2025 Arctic/Yukon/Kuskokwim Finfish – (Day 1)

Sorry about that.

A'ah.

All right, good morning, everybody.

My name is Marit Carlson Van Dorda. I am the chair of the Alaska Board of Fisheries. Today is Tuesday, November 18th. Time is 8:44 AM. We've got 6 of 7 board members present.

And before we get into it too far, I'd like everybody to go ahead and introduce themselves. I'm going to go ahead and start at this end of the table with Miss Irwin.

Zan hazoon, Olivia Souza, dehoon denakahitle, henahi seesnee. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Olivia Henahi Irwin. I'm from Ninana.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Curtis Chamberlain. I'm from— well, I live in Wasilla, but I'm originally from Maniac and Bethel on the Kuskokwim. Good morning, everyone. My name is Tom Carpenter.

I reside in Cordova.

Good morning, everyone. It's a little chilly here in Fairbanks, but it's nice to be here. My name is Greg Svenson. I'm born and raised in Anchorage. Glad to be here.

Good morning everyone, my name is Mike Wood. I live north of Talkeetna and Chase.

And like I said, my name is Marit Carlson Van Dorth and I am in Anchorage by way of Juneau and Chignik Bay. And just want to extend a thank you to Fairbanks for its wonderful Golden Heart welcome. We're excited to be here this week and we'll go ahead and get going with Other introductions, Mr. Commissioner? Yeah, I'm Doug Insulin, Commissioner, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and all of my staff introduce themselves and their staff.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My name is Forrest Bowers. I'm the Acting Director of the Division of Commercial Fisheries. Here to assist you today from the division are Shaleen Hutter, Regulations Program Coordinator.

Danny Evenson will be arriving later today. She's Extended Jurisdiction Program Manager. We have John Linderman, who's our Arctic Yukon Kuskokwim Regional Supervisor and U.S. co-chair of the Yukon River Panel. Zach Liller is the Arctic Yukon Kuskokwim Regional Research Coordinator. Aaron Tiernan, Arctic Yukon Kuskokwim Regional Management Coordinator.

Dena Jalen, Yukon River Summer Season Management Biologist. Matt Olson, Yukon River fall season management biologist. Bonnie Borba, Yukon River salmon research biologist. Sam Decker, Kuskokwim area management biologist. Kevin Clark, Norton Sound Kotzebue area management biologist.

And Luke Hensley, Norton Sound Kotzebue assistant area management biologist. Thanks.

Mr. Payton. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My name is Israel Payton. I'm Director of Sport Fish, and I'll introduce some staff.

I ask they raise their hand or stand up as I say their name. With us here today, I have Jason Dye, the Deputy Director. We have Klaus Wittig, the Management Coordinator. James Severide, the Research Coordinator for this region. We have Brendan Scanlon.

He's the North Slope Northwest Manager. Lisa Stube is the Yukon Area Manager excluding the Tanana. We have Andy Driska, the Tanana Area Manager. And we have Brandy Baker, Assistant Tanana Area Manager. And we also have John Scheithlok here.

He's the Kuskokwim Area Manager, all for Sport Fish. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Payton. Mr. Pappas. Morning, Madam Chair.

George Pappas, Director, Division of Subsistence. And to help you today, we have Helen Cold, Subsistence Resource Specialist for the Arctic. We have Tam Babinek, Subsistence Resource Specialist for the Kuskokwim Region. We have Dr. Jesse Coleman, Research Analyst. Alita Trainer, the Northern Region Program Manager.

We have Carolyn Brown, the Statewide Research Director. And Dr. Amy Ueda, Deputy Director. It's great to be here. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

And from OSM.

Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the Board. My name is Scott Ayers. I'm the Deputy Director for the Office of Subsistence Management. I'm joining you today from Anchorage. Thank you.

And from Department of Law. Good morning, everyone. Edward Lee for the Department of Law.

And good morning, Derek DeGraff from Alaska Wildlife Troopers. And Director Nelson, will you please introduce yourself and your staff, please? Good morning, Madam Chair. My name is Art Nelson. I'm the executive director for the Board of Fisheries.

And with the board staff we have here, beginning closest to us, we have Annie Bartholomew. She's the board's publications specialist. Next to Annie is Savannah Hollingworth. She is the Board of Games publications specialist, but she's also the Western Region Advisory Committee Coordinator based out of Bethel. And there at the end of the table we have Layla Williams.

She's our South Central Region Advisory Committee Coordinator. Madam Chair. Thank you. Did we miss anybody? Good.

All right. Well, moving on just quickly for those that are in the meeting room, if you have trouble hearing our microphones, first of all, let us know. But we also have hearing assistance devices up here. So you're welcome to just ask any one of these gals here at the end of the table and they will hook you up and hopefully that will help. To improve your hearing if you have trouble.

Lastly, if you're in the meeting room or around this table, please turn off or silence your cell phones. Just helps to keep down on disruptions. And I think we'll go ahead and begin our ethics disclosures. This time we'll go in the same order in which we introduced ourselves, starting with Ms. Irwin, please. Thank you, Madam Chair.

My name is Olivia Henahi Irwin. I live in Nenana, Alaska. I am a Doyon Corporation shareholder and and receive a dividend each year. I am also an Evansville Native Corporation shareholder and receive a dividend each year. Both were formed by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

I work as a community liaison for the Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association, the mission of which is to protect and promote all wild fisheries and traditional cultures within the Yukon River drainage. Yurfa did not submit, author, or influence any proposals before us today. I will receive a stipend for my service on the Alaska Board of Fisheries. I have a resident hunt, sport, and trapping license. However, I have not participated in any of the fisheries being addressed at this meeting.

My immediate family consists of my 4 siblings, only one of whom resides in Alaska, along with 2 aunts and 4 uncles who also reside in Alaska, none of whom are currently involved in any fisheries work or business. My Aunt Marie Monroe retains 2 commercial fishing permits for the Tanana River, net and fish wheel. However, she has not fished the permit or financially benefited since 1993. As I work for a fisheries organization, I do have a personal and financial interest with the Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association. However, no action I take on this board will directly benefit myself or my employer personally or financially.

Neither I nor any member of my immediately family or my employer have any affiliation with any business or fish and wildlife organizations that may be affected by the proposals before us. No member of my immediate family, myself, or my employer are involved in any lawsuits against the state, department, or board of fisheries. I certify that this disclosure statement is true, correct, and complete to the best of my knowledge, Madam Chair. Thank you, Miss Irwin. Quick question.

So you said your aunt had Tanana commercial permits, fish wheel and net permit, is that correct? Yes, ma'am. And are there any commercial proposals related to the Tanana that you'd like to flag for the chair at this time? No, ma'am. Are there any other board questions?

Mr. Carpenter. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a couple quick questions. Ms. Erwin, I know that you were on an advisory committee in NANANA for a while, and I assume that you're not on there anymore. But while you were on there, did you have any input into any proposals that an AC from this region could have submitted that, you know, you might want to, like, bring forward to the board at this time?

Thank you, Mr. Carpenter. Uh, no, Mentone Nana AC did not participate, influence, or author any of the proposals. And then just one other question. Um, maybe you can elaborate a little bit on something you said, um, in regards to— maybe I heard you incorrectly, so please correct me if I'm wrong— in regards to potential consulting or some sort of an arrangement that you do work for YRTFA, I believe you said, outside of your capacity as an employee there. Could you maybe expand on that?

I'm sorry if I was— you misunderstood, Mr. Carpenter. So I'm a full-time employee at the Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association. I work as their community liaison. And so I this summer traveled to villages to listen and learn from local users. Okay.

I must have misheard you. Thanks for clarifying that. And I guess the only other question is, is you told us what your current position is with YRTFA, but have you had other positions at YRTFA in the last year or two that might have had a different title? Yes. I was previously the policy coordinator for the Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association until the end of September.

September. Okay, thanks. And Mr. Herman, in that capacity, did you, um, have the opportunity to influence or, um, you know, push, sway, have any decision-making capacity on any of YRDFA's engagements with the Board of Fisheries or the state of Alaska? Thank you for the question, Madam Chair. Prior to my time serving on being appointed to the Board of Fisheries through YRDFA.

I did participate in the Prince— we did submit comments to the Prince William Sound meeting. However, that was prior to my engagement on the board and prior to my service. I don't believe it should be held against me. Thank you. But certainly nothing related to this particular meeting?

No, ma'am. Nothing related to this meeting. Thank you for the clarification. Are there any other board questions? Mr. Wood?

Yeah, thank you. I've— last 3 years I've been following YRDFA and the good work that they've done and appreciate you in your disclosure covering that, because they've, you know, over time they've submitted comments and have made influences throughout the, you know, the policy world. The other thing I'd like to say is just from the permit aspect of things, coming from the least expensive permit in the state and having problem, had problems with that, one of the things that really kind of designates whether you're going to have a problem with a permit or not is any decisions that you make on any proposal going to create a significant value value improvement based on that permit. I will assume that given the fact that you can't even fish here— I can't even fish— that there is no significant value increase on any of the decisions you could make with CHUM. I, I don't mean to answer the question for you, but if you could elaborate.

Yeah, thank you for the question, Mr. Wood. That's correct. I don't see there being any outcome from any decision that I make today that could impact or benefit my aunt financially. She's also 73 years old. The fish still is dilapidated in her yard, and there's not really an intention on fishing that permit into the future.

So thank you for your question. I understand that, but, and oftentimes it's just added to the value of the permit as a whole as a CFEC owner. And so that's one thing that gets looked at, and the history of the permit is definitely not increasing. I agree with you, and I'm very aware of that. Thank you.

Thank you, and happy for the Department of Law to answer any questions if there are regarding that. Thank you.

Okay, any other questions? Hearing none, thank you for your very complete disclosure. And I'm not hearing any conflicts, and I think we've pretty well vetted it. So I will rule that you can fully participate in all the matters before the board at this meeting. Mr. Chamberlain.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Curt Chamberlain. I was born and raised on the— or I was raised on the Kuskokwim River. I'm currently employed as Deputy General Counsel with Jalista Corporation. I'm a shareholder in the Kuskokwim Corporation, my Angksa village corporation, and Chalista Corporation, my Angksa regional corporation, and receive distributions from both entities each year.

In the past year, I've received residual income from the sale of a law firm and rental properties. I currently own a controlling interest in Neon Law Group Incorporated, which is currently winding down and not conducting business. I will receive a stipend for my service on the board. I currently hold an Alaska hunting, fishing, and trapping license. Neither I, my family, or my employer have a financial interest in fisheries.

I have no interest in any business or fish and wildlife organization that may be affected by any of the proposals or any of the proposals addressed in this meeting. My father owns a commercial drift net permit for the Middle Kuskokwim that hasn't been used since 1996. Neither I, any member of my immediate family, nor my employer are involved in any lawsuit where the state the board or the department as a party to the lawsuit. This information is true, correct, and complete to the best of my knowledge. Thank you, Mr. Chamberlain.

