The Kenai City Council adopted a resolution at a special council meeting Tuesday night requesting the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to allow the east side set net fishery an additional opportunity to harvest sockeye salmon during the 2022 season. The legislation was sponsored by all members of the city council except for city Mayor Brian Gabriel who had to recuse himself from the deliberation and vote for having participated in the fishery since 1987. A majority of those who testified spoke in favor of the resolution and simply asked for an opportunity to harvest sockeye salmon.
Senate President Peter Micciche told the city council:
“A portion of that would be nice to have this winter for basic survival. It’s a tough year. Inflation is affecting all of us and it’s certainly affecting everyone in this room, but it adversely affects every business on the Kenai, whether they want to admit it or not, it simply does.”
Kenai Rep. Ron Gillham echoed similar sentiment:
“If one group doesn’t fish, nobody fishes. This should be a fish concern. If we don’t have the fish, shut everybody down, get the fish in the river and then go back to fishing.”
Doug Vincent-Lang, Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game previously told KSRM that because the late run Kenai River king salmon fishery was closed on Sunday the 17th, it resulted in an automatic closure of the east side set net fishery under the paired restrictions within the late run Kenai River king salmon plan, adding that the fisheries will remain closed until the department can project to meet the late run Kenai king goal.
Responding to recent calls to open the east side set net fishery, Brian Marston with the Division of Commercial Fisheries tells KSRM:
“We follow the management plans and currently, the management plans have closed them. we do have a lot of sockeye in the district and I see where that sentiment is coming from, they want to harvest the abundant sockeye, but currently, the regulations limit the fishery based on king salmon abundance.”
With the inseason assessment that was held earlier this week, Marston wrote that management of the Upper Subdistrict set gillnet and the Central District drift gillnet commercial fisheries will not change.
Copies of the approved resolution will be sent to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the Alaska Board of Fish and Governor Mike Dunleavy.
Click here for more information.
