By Dennis Longstreth
Pacific Salmon Commission
Northern Panel
There are two factors involved in the low allowable catch of Chinook salmon this year, first, the Pacific Salmon Treaty, and second, the low abundance of Chinook in general, SE Alaska stocks in particular. These are separate issues and should not be confused. Since I am a troll representative to the Pacific Salmon Commission Northern Panel, from Sitka, and have been one of about 6 fishing industry people along with a similar number of ADF&G staff negotiating the new 2019 Agreement over the past 2-½ years, I am in a position to respond to recent public concerns about the Treaty.
The Pacific Salmon Treaty is a formal agreement between the U.S. and Canada to cooperate in conservation and harvest sharing arrangements. The Pacific Salmon Commission is the body formed by the governments of Canada and U.S. to implement the PST. The Treaty is renegotiated every 10 years (1999, 2009 and 2019). All the catch numbers used below are taken from publicly available official reports published by the PSC.
The claim has been made loudly and repeatedly that the present 2009 Treaty Agreement has cut our SEAK catch by 62 percent since the beginning of the Treaty (1985). And, that the proposed 2019 Agreement will be a nail in the coffin for our local fisheries and the Sitka economy. The -62 percent number was derived by “cherry picking” the total average catch of three pre-Treaty years, 1979-1982, and comparing that to just the pre-season Treaty quota part of one incomplete year in the 2009-2018 Treaty Agreement. We do not yet know what the total catch will be for the 2018 season to make such a comparison. This is commonly known as an “apples to oranges” comparison but it seems to have impressed some people.
One could instead pick the year 2014, for which we do have total catch numbers, under the same Treaty Agreement as 2018, and compare that 492,500 total catch to the average total catch 1979-1982. That is almost an apples to apples comparison. Now we see that instead of a decrease of -62 percent we have an increase of +48 percent under the current 2009 Treaty Agreement. The trend of our SEAK harvests under the Treaty now looks very attractive and we see the claims made about -62 percent are blatantly misleading.
Ideally, we should compare average annual total catch to average annual total catch, the true “apples to apples” comparison. This is done below. The results distinctly show a surprising trend.
Average Annual SEAK Catch: 1975-1984 Pre-Treaty Years 322,912; 1975-2017 All 42 Years 326,472; 1985-2017 All 32 Treaty Years 327,585; 2009-2017 Current Agreement 331,362.
The first trend observed is how little these catch numbers vary, less than 3 percent from the smallest to largest average catches over pre-Treaty and Treaty agreements. Next, under the present 2009 agreement the average of the SEAK all gear catch 2009-2017 is slightly higher than the average 1975-1984 pre-Treaty annual catch, and even slightly higher than the average Treaty 1985-2017 annual catch. If the -62 percent represented a trend as is claimed, the 2009-2018 number would be less than half of what it is. It would also represent the lowest average of the 4 catches listed, instead of the highest. The problem for the 2018 season is clearly not the 2009 Treaty Agreement and we should not pretend that is the problem. We have an abundance problem.
The local SEAK stocks along with Northern B.C. have collapsed, and the rest of the stocks down the coast are not very encouraging. When comparing our 2014 pre-season quota to the pre-season 2018 quota I found a -66 percent decrease this year from just four years ago. Both years are under the same 2009 Agreement regime. The -66 percent is clearly not Treaty impact, but instead record poor abundance, particularly with our own SEAK stocks. We are expecting some of the SEAK stocks to come back at one-quarter of the lower end of the escapement goal this season. This collapse of our stocks will take at least a full four- or five-year cycle to recover once the recovery begins, whenever that is. Even if every fish made it back to the spawning bed this year, we would still not make our lower goal. This problem is unfortunately compounded by changes in what we term, “maturation rates.” For unknown environmental reasons, Chinook coastwide are returning to spawn younger and smaller. These smaller fish are less productive spawners, and rebuilding will likely be slower.