I'm going to ask you a couple of similar questions. Are there any proposals before us that you're aware of that deal with commercial, um, activities in the Middle Kuskokwim but would— that could potentially affect that permit, your father's permit? No, Madam Chair. And, um, with regards to Chalista, have they, uh, taken any positions or engaged in any any sort of policy-related activities related to the suite of proposals that we're dealing with at this meeting? No, Madam Chair.

Other board questions? Mr. Wood. Yeah, thanks. I'm going to just follow up on the same question I had for you before at the last meeting. As an employee of Chalista and the area you represent at the mouth of the Kuskwim and Yukon River, is—.

Do you have any—. Is your corporation that you're employed by making any financial benefits by the decisions that you could potentially make on this board, especially regarding some of the proposals that could affect lower river users that were put in by upper river users? So that's a fairly complex question that requires a fairly complex answer. The— as an inksook corporation, Chalista for all intents and purposes is a for-profit a corporation with a nonprofit purpose. All of our funds get distributed to our shareholders in the region.

We also take efforts to work for the socioeconomic benefit of our shareholders. And so when food security issues do rise, Chalista does divert resources or advocate for positions that build food security, usually in the forms of federal funding. So it does affect how we how we steer our efforts, but it does not financially impact any of our— us in any bottom line, if that's the answer. But Chalista has no business interest or no direct financial tie to any fishery or anything there. It's just a broad— food security is an issue for the lower Kuskokwim and lower Yukon, and That's something we take into consideration, but it does not affect our bottom line, our business interests, or how we conduct business.

Yeah, thank you. But does Chalista as a corporation, like, make— there's this $5,000 threshold, right? Do they make over $5,000? And would that— would they potentially make more based on the decision you would make as, uh, as a shareholder and a a member of this board sitting at this table? As a shareholder, I think my yearly stipend is about $400.

Um, the corporation, uh, as far as I know, has no interest in any business or fisheries, and I don't think it makes— it touches the bottom line at all. But we are a very large corporation and have a lot of business interests, so I can't speak to everything on that. But I, I do know we have no interest in any fishing business whatsoever. And I want to make sure I'm answering everything you're asking. Yes.

Good enough for now. I'll let someone else.

Okay. How many shareholders does Chalista have? Chalista has just over 39,000 shareholders as of last month.

That's a very large class of people. And as there is no direct financial interest, I mean, there's large suits of businesses that I'm sure are international in nature in terms of how Chalista receives revenue, earns revenue. But I mean, as long as there isn't any fisheries-specific related income or business interests that the board needs to be aware of, or the chair or any of the members need to be aware of, I just want to double clarify that, right? Absolutely. Okay.

Any other questions? Given those disclosures, I rule that you may fully participate in the business before the board at this meeting. Mr. Swenson.

Gee, I feel pretty simple after all this.

Hi, my name is Greg Swenson. I was born and raised in Anchorage and am married with one daughter and one grandson. My wife and I are retired school teachers, and my daughter is an assistant principal in Anchorage School District. We both receive income from teacher retirement from the state, PFD, CD interest investment, residential rental income, and I get a stipend from the state for my service on the board. Neither I or my immediate family have any financial interest in fisheries, nor are we involved in any lawsuits with State of Alaska Department of Fish and Game or the Board of Fisheries.

I also have licenses for hunting and fishing and a private pilot's license. This information is true and correct to the best of my abilities. Thank you. Any board questions? Mr. Swenson, I rule that you can fully participate in all of the matters before us at this meeting.

Mr. Wood. All right. Um, my name is Mike Wood. I live in Chase, Alaska, 5 miles north of Talkeetna on the Susitna River. I am a self-employed carpenter and do contract work for the Alaska Mountaineering School and Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions and other clients.

I have an SO4H Setnet permit in Cook Inlet and own Su Salmon Co., a small-scale commercial salmon business that supplies locals food. I am a volunteer chair of the— on the board for the Susitna River Coalition and chair of the Chase Community Council. My wife Molly is an independent consultant. We both received the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend. I have a current hunting, fishing, trapping license.

Neither my wife or I are involved with any lawsuit against the state, the board, or the department. And, um, and that's it. Yeah, I have to edit the last part, but yes, thank you. All right, Mike, thank you. Any questions?

Hearing none, I rule that you can fully participate at the meeting today. Thanks. Mr. Carpenter. Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Tom Carpenter.

I reside in Cordova. I'm currently retired. I've divested myself completely of all businesses, including limited entry permits and IFQs. I received the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend, as does my daughter. I receive a stipend for serving on this board.

I purchase an Alaska sport fish hunt license every year and hold a Copper River subsistence permit annually. Neither I nor anyone in my immediate or extended family have any financial interest in any business which relates to fish and wild resources or belong to any organizations to which any financial gain can be attributed. There are no proposals before the board that will benefit myself nor anyone in my immediate family. No member of my family is involved in any lawsuits against the state of Alaska or the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and I believe this statement to be true, correct, and complete. Thank you, Mr. Carpenter.

Any board questions? Seeing none, I rule that you can fully participate at this meeting. Mr. Carpenter, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Would you please put your ethics disclosure on the record?

Thanks. So my name is Maren Carlson VanDort. I was born and raised in Alaska. I currently reside in Anchorage. I am employed as the president and CEO of Far West Incorporated, which is the village corporation for Chignik Bay formed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

I am also a shareholder in Bristol Bay Native Corporation and in Kodiak Native Corporation. I receive a State of Alaska permanent fund dividend and purchase a resident sport fish license annually. I will, I will receive a stipend for my service on this board, and neither I, members of my immediate family, nor my employer have a financial interest Board of Fisheries. Similarly, neither I, any members of my immediate family, nor my employer are involved with any lawsuits with the state of Alaska, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, or the Board of Fisheries. Mr.

Chair, this information is true, correct, and complete to the best of my knowledge. Thank you very much. Any board questions? Seeing none, I rule that you can participate fully in the matters before us this meeting, and I will pass the chair to you. Thank you, Mr. Carpenter.

And just noted, Mr. Godfrey will be joining us tomorrow afternoon, and when he joins us at the table, we will have him make his ethics disclosure similarly. All right, let's see, what shall we talk about? Let's talk about access to the board members. So for those of you who haven't been to a board meeting before, um, as board members, we're available to you for the purpose of receiving information. This process doesn't work without you and your help.

Many of us often meet with stakeholders informally during breaks and both before and after the daily meetings. We look forward to those conversations with you, and we're here to serve and benefit from your input. There is a black and white striped line up here that we call the sanctuary line at the front tables, which we ask the public not to come across during our meetings or our breaks. However, if you would like to talk to one of us and we're behind that line, grab any staff member that you'd like, or, or the board support staff, and they'll come let us know that you want to chat with us. And we will come out and talk to you.

Please keep in mind, however, that it is during these breaks that before and after our daily meetings that we find time to read the materials that are submitted. So just keep that in mind. And don't take offense if we need a few minutes before we can chat with you. If you have process questions about this meeting and how it is being conducted, please let me, the chair, Vice Chair Carpenter, Executive Director Nelson know, and we will do our best to answer all the process questions that the public may have during the course of this meeting. It's hoped that what I'm outlining here will help you to maximize your participation and engagement.

The Alaska Board of Fisheries and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game are united in support of fostering a respectful workplace. We're committed to ensuring that our meetings are free from negative, aggressive, and inappropriate behaviors, and harassment of any type is unacceptable and will not be tolerated Certainly we appreciate everyone's assistance in helping us conduct a respectful and productive meeting. In accordance with the Open Meetings Act, the board staff published a notice in the online public notice system and in a statewide newspaper, posted the notice on the board's website and our designated posting place, and also distributed it to our list of email recipients. I'm not going to read it, but there are copies of the notice in the meeting notebooks at the back of the room. Are they back there?

They're back inside the door. Okay. So, yeah, towards the back of the room there, if you're looking for that.

So you can check those out. The public notice and proposals were distributed to the local Fish and Game Advisory Committees. They are also posted online. They were sent by email to interested organizations and individuals. Public comments were solicited and the board members have received copies of all on-time written public comments.

The timely public comments and timely advisory committee comments are available for the board's use and also to the public, again, in those workbooks at the back of the room. Copies of all of the meeting materials updated are updated frequently throughout the meeting. They can also be found on the board's website on the web page specific to this meeting. And I would encourage folks to familiarize yourself with that meeting page because that is where the RCs will be updated. Any agenda change, any agenda changes will be updated, roadmap changes will be updated.

So I encourage you to get familiar with that web page. It's super helpful. Copies of the tentative agenda for this meeting can also be found on that table at the back room. The agenda is subject to change throughout the meeting, but I will make an attempt to generally stay on the agenda as best as we can. With respect to record copies, the board encourages the public to submit written comments on specific proposals or issues.

Written public comments submitted before deliberations began— again, before deliberations began— are limited to 10 single-sided or 5 double-sided pages in length. Please make sure that your written comments clearly include your name, the organization you represent if there is one, and what proposals your RC is addressing at the top of the document. That's really helpful to us as we're scanning and trying to read everything. Once the deliberations on proposals begin at this meeting, the board will only accept written public comments that are not more than 5 single-sided, double, single-sided pages or the equivalent double-sided pages unless very specific information is requested by the board that requires more, um, pages than are allowed under the standard. The board is accepting RCs submitted electronically as a Word document or a PDF only through the board's website.

A link to the submission portal is prominently featured on the meeting page of our website where all of these materials for this meeting are posted. You can also turn in written materials to the board support staff at the end of the table. Please note that you only need to turn in one copy. I know previously you had to turn in 20 copies or multiple copies, but, um, only need to turn in one unless there is something that you would like to have appear before the board members in color. We can't print color, so if there is something that you would like to have in color, please turn in 20 copies to the board support staff at the end of the table.

With no exception, all materials which are submitted to the board for its consideration must be presented to the record keeper for distribution or uploaded through through our website. Please do not give documents to board members directly, as those documents will be handed back to you to submit to the record. All documents received at this board meeting will be assigned a log number, which is called an RC. All written materials submitted will be retained for the permanent record of the board. The record keeper will distribute RCs in the morning before the meeting begins, after the noon break, and if there's an evening session, after the dinner break.

This practice ensures regular distribution of all written materials to the board members, as well as proper retention of board records. And again, just a note, while you have the right to submit up to the maximum number of pages, please keep in mind that we do get busy, our eyes get overwhelmed, and we appreciate brevity. Certainly. Um, testimony, committee deliberations. At this time, I think we're going to begin our staff reports, followed by traditional knowledge reports and public testimony.

For those who wish to provide public testimony, please fill out one of the blue cards which are located at the end of the table and turn it in to the board support staff. The tentative cutoff time to sign up for oral public testimony is 10:00 a.m. Tomorrow. So Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. At this meeting, the public will be given 3 minutes to testify.

Traditional Knowledge reports advisory committees and regional advisory council representatives will each be given 10 minutes. Following the public testimony, there will be 3 sessions of the board's committee of the whole. Please refer to the roadmap to see which proposals will be discussed at each of these committee sessions. Everyone present is allowed to participate. There's no need to sign up.

