Fish and Game proposes flagging struggling salmon runs a year earlier so the public can weigh in

When a salmon run keeps falling short, Alaskans who want a say in the state's response often see the plan too late to comment on it. Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang wants to change the timing.

At a Board of Fisheries committee meeting Friday, Vincent-Lang proposed that the board decide which runs are "stocks of concern" a full year earlier than it does now. The board uses that label for runs that repeatedly fail to get enough fish back to their spawning grounds. Once a run is labeled, the department writes an action plan for how to respond, and the board and the public review it at the board's next meeting for that region.

Under the current schedule, the board makes the designation at its October work session, and the plan is due at that season's regional meeting, sometimes only weeks later. Board Chair Marit Carlson-Van Dort said that has repeatedly been too little time, and the board has had to "sort of punt" plans to later meetings. It happened with Bristol Bay, and again last November with Yukon River fall chum salmon, whose plan was pushed to the board's statewide meeting in March. Vincent-Lang said a December meeting on Lower Cook Inlet would leave his staff too little time to write a plan.

Board members were open to the idea but wanted details. Tom Carpenter called a six-week turnaround "really an impossible task" and said he wants a formal recommendation from the department first. Mike Wood said a designation "doesn't seem immediate" and questioned whether action plans belong in regulation at all.

Fishing groups questioned how much the plans change. Kathy Hansen of the Southeast Alaska Fishermen's Alliance said the department usually starts managing a weak run before any plan exists. "Every action plan I've seen has usually duplicated what they've been doing," she said. Thatcher Brower said the board of United Fishermen of Alaska doesn't support individuals asking the Board of Fisheries to designate stocks of concern outside its normal schedule.

Vincent-Lang said people could still ask the board for a rule change outside the normal schedule to address a conservation problem, without seeking a designation. Carlson-Van Dort said such requests usually don't meet the board's emergency standard. But she said she did not want to close off that route or tell people to wait until a run has missed its goal for seven years.

No vote was taken. Vincent-Lang said the department will bring a formal proposal to the board's October work session. The committee expects to meet again around Oct. 14, once the date is officially noticed, and will take written comments before then through the board's website, by mail to the board in Juneau or by fax to 907-465-6094.