Fisheries

Another tough year is predicted for king salmon in Southeast and that has prompted the cancellation of the annual Haines King Salmon Derby.

Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist Rich Chapell says according to the forecast, if normal fishing continued this season in the Haines area, the number of Chilkat kings that make it up the river to the spawning grounds would fall below the escapement goal. That poor forecast triggers the low abundance management plan that calls for closing the popular Chilkat Inlet to sport fishing through the end of June.

With that restriction in place, the Haines Sportsman’s Association voted recently to cancel the King Salmon Derby this year. Most of the fish landed in the derby are caught in the inlet, says organizer Toni DeWitt. While other areas will remain open, she says the association decided it would be difficult to make the derby worth the effort and cost this year.

“We don’t have a lot of confidence we can hold the derby on the town side because the majority of the fish, probably 90 percent, are caught on the cannery side,” DeWitt says.

The derby has been canceled before — once in 2008 to help conserve the king run, and for several years in the 1990s.

Governor Bill Walker’s nominee to the Board of Fisheries has withdrawn his name from consideration.

A spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader John Coghill’s office confirmed the withdrawal of Dr. Roland Maw but couldn’t provide additional details.

Maw went through the first half of his confirmation hearing before the Senate Resources Committee Monday.

The hearing was extended to Friday afternoon as there were more people signed up to testify than time allotted, but was cancelled earlier today.

His confirmation has been mired in talk of the tension between commercial and sportfishing interests in the state. Maw’s nomination saw strong support from many commercial fishermen and wariness from many charter groups.

But support for Maw extended beyond one half of the ‘fish wars’ debate. He has a background in zoology and natural resources management and many people who testified before the committee said they wanted to see a scientist hold a position on the board.

Board of Fisheries Executive Director Glenn Haight said he’d heard Maw had stepped down from consideration but didn’t know the particulars. He is heading to Sitka for a meeting next week that Maw could have attended in an interim capacity had he been confirmed.

This leaves two positions that will need to be filled by April 1st. Governor Bill Walker has not stated whether he plans to re-appoint Huslia’s Orville Huntington once his term is up.

Maw was a candidate to succeed Cora Campbell as Fish and Game Commissioner. He was not granted an interview by the joint board. Governor Walker then nominated him for a seat on the Board of Fisheries.

Maw could not be contacted for comment by deadline.

Juneau residents recently had a opportunity to view the newest research vessel that will be devoted to the study of polar ocean regions. The R/V Sikuliaq stopped in Juneau last week while heading to an official commissioning ceremony at its homeport in Seward.

“We’ve been working on this for over thirty years. Three deans’ worth of people,” says Michael Castellini with laugh. Castellini is the former dean of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. He is now associate dean for the University of Alaska’s entire graduate school and also associate dean at the Center for Arctic Policy Studies. Castellini was one of several university officials and Sikuliaq officers who hosted public tours for the vessel last Tuesday.

The vessel, constructed at the Marinette Marine Corporation shipyard in Wisconsin, was launched in 2012 and completed last year. Castellini says it has already completed two full, deep-water science cruises in the central Pacific Ocean.

“One was looking at the impact of coral mining on the submerged seamounts northwest of the Hawaiian Islands,” Castellini says. “The second project was looking at the geomagnetic patterns on the bottom of the ocean which they use for studies of continental drift and global magnetic patterns. Those two projects were extremely successful.”

The 261-foot vessel was built with $200 million in federal stimulus funds. The National Science Foundation owns the vessel and will reimburse UAF for the estimated $14 million in annual operational costs.

Castellini says the Sikuliaq is the only ice-capable vessel out of over twenty oceanographic research vessels around the world, and the vessel’s name comes from an Inupiaq word meaning ‘first-year sea ice that is safe enough for a man to walk on’. The vessel’s inch-thick steel hull and knife-edge bow can cut through three feet of first-year sea ice, but it’s not considered to be a functioning icebreaker which will typically run up onto the multi-year pack ice, crush it, and then push it aside.

The vessel was designed to focus on polar oceanography and ice studies, but it could be deployed for NSF research anywhere in the world.

After its commissioning March 7th in Seward, the Sikuliaq will undergo ice trials in the Bering Sea and then go into a shipyard for warranty work, a wrap-up of construction and fixing any mechanical and electrical glitches.

Castellini says the vessel is already booked for research through the middle of 2016.

“There are people just writing proposals left and right for it,” Castellini says. “It’s going to be no problem keeping her busy for a long time.”

Chief Mate Bob Anderson says the vessel’s Arctic focus will tie into a lot of theories on climate change.

