Fisheries

Fish camp is an annual tradition going back thousands of years for Yup’ik people living along the Kuskokwim River. But fishing restrictions this year, have hit many families hard.

Iyana Dull prepares to visit fish camps downriver from Bethel.

“We’re heading down river to the village of Napaskiak. And they rely heavily on the salmon and hopefully they’re getting their needs met. And that’s what we’re gonna go find out,” said Iyana Dull.

The 28-year-old Alaska Native is a fisheries technician for Bethel’s tribe, ONC. He asks people about their subsistence needs and run timings are for kings, chums and sockeye salmon.

The information Dull gathers is reported to the Kuskokwim Salmon Working Group, which is helping federal and state biologists manage the fishery. This year, they say surveys are hard to get because people are angry about restrictions. Many won’t talk with them. Just outside Napaskiak, at a simple camp with alder drying racks, elder Sophie Jenkins agrees to take a survey. She says restrictions are traumatizing.

“I looked up genocide and it says like this – people make policies and where people have no say with the law, with the policies and rules and regulations. (Daysha: And how does that make you feel?) I’m very familiar with oppression and you know trauma and that’s how I feel right now,” said Jenkins.

After 2013 showed the weakest King salmon run on record managers of the Kuskokwim River fishery are not allowing directed king salmon fishing. That means the 8-inch mesh nets, that were introduced by the commercial fishery in the 50s and 60’s, and have become commonplace in YK Delta households, have been banned completely.

Instead fishers have been limited to short, 4-inch mesh set nets. They’re much less productive and many fishermen don’t own them. Some say purchasing the net is too expensive.

Now, it’s late in the fishing season and managers have been allowing short openings with 6-inch gear for chum and sockeye salmon.

Jenkins, ordered the six-inch net, but she says she could not find one in Alaska. They were sold out, so she ordered one from a company in Tennessee.

“And I’m still waiting. It’s been a week and I know there was fishing yesterday and I was so depressed. I don’t have anything hanging,” said Jenkins.

Residents along the Kuskokwim say the restrictions have created haves and have-nots. In nearby Oscarville Slough, Arvin Dull, the uncle of the fisheries technician is having better luck. His fish rack and smoke house are full of glistening red salmon. A former bank manager from Bethel, Dull had the cash to buy the net required this year.

And a lot of people don’t have jobs and were unable to buy the nets. Some people can’t even afford a sixty-foot white fish net. (Daysha: How much does that cost?) About $300 dollars, said Arvin Dull.

His nephew says he sees why people are upset, but he also worries about extinction.

“They’d like to open the big king, king net gear so they can target more kings and get more kings on the rack. You know, they’re so used to seeing the fish return that they think no matter how hard they fish that they’ll always come back but that’s not true,” said Iyana Dull.

At the time this story was filed, Elder Sophie Jenkins was still waiting for her net to arrive. If it comes in time she says she hopes to get some fish on her rack. She says getting chum and reds is good, but they miss their kings.

The first returns of hatchery chum salmon are showing up in fishing nets in Southeast Alaska this month. Summer chums play an important part in the early season for net fishing fleets and the troll fleet as well. Hatchery officials are forecasting runs close to last year’s.

A little lost in last year’s record setting pink salmon haul in Southeast was a strong catch for chum salmon. Last year seiners, gillnetters and trollers brought in 12.5 million dogs in the region. The bulk of those fish start their lives in hatcheries around the Panhandle and most return earlier in the summer than pinks. Fishery managers expect nearly as many chums this year but nowhere near last year’s record setting pink catch.

Juneau-based Douglas Island Pink and Chum expected a good year last year with a forecast of 2.7 million chums – but the actual returns were DIPAC’s biggest ever at nearly five million. Whether or not 2014 lives up to that standard, DIPAC executive director Eric Prestegard expects a strong run.

“Well the forecast is up from last year’s forecast. But last year came in well above forecast, so it’s below what returned last year but what we would call a very good forecast about 3.3 million.”

