Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game will not permit experimental beach seining on Cook Inlet’s east side this summer. The department announced the decision Tuesday, less than two weeks after the state Board of Fisheries gave Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang permission to issue up to 10 such permits.
This summer would have been the third during which the state allowed some permit holders in Cook Inlet’s commercial east-side setnet fishery to experiment with beach seining. The fishery has faced sharp season restrictions, and in one case outright closure, amid poor king salmon runs in the Kenai and Kasilof rivers.
The department says it won’t issue experimental seine permits this year for a few reasons — it already has good data from previous experimental beach seines, and issuing new permits won’t fill remaining data gaps, like how many king salmon die after being released back into Cook Inlet.
“Beach seines were shown to be effective at harvesting sockeye salmon while releasing non-target species,” the department said. “Unknown factors, such as mortality rates after release from beach seines, would not be obtained from experimental fishing under a Commissioner Permit.”
The department also says issuing new experimental seine permits would exceed the commissioner’s authority. That’s a concern Vincent-Lang raised with the board earlier this month.
“You're asking me, then, to operate experimental permits for the very fishery that you closed,” he told the board.
For the last two years, beach seines have been considered experimental gear for the east-side setnet fishery, because fishermen weren’t allowed to use that gear type. That changed this month, when the board added beach seines to the gear the fishery can use when the department forecasts a Kenai River late king salmon run of at least 14,250 large fish.
Board Chair Marit Carlson Van Dort disagreed with Vincent-Lang that the new policy would conflict with more permits.
“Limited permits,” she said. “I'm not asking you to go open 30, 40, 50 of them. Lottery style, eight to 10 permits to continue to gather data. There's nothing inconsistent about that.”
The board ultimately folded in up to 10 new experimental permits into the policy revision it adopted. The permits were subject to review and issue by the department.
That change came over the objection of many setnetters, because the board replaced setnets with beach seines as the gear type allowed under the state’s Kenai River Late-run King Salmon Stock of Concern Management Plan. Opponents say that change is financially and logistically burdensome for the fleet’s hundreds of permit holders.
The latest Department of Fish and Game numbers forecast a Kenai River late run of less than 13,000 large king salmon. Under the state’s stock of concern management plan for the fishery, that means the upcoming summer fishing season for Cook Inlet’s east-side setnet fishery will be subject to the revised policy enacted earlier this month.
