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Photo: 12:35, 17 November 2005 w:en:user:Welshasp via Wikimedia Commons · Photo source · Public domain
Fish board agrees to reconsider Area M salmon limits the state voided in May
Editor’s note: This story was updated to correct the description of the June fishing schedule the board will reconsider and to add board member Curt Chamberlain’s votes.
The Alaska Board of Fisheries agreed Thursday to reconsider four of the five Area M salmon fishing rules the state threw out in May.
The rules were meant to let more chum and king salmon reach Western Alaska rivers, where low returns have closed or limited subsistence fishing in recent years. The acting attorney general voided them after finding that a board member "failed to provide a complete disclosure" before the February meeting.
That member, Curt Chamberlain, voted with the majority Thursday as the board accepted five requests to reconsider the rules, each on a 4-3 vote. A day earlier, he made the order public and said he stands by his disclosures.
Area M's June fishery, off the south side of the Alaska Peninsula, targets sockeye but also catches chum and kings bound for the Yukon, Kuskokwim and other Western Alaska rivers.
The rules would put that fishery on a fixed schedule, cutting fishing time about 39% for drift gillnetters and 30% for seiners. They would also add king salmon catch limits after June and shrink the nets both fleets use.
Area M fishermen and the Aleutians East Borough have argued the rules would hurt their communities and undercut the fleet's voluntary closures.
Accepting the requests doesn't restore the rules. The board will debate and vote on them again at a special meeting, tentatively Dec. 13-16 or sometime in February.
The Orutsararmiut Native Council, Bethel's tribal government, and the Fairbanks Fish and Game Advisory Committee asked for the new votes.
The board normally takes up Area M rules once every three years. To act sooner, it must find a conservation need, an error in regulation or an effect no one foresaw when a rule was adopted. State fisheries staff said the requests met none of those.
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