The agenda, which is available online or in the materials at the back, will show tentatively where we plan to deliberate in between the committee group sessions. And like I said, while the agenda is subject to change, we'll provide you updates along the way. But if So if you have any questions about the process, again, feel free to ask myself, Vice Chair Carpenter, or Executive Director Nelson. And so with that, I think we'll pause. Did I forget anything?

Covered it. All right. Let's pause for a few minutes and get set up for a— for staff reports, and we'll begin staff reports in about 15 minutes. We'll come back on the record at 9:30.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] All right. Well, we are going to go ahead and begin the staff report portion of the meeting. We are back on the record. It is 9:32 a.m. And before we get going, Mr.

Commissioner. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Um, before we begin staff presentations, I want to set the stage a little bit and provide some department-wide perspectives on what you're going to hear. As you will hear in staff reports, the AYK region has experienced significant declines in Chinook, Coho, and Chum productivity in recent years. As you also hear in the subsistence report, and no doubt from the public during public testimony, this has impacted food security and culture in this region.

As Commissioner, I have spent considerable time in the communities in this region, participating annually in the TCC community visits, often by boat and plane, and doing other trips. I have also visited communities in Canada as part of the Yukon River Agreement. Were these visits hard? Yeah, no doubt. But they were necessary to better understand the issues facing these communities and their people.

Face time is important. Hearing from people most affected is important. Seeing the impacts with my own eyes is important. In my many meetings in both communities along the river and in public meetings here in town, I heard consistently that the past approaches to rebuild these runs were not working and that we needed a new approach to address the declines in salmon. In response, the department entered into a landmark agreement with Canada to rebuild depressed Chinook salmon stocks in the Yukon River drainage.

This agreement is based on a life cycle of Chinook salmon, 7 years. We agreed to close all directed Chinook salmon fishing in the mainstem Yukon River for 7 years to rebuild these runs. Was this controversial? Yes, certainly. But it was time, based on what I was hearing, to try new and creative approaches based on what we were hearing.

The agreement also allows Alaskans to fish in Alaskan tributaries in the event that our tributary stocks rebuild before 7 years. To ensure we can preserve culture as we rebuild these runs, the department instituted an educational permit under the agreement that will allow for a de minimis number of Chinook and chum salmon to be taken for educational purposes along the Yukon River. This will allow people to put their hands on fish, something I heard that was critically important during the rebuilding process to allow culture camps to continue. You will hear more about this in the treaty presentation later. I also heard in my visits that marine bycatch was an issue.

In response, the governor established a Bycatch Advisory Committee. This committee spent a year developing recommendations, which they published in a report. But to ensure this report just didn't sit on the shelf, and we wanted to make sure this effort continued, I established a department task force to help implement the recommendations. This work continues. Specifically, to address bycatch in ocean trawl fisheries in North North Pacific Fishery Management Council has adopted a hard Chinook salmon bycatch limit that is annually tiered to projected salmon abundance in 3 AYK rivers.

The limit closes trawl fisheries if exceeded. Let me say that. It closes the trawl fisheries if it's exceeded. Bycatch is monitored by 100— by an observer program with 100% coverage. Data shows that the actual Chinook salmon bycatch is substantially lower than the cap limits, largely due to voluntary fleet actions.

And through a genetics program that we're involved with, we can now estimate the stock origin of this bycatch by river system. The council is also poised to take action on chum salmon bycatch this February. One issue we are closely tracking is that we— as we decrease pollock harvest in our trawl fisheries to address bycatch and other concerns, the Russian trawl fleet is absorbing that lost harvest in a fishery that does not have observer coverage. Speaking of Russian fisheries, we are also working with various international bodies in the State Department to ensure better bycatch reporting in international fisheries, particularly Russia, which openly states that they have zero salmon bycatch in their ocean trawl fisheries. Yet they are surprisingly certified under the Marine Stewardship Council.

We are also working to address high seas fisheries intercepts of salmon through the State Department. We're also working with the council on means to reduce bottom contact in trawl operations, as I heard that as an issue consistently. This work is being done in conjunction with the trawl industry and with universities. We hope to have new regulations to reduce bottom contact in place in 2027. I also heard concerns regarding marine intercept fisheries.

With respect to South Peninsula fisheries, this board 3 years ago adopted a proposal that provided windows and incentive-based triggers. This action reduced commercial salmon fishing time with purse seine gear in June by 13%. To allow chum salmon passage in the AYK region, closed a known area of high chum salmon abundance to commercial fishing for salmon during June, created chum salmon harvest triggers that restrict and potentially close the commercial salmon fishery with purse seine gear in June if met or exceeded, and expressed an expectation, received a commitment from the fishing industry that the industry coordinate efforts to reduce chum salmon harvest. This is incentivized by previously mentioned triggers. The adopted approach has significantly reduced chum salmon bycatch in these fisheries.

You will revisit this in January. We have also instituted new genetic assessments to inform management of intercept fisheries for both chum and now Chinook salmon. You will be hearing about this work during our— during your January meeting. I have also heard that we need better research to inform the causes of the declines. Many speculated as to the reasons for the salmon decline, from ocean hatchery competition to disease, to changing ocean and freshwater productivity to increase marine mammal predation.

Unfortunately, no single reason appears to be the primary answer, and the answers are not clear at this time. Towards this end, we have invested significant resources to understand the root causes. Our Salmon Assessment Program budget has increased from about $300,000 in 2019 to just under $2 million this current fiscal year. We have also secured new federal money through the treaty process to support needed work in the Yukon drainage. And thanks to Senator Murkowski, we also received a sizable grant to investigate fish health.

Additionally, work is being done by other agencies, including the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service. Overall, significant state and federal resources are being dedicated to address the issue of poor salmon returns in this area. Specifically, we have implemented a marine science program to unravel the impacts that a changing marine environment may have on Chinook and chum salmon. Initiated studies to assess diseases causing in-river mortalities, specifically ichthyophonous. Addressed king salmon migration patterns using radio tags in the Yukon River to inform placement of a Red River sonar.

Began a study of fall-run chum salmon in association with Canada to address— to assess factors impacting poor returns of fall chum salmon. Initiated discussions with Canada on hatchery restoration efforts for king salmon in Canada. Offered permitting for hatchery incubation boxes throughout western coastal Alaska, began evaluation of the genetic compositions of chum and Chinook salmon harvested in Alaska Peninsula fisheries, contributed money and participated in the International Year of the Salmon program to assess ocean salmon distribution and rearing, and initiated studies to update subsistence use information. I also wish to point out that management is complicated in this region by international fishery Treaties, which we will hear a presentation on, interjurisdictional conflicts between state and federal management, and international fisheries. For example, the state is enjoined by a federal judge from managing the lower Kuskokwim River.

The department would have managed subsistence harvests in this area far more conservatively to ensure middle and upriver users had more opportunity, as data from household surveys shows that lower river users had larger household harvests than middle and upper river users. All in all, much is being done. That said, we understand patience is running thin given the real impact this is having on food security in the region. Unfortunately, it takes time to conduct research and develop and assess implemented, implemented management programs designed to rebuild these stocks. In conclusion, we at the department are sympathetic to the hardships and the impacts that closures have on local residents in the area.

And reductions to subsistence food sharing webs. It is our goal to restore these stocks to sustainable levels so that future generations can rely on them for food and culture, and if we are really lucky, economic opportunity. With that, I'll turn it over now to staff for their presentations, and thank you for the opportunity to set the stage. Thank you for your comments, Commissioner. Um, quick question for you, um, and I appreciate the work that's being done and the increase in work that's being done in in this space.

Are the studies continuing? Are we going to hear about those today? I don't, I don't think you hear about them, but you'll have a research group up there, and I'm understanding they are largely completed now. Okay, thank you. Other questions before we get going?

All right, I'd invite staff to the table to go ahead and begin. I believe the first presentation is Arctic Yukon Kuskokwim Region 2025 Escapement Goal Review. Welcome.

Good morning, everybody. Just do a quick sound check while I'm bringing the presentation up. Is this okay for folks? Can everybody hear him back there? Okay.

I see a couple thumbs up. You're good. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you.

Well, good morning, Madam Chair, members of the board. My name is Zachary Liller, and I serve as the Regional Research Coordinator for the Division of Commercial Fisheries in the Arctic Yukon Kuskokwim Region, or AYK for short. With me today is James Saverey, the Regional Research Coordinator for Division of Sport Fish. Together, we coordinated the 2025 escapement goal review for the AYK region, working closely with fishery scientists, regional and area staff from both divisions. A detailed written report is provided in RC3 tab 1, and a copy of this oral presentation is in RC3 tab 5.

Today we'll provide an overview of the 2025 escapement goal review process. We'll begin by introducing the policies that guide escapement goal development and review We'll then describe— excuse me— we'll then describe the review process used by the department to evaluate existing goals. Next, we'll orient the board to the current escapement goal structure across the AYK region. And finally, we'll summarize the committee's findings and decisions for this review cycle.

Escapement goals in the AYK region are developed and reviewed under two key policies: the Policy for the Management of Sustainable Salmon Fisheries and the policy for statewide salmon escapement goals. These policies define the department's responsibility to establish escapement goals that ensure salmon stocks are conserved, developed, and managed using the sustained yield principle. The department has authority to establish and modify biological and sustainable escapement goals, while the board retains the authority to adopt optimum escapement goals. I'll define each of these goals type— goal types more specifically in a few slides.

Before getting into definitions, I want to briefly differentiate goals established by ADF&G or the board from bilateral U.S.-Canada goals. Escapement goals for Canadian-origin Yukon River King and Fall Chum Salmon are established through a separate process under Chapter 8 of the Pacific Salmon Treaty. The bilateral Yukon River panel composed of U.S. and Canadian representatives recommends escapement goals for these transboundary stocks. Stocks. These goals are not included in this presentation, but we're happy to address any questions during Q&A.

There are 3 types of escapement goals used in Alaskan fisheries. A biological escapement goal, or BEG, is a range of escapement that provides the greatest potential for maximum sustained yield, or MSY. It's based on spawner recruit analyses and used when sufficient data are available. A sustainable escapement goal, or SEG, is used when data are insufficient to estimate MSY, when there's significant uncertainty around the spawner-recruit relationship, or an MSY-based goal cannot be managed for. SEGs reflect a level of escapement known to support sustained yield over a 5- to 10-year period and are most often based on historical percentiles.

An optimal escapement goal, or OEG, is a specific management objective adopted into regulation by the board that considers both biological and allocative factors. OEGs may differ from BEGs or SEGs.

The AYK escapement goal review process is best thought of as a recurring cycle that takes place every 3 years. The process begins with ADF&G convening a cross-divisional review team composed of fisheries scientists and regional research coordinators from the divisions of commercial and sport fish. The team inventories and updates escapement datasets, conducts analyses, and evaluates the performance of existing goals. Preliminary decisions are shared with department leadership before public and board notifications are released in advance of the Board of Fisheries proposal deadline. The department then reports its decisions to the board through a memo, a written report, and this oral presentation.