A big portion of DIPAC’s returns are expected back to release sites in Lynn Canal. And Prestegard thinks there are some good early signs for this year’s chums.

“The first gillnet opening certainly it looked pretty good from our eyes. That was about twice what we kinda would have forecasted to have happened. Again that’s just sort of built on some averages and what not so it’s not great data but it’s reasonable. So we thought that was good.”

On the flip side, Prestegard says trollers targeting chum along the Home Shore area of Icy Strait are not having the big season they had last year. Nevertheless, he says it’s the time of year to wait and see what comes back.

“Now’s when you sort of chew on your fingernails and wait for the days they fish and look at that data. You know we did take some samples from the first opener there in Lynn Canal. They were big beautiful fish, 10.9 pound average, which is very large for us and mostly five year olds. So that’s a good sign.”

Trolling has been open for spring fisheries in May and June, while gillnetters and seiners had their first openings in mid June.

Closer to Sitka, one point one million chum are forecast to return to Hidden Falls and Medvejie Deep Inlet. Those are two sites operated by the Sitka-based Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association, or NSRAA.

Last year Hidden Falls saw a run of 1.3 million. Medvejie Deep Inlet doubled last year’s forecast with a return of 2.2 million. NSRAA general manager

Steve Reifenstuhl says he’d be happy with three percent survival rate for the chum released each year.

“And that would put the Medvejie run around 1.5 to 1.8 million annually and Hidden Falls, closer to, with three percent marine survival closer to two million annually. You know we’d love to see bigger than that but that’s what my hope is.”

Fishing started slow for seiners catching chum returning to both sites but Reifenstuhl was hopeful catches would be increasing. And Like Prestegard, Reifenstuhl says the fish so far this year are large.

“At this point all the data says the fish are big, over 10 pound average, which is fairly unusual and suggests they’re five year old fish. The bulk of the fish are typically four year old fish.”

Further to the south, the Southern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association forecasts three point two million chums back at four different release sites around Ketchikan and Wrangell.

The largest return anticipated is 1.8 million at Neets Bay off of Behm Canal north of Ketchikan. Last year that run saw a return of just under a million fish.

The Ketchikan-based association’s Susan Doherty says they’re forecasting an average survival rate for summer run chum at four different release sites. If the forecast holds up it would beat last year’s summer chum total of just over two million. Other SSRAA fish return to Kendrick Bay on southern Prince of Wales Island, Anita Bay close to Wrangell and Nakat Inlet south of Ketchikan. Those returns typically start showing up a little later in the summer.

A hatchery in the Southeast community of Kake is closing its doors this month and has released its final chum, pink and coho salmon. There’s still some hope that a larger regional hatchery organization can figure out a way to restart the salmon enhancement program there.

The Gunnuk Creek Hatchery started in 1973 as a Kake High School project. Community members formed a non-profit and incorporated in 1976.

General manager John Oliva says they’re boarding up the hatchery this month and will close the doors June 30th. He said the Kake Non-profit Fisheries Corporation did not have enough money to keep operating.

“The corporation owes like $22 million to the state. About half of that, maybe a little more than half of that is actually deferred interest, going back to 1981,” Oliva said.

Oliva noted the state could not provide additional funding and the non-profit was forced to close.

“The corporation’s shut the doors voluntarily signed over all the assets to the state. So as of right now, we’re boarding up everything. The state’s sold off a good portion of the equipment, incubators, net pens, net pen complexes, anchor systems, forklifts, trucks, stuff like that to NSRAA.”

NSRAA is the Sitka-based Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association. That regional non-profit was already partnering with Gunnuk Creek on a chum project off of nearby Kuiu Island. Now NSRAA is considering whether it should operate the Kake hatchery after Gunnuk Creek closes its doors.

NSRAA general manager Steve Reifenstuhl said they’re evaluating whether it pencils out to install new equipment to re-circulate and regulate the water in Gunnuk Creek.

“So that we can number one clean up the water quality and then deal with the extremely cold temperatures in winter and the extremely high temperatures in summer. And by reducing the amount of water we need and recirculating it, we think that we can do a much better job at raising high quality eggs and fry.”

Gunnuk Creek has been logged and has increased sediment and greater temperature fluctuations. Reifenstuhl said the high cost of energy in Kake also will enter into the decision. They’re looking into a small hydro electric turbine to generate the needed electricity. They also have to consider the impact to NSRAA’s facility at Hidden Falls hatchery on Baranof Island where chum are raised.

Reifenstuhl said it’s difficult to put additional pressure on the production at Hidden Falls.

“It’s difficult for staff to manage another 55-60 thousand broodstock fish. It’s tough on the seiners to pull all those fish out of their fishery. And the facility wasn’t built for anywhere near that much. We can do it. But it would be better if we could do it in Gunnuk Creek.”

Ultimately it’s a decision for the NSRAA’s board of directors, based on information from engineers and staff. Meanwhile, that regional non-profit is going forward with new chum production nearby Kake at Southeast Cove. That program will mean 35 million chum released there next year, and 55 million the following year.

Staff at Gunnuk Creek released their final chum, pinks and coho in late May and early June. Gunnuk Creek’s Oliva thinks some of the salmon could continue to spawn after the hatchery shuts down.

“I think there’s a good chance the pinks and the coho will,” Oliva said. “The pinks and the coho came from this creek. The coho definitely are a native Gunnuk creek stock. And the pinks, the hatchery back in the 90s was doing pinks and they stopped and the pinks continued to come so they may come back still. The chums on the other hand may be a different story. You know we put our weirs down and removed all our barriers so the fish can go upstream but there’s going to be limited spawning habitat up there for ’em. So we still might get some chums to come back but I don’t think there’ll be any great numbers.”

The hatchery was impacted when the Gunnuk Creek dam broke in 2000, leaving the community without a water supply for several days. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rebuilt the dam but Oliva said that too caused problems.

“Basically had a full building full of alevins and they killed them all off with the construction. Lost all of our water and stuff when they were doing the construction. So we actually had to start rebuilding again and it was just a battle. You know this last year we’re finally seeing some good returns come back but it was a day late and a dollar short basically.”

Oliva says Gunnuk Creek has four full time employees and 10-12 season workers, mostly local kids who help with the egg takes each year. The fish returning to the area are caught by Southeast’s fishing fleets. The bears that congregate on the creek each year, drawn by the returning chums, have also been an attraction for smaller cruise ships.

In spite of this season’s unprecedented closure of fishing for Chinook salmon in Western Alaska, the state’s approach to policing wildlife has remained largely unchanged.

“As far as enforcement levels, the number of troopers participating, it’s pretty much the same as in previous years,” said Captain Steve Hall with the wildlife troopers, the group within the Alaska State Trooper’s tasked with enforcing policies established by managers at the Department of Fish and Game.

Wildlife Troopers use equipment checks and contact with local salmon users as their primary tools for enforcing fishing restrictions as the Chinook move into the rivers.

“The Troopers are primarily concentrated on preservation of Chinook on the Yukon River and Kuskokwim River,” Hall continued.  “As they move up river our efforts will continue to move up river on the Yukon. And if we have information that there are problems in a certain area we’ll shift troopers to those locations.”

But there’s one big change to how restrictions are being monitored: for 32 communities inside the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge this year, enforcement is being carried out not by the state, but by the federal officers.

Andrea Mederios, the public affairs specialist for the Department of Fish and Wildlife—a federal agency—said the action is new this year.

“The Federal Subsistence Board is implementing Title 8 of ANILCA, which requires that rural residents be given priority access to subsistence resources on federal public land in Alaska,” Mederios explained.