“We don’t have a lot of historical data on the formation and deformation of the ice floes,” says Anderson.

The vessel can cruise at 10 knots and cover over 270 miles a day with three thrusters, two at the stern and one in the bow.

The Sikuliaq is operated by 20 crew and can accommodate as many as 25 scientists and their equipment.

State legislators are targeting for elimination an agency that limits commercial fisheries permits to conserve and maintain the economic health of Alaska commercial fisheries.

A report by the Department of Fish and Game flagged the Alaska Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission’s three highly paid heads, and their slow pace for adjudicating permit cases.

The Alaska Legislature created a system in 1972 to limit how many people can participate in commercial fisheries. The Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission, or CFEC, was established a year later to administer and regulate the program. Since then it’s opted to limit entry in 68 fisheries. The most recent addition was in 2004.

The report produced by the Department of Fish and Game questions the efficiency and organizational structure of the CFEC, including the need for three commissioners who head the agency of about 30 employees. The commissioners adjudicate cases as part of the process to determine who receives permits to the limited entry fisheries.

The report says the commission takes too long to do this, with the majority of the 28 backlogged cases more than 15 years old. The report says the commissioners adjudicated only three permit applications in 2012 and another three in 2013. In the 1990s, they were going through up to 100 permit cases a year.

This was part of the reason Rep. Paul Seaton introduced a bill at the end of last session to eliminate the commission. HB386 would’ve transferred duties to Fish and Game and a division of the Department of Administration.

“Since CFEC was originally established we’ve got a whole Office of Administrative Hearings. We didn’t used to have that,” Seaton says. “So now we have a whole team of lawyers or judges that look at solving all these cases and if we have a system where we’re not getting them solved or not getting decisions coming out of the current commission model, then maybe we ought to look at changing.”

The bill got one hearing before the session ended. Seaton then requested an audit of the CFEC with a focus on opportunities for consolidation. The Alaska Division of Legislative Audit says it may come out this summer.

Other issues highlighted in the Fish and Game report include the hiring of five retired state employees, some who work from home and are rarely seen in the office, and a lack of leadership and accountability in the agency.

The report lists six alternatives for the organizational structure of CFEC. One mirrors Seaton’s bill, which the report says would likely be the most cost effective. Eliminating the commissioner positions alone would save up to $600,000, mostly in salaries and benefits.

CFEC makes more than it spends. In fiscal year 2014, it had $7.8 million in revenue from commercial fishing permits and vessel licenses, and spent around $4 million. Some of the excess has gone to Fish and Game.

Kevin Brooks is deputy commissioner of Fish and Game. He says the report, initiated by former department Commissioner Cora Campbell, provides good background.

“I think there’s opportunities for some efficiencies and now we’re in a budget climate that’s far different than it was a year ago, too, so any way that we can find efficiencies and save money, that’s going to be helpful,” Brooks says.

But he says the department doesn’t plan on doing anything with the report, which cost about $40,000. He says Fish and Game has no authority over CFEC.

“I would hope that they would find some benefit of the report themselves because nothing is preventing CFEC from taking the initiative to say, ‘This is a good point, we should do that,’ or ‘We don’t agree with that.’ It’s going to have to be a collaborative effort going forward whether that’s driven by legislation or something else,” Brooks says.

On Wednesday Rep. Louise Stutes introduced HB112, which is similar to Seaton’s bill from last year. She says the bill had been “on the radar” before the report came out.

“We are cutting costs in the state and I think every agency needs to be looked at. That’s what prompted it,” she says.

CFEC is scheduled to give an agency overview in House Fisheries Committee, which Stutes chairs. She says the Fish and Game report won’t be discussed. A hearing on her bill hasn’t been scheduled yet.

CFEC commissioner Bruce Twomley declined to comment on HB112, but says the agency will soon release a formal response to the Fish and Game report. He says a lot of issues highlighted could’ve been cleared up if CFEC had had a chance to weigh in before the report was finalized.

Halibut harvests have been on the decline in the Bering Sea for several years. But the amount that trawlers and catcher-processors are allowed to take incidentally has stayed the same. Now, fishery regulators have agreed to consider stiffer limits on halibut bycatch.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council voted to study the impact of cutting the 10 million pound bycatch limit by as much as 50 percent.

Member Duncan Fields introduced the measure on Sunday after days of discussion and presentations.

“Unless we act — and act fairly decisively — as soon as possible, we may continue to face what could be an emergency in a subsequent year,” Fields said.

Halibut fishermen narrowly avoided a major cut to their catch limit in the Bering Sea this winter.

