Tag Archives: escapement goals
Northern District king salmon setnetters stay closed
Subsistence fishermen in part of the Susitna River drainage will be able to harvest a few kings, but commercial fishermen in Northern Cook Inlet will remain closed for now. The Board of Fisheries considered two emergency petitions Monday related to the preseason restrictions of king salmon fishing in northern Cook Inlet after preseason forecasts indicated that the Deshka River would not see enough king salmon returning to meet its escapement goals. The board approved an action related to a petition from the Mt. Yenlo Fish and Game Advisory Committee, which requested limited subsistence fishing opportunity for king salmon on the upper Yentna River, and denied another asking for reconsideration of the commercial fishery closure from the Tyonek Fish and Game Advisory Committee. >click to read<
Alaska fishermen bewildered, alarmed at loss of king salmon
There’s an unsolved fish mystery playing out right now along a rugged, 300-mile stretch of Southeast Alaska coastline: What’s killing off the thousands of king salmon that, at an increasing rate, swim out to sea and don’t return to spawn? “There’s a big ocean out there,” said Tad Fujioka, a commercial fisherman in Sitka. “And it’s kind of a black box.” Alaska fishermen and scientists don’t know what, exactly, is causing king salmon returns to plummet across Southeast. But they’re trying to adapt to the consequences: closures for certain fisheries and new limits on catches,,, click here to read the story 10:20
Fisherman’s tagging experiment offers evidence that setnet-caught kings survive
After the disastrous summer of 2012, when poor king salmon returns gave commercial Cook Inlet east side set gillnet fishermen only a handful of fishing days throughout the season, Brent Johnson began brainstorming. A lifelong setnetter in the Clam Gulch area, Johnson knows he is allowed to harvest and sell king salmon under his commercial fishing permits, but he began thinking up ways to winnow out kings from the rest of the salmon. That way, he could release the kings alive and let them head up the river, contributing to escapement goals so the Alaska Department of Fish and Game could leave the setnet open, allowing him to still catch other kinds of salmon. After a few seasons of testing experimental nets and tagging kings he released, he finally has some results to show, indicating that kings may survive being released from setnets. click here to read the story 14:26
Alaska Board of Fisheries reverses decision on escapement goals – Video Report
They voted to turn down an increase in escapement goals shortly after approving the measure. The optimal escapement goal will stay the same at 15,000 to 30,000 kings in the Kenai River. Read [email protected] 13:47
Fishermen focus on how ADFG sets, achieves escapement goals
Editor’s note: This is the eighth in the Morris Communications series, “The case for conserving the Kenai king salmon.” Each spring, as the early-run king salmon start returning to the Kenai River, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game begins a four-month effort to manage fishing effort in a way that ensures enough salmon swim past fishermen of all types to meet escapement goals. “’Escapement’ is actually what escapes fisheries and lives to spawn,” said ADFG biologist Tim McKinley, who helped draft the current king salmon escapement goals during the fall and winter of 2012 and 2013. more@alaskastar 12:15
