Thursday is the deadline for submitting proposals to receive funding from the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim Sustainable Salmon Research Initiative. Since the Initiative began in 2003, the effort has provided more than $25 million to scientists studying why salmon runs in the Arctic and YK Delta region have been declining, and what managers and fisheries can do about it. For the past six years, the Initiative has focused on Chinook, or King salmon.
“Specifically in the Kuskokwim region, we have funded things like survival rates of juvenile salmon, different mesh size options, subsistence harvest surveys, and migration patterns, that kind of thing," said Karen Gillis, Executive Director of the Bering Sea Fisherman’s Association, the group that facilitates the Salmon Research Initiative.
Current research seeks to distinguish between stocks with varying rates of reproduction in the hope of being able to manage them separately. At this time, Chinook running in the same river are managed as a single stock.
Researchers are required to include communities, organizations, or residents in the region they’re studying. Since the initiative began, Gillis says she’s seen more local involvement in salmon management and greater transparency in salmon data.
Local recipients of these research funds have included the Association of Village Council Presidents and the Native Village of Napaimute.
The Initiative will disburse one million dollars in research funding this year, the lowest amount budgeted since the Initiative began, due to a decline in funding sources.
