By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
The state Board of Fisheries is to discuss a slew of proposals regarding finfish and shellfish management in Southeast Alaska at its regular meeting next month in Ketchikan. More than 200 proposals are up for consideration, and the Sitka Fish and Game Advisory Committee has provided the board with its policy recommendations.
However, citing concerns about the recent increase in coronavirus cases in Southeast and around the country, the Sitka committee is requesting that the meeting be delayed.
“We would strongly urge that the Board of Fish consider postponing the meeting until the (virus) risk level goes down,” Sitka committee chairperson Heather Bauscher wrote to the board earlier this month.
The board has not yet replied to the request, she told the Sentinel today.
The meeting has not been rescheduled.
The Sitka advisory group has proposed a rule for consideration at the meeting that would “require catch records of all rented recreational vessels that engage in sportfishing activities.”
This proposal, number 144, is aimed at gathering halibut harvest data but could extend to other species as well.
“We are specifically proposing halibut catch data be gathered with this new regulation, but we support catch data gathering for any other species that would provide valuable management information to the (Alaska Department of Fish and Game),” the Sitkans said in an explanation for the proposal. “We also feel it is vital to require the department to share any data gathered under this new regulation with the appropriate departments of the (International Pacific Halibut Commission, the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council) and NOAA on an annual basis.”
The Sitkans also pointed to a loophole in current regulations.
“In recent years, there has been a large increase in the number of businesses in Southeast Alaska that rent sportfishing vessels to primarily non-residents, who utilize this arrangement to qualify for more liberal ‘non-guided’ bag limits for halibut. The Sitka Fish and Game Advisory Committee has received estimates that between 300 and 500 of these rental vessels are now operating in southeast Alaska. We believe these anglers, that are part of this new and growing user group, are responsible for a very significant harvest of sportfish (specifically halibut).”
The Sitka committee supported Proposal 144 in a unanimous 13-0 vote.
In a separate document, the Sitkans objected to ADFG’s comments on the proposal, calling them “inadequate at best, and misleading or obfuscating at worst.”
The department said the proposal could be costly to implement.
“Logbooks are only required in the guided marine sport fishery... The implementation of an additional system to monitor the rental vessel fishery would have an unbudgeted impact on the department,” ADFG’s comment reads.
In their rebuttal, the Sitka committee noted that the logbook program currently used by guided boats could also be employed by non-guided anglers.
A similar proposal, number 143, would require non-resident anglers to report other sport fish harvest as well. The Sitka committee voted to support this measure.
“The harvest of fish by non-resident sport anglers has increased in the Southeast and Yakutat Areas, while subsistence users have been subject to increasing regulation and restrictions and are experiencing a more difficult time competing for and harvesting fish and shellfish... The Council also believes that unguided non-resident sport fishermen are taking multiple daily harvest limits. The Council believes harvest limits for unguided non-residents are not enforced and are unaccounted, since non-resident unguided fishermen do not have to record their harvest, except for species with an annual limit,” the proposal reads.
Regarding the Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery, the Sitka panel supported a proposal intended to “ensure there are sufficient old and large fish in the population to lead younger fish to appropriate spawning grounds and increase the potential for successful recruitment to the population.”
Initially submitted by Sitka Tribe of Alaska, proposal 158 hopes to protect older herring from commercial harvest.
“The Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery consistently targets and harvests the oldest, largest, most fecund females in the population,” the proposal reads. “These are the very fish we should protect to ensure the long-term health of the population. Industrial fishing pressure has been shown to lead to reduced size and truncated age structure in populations… and traditional ecological knowledge indicates that the size and age structure of Sitka Sound herring has indeed been truncated since the advent of reduction fisheries in the 1800s.”
The Sitka AC voted to support this proposal 7-6.
Other Board of Fisheries proposals submitted by STA regarding the herring fishery were not accepted by the Sitkans. Proposals 156 and 157 would modify quota and harvest guidelines for the sac roe fishery.
The Sitka committee unanimously opposed a proposal from the Southeast Herring Conservation Alliance – a group affiliated with the sac roe seine fleet – which would reduce the area of Sitka Sound closed to the commercial harvest of herring. Another suggestion by the SHCA would institute a permitting requirement for subsistence harvest of sac roe on branches. Sitka voted 13-0 against the measure.
In a letter to ADFG Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang, the Sitka advisory committee asked the department to fund a survey of herring populations. It requested “funding for a major survey to acquire a current population estimate of unfished biomass of herring and a re-evaluation of the whole overall ‘herring harvest strategy’ including natural mortality, age class recruitment, an assessment of the model, and of the current thresholds. This reevaluation will also help address whether current management is… spot on, or if some things need to be adjusted.”
In the public letter to ADFG, Bauscher wrote that the current estimate of unfished biomass is outdated.
“During our discussions we became aware that the data set used to support the current overall harvest strategy is from the most recent re-evaluation, including the most recent survey of unfished biomass, which was last conducted in 1998,” Bauscher wrote. “During the public meeting, it was made clear that this data set including the overall population, the calculation for natural mortality, the calculation and adjustments for age class recruitment – all of this is based on a picture of the ocean from 20 years ago. We know much has changed since 1998: warming water, ocean acidification, seabird die offs related to food chain issues with forage fish abundance… The whole overall herring harvest strategy needs to be recalibrated to reflect the current state of the ecosystem and to make adjustments for the changes in ocean conditions that have been occurring over the past 20 years.”
Regarding fisheries in Redoubt Bay, the Sitka panel supported Proposal 131, which would “allow the use of beach and hand purse seines within approximately 100 yards from the base of the falls when the projected total escapement is greater than 40,000 fish.”
Sitka’s AC voted unanimously against a plan to allow seine and gillnet gear in parts of Redoubt Bay, and also supported a measure to require registration of vessels that participate in the Pacific cod directed fishery.
The Board of Fisheries is scheduled to convene Jan. 4-15 in Ketchikan. More information is available at adfg.alaska.gov.
