The Kenai River Sportfishing Association hosted their annual Kenai Classic Roundtable on Fisheries Wednesday afternoon at Kenai Peninsula College’s campus in Soldotna where a panel addressed bycatch and aquatic invasive species. U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and Governor Mike Dunleavy joined panelists from across the state and Lower 48 including the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and NOAA Fisheries.
Ben Mohr was the moderator of the Wednesday event:
“What we really hope today will do is to help educate those in the room and those who are watching online about the issues of bycatch and aquatic invasive species. We hope that today is going to serve as a kickoff to finding some solutions to the threats to those fisheries.”
Presenters representing various recreational fishing sectors within the Atlantic, West Coast, and Alaska waters addressed the history, current state as well as efforts that are being made to reduce bycatch in the future, including Dr. Richard Spinrad, NOAA Administrator, who said:
“Bycatch is really the major reason we’re here. It affects all fisheries, not just in Alaska, but across the whole country. It’s a complex global issue that really threatens the sustainability and the resiliency of the fisheries themselves, but also the communities that are so dependent on those fisheries. It impacts all sectors, the economic sectors, the recreational, commercial, subsistence fishing alike. We are dedicated at NOAA to understanding bycatch, to being able to characterize it, measure it, monitor it and then work with our legislators to figure out what do we do about it.”
National and regional stakeholders also discussed how aquatic invasive species are devastating to the natural flora and fauna, in addition to funding, regulations, prevention, eradication, and comprehensive policy reform that looks to eliminate aquatic invasive species and minimize damage to the environment.
Among those was Chris Macaluso, Director, Center for Marine Fisheries for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, who said:
“This problem maybe more complex than anything that we’ve come across yet. It’s because the scope of it is so hard to get your hands around. Anytime you have a conversation with somebody about how do we control and contain aquatic invasives, some other problem comes up. We know that recreational fishermen sometimes spread aquatic invasives by moving their boats from one place to another, but a lot of it gets spread through ship ballasts. We can’t stop international shipping. We can’t stop waterborne commerce. It’s very difficult to try to control the spread of some of these invasive species through things that we don’t really have much control over.”
Click ‘play’ on the video below to watch the entire roundtable:
