A federal manager maintains that lower Kuskokwim River set net openings will be open only to local subsistence users, despite the state declaring concurrent openings that open these opportunities to all state residents.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has declared management of the lower Kuskokwim River, from the mouth upstream to Aniak, beginning June 1. Federal managers, in consultation with the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, have declared three set net openings in early June. Each opening will last 16 hours, from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., on June 2, 5, and 9.
Set nets must be 6-inch or less mesh, 60-feet or less in length, and may not exceed 45 meshes in depth. They must be set perpendicular to the river, within 100 feet of the ordinary high-water mark. Set nets must be spaced 150 feet apart from other set nets.
The federal set net openings are only open to local subsistence users under federal regulation. “The only folks that should be here fishing are local, qualified users, and that’s what we’re going to enforce from the Fish and Wildlife Service side,” Boyd Blihovde, federal manager for the lower Kuskokwim River, said during a Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission teleconference on May 17.
However, state managers have declared concurrent set net openings, meaning that they’ve issued openings that mirror the federal openings in the same waters for the same times. Under state law, these state subsistence openings are open to all Alaskans.
This practice of concurrent openings has become standard in recent years as federal managers have declared control of the lower river fishery. But earlier this month, on May 4, the Kuskokwim River Salmon Management Working Group, a state advisory group made of local subsistence users, voted to recommend that the state not declare concurrent openings this season. The proposal passed with six members in favor, two abstaining, and one opposing.
Working Group member Mike Williams Sr. of Akiak made the motion to end the practice of concurrent state and federal openings to keep the federal openings limited to local users and help conserve the Kuskokwim king salmon.
“In these times of kings at risk, it’s putting our people at risk as well,” Williams Sr. said.
Fellow working group member, Kevin Whitworth of McGrath, supported the motion.
“We're in a conservation concern for king salmon here," Whitworth said. "People aren't getting what they need. We haven't gotten what we need. I haven't gotten what I need for a decade.”
State managers with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said that they wouldn’t be able to follow the group’s recommendation. State regulation requires that the state allow one fishing opening per week in lower Kuskokwim waters before June 12, when waters are otherwise closed to gillnets. The Board of Fish passed the regulation in 2016 using input from lower Kuskokwim River subsistence users.
Chuck Brazil is the ADF&G Regional Management Coordinator for the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta; he addressed the working group after the recommendation passed.
“I just want to let everybody know, in the working group, how disappointed I am that the working group took a couple motions and supported that motion for the state to go against their own laws,” Brazil said.
ADF&G Kuskokwim Area Management Biologist Nick Smith said in an email that holding the state openings at the same time as the federal openings fulfills the state statute while helping to conserve the Kuskokwim salmon. He said that it prevents doubling the amount of fishing openings and creating confusion with separate state and federal openings.
“The motion by the working group to not have concurrent fishing periods would have not been in the best interest of Chinook salmon or Kuskokwim River fishers,” Smith wrote in an email. “Non-concurrent set net fishing periods would have resulted in more than three set net periods being provided during the front-end closure, which is not warranted based on the preseason forecast. In addition to increased fishing effort, non-concurrent set net periods would create unnecessary confusion for Kuskokwim River fishers.”
Smith also said that the state holding concurrent openings helps provide law enforcement during the Kuskokwim salmon season. Last summer, federal officers did not enforce fishing regulations on the Kuskokwim. Instead, that duty fell to State Wildlife Troopers.
“That's what I'm looking to do when I do concurrent openers is put enforcement on the rivers so we can conserve the species. So we get them on the spawning grounds. So we allow people in the future to fish," Smith said during the working group meeting.
Federal Manager Blihovde said that federal officers will be enforcing fishing regulations on the lower Kuskokwim River this summer.
