Fish and Game Commissioner Denby Lloyd, a state representative on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, had initially proposed a cap of over 68,000, but the council ultimately lowered that cap to 60,000 kings.

The Coastal Villages Region Fund community development quota group sent a large delegation to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting in Anchorage in April, to defend the group's Bering Sea pollock fishing interests as the federal council considered new bycatch restrictions on pollock to protect chinook salmon in the Yukon River. Photo/Jim Paulin/For the Journal

The plan, which now goes to the federal Department of Commerce, includes an industry incentive program aimed at keeping the actual incidental catch in the pollock fishery below 47,591 kings. Should the industry exceed that incidental harvest in any three of seven years, that cap would drop to 47,591 kings.

Lloyd said he felt that would be a substantial check on the industry, and another council member, Duncan Fields, said he also felt that the industry incentive plan would change the behavior of the pollock fleet, resulting in fewer kings being caught.

Council chairman Eric Olson of Kwit'Pak Fisheries expressed mixed emotions.

"I've heard the pollock industry say at this meeting that they can't prove bycatch affects runs to Western Alaska, then in the next breath say 'trust me,'" he said. "The totality of the package before us strikes a balance. I don't think this is the end of the road, not by a long shot. The attention that Western Alaska has on bycatch is not going to diminish."

"I think we have accomplished some things," said council member Sam Cotton of Eagle River. "It may well be that we will have to revisit this … but it's better than doing nothing."

"I think this action will deliver more fish to Western Alaska rivers, but there are other things going on: global warming and diseases (in fisheries)," said Gerry Merrigan of Petersburg, an industry representative on the council.

Both sides appeared resigned to a compromise that neither side is happy with.

Representatives in the groundfish industry said they were told during the council's meeting in June to come up with incentive programs that would work to avoid salmon in times of low and high levels of king abundance. They devised plans that would work with a cap of 68,000 kings.

In the final vote, however, they did not get the safety net they sought. While the industry is sympathetic to the plight of subsistence users, the incidental catch of kings is only part of the problem. Other issues include climatic change, diseases in salmon and bycatch of kings all the way up the river to the Canadian border, they said.

The controversy that culminated in the council's decision stems from the thousands of king salmon, many headed for the rivers of Western Alaska, which are caught up annually in pollock nets. For the past decade, some of the kings were shipped along with the pollock to Seattle, and ultimately delivered to food banks there, but many are dumped back into the ocean dead.

For many people in Western Alaska coastal communities included in the community development quota, or CDQ fisheries, the lucrative pollock harvests have benefits, such as employment, infrastructure, training programs and scholarships.

Actions limiting the incidental catch of king salmon slow the pollock harvest and the resulting profits.

For those dependent on the subsistence and commercial runs of king salmon for food and as a major source of income, the loss of kings dumped dead overboard by the pollock fishery have become an increasingly sore point.

The number of kings in the Yukon recently have been so sparse that limits have been put on subsistence fishing. At times, commercial fishermen on the river systems have had to sit by and watch other salmon swim by because of the presence of a few kings needed to meet escapement goals. This has limited their ability to catch chum salmon, one of their only other sources of income.

Several hundred people arguing both sides of the issue testified for more than three days before the council.

The council also received written testimony from the State Department regarding U.S. obligations under the Pacific Salmon Treaty. Interception of Pacific salmon bound for rivers of one country in fisheries of the other has been the subject of discussion between the governments of Canada and the U.S. for decades.

In 1985, after years of negotiation, the Pacific Salmon Treaty was signed, setting long-term goals for the benefit of the salmon and both nations.

The council also received written testimony from Michael Fleagle, chairman of the federal subsistence board, which noted that Western Alaska chinook salmon stocks are important resources for subsistence users in the Norton Sound, Yukon, Kuskokwim and Bristol Bay regions.

"Along the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers alone, the bycatch negatively affects the residents of nearly 6,800 households in 80 villages," Fleagle said, in urging action for reduced incidental harvest.

Nicole Ricci, a foreign affairs officer with the State Department, and a non-voting member of the council, delivered an emotional statement just before the vote, critical of the upper limit of 60,000 kings.

"I don't see how you can say this meets the needs of the people of Alaska," she said.

Ricci said the council was failing to take action to meet requirements of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, and was "allowing a fishery that has been around for thousands of years to be run over" by a fishery that has been around for about a quarter-century.

Greg Balogh, a non-voting member of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, noted that his agency had advocated for a bycatch of 40,000 kings..

According to Lisa Lindeman, NOAA general council, the U.S. Department of Commerce must consult with the State Department before approving the measure, to determine if the action is in compliance with the Pacific Salmon Treaty, the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and other federal standards of law.

Margaret Bauman can be reached at margiebauman.@alaskajournal.com.