This map outlines the 4 commercial salmon management areas that make up the AYK region. At the top of the map, shown in brown, is the Arctic Kotzebue Area, which includes all waters north of Cape Prince of Wales, including those that drain into Kotzebue Sound, Chukchi Sea, and the Beaufort Sea. But for the purposes of this report, escapement goals within this management area are specific to only the Kotzebue District. To the south in orange is the Norton Sound-Port Clarence area. The Yukon area shown in green encompasses the U.S. portion of the Yukon River drainage.

And finally, the Kuskwim area shown in lavender includes the Kuskwim River and Kuskwim Bay drainages. These areas correspond to the structure of the escapement goal report provided to the board.

There are currently 47 escapement goals established by ADF&G across the AYK region. These goals are distributed across the 4 commercial management areas and represent the department's best effort to ensure sustainable salmon production and harvest opportunity. The number of goals has decreased slightly from the previous cycles due to an ongoing effort to streamline and align escapement goal structures with the current needs of fisheries management.

Escapement goals have been established for all 5 species of Pacific salmon in the AYK region. These include king, chum, coho, sockeye, and pink salmon. The number and distribution of goals varies by species and area, reflecting differences in stock abundance, fishery importance, and available assessment data. Over 90% of escapement goals in the AYK region are sustainable escapement goals, or SEGs. There are currently only 4 BEGs, all within the Yukon management area.

There are currently no optimum escapement goals in the AYK region. This distribution reflects the data-limited nature of many AYK stocks and the department's emphasis on using the best available information to guide management.

Of the 47 escapement goals reviewed, the department recommends that 40 goals be continued with no change.

Two goals are recommended for revision based on updated analyses and improved assessment methods. 5 Goals are recommended for discontinuation due to an inability to reliably assess them. No new escapement goals were warranted during this cycle. And importantly, none of the recommended changes have implications for existing management plans.

In the Kotzebue District, the department determined that no changes were warranted to the 2 existing chum salmon escapement goals. These goals were last reviewed in 2019, and no new data or management concerns have emerged that would justify further changes. In the Port Clarence District, the department recommends revising the Pilgrim River Salmon Lake sockeye salmon escapement goal. The current SEG range of 6,800 to 36,000 will be replaced with a lower bound SEG of greater than 6,400.

The Pilgrim River sockeye salmon stock is a small stock at the northern extent of the species range. Range, and the lake has been fertilized nearly every year since 1997. The fishery supports a modest subsistence harvest with no commercial harvest. A Ricker-based spawn and recruit analysis using 22 years of run and age data showed that substantial production— sustainable production, excuse me— occurs only within the lower half of the SEG range. The upper bound of the goal is not used to guide management and does not support sustainable yields.

The revised lower bound SEG of greater than 6,400 provides a high probability of achieving maximum sustained yield and supports the Department's longstanding focus on maximizing subsistence opportunity.

In the Norton Sound District, the Department recommends two changes. First, the Tabutcheluk River chum salmon SEG of of 3,100 to 9,000 is recommended for discontinuation due to an inability to assess the goal. Second, the Quinniac River Coho Salmon SEG of 650 to 1,300 based on aerial surveys is recommended for revision to a tower-based lower bound SEG of greater than 4,400.

The Tabatcheluck River Chum SEG and Quinniac River Coho SEGs are both assessed using aerial surveys. However, due to suboptimal weather and river conditions regularly encountered throughout the area, aerial surveys within these systems are only sporadically flown. As a result, management of both stocks has evolved to rely on the Quinniack River Tower, which provides high-quality annual escapement estimates of chum and coho salmon. As such, the department will discontinue the Tabatcheluk River aerial survey goal and continue to manage Subdistrict 3 chum salmon fisheries to achieve the existing Quinniack River tower SEG of 9,100 to 32,600. For coho salmon, we will replace the aerial survey-based SEG with a higher-quality tower-based lower-bound SEG of greater than 4,400.

These changes improve the utility of the goals for management by using the best available available data.

I'd like to wrap up Norton Sound District goals by discussing the Unalakleet River King Salmon. Within our report, we drew specific attention to this stock. During this cycle, the department had developed a plan to establish a drainage-wide goal using paired data from the North River Tower and the Unalakleet River weir, and we did include this plan in our escapement goal memo submitted to the board. However, after the memo, memo was submitted, the Unalakleet River weir was discontinued in early spring of 2025 due to a loss of land access. As such, the department is not taking any action on the drainage-wide goal, and management will continue under the existing North River SEG and existing salmon management plan.

In the Yukon management area, the department recommends that no changes be made to the 12 existing escapement goals. These include goals for king, summer chum, and fall chum salmon.

Although we are not implementing any changes to the Yukon River escapement goals this cycle, within our report we did highlight challenges pertaining to the summer chum salmon escapement goal structure that exists from having both a drainage-wide goal and tributary goals for a single stock. The drainage-wide BEG of 500,000 to 1.2 million was established published in 2016 and serves as the primary management tool. Tributary goals on the East Fork Androevsky and Andvik Rivers have limited utility. Specifically, the East Fork Androevsky weir was discontinued by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2025, which will prevent assessment of this goal for the foreseeable future.

And the Andvik River BEG is less relevant today than it was in the past due to the end of the Andvik River commercial roe fishery and persistent decline in the relative contribution of the Androok River to the total run, both of which occurred several decades ago. In future review cycles, the department may revise escapement goal structures to better reflect stock assessment and management intent.

Finally, within the Yukon area, our report highlights recent advances in information about Yukon River King Salmon. Since the 2023 escapement goal review, several major products have been finalized These include a revised genetic baseline, a comprehensive data review, and a multi-stock run reconstruction and production model with emphasis on the Canadian-origin stock component. ADF&G is currently extending this work to Alaska-origin stocks and will consider these findings in future escapement goal review cycles.

In the Kuskokwim Management Area, the department recommends discontinuing all escapement goals for the Middle Fork Good News River. This includes SEGs for king, chum, sockeye, and coho salmon. These goals were based on weir counts, but the weir has not operated since 2019 and cannot currently be used to assess escapement.

The Middle Fork Good News River weir was historically funded through a combination of state, federal, and industry support. Beginning in 2012, operations were shortened due to funding reductions. And by 2019, the project was fully discontinued. Since then, the department has pursued alternative funding sources, including competitive grants, but has not secured the resources needed to resume operations. Without a functioning weir, escapement goals for this system cannot be assessed.

The department will retain the weir infrastructure and continue to seek funding opportunities. In the meantime, King and Sakai salmon escapement to the Good News River drainage will be monitored using aerial surveys and SEGs for the North Fork Good News River will continue to be evaluated.

To summarize the 2025 escapement goal review outcomes, no changes are recommended for the Kotzebue or managed Yukon management areas. In the Port Clarence District, the Pilgrim River sockeye salmon SEG is revised to a lower bound threshold. In the Norton Sound District, the Tabbutchuluk River chum salmon SEG is discontinued. Discontinued, and the Quinniack River Coho Salmon SEG is revised to a tower-based lower bound. In the Kuskokwim area, all weir-based SEGs for the Middle Fork Good News River are discontinued due to the inability to assess them.

And with that, thank you very much for your time, and we would happily address any questions that you might have.

Thank you, gentlemen. Board questions? Mr. Swenson and Mr. Wood. Well, how do you get these weirs back working? I mean, if you can't assess what's going on, what are we doing?

I mean, and I know that money is an issue, but so tell me if you can. Happily. Through the chair, I'll take them in stages. So the Unalakleet drainage King Salmon. That particular weir, as I mentioned in my presentation, was discontinued this spring due to a lack of change in land access.

What the department's looking to do— so we have, through local area staff, have worked with the local land manager. The local land manager is supportive of the department pursuing alternative assessment techniques that are arguably less invasive. Specifically sonar. So we've already started the process of investigating in sonar technology, focusing first on coho salmon for that tributary, and then as we move forward over the next 2 to 3 years, looking to evaluate the potential for drainage-wide assessment using sonar. So, which if successful, has the, the potential to be a more robust assessment method for multiple salmon species.

On the Good News, fortunately that particular system has been monitored with aerial surveys since the— basically since statehood. So we do have a robust aerial survey program for both the Middle Fork and North Fork of the Good News for Chinook and sockeye salmon. We have escapement goals established on the North Fork for those two species. And as I mentioned in the presentation, in the meantime, while we we continue to pursue WEIR funding, we'll continue to operate aerial surveys on those systems to monitor the abundance trends.

How long do you think it's going to get to get those things back operational?

Through the chair, it does depend on, on available funding. Sonar investigations take a couple of years to first determine whether or not there's any potential to utilize that technique in the Unalakleet. If that technique turns out to be feasible, it'll be a matter of securing the funds to maintain that program moving forward. Same thing for the, for the good news. The, as I mentioned in the presentation, we're maintaining the infrastructure and maintaining partnerships in the area such that if we do secure funding probably within a year or two we could have the project back up and running.

But it does depend on securing money first. And that funding has to come from the legislature, I'm assuming. Is that correct? Through the chair, there's, there's multiple options. The stream that we regional staff and area staff have been pursuing is competitive grants.

That's been our approach so far. Okay, Mr. Wood. All right, thank you. Just in terms of the sonar, I really like the idea that the department's moving more towards that for less handling of species, both in fish wheels and nets, especially when they're having a difficult time right now. I think that's a great idea that you're looking at that.

On page 5, I was wondering about the escapement goals and when it— and how the escapement goals relate to fish going into Canada. For the U.S. We have two proposals in front of us that talk about fall chum, much of which is going into Canada, or some is going into Canada. Do—. Would—. Does the department also take into consideration, beside the BEG, SEG, and OEG, potentially the, um, the IMEG, or the interim management escapement goal, as well, for, for being a, a milestone for whether to allow fishing or not?

Through the chair, sir, yes, absolutely. Yeah, the— our agreements with Canada are, are taken extremely seriously. They form— they help form the foundation how we, we structure our fisheries management and, and our assessment programs for the Yukon in particular. So, so it would be acceptable to potentially use a number that is agreed upon, like to different countries in our state management process?

Through the chair, yes. When the Yukon River Panel recommends an escapement objective for those transboundary stocks to the department, that is worked into our annual assessment and management plan for sure.

Sorry, one last follow-up on slide— 19, you mentioned that the ANVIC had a commercial roe fishery. Was that for fall chum?

I believe that that was for summer chum. Summer chum. Okay, thank you, Commissioner. Then, Mr. Irwin, I just want to respond to a comment you made as an initial comment when you're talking. Sonars don't necessarily mean you're not touching fish.

In many of these river systems like like we're talking about a midriver sonar in the Yukon. One of the biggest concerns we have is we put a sonar in place, we're going to still have to do apportionment of that sonar, and that apportionment could kill hundreds of salmon. So necessarily, a sonar doesn't necessarily reduce the amount of contact you have, especially if it's in a clouded water system where you have to do apportionment. Mr. Wood. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much for your presentation. I just wanted to follow up with a comment from Mr. Woods comments. If this—. If the department considers the IMEG goal and those bilateral goals for the U.S.-Canadian treaty, I think they should be included on the slides, those numbers, because if they're of consideration to the department, I think it's worth the board knowing those goals to better understand. And then my question, Zach, is for the Port Clarence District, the revision of the Pilgrim River-Sockeye Lake How many times did that system meet the lower end of the escapement goal, that 60, 6,800, meet or exceed?