The International Pacific Halibut Commission, which sets those limits, decided not to go through with the reductions as long as their counterparts on the North Pacific council agreed to take a second look at bycatch restrictions. Those are written into federal policy.

The council has the power to make changes — and they have requested voluntary reductions across the fleet. But as Karen Pletnikoff pointed out in public testimony, the cap hasn’t officially changed in over a decade.

“In that time, how many fish, jobs, and dollars would the Bering Strait, the Gulf of Alaska, Southeast and beyond have had — and could have — if that bycatch survived to recruitment?” Pletikoff asked.

Pletnikoff is a manager for the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association. She pointed to shore plants in Atka and St. Paul that rely on deliveries of halibut to keep business going — and stand to benefit if there’s less bycatch and bigger harvests.

But representatives from the trawl fleet warned that tighter limits could create an economic burden on their side, as well.

The exact impacts aren’t clear yet. A draft study provided to the council showed that a 35 percent cut could cost one group of catcher-processors up to $368 million — mostly from fishing less to avoid halibut.

On that front, Captain John Nelson said he’s not sure how much more he could do. His vessel, the C/P Rebecca Irene, has already changed its fishing schedule and added excluder nets to let halibut out.

“And we’ve been working with these tools a long time. The excluder really has been dialed in to be about as efficient as it can be, right up to this year,” Nelson said. “Beyond this point, I do not see, in my experience, a lot of gain. Any increments of gain — which we will continue to try to make — are going to be very small.”

Nelson said he does see promise in new tools, like deck sorting. Instead of going inside the vessel to be weighed and tallied, halibut bycatch is checked right on deck and thrown back if it’s viable. A few boats got permission to test that method under an experimental permit over the next year.

Until then, the North Pacific council has pledged to work with the international halibut board — and figure out better tools for estimating stocks and bycatch between the two of them.

The reductions will come back for review during the North Pacific council’s meeting in Sitka this June. They’re scheduled to take final action at that time.

Efforts to establish tribal co-management of Kuskokwim salmon are slowly progressing. A steering committee is in Bethel to sketch out the future of who regulates the river. Kuskokwim fishermen are eager to be managers, instead of simply advisers.

10 members of a steering committee met for the first time in Bethel Thursday. Fisherman from Nikolai at the headwaters down to the mouth began to define what they want to see in tribal co-management. Committee member Bob Aloysius from Kalskag emphasized tribes need to be more than simply advisers.

“Recommendations to go a point, and nothing happens. We need to have authority to implement, maintain, monitor, and enforce whatever we come up with,” said Aloysius.

The steering committee for the Kuskokwim River Intertribal Fisheries Commission is being facilitated by the Association of Village Council Presidents and Tanana Chiefs Conference, building off of tribal resolutions passed last year. Kuskokwim king salmon runs have been in decline for several years and unprecedented restrictions have hit subsistence fishermen hard. That’s led to conflicts among communities along different parts of the river. Jacob Black from Napakiak said for tribal management to succeed, everyone has to be on board.

“Our elders used to say, there may be a lot of people on the Kuskokwim or Alaska, but if you’re not united, you’re never going to accomplish nothing, that’s 100 percent true, to me. Right now we are not united,” said Black.

The full commission someday would include representatives from all Kuskokwim tribes choosing to take part. The smaller steering committee is trying to determine next steps and outline the mission and goal. They elected Bob Aloysius and Mike Williams as interim co-chairs while more members are expected to join. The long-term vision in some capacity includes equal footing among tribes, state and federal managers.

In the meantime, a federal demonstration project for co-management could build capacity for the change. Gene Peltola Junior, the assistant regional director for the Federal Office of Subsistence Management described a possible new committee under the federal subsistence board. He says if it’s structured properly it could have more input.

“But if they were to give it weighted opinion, or whatever you call it, I truly feel the local individual would have a lot more say in management than they have had in the past,” said Peltola Junior.

Sky Starkey, an attorney who works for AVCP presented a vision of how the committee could push the boundary of the law in order to maximize co-management potential.

To give it teeth, Starkey says tribes should seek broad application of a section of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, or ANILCA, that governs subsistence on federal lands. That would force the federal board to defer to their committee’s plan, unless the proposal fails to meet strict criteria.

“Trying to use that and trying to strengthen it so the recommendations carry a lot of weight,” said Starkey.

One idea is to create a new regional advisory council that replaces the fish responsibilities of two current regional committees. In the very preliminary conception, tribes would make comprehensive management plans and take responsibility for researching and monitoring fish, while giving traditional knowledge equal footing.

The meeting continues Friday at the cultural center in Bethel. A meeting for Yukon tribes is scheduled for next week in Fairbanks.