikan, mostly on the outer coast,” and have a “giant impact on those communities” where tribal citizens reside.
Board Member Curtis Chamberlain, of Anchorage, supported Wood’s amendment for a 77/23 split because, as a lawyer and mediator, he knows he’s “done a good job when both sides walk away really equally unhappy.”
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