In a Kuskokwim River Salmon Management Working Group meeting on Nov. 11, Jim Simon asked state fishery managers, “How bad does it have to get for the department to consider making a “stock of concern” designation for Kuskokwim river Chinook salmon, and be ready to do the same for chum salmon?” Simon is not a working group member, but an anthropologist who works for the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.
“Stock of concern” is a designation the state uses to say that the state is worried about a species of fish.
“That triggers a development of an action plan to amend, or update, or change existing regulations that are designed to get out of that stock of concern,” said John Linderman, the regional supervisor for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Arctic/Yukon/Kuskokwim Region office. “Which by and large means that you're probably going to have to restrict fishing opportunity.”
In the state working group meeting, Linderman said that the department would be considering whether Kuskokwim Chinook and chum salmon should receive the stock of concern designation next year.
Working group member Kevin Whitworth of McGrath asked why wait?
“I'm wondering why you need this extra year of data?” Whitworth said. “Why can't you just use the past two, three years of data, or traditional knowledge, or what we're seeing here in the river? I think there's a lot of data now supporting a stock of concern for both chum and Chinook.”
Linderman said that another year of data on salmon numbers would help solidify the trends that have been occurring on the Kuskokwim.
“When you're evaluating stock concerns, you're looking at five year timeframes,” Linderman said. “Now, if you think about it in terms of chum salmon, only two of those years have been a crash; three years have not.”
That does not answer why the department needs to wait another year to evaluate stock of concern designation for Chinook salmon, but Linderman said that the criteria for the designation is complicated.
He also told KYUK that the stock of concern designation may not make any real difference in regulations. He said that the state has designated both Kuskokwim Chinook and chum as a stock of concern in the past. He said that the state added stricter regulations for the fish back then, and then maintained them even after the state dropped the stock of concern title.
“Is there much more that can be done, given the status, the current regulations, and the history of having regulations put in place to address stocks of concern that are still in play that are still available and in the regulation books? Perhaps,” Linderman said.
The federal government has taken over management of the lower Kuskokwim fishery in recent years, which could make stricter state regulations a moot point. But last year, the state announced a fishing opening on their own without the support of federal managers.
The Kuskokwim River Salmon Management Working Group requested that the state explain in a later meeting how it determines whether a fish population is a stock of concern.