After the Native Village of Napaskiak won its appeal to the Subsistence Board, the federal definition of who counts as a subsistence user replaced the state’s definition across a large part of the Kuskokwim drainage. That means instead of any Alaska resident being allowed to fish under a subsistence permit, only local residents of small communities can. But since even subsistence fishing is closed this year, the only effective difference is that at any given time about 11 federal agents are checking nets and boating on the river–not their state counterparts.

Criticism of the restrictions has been intense, and even called a form of “massacre” by salmon users. But those on the enforcement side believe the majority of those involved are ultimately working towards the same goal.

“Our impression is that lots of folks realize that the problem is with the need to meet the escapement for Chinook, in order to continue to have Chinook in the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers,” said Captain Hall. “So we’ve found a few violations—nets that aren’t legal and things like that—but for the most part, to date, the fishery has gone fairly smoothly.”

As those federal U.S. Fish and Wildlife officers patrol along the Kuskokwim, Mederios said, they are coordinating with local leadership on an exception to the king salmon restrictions.

“The in-season manager for the Kuskokwim Chinook salmon is Brian McCaffrey, and he established that there would be a thousand fish that could be available for a cultural and social permit,” she explained.

The special permit from the Federal managers authorizes 32 villages along the Kuskokwim and coastal areas to participate in the special harvest of less than 1,000 king salmon. The special permit allows for fishing Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 9am to 9pm and expires on June 30, or when the quota for the village is met. But that social and cultural harvest of kings now many not happen – at least not in Bethel.

KYUK’s Daysha Eaton reports both the harvest and the community dinner in Bethel have been cancelled because a key staff member has had an unforeseen circumstance that has taken them away from Bethel.

Zack Brink, executive director for Bethel’s tribe, says that community dinner was set for June 20 and would have allowed the tribe in Bethel to harvest up to 100 king salmon. It’s unclear whether the Orutsararmiut Native Council will reschedule their social and cultural harvest and dinner.

Some tribes are refusing to participate in the social and cultural harvest because they say they’re not allowed to harvest what they need.

In Congress yesterday, a bill that would allow foreign students to work in Alaska fish processing plants cleared a major committee. The provision is part of a spending bill now headed to the Senate floor. Both Alaska senators say they pressed for the return of the J-1 visa program to help meet demand for seasonal seafood processors. But the program is controversial.

J-1 visas are intended to promote cultural exchange. As the State Department explains it in promotional materials, it’s all about “hands-on experience to learn about U.S. society and culture.”

But some U.S. employers and overseas recruiters exploited the program, exposing students only to the culture of hard labor, night shifts and squalid housing. After a protest at a Hershey factory in Pennsylvania, the State Department changed the rules in 2012. It barred J-1 students from certain jobs, including seafood processing. The Alaska industry had been hiring several thousand J-1s a year.

Daniel Costa, who researches immigration issues for the Economic Policy Institute, says the processors should not be allowed to employ J-1s again.

“It was being used more as a cheap labor program,” he said.

He says Alaska fish plants aren’t a good place for these students to fulfill the purpose of the visa.

“They’re stuck out in the middle of nowhere, in isolated towns where there aren’t a lot of cultural exchange activities to do,” he said.

The U.S. has another type of visa for temporary workers, the H2B. Costa says fish processors should really hire H2Bs, but then they’d have to run ads announcing the vacancies to locals first, so employers prefer J-1.

“They don’t have to do the advertising, they don’t have to pay any of the taxes, Medicare, Social Security, that sort of thing,” he said.

Recruitment agencies even have J-1 savings calculators on their websites, showing employers they can save nearly 8 percent per worker if they hire J-1s. Dennis Phelan of the Pacific Seafood Processors Association says his members search near and far for seasonal workers, including from Alaska’s job centers.

“They will tell you we hire every qualified person that they send us,” Phelan said. “But that is just a fraction of what we need.”

