Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Alaska BOF Takes Up SE Alaska and Yakutat Finfish, Shellfish Issues

King salmon and enhancement allocation issues will be on tap when the Alaska Board of Fisheries meets January 11–23 to consider 155 proposals on Southeast Alaska and Yakutat finfish and shellfish.

The Board will review 44 shellfish proposals as well as 15 king and tanner crab submissions, 19 shrimp and miscellaneous shellfish and 9 king salmon proposals in addition to 23 salmon enhancement, special harvest areas, management plans and miscellaneous submissions.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) has recommended that several king salmon stocks be listed as stocks of management concern.

State biologists note that escapement of Chilkat River king salmon has fallen below the lower bound of the existing biological escapement goal (BEG) in five of the past six years, while escapement of chinooks on the King Salmon River has similarly fallen below the lower bound of the existing BEG in four of the past six years. Conservation management measures to reduce harvest of Chilkat River kings and increase escapement, plus actions to reduce Taku River chinook harvests, have so far proven insufficient to consistently achieve the biological escapement goal.

Escapement of Unuk River kings has also fallen below the lower bound of the existing BEG in five of the last six years, with management actions there also proving insufficient.

ADF&G commentary on the need for listing these kings as stocks of management concern are contained in three action plans. Links to the action plans can be found online at www.adfg.alaska.gov/

The above website also includes the meeting agenda, road map and other related information, including annual management reports for various fisheries of Southeast Alaska.

To minimize costs for the public and agencies the board will take up the shellfish (Jan. 11–14) and finfish (Jan. 15–23) proposals in two separate sessions.

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