We can argue about who should be able to catch the last fish in order to make a boat payment this year, but what about the years ahead? We are simply at a point where each Chinook in SEAK and NBC that is allowed to spawn this year will pay benefits in the future. ADF&G would be taking drastic conservation action for these stocks whether or not the Treaty existed. About 80 percent of our usual SEAK catch originates south of here. In 2017 that went up to 89 percent, and 2018 will be over 90 percent. The Treaty states that if a party shapes their catch in order to conserve their own stocks, they cannot compensate for this by harvesting more of other stocks. Thus we will be foregoing some of our total quota this year in an effort to pass more of our SEAK stocks to the spawning grounds.
We are not passing them just to be caught in Northern B.C. fisheries, as has been claimed. Restrictions recently imposed in B.C. far exceed what the Treaty actually requires, as they are taking this collapse seriously. Restrictions in B.C. will likely be long-term because they state that it is also in part to provide for seals and orcas which feed on the Chinook.
Heading into negotiations 2-½ years ago, The Alaska Treaty team’s goal was to recoup some or all of the 15 percent we had unfairly lost in 2009. Our bottom line was simply no loss to any gear group. We were willing to have no agreement rather than a bad agreement.
Depending on how you count them, there are about 5 to 10 factions at Treaty, and every one of them wanted more. But National Marine Fisheries Service stated at the beginning that there wasn’t more. Instead, there was less to be shared. NMFS would not roll over the 2009 agreement because of Endangered Species Act concerns for the Puget Sound Chinook stocks, all listed since 1999, and concerns for the southern resident killer whales. These ESA listed killer whales supposedly depend on the same endangered Chinook that we harvest in small numbers.
There came a point where one party was going to break off negotiations unless all parties agreed to take cuts. Gradually everyone accepted cuts that had some relation to the stocks of concern. Alaska found ways to mitigate part of our small variable cut. We also made progress on an alternative to the PST Model, made improvements on data standards and data collection, made improvements in accountability in the ISBM fisheries, and moved away from old unreliable base period data toward data based on current empirical observations. We did not get everything we wanted, but we made progress on technical points while not losing much on the harvest numbers. And we made arrangements to mitigate that small loss. Everyone on the Alaska Treaty team, troll, sports, seine, gillnet, and subsistence, knows what is in the 2019 Treaty Agreement and is in full support of it as it is the best deal that can be made in these difficult times. There is no question that it is far better than not having an agreement. This is clearly our best option.
Without a Treaty agreement we would be under NMFS management starting Jan 1, 2019. That authority is established under the ESA, the Pacific Salmon Treaty Act, and the Magnuson-Stevens Act. As we saw in 1995-1998, with an average harvest of 271,398, NMFS management will be far worse than management under the 2019 Treaty Agreement, and will have none of the benefits we negotiated.
This tentative agreement took 2-½ years to negotiate, but will still be in the legislative process on Jan. 1, 2019. There is an understanding between all parties to unofficially implement it when the present agreement expires at the end of 2018. Given the pressure of ESA, the U.S. needs this agreement with Canada more than Canada does. Everyone involved knows this, including the Canadians. There cannot be an alternative Treaty agreement negotiated given the present difficult relationship between the U.S. and Canada over a wide variety of trade and security issues. Torpedoing this agreement now would mean many difficult years under NMFS and ESA for us. We were fortunate to conclude these negotiations before the tariff war with Canada began and did not get caught up as trading stock for steel, aluminum, softwood, autos, etc.
In summary, there has not been a steady decline of Chinook harvest in SEAK from pre-Treaty to the present. In fact, the present average total catch (2009-2017) is slightly greater than the average of the 32 years catch covered by the Treaty and the 10 years preceding the Treaty. The cuts anticipated in the 2019 agreement are small and will not significantly change that fact, especially when the mitigation is added in. What will definitely impact our harvest of Chinook in the years ahead is abundance. That will be determined by whether the present unfavorable ocean conditions get worse, continue the same, or improve. That is, unfortunately, beyond human control.
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Dennis Longstreth has been on the Northern Panel of the U.S.-Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty for 19 years. He is a salmon troller and lives in Sitka.