They do hire some H2B visa holders, but he says that program is too complicated, and the number of visas issued is limited. Phelan says, though, the processing gig is good for J-1 students.

“Because of the way the salmon season tends to work there tends to be a good bit of overtime and so then they get paid time and a half for that, plus they obviously have free room and board so they have virtually no expenses and are making more than minimum wage,” he said.

In the past, he says, the students had their cultural experience after working.

“The students then once they had finished their contract and had made the money, the vast majority of them then head out and travel across Alaska, travel across other parts of the United States,” he said.

The State Department says that’s not good enough anymore. Phelan says if they’re allowed to hire J-1s again, the processors know they’ll have to provide cultural enrichment during the work period.

“Obviously, these are not heavily populated areas where the plants are and so you’re opportunities for things like that are somewhat limited but obviously we’ll do everything we can to make sure the students are getting out,” he said.

If the visa provision survives negotiations with the House in the months ahead, it would allow foreign students to work as fish processors only through September 2015.

Four weeks into salmon fishing restrictions, the atmosphere along the Kuskokwim River is tense. At a meeting Tuesday the stress the closures are causing was obvious. But gillnet fishing for salmon is near.

The Bethel Test fishery numbers are showing many more chum and sockeye salmon than kings in the river. That’s one signal that fishing could begin soon. At a Kuskokwim River Salmon Management Working Group meeting Tuesday, subsistence fishers met with managers to figure out when the gillnet restrictions can be relaxed.

Reports of stress along the river in some cases were extreme. Working group member Fritz Charles reported on what he’s hearing about possible violence on the river.

“They’re starting an organization as we speak. If we keep going on like this, what we’re going on, lives could be lost,” said Charles.

Working Group Co-Chair Bev Hoffman told the group that they all have a part in making the summer a success.

“We’re all in it together. And so it’s up to us to calm…when we hear the kind of volatile remarks like that, it’s up to us to calm people, and I’m serious about that,” said Hoffman.

The group did not want to draw more attention to incendiary ideas, but U.S. Fish and Wildlife Warden Robert Sundown told the assembled fishermen and community leaders how the enforcement works.

“The reasons we make our decisions to open or not to open is not going be because of armed resistance, it’s going to be based on the biology of the numbers. The surest way to get from 12 game wardens that we have on the river to 350 wardens, the entire fleet in the nation is to have a gun threat. If you want to see you see 350 wardens on the river, that’s the surest way to do it,” said Sundown.

Tim Andrew from the Association of Village Council Presidents said empty racks have people worried.

“That rainy season is approaching upon us, so people are feeling anxiety about being food insecure. Salmon is extremely important to people in the villages. There needs to be accommodation at some point or some level of assurance from this body or from managers that something there is going to be something positive on the horizon coming up,” said Andrew.
So how close is the first opening? Federal manager Brian McCaffery laid out his plan for the next few days.

“We’re still hopefully looking forward to a first opening, at least downriver, sometime at the end of this week, I’ve not made a decision what day that would be, we want to take a look at least one more day of data,” said McCaffery.

The opening will target chum and red salmon, although some incidental king salmon catch is expected. McCaffery says the first opening may be below the Johnson River and run a few hours with 6” gillnets. The openings would likely move up the river in three day intervals.

After 2013 showed the weakest run on record and not having made escapement in two of the past four years, managers’ top priority is getting enough king salmon to spawning grounds. This year’s run is early and past data shows that early runs can end very quickly.

After nearly a month of closures, McCaffery reassured people that salmon fishing is not far off.

“I think there is a glimmer there, I certainly know that it has been a difficult season for everyone, but we see openings on the horizon, so we’re hoping people can be patient,” said McCaffery.

Working Group Member Fritz Charles say he’ll be passing on the word of potential openings and hopes too that people will be patient.

“I’d rather lose king salmon than lose a life,” said Charles.

The Working Group voted to support managers’ decision to study the numbers this week in anticipation of the first opening.