Through the chair, thanks for the question. Let me look up the sockeye real quick. So going back to 2011, we have met or exceeded the Pilgrim River lower bound SEG, the one that was currently in place, $6,800 every year with the exception of 2021, '22, and '23. So, but then the last 2 years, '24 and '25, we have exceeded that lower bound. Okay.

Thank you. And those 3— oh, follow-up. Those 3 years prior, the 2021, 2022, and 2023 numbers Do you— how, how low were those not meeting? How far were them from, uh, how far was that from meeting the lower bound of the escapement goal? Excuse me.

Uh, yeah, sure. Through the chair, um, in '21, the escapement was just a little over 4,600. It was about 1,522 and about 1,700 in 2023.

Yeah, okay, thank you for those numbers. And I just had one more question. Um, When, when the department manages to the lower bound of the escapement, does that undermine the precautionary principle in the Sustainable Salmon Policy that's outlined? Thanks for the question. Through the chair, no, I think it's a— we do not manage to the lower bound of an escapement goal.

We manage to exceed, meet or exceed the lower bound. In my perspective, it's a very meaningful differentiation. When we have a lower bound threshold, as such as what we're looking to put in place for Pilgrim River sockeye, what we're functionally saying is, is that as long as— if we have any concerns that we're not going to meet that threshold, fisheries will be closed. There's no way to be any more conservative than that. Once we have assurances that we have either exceeded exceed or are likely to exceed that lower bound, our primary motivation is to maximize the opportunity that we're providing to subsistence users.

So for that particular fishery, the upper bound simply isn't useful in guiding that, that management decision-making process. It's when we have assurances that we're going to meet or exceed the lower bound, we want to open it as wide up for subsistence users so they can capitalize on resource. And in most situations when that happens, we are still exceeding that lower bound handsomely. Mr. Chamberlain. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to touch on escapement goals for a bit. I know, I know treaty obligations kind of mandate some of the, some of the, the escapement goals for the salmon throughout the rivers. But one of the things we've seen over the past 5 years is, you know, or well, actually over the past few generations, has been consistently and significantly smaller fish coming in. You've got king salmon that are coming in at a fraction of their traditional size. And one of the things we're seeing is other diseases like ichthyophonas, which are taking huge— causing large mortality amongst the salmon, particularly on the upper bounds of the Yukon River.

And so this— in the reduction in size and age, or size at age and weight, will adversely affect fecundity on that. And so has the department done any assessment on whether recruitment is still possible, or the, uh, or whether the escapement goals or formula needs to be adjusted to address the decreased reproductive capacity of the salmon that are coming into this. Because, you know, I've been seeing, you know, Dr. Hayao Aiken showed me in Tokyo, yeah, there are photos of fish dying on the banks of the Yukon River with their eggs and milt still intact. So I want to know— what I want to make sure is that we're at— we're taking adequate precautions to address the reductions in fecundity and making sure our escapement goals are being adjusted accordingly with this, the new information. Thank you.

Thanks for the question. Through the chair, there's a couple of, couple of components there. The short answer is, is absolutely. The department is factoring into our best practices with respect to calculating escapement goals, making escapement goal recommendations and decisions, changes in what we often refer to as changes in escapement quality. You're spot on.

We are seeing across a wide variety of stocks, especially in AYK, pretty dramatic reductions in the size and age at maturity, which results in fewer eggs, smaller eggs.

What we do have— our, our fisheries scientist team is, is and has been and still is regularly looking at options to formally incorporate those analyses into our decision-making process. What we have seen is that the, the number of fish required to escape to maximize future harvest potential or maximize future run sizes is relatively stable regardless of the fish size. What changes is the expectation of production off of that spawning investment. So the, the optimum number of fish to put on the spawning ground is pretty stable, but what we can expect to have returned in future years changes dramatically based on, on these escapement quality parameters. So there's the, the growth that really needs to happen there is conversations about what we are likely to expect in the future given those spawning investments and what level of harvest opportunity can be supported with that expected recruitment.

Yeah, we talk about this question a lot, you know, what is reduced for quantity going to do? Well, if you're going to factor that in at this point in time, you're just going to increase your goal. Which is going to basically delay any kind of fishing you have. We're trying to figure out right now what the cause of the reduced declines are. Is it some kind of freshwater production issue?

Then it would, you know, we could address those issues. But right now, we're not even making the goals that we have. Raising the goals isn't necessarily going to provide any long-term security until we answer some of the fundamental questions as to why salmon productivity is lower.

Follow-up. Thank you. Um, so to the commissioner, uh, looking at the causes of reduced fecundity, have we identified, uh, specifically either within saltwater or freshwater any specific instances, or what are— I know it's, it's going to be a variety of factors, but any factors that may have a larger impact than others? Not yet. It's not for lack of trying.

You know, these— I think we heard early in my career that launching rockets is a lot easier. You blow one up and you send another one up a week later. And we're dealing with salmon that have 7-year life cycles. So we, we put these salmon on the spawning beds and 7 years later we find out what may or may not have happened to that spawning recruit. We don't know.

We just— we know that fish are getting smaller. We know that for a fact. We know that as fish are smaller, they have fewer eggs. So what's causing them to be smaller? That's the fundamental question.

And, and we know that, that as fish are returning smaller and they're returning younger, all the indications are that that's a marine type of environment that's causing that. Because why would you come back from an ocean that, that is, you know, pretty healthy in terms of food resources compared to freshwater environments where you're not feeding? Why would you come back early and why would you come back smaller if you weren't having good favorable ocean conditions? So we're looking more and more at the ocean as some of these reasons. And again, if the ocean flips around and we're starting to see that in some of the lower Southeast and other areas, fish are starting to come back in higher numbers, and the jury's out on whether they're coming back bigger.

Final call. So just to simplify, and you know, US population notwithstanding, if any, like, if any cohort of people came back at the proportion smaller, uh, not that we, we travel that much in the US, we'd be at a more healthy weight. But anywhere else, you'd be— that'd be indicative of a famine, right? And I just want to clear, just, is the smaller age at weight indicative of limited food resources? Um, we're not exactly sure what it is.

You know, as the ocean warms, fish are cold-blooded, so their energy demands go up. And as their energy demands go up, if the food that they're eating is less nutritious out there, you're basically on a diet while you're on a treadmill. You lose weight and you come back smaller. Thank you, Mr. Swenson.

That sockeye run, as you were talking about, into Salmon Lake So the lower goal, have you dropped that goal from— was it a higher goal before and now you've dropped it?

Through the chair, that goal was last revised, if I remember right, in 2019. It was an aerial survey goal at that time. We replaced it. We replaced that aerial survey goal with a higher quality weir-based goal, and we are now making a change to basically just retain the lower bound of that goal range and reduce it ever so slightly, a few hundred fish, based on the results of a very detailed spawning recruit analysis. Okay, thank you.

Why is it considered that a sonar escapement estimate is better than a weir estimate?

Madam Chair, I wouldn't say that it's better. It has some advantages in systems that are very flashy, that are prone to flooding. I mean, obviously a weir is a physical gate across the river, right? We rely on having to be able to keep that gate in position and with no breaches and the ability to visually see through the water column to count fish. That can be really challenging in systems like the Unoclete.

A sonar gives us an option to continue to count or estimate those fish during periods of specifically high water. It does come with some other challenges though, as the Commissioner brought up. The sonar unit itself only counts the number of fish going by, and we have to add in additional programs such as netting programs or seining programs, things like that, in order to capture fish and evaluate what proportion of different species are moving upriver. We call that the apportionment program. Okay, thank you.

A couple of questions that I have is specific to the revision On the Quinniac River Coho salmon goal, why is there such a— what I would characterize as a pretty dramatic increase in that lower, lower threshold?

Madam Chair, appreciate the opportunity to clarify. The current goal for Quinniac River Coho is based on aerial surveys. All right. So it's just an index of fish in the river, whereas moving to the tower-based goal, that's a functionally It's an estimate, but it's an estimate of the total number of fish. So we're moving from an index to functionally a census.

Just to comment, I guess, a little bit. Well, first of all, what are the— what are the inability issues that you reference on slide 21 specific to the Middle Fork Good News? Why? You say an inability. Why is there an inability?

Madam Chair, you're referring to inability to secure funding? I don't know. You didn't say that on your slide. I'm talking about the Cusco management area, slide 21. The only information that I've received today is that you're discontinuing the Middle Fork Good News SEG due to an inability to assess the following goals.

And I've been listening carefully about why that is, and I haven't heard that yet. Yeah, sorry if that didn't come through clearly on the following slide. The justification for that is a total loss of funding to operate the weir. The project operated through the entire salmon run— Chinook, chum, sockeye, and coho— for a number of years. Beginning in 2012, we lost partial funding, and then beginning in 2019, we lost all funding.

So that project just, just simply hasn't, hasn't run for not quite a decade now. I'm going to take the liberty to expand here for a second. So I'm going to follow up with some of the comments that I think Member Swenson said, where, you know, there's a concern here because as I look through your slides, I see discontinue, discontinue, discontinue, discontinue, discontinue, discontinue. And that's telling me a story. And I would have a lot less heartburn or concern about that pattern if we were in times of abundance.

But clearly we're not. And so it's even more concerning to me that we are unable, unwilling, for a variety of different reasons that are certainly not on your shoulders in terms of the decision-making, to get that information that is so desperately needed. And I'm really concerned about what that does for the long-term management of these stocks, particularly in areas where they're so critical to food security, among other reasons. But, you know, certainly the concern about the salmon in and of itself, but then how the people of the area utilize that salmon. It's a very disappointing and concerning trajectory that I see.

And certainly I know that I appreciate the constraints that the department has. I do. But I would just put it out there to the public that as you consider who your legislators are and who actually controls these purses, if this is important to you, that you make sure that you're advocating for this. Because discontinue, discontinue, discontinue, discontinue. And if it's a funding issue, I mean, that is one place where I wouldn't say it's an easy fix, but it's a simpler fix.

And I'll let it go at that and I'll get off my soapbox for now. Any other More discussions. Ms. Irwin. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for all those points. I guess my only question, Zach, with, with what Member Carlson-Vandort just mentioned— we talked about this at the work session— but is there any issue with keeping an escapement goal on the books without an ability to carry it out while funding— while we're seeking funding?

So, A, is that A, is there any issue with that? And B, are there any escapement— has that been done before? Are there any escapement goals that are on the books right now but they don't have an active tower weir, et cetera? I don't want to suggest that we put into regulation and management plans things that we cannot implement. However, it is disheartening to me as well to think about discontinuing all of these, taking them off the books, and then in 6 years when we want to reapproach it and have funding, start all over on these, on these different goals.

So thanks.

Through the chair, Miss Erwin, there's no specific issue. So it comes down to the— we just haven't been able to assess it. But being an issue, it's not like an issue to have that on the books. And there are other areas where we do have goals in the Prince William Sound area. For example, where we can't assess a particular SOC IRON, and that goal still is on the books.

Thank you very much. Before I go to Mr. Wood, I just want to build off of that for a second. Go ahead, Zach.

Through the chair, yeah, I just wanted to— I appreciate the assist. I did want to comment, though, while I realize that you are drawing attention to certain projects where we are discontinuing the goals due to a lack of funding specifically and an inability to assess. That is a subset of the goals that get discontinued. A lot of the goals that have been discontinued in AYK over the past couple of cycles, a good portion of those is because we're replacing them with something better. So these are tributary goals that are being, you know, that were used as an index that are being replaced with a drainage-wide goal.

Right? You know, there are aerial survey goals that are being discontinued, but then replaced with, you know, something like a weir or a sonar or a tower. So evolving our escapement goal structure does— to match the current assessment programs and the needs of management, in many cases does involve discontinuing goals that are no longer the most useful evaluation tool for something else. That is certainly not to take away from the issue that you are drawing attention to. I just didn't want to leave with the impression that all discontinuations within AYK are a loss.

A lot of times they are actually a gain. Fair. Fair. And I think to Member Erwin's point too, I mean, for those of us that sit at this table for 3 years, maybe more, but at least 3 years, that context with respect to the prior management is useful. Right?

Like, we don't know. And also for the members of the public, if I go to read an AMR, an annual AMR, area management report, and there is no escapement goal mentioned in there because it has been removed, you lose important context. And, you know, I am not— and also just sort of that scorecard that I come back to from time to time about, you know, how is the state, and I don't I don't— again, this is not a criticism of the department, and I hope you don't take it as such. But when we were removing these escapement goals for a variety of reasons, legitimate ones, you know, we lose that ability to sort of self-assess around this table about what's happening with our fisheries and how these individual species and areas are performing. So I think that context is important, and I always get very nervous and don't like to remove those numbers.

I understand the reasons for it, but there are reasons for maintaining them even if you can't hit them. I get it. You don't want to have a goal in the book that you are never going to be able to meet. However, there needs to be some way of sort of maintaining that record of why they were there and why they were removed. Mr.

Okay, that you kind of answered my question here at the very end. You, um, thank you for saying that you are not just getting rid of them, you're actually replacing them and with other means and methods. And I think that shows a good adaptation to, to what's going on. But having that perspective in is important for us to hear, just as we were just told. Um, in terms of the funding, I was curious about that, and this goes in a whole different direction that I would I can learn about later.

But last year at this time almost, I went out to the Kuskokwim River Salmon Management Working Group out in Bethel and sat in on that meeting and realized that there's a— you know, the state's trying to do what they can out there. The feds are in. They've got— everybody has their hands in the pot. When the science is being done out there on the Kuskokwim, is that solely on the weirs and all of the money being spent? Is that solely on the state or the the Fed's also kicking in on that in terms of figuring out escapements and what— to help with that?

Because having an escapement goal is like the cornerstone of management. So if we don't have the escapement goals, we're kind of hosed. So I'm just wondering, are they chipping in on that out there?

Through the Chair, I appreciate the question. From a research and assessment perspective, it is absolutely a team lift. So the department operates a subset of projects throughout the Kuskokwim Management Area. Fish and Wildlife Service operates some. The Kuskokwim River Intertribal Fish Commission operates some.

We also have some other partners up and down the river, the National Park Service, a variety of community-based projects, as well as some tribal entities. Not— don't want to skip any, so I won't start listing them that are, that are operating projects out there as well. When it comes to the escape The goals themselves, though, the goals that are established are department goals established through our internal process and then reported out to you guys. How exactly that gets factored into federal management decisions and things like that is— I'm not clear.

Mr. Swenson, then we are going to wrap it up.

I appreciate you explaining exactly. I have been really disheartened My blood pressure goes up when it says, "No, no, we can't assess this, we can't assess that." Would it be a good idea for you to tell us, you've now told us how you are assessing this in other ways, would it not be a good idea to put that down as you're presenting that so that my blood pressure doesn't go up to 200?

Through the Chair, I appreciate the comment. You know, I don't have a good answer for you. I will say that internally when we plan out the presentations to the Board and what order they appear in, you know, there is a recognition that what's expected to be contained in James' presentation is a subset of the information that you need. You're going to get more from the Kuskokwim Group and, you know, another batch of information from the Yukon Sound Group. Group, et cetera, et cetera, right?

So in this context, you will get some presentations throughout the morning that are going to highlight how things are handled within individual management areas. Our objective was to let you know about the escapement goal review process and the decisions that we're making this cycle. If in the future you guys are interested in kind of an overarching research overview Those are— feel free to make some recommendations and I'll happily follow our leadership's lead on that. Okay, well, thank you for that. You guys have done a good job.

Yeah, thank you for the presentation today. And escapement goals never fail to generate a lot of questions. So appreciate your patience with us. Let's go ahead and take about a 15-minute bio break. Back on the record at 10:40.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] All right. Welcome back, everybody. Time is 10:40 on the nose, and we'll go ahead and continue with staff reports. Up next Sport Fisheries Report for the AYK Management Area. Welcome.

Please put yourself on the record and begin when you're ready. Madam Chair, members of the board, good afternoon— good morning, excuse me. My name is Brendan Scanlon. I am the Northwest and North Slope area biologist for the Division of Sport Fish. I'm based out of Fairbanks, and in this presentation I'm going to give an overview of the 15 proposals pertaining to the sport fisheries in the AYK region.

Towards the end, I will give a quick introduction to the life history and management of sheepshead sheefish in Northwest Alaska before describing the sheefish-related proposal. A copy of this presentation can be found in RC3 tab 6 and feel free to ask me questions anytime.

So to give you a little perspective on the size of the AYK region, if you take Texas, California, and Hawaii and add them all together, you almost get the size of the AYK. It's over over 400,000 square miles. It has 9 of the state's 10 largest rivers and thousands of lakes. The region as a whole is very sparsely populated with the most densely populated area right here in the Tanana River Valley. Fairbanks is the largest community with a population of about 40,000 and the greater Fairbanks North Star Borough has about 90,000 people.

The AYK management region is broken up into 5 areas. The Tanana, the Kuskokwim, the Yukon, the Northwest and North Slope Management Areas.

Now I'll briefly describe the management areas with proposals.

And I'll start with the Tanana.

The Tanana Management Area includes all waters of the Tanana River drainage from the Alaska-Canada border to its its confluence with the Yukon River near the village of Tanana. There's 10 proposals, 6 for northern pike, 2 for Arctic grayling, 1 for icehouse registration, and 1 for stocked waters.

I'll start with northern pike. Proposals 21 and 22 pertain to the northern pike fishery in Harding Lake. Harding Lake is the largest is a road-accessible lake in the Tanana drainage. It's about 45 minutes from Fairbanks. It also supports popular lake trout fishery.

In 2000, the northern pike fishery in Harding Lake was closed due to a large decline in population size due primarily to the loss of nearshore spawning and rearing habitat. And abundance had decreased from over 2,600 fish 18 inches or larger in 1995 to 531 fish in 2000. And most recently, the last two Kasaka estimates the population stabilized at just over 900 fish.

To remedy this, in 2007, a water diversion structure was constructed to increase water levels by diverting additional water from Morrogy Creek at the northeast end of the lake into the lake rather than into the Salter River.

And as of 2022, the lake surface area had increased by about approximately 250 acres of littoral or weedy nearshore areas there in the— at the north where the yellow arrow is, which most of which was preferred spawning and rearing habitat becoming reestablished. However, the lake level has started to drop again and the spawning area has now dried up. And in the absence of any fishing mortality, the population stabilized between 900 and 1,000 fish. Proposals 21 and 22 would allow catch and release fishing for northern pike in Harding Lake.

Proposal 23 pertains to the northern pike fishery in Volkmar Lake. Volkmar Lake is a remote lake about 16 miles from Delta Junction. It's known for very good pike fishing, and— but effort is low. It averages less than 2 angler responses in the statewide harvest survey annually.

The management objective is to maintain a minimum abundance of northern pike of 2,000 fish 18 inches or larger. The last stock assessment was conducted in 2009, and the abundance estimate then was 4,017 fish 18 inches or larger. Proposal 23 would increase the bag and possession limit to match the background of 5 fish, of which only 1 could be 30 inches or larger.

Proposal 24 pertains to the Arctic grayling fishery on the Chena River. Chena River Arctic grayling is one of the most popular fisheries we have in the interior. And the state— and the river supports some of the best roadside Arctic grayling fishing in the state. A high harvest in the '80s reduced the population abundance and size composition, and the fishery has been closed to catch and release since 1992. 2019, A youth-only fishery opened to allow a limited harvest, and in this fishery, harvest was limited to 1 fish per day, any size, for anglers 15 and under only.

And the fishery would only be open on the Chena River downstream of the Moose Creek Dam. This fishery is open for only 4 consecutive weekends beginning on the 3rd weekend in June and And during these 4 weekends, the grayling fishery is closed to all anglers 16 and over.

2023, This youth-only fishery was modified to allow a harvest of 1 fish by all anglers during June 1st through March 31st, but this 2023 modification kept in place the youth-only fishery for 4 consecutive weekends in the summer.

Since the regulation change in 2023, comments were expressed to staff that parents could not fish with their children during this youth-only fishery, including the catch and release, which likely precluded some families from participating in the fishery. Fish and Game staff conducted multiple angler surveys over the 46-mile youth fishery-only weekend fishery area this summer, and they never observed more than 2 anglers under 16 on any day.

Participation is low, population is healthy. The recent results from the most recent stock assessment conducted in May 2021 estimated almost 16,000 fish 12 inches or larger in the youth-only fishery area. Proposal 24 would repeal the 2019 youth-only fishery regulation change. An adoption of this proposal would simplify, simplify the regulation for the Chena River Arctic Grayling fishery to 1 fish per day for all anglers from June 1st through March 31st downstream of the Moose Creek Dam.

Proposal 25 pertains to the icehouse registration program. Since 1969, ice fishers with icehouses were required to register them in the Tanana River drainage with the department. If they were not removed daily. And when this permit regulation was developed, icehouses were primarily semi-permanent wooden structures built onto sleds and would remain on these lakes for several days or weeks. In the mid-2000s, portable pop-up style shelters constructed of poles and fabric became popular.

And as the popularity of these portable shelters increased, the number of permits issued decreased as these shelters are typically removed at the end of the day. Therefore, the permit system no longer provides meaningful information on effort, and abandoned icehouses have not been an issue. Proposal 25 would repeal the registration requirement for icehouses in the Tanana River area.

Proposal 26 pertains to the Arctic grayling fishery in Shaw Creek. Shaw Creek is a small tributary of the Tanana, about 20 miles north of Delta Junction. It has a private boat launch and storage area just upstream of the bridge, but for most anglers, access is restricted to the shore near the road. It also almost never gets any respondents from the statewide harvest survey, but has a restrictive regulation. Currently, the Arctic grayling fishing is open all year but restricted to catch and release only during the spawning period of April 1st to May 31st.

April 1st. Shaw Creek fish, after spawning, most of them disperse to summer feeding areas and other streams nearby, such as the Delta Clearwater and Richardson Clearwater Rivers. Proposal 26 would remove the April 1st to May 31st catch and release restriction and go to the background of 5 fish any size all year.

Proposal 27 pertains to the stock rainbow trout fishery in Rainbow Lake. Rainbow Lake is a small remote lake about 12 miles north of Delta Junction and is accessed by plane or snow machine only. And rainbow trout is the only species stocked there. It's managed to provide opportunity to catch large fish, and this is the only stocked lake in the Tanana Management Area with this management approach to lake trout. The current bag and possession limit is 5 fish only one of which could be 18 inches or larger.

But multiple sampling events by the department have shown the lake is not productive enough to consistently produce 18-inch rainbow trout. The lake is only 87 acres, and the water level has been steadily decreasing, which was probably affecting productivity of the lake. Proposal 27 would increase the daily bag or possession limit from 5 to 10 fish, of which only one may be 18 inches or greater, and this would allow for the increased harvest of small fish.

We're going to swing on over to the Kuskokwim Management Area. This area includes all waters of the Kuskokwim River drainage and all drainages in Kuskokwim Bay. There's two proposals. There's one for the Upper Kuskokwim River King Salmon Fishery and one for Kuskokwim Bay Sea Fish.

Proposal 13 pertains to the King Salmon regulations in the Kuskokwim River drainage. There's special regulations in the Kuskokwim River drainage for the mainstem, including tributaries that hold in the river and downstream. And this fishery is only open May 1st to July 25th. This is the cutoff date for July 25th, is to protect fish during spawning period. However, the upper river has no closed season.

And Proposal 13 would close sport fishing for king salmon and from July 26th to April 30th in the upper Kuskokwim River drainage to provide consistency in the regulations and to protect upriver spawning fish.

Proposal 14 pertains to the special bag and possession limit for sheefish in 3 Kuskokwim Bay rivers. Sheefish are found throughout the Kuskokwim River drainage and they support sport fisheries in the whole Litton and Aniak Rivers. However, sheefish are not present in the rivers Kuskokwim Bay, yet these rivers have special regulations reducing the bag and possession limit for sheefish to 2 per day. There's no fish there, so Proposal 14 would repeal the bag and possession limit for sheefish in the Aroluk, Kenaqtaq, and Good News Rivers.

So now we'll move on to the Northwest Management Area. This area includes all waters draining into the Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea, Kotzebue Sound and Norton Sound from Point Romanoff to Point Hope. There's 3 proposals for this area, one for the Pilgrim River King Salmon Fishery, one for methods and means, and one for Kotzebue area sheefish. Proposal 37 pertains to the King Salmon population in the Pilgrim River.

Pilgrim River flows for about 45 miles from Salmon Lake to the confluence with the Kootsetam River, and from there flows into Emmerich Basin near the villages of Teller and Brevig Mission. It's primarily a sockeye salmon fishery, as you heard earlier, but it also supports a small run of king salmon as well as a popular northern pike fishery. The Pilgrim River is near the northern latitudinal extent for the range of king salmon in Alaska. There are no records of king salmon being caught in the sport fishery here since 2003. And in addition, since 2005, the escapement of king salmon has averaged 98 fish per year at the Pilgrim River weir.

Proposed 37 would close sport fishing for king salmon in the Pilgrim River drainage.

Proposal 38 pertains to the size of treble hooks on lures. In Northwest Alaska, anglers may not fish for salmon in freshwater with multiple hooks with a gap between point and shank larger than half inch or a 1/0 hook. This regulation is designed to reduce the incidence of snagging. In saltwater, snagging with larger hooks is legal.

Proposal 38 would increase the allowable hook size for multiple hooks when fishing for salmon with a gap between point and shank of up to 5/8 inch or a 3/0 hook in the northwestern area.

Now I'll switch over to sheefish.

So there are 3 proposals germane to the Northwest Alaska sheefish population at this meeting. One sportfish proposal, which I will address here, as well as a commercial fishery proposal and a subsistence fishery proposal, both of which will be addressed by commercial fishery staff. All 3 proposals pertain to the same populations of sheefish. Sheefish support— important subsistence and sport fisheries harvest reporting in the subsistence fishery is not required. But from periodic surveys, it's likely that between 25,000 and 35,000 sheefish are harvested for subsistence every year.

The recent 10-year average sport harvest is around 200 fish. There is also a commercial fishery quota and regulation of up to 25,000 pounds per year.

Spawning occurs in upper Kobuk and Selowik River drainages. Afterwards, fish move into the brackish waters near Kotzebue to overwinter. Until 1998, the daily bag and possession limit for sheefish was 10 per day in the entire Northwest area. However, in 1998 and 2001, the bag limit was reduced in the upper Kobuk and Selawik Rivers to 2 fish per day. On—.

Oh, let me go back one, I'm sorry. These regulations were put in place on the Kobuk River at the mouth of the Tagagawik and on the Selawik River near the— I'm sorry, the Selawik River mouth of Tagagawik and on the Kobuk Kobuk, mouth of the Benalik Rivers. Above these locations is where the spawning grounds are.

So from 2015 to 2019, sonar was used to determine the size of the spawning aggregations of sheefish on the Kobuk and Selawik Rivers by counting fish as they left these spawning areas to go downstream to overwinter. These are the most complete counts and these final counts are similar to mark recapture estimates of abundance. In the 1990s and 2000s. Sheefish don't spawn until they're 9 or 10 years old, and they can live to be up to 40 years. Radio telemetry has shown that while sheefish can spawn several times, they don't always do it consecutively.

Most males do, most females do not. And we know from acoustic telemetry that in the winter, fish from both stocks mix under the ice. And as the winter progresses and the water of Kobic Lake becomes less saline, sheefish move closer to Hotham Inlet in front of Kotzebue.

So northwest Alaska sheefish management has several unknowns and data gaps. We have very limited data on spawning fish. The last sonar counts were— spawning sheefish were 7 and 9 years ago. And with differences in spawning frequency by sex, these estimates only provide a snapshot of the entire spawning population. As winter progresses, sheefish become more concentrated right in front of Kotzebue and Hotham Inlet.

The water's a little colder there and feeding is probably better. They feed on a couple of different kinds of smelt, tomcod, there are other whitefish and herring.

Majority of the harvest is taken in the winter fishery. As I mentioned, harvest data is limited. The Colbrook and Saddle Lake Rivers almost never receive enough responses in the statewide harvest survey to provide accurate sport fishing information. There's no requirements in the subsistence fishery and in 2017 with the sunset of the freshwater guide logbook program, guides are no longer required to record the catch. So Proposal 39 would reduce the background bag and possession limit for sheefish in the Northwest Area from 10 fish a day to 5 fish per day with no size limit.

And I'd like to leave you with a picture of Chandler Lake in the Gates of the Arctic National Park. It's a wonderful lake trout, Arctic charr, and grayling fishery. And thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Carpenter. Then Mr. Swenson. Thank you, Brenda. Thanks for the presentation and also taking the time to talk to me about quite a few of these proposals. So I won't belabor a lot of questions now because I'm sure I'll have more deliberations.

But to this two stock lakes, Harding Lake and what is it, Volker Lake? No, Rainbow Lake stock. Yeah, excuse me. Yes, how often does the stocking happen, and how often do you even go in and assess those to see what's actually going on there?

Through the chair, they're quite different. Harding Lake has also wild populations, northern pike. It's also stocked with Arctic char and has burbot in it. Rainbow Lake only has rainbow trout. As far as the stocking frequency and assessment done on that.

The Tanana area biologist is here, and when these proposals come up in committee, he could probably answer questions better than I can. Okay. And follow-up, please. I'm gonna ask one question about sheefish right now because I'm sure there's going to be a lot. But when I look at the spawning size of this population that, you know, generally is within Hawthorne Inlet, limit into the Kobuk drainage and up to Selawik.

You know, relatively old information, 2016 basically.

When you look at the amount of fish that's harvested in all these fisheries, is— can you give me a good idea why the sport fish bag limit in the rivers are so much different than the ones in the inlet?

Is it because of spawning area? Through the chair, the sport limit in Hotham Inlet is also 10 per day. All state residents can participate in subsistence fishery, non-local ones as well.

So the sport fishery In the river, there's a lot of recreational floats and hunting trips and people float down there. They don't generally keep a bunch. It's impractical to keep a sheefish. A small one is 15 pounds. But like I said, in the winter, most of the harvest is through the subsistence fishery, both from people from the region and from outside.

Okay. And then one final question and I'll let somebody else talk. And you may not know the answer to this, and it may be a combination of an answer from the Sport Fish Division and the Subsistence Division, but when I look at the overall spawning population in this area, I'm really curious to know what the exploitation rate is on this population that has very limited information. So if you don't know that now, I completely understand, but I'd really like to find that information out sometime before we deliver it. Thanks.

Through the chair, you're right, I don't know the answer to that, but I will say that there seems to be a lot of fish around right now.

Mr. Swenson, then Mr. Irwin. Thanks for that presentation. That was great. Thank you. I really liked it where you made it to each proposal.

A lot easier to understand a lot of this stuff. I just have a couple quick questions. One is How do they commercial fish sheefish?

I believe it's mostly a winter fishery, but commercial fishery staff will address that proposal later in the meeting. The quota is 25,000 pounds. I don't think it's ever come close to reaching that, and that's not a lot of fish. I mean, if they average 10-15 pounds, it's, you know, 1,200 fish or so. But I'm not entirely sure when that fishery occurs.

I think it's winter. Time. Thank you. My other—. Only other question is on these ice houses.

You're saying now that they're—. Most people take them down because they're a lot smaller and quicker. But if you take away that restriction of not having to take them down, does that allow somebody to go out? I mean, there's got to be certain places where the ice fishing is better than others, correct? Oh, for sure.

So wouldn't that lend somebody to go on it? If it was me, I'd want to go out there and put one up and leave it there. Mm-hmm. And so I could get my little favorite spot. So is that a concern?

No, one, one reason that permit was put into place was there's fear of people abandoning their ice houses once the ice got too, too junky. So then it was up to the department or DNR to try to remove those. But the vast majority of ice houses, I believe, are fabric ones that come off the lake every day. So I think the remaining more permanent structures, there will still be some around, but I don't believe there'd be a problem. Okay, thank you.

And again, thanks for that presentation. Thank you, Mr. Owen. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you very much for your presentation. My question is for slide number 9, the Chena River youth-only Arctic grayling fishery.

You told us that the population estimate estimate most recently was 16,000 greater than 12 inches, if I understood you correctly. That's correct. Um, my question is, at the time in 1992 when this fishery was considered a conservation concern, do you know what the population estimate was in 1992 when that fishery was considered a concern? Thank you. Thank you.

Through the chair, I don't know the answer to that. Perhaps Klaus Woodig, management coordinator, can shed light on that. For the record, Klaus Woodig, Department. Yeah, Madam Chair, there was a period in the early '90s, or actually late '80s, when there was a real cycle, a real high spike in the grayling population. And these are very rough numbers, but there was something like 50,000 grayling they estimated.

And that's back when they're trying to estimate these really small fish. And in later estimates, we only accounted for slightly larger fish. So they saw a decline go from something like 50,000 to 25,000. There's a lot more harvest and effort on the upper Chena River, so there's a concern at that time. But since the fishery's been closed, we've been doing periodic assessments, and we've never seen that number come back to 50,000.

One, because we estimate larger fish, but also we just think that was anomaly in the And given that it's been, what, 30-plus years since it's been open, that population is basically stabilized and it's at carrying capacity. So we're not going to see those numbers again.

Thank you, Klaus. Thank you for that answer. My other question is on slide number 5. There you show a graph and there's a lot of missing data points. Could you explain what those missing data gaps are?

And then just for a note for the department, it is really helpful if that kind of information is maybe included below or at some point these graphs we are supposed to be interpreting them. And I recognize a lot of it is due to either funding or whether you weren't able to do something that year. But could you expand on those data gaps for me? Thank you. Through the chair, Based on the estimate in 1999 when the fishery would— population was down to— sorry, 2000, the population went down to 531 fish.

So we closed the fisheries. There was no fishery going on. So we didn't do any stock assessments for several years. We presumed it would take several years for the population to recover. So they're, you know, they're handling fish during the stock assessment probably wouldn't help that much.

So we decided to wait several years to restart our assessment. Thank you. Mr. Wood. Yeah, thank you. On slide 20, and it talks about spawning run size, and you got your numbers in 2016 and 2018, and it sounds like they were from just this counting the outmigrating sheepfish.

That's right. How do they, how do they count sheefish in other areas of the state? Through the chair, sheefish are only found in 4 drainages in Alaska: the Kuskokwim, Yukon, Kobuk, and Selawik. There may be handfuls in the Koyukuk— I'm sorry, in the Koyukuk or the Buckland Rivers, but I'm not aware of any other enumeration projects of sheefish. There has been a lot of telemetry work done on the Kuskokwim and Yukon Rivers, but these are the only 2 rivers I know of that have any kind of enumeration projects on them.

And is there the exploitation on them on these other rivers like they're starting to see in Kobuk Lake, or is this kind of a new thing? Through the chair, are you speaking about the Kuskokwim and Yukon comparison? Correct, yep. I don't have that information for you. I don't believe that there's a conservation concern on those two rivers.

I don't think there's an ice fishery like there is here. They're spread out up and down the river in the winter in those two rivers. I think Kobuk and Selawik are the two rivers where almost all fish drop out into an area near a population and are subject to winter fisheries. Couple questions for you. What is the catch and release mortality on northern pike and Arctic grayling?

It's low and it's dependent on the gear type and whether you use bait or not. Typically less than 10%, it's less than 5% if you're doing single hook with the fly. I don't have the Artie Grayling numbers off the top of my head, but I know with northern pike it's low, particularly if you don't use bait. If you use bait, they generally swallow it and then hooks can get caught in the gills and they can be You know, they tend to bleed more. So the smaller the hooks, the fewer the hooks, the lower the mortality.

But it's generally less than 10%. Okay, I'm just curious because, you know, when you are doing those catch and release allowances, you know, that's, that's kind of what I'm looking for, right? Go ahead, Klaus. Thank you. Yeah, Klaus Wigg, Department.

So we did the department back in, in the '90s, we did a maybe late '80s, we did a hooking mortality study on grayling in the Chena River. It was hovering right around 1% when you're using single hook, no bait, and that's what the regulations are. Does it make any difference whether they're in spawning mode or not?

With Arctic grayling, they spawn in the spring and the river is pretty high and turbid, and so anywhere you go, unless it's like a purely spring-fed system, you're not going to catch Arctic grayling. It's pretty—. It's too dirty basically for them to see anything. And if I may address Member Carpenter's question about exploitation on sheefish in that area up there. So we did have some stock assessment.

We did market capture experiments back around 1995. And those abundance estimates were right around— I mean, they're almost dead on the same as what we saw in 2016. And so what we do know is all the harvest that's happened in the intervening years has been sustainable. So we can make that conclusion. And another thing, and Brendan might have more information on this, you know, back in the '60s, there was a lot of those sheefish were harvested for dog food and stuff like that.

So the harvests were even higher in the '60s and '70s. But we can't account for like changing ocean productivity or so. So what's happened over time, I would say it's been sustainable based on what we know.

On slide 8, the last bullet point that you had, this is with respect to the youth-only fishery. It says in 2023, this youth-only fishery is modified to allow a harvest of 1 fish by all anglers during June 1 through March 31st. The bullet above it says 2019, a youth-only fishery allowed to open to allow a limited harvest. I'm—. Is the 2023 bullet allow a harvest of 1 fish only for youth, or what do you mean by all anglers?

Thank you. So on those 4 weekends during the summer, if you're If you're older than 15, you cannot fish, but kids can. And the remaining days, kids and adults can fish. Well, thank you. And then my very last question is also related to the Rainbow Lake stocking.

So my question is, how frequently are you stocking that lake?

Yeah, thank you for the question. Typically on an every other year cycle. So if your sampling events are showing that the lake isn't productive enough to consistently produce those 18-inch rainbows, why are you continuing to stock it as frequently or with the numbers that you are? So we have—. The idea is to produce large fish there.

Yeah, that's a good question. So we have in several of our lakes, reduced stocking densities to promote growth. The problem is, in the AYK appears, our lakes just aren't as productive. A lot of them are gravel pits, and it's difficult to grow larger rainbow trout unless you stock them at extremely low densities. And so, we, when this, these lake categories were first instituted back around 2001, when this concept came up, we had the hope that we could manage some of these lakes where we could promote growth and kind of have like some trophy fishery, if you will.

And it turns out we can't. They're just not productive enough. So in the lake densities we stock at Rainbow Lake, they do—. A lot of those fish will grow right up to 18 inches. It's just that tipping over beyond 18 inches is difficult for them.

And if we get too low of stocking densities, then anglers are less happy because their catch rates are, you know, they'll go too low. So it's kind of a balanced catch rates, size of fish. Got it. Head like a pony. I gotta ask my staff, what was Rainbow Lake called before we stocked it with rainbows?

Pike Lake.

Mr. Payton. Thank you. This is just a little bit of a follow-up and providing maybe some clarity for Member Carpenter's question. So the— for the Cobuck and the Siloam Rivers, it's 10 a day downstream of those special markers on the higher reaches in slide 19. So it is 10 a day for sheefish, but above those markers, it's 2 a day.

It's a nice little non sequitur. Thank you, Ezra.

Any other questions? Thank you for your presentation today. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, let's talk subsistence.

I think subsistence is up, isn't it? Patterns and Trends and Subsistence.

Welcome. Whenever you're ready, go ahead and put yourself on the record and begin.

Good morning. My name is Aleta Trainer, and I'm the Northern Region Program Manager of the Division of Subsistence at the Department of Fish and Game. I'm joined by Jesse Coleman, our research analyst. The subsistence division is an applied social science research division, and it's the only group at Fish and Game that is charged with understanding the human dimensions of wild resource use. This presentation can be found in RC3 tab 7.

The purpose of this presentation is to provide a broad regional perspective of salmon harvest and use across the northern region, which encompasses the Arctic, Yukon, and Kuskokwim areas. I will also introduce some of the division's methods that can assist the board in understanding harvesting patterns and subsistence economies at large. In subsequent presentations from our division, you'll hear more about specific regional aspects of changes to salmon abundance and subsistence economies.

This map shows the AYK region, which encompasses nearly two-thirds of the state. The only non-subsistence area is located around Fairbanks. There are approximately 11 distinct linguistic groups. Some of these include the Inupiaq, Yup'ik, Gwich'in, Koyukon, and Tanana Athabaskan peoples. These cultural groups have unique and distinct harvest and use patterns of wild foods.

The role of fish in each group differs based on a variety of factors, including species availability, composition of harvest, run timing, and processing methods, to name a few. In the following slides, I'll describe how communities across the AYK region are responding to changes in salmon abundance and harvest levels. These responses differ because of the diversity in their customary and traditional use patterns.

This graph shows the estimated pounds of wild foods harvested during subsistence opportunities by residents living in each region of the state. The figure is taken from the department's 2017 subsistence update found in RC4. We use per capita estimates because they are a useful metric to accurately compare harvests across communities with different populations. You can see the per capita pounds at the top of each bar. Red bars indicate urban areas and blue bars indicate rural ones.

The three highest wild food harvesting regions of the state are the Western, Arctic, and Rural Interior regions. Another way to say it is AYK. When you compare AYK to all other regions of the state, residents in these areas harvest more wild food by weight than any other region. This context is important to keep in mind when considering how declines in one resource, in this case salmon, might impact communities that rely so heavily on wild food.

Using these same data from the 2017 update, we can look at the types of wild foods harvested by Alaskans. This pie shows the proportion of wild food harvest that comes from each resource category. These data are nearly 10 years old, but represent a time when the declines in salmon harvest were less pronounced. The contribution of fish to the subsistence harvest by Alaskan residents is significant and makes up about 54%, uh, by weight statewide. Salmon, shown in dark blue, contributes about a third of the total.

That's more than any other resource category. As we know, significant changes have occurred to subsistence salmon harvests across AYK since these data were compiled in 2017. The AYK region is responsible for the highest wild food harvests in the state, and salmon harvests are a large component of that. Consequently, changes in salmon harvests across the AYK region result in changes to subsistence harvests statewide.

I'm now going to provide some general context for harvest trends and subsistence fishing practices in each AYK subregion, starting with the Arctic. The Arctic region, comprised of the Norton Sound Port Clarence Management Area and the Arctic Kotzebue Management Area, are less reliant on subsistence salmon harvests than other regions in AYK. This is in part due to a higher diversity of wild foods, as well as lower relative abundance of salmon in the area. However, there have been reports of an increasing presence of salmon farther north that communities are beginning to rely a bit more on. Despite this lower reliance on salmon, recent changes in chum salmon abundance are impacting both the subsistence and commercial fisheries here.

In the Arctic, as in the rest of the AYK region, commercial fishing for salmon has historically been intertwined with local subsistence economies. The majority of permit holders are local residents. Profits made in commercial fisheries are often used to support subsistence fishing or other subsistence harvesting efforts. However, the Kotzebue and Norton Sound areas have recently experienced sharp declines in their commercial opportunity resulting from low chum salmon abundance. Due to the interconnectedness, this loss of income has the likely potential to impact area subsistence economies and residents' ability to harvest other wild foods.

Finally, non-salmon species such as sheefish and other whitefish are major contributors to the overall harvests. The relationship between the salmon and non-salmon fisheries varies widely across the region, and the board will hear more about how changing salmon abundance is or is not mitigated by non-salmon species in a following presentation.

Sorry, just moving a bar so I can see the rest of my narrative.

Okay.

On this graph, you can see the subsistence salmon harvest by species in the Norton Sound Port Clarence Management Area from 1995 to 2022. There has been a decline in harvest over the last 30 years with the greatest changes occurring in the king and chum subsistence fisheries. Historically, chum salmon, shown in green, and pink salmon, shown in pink, made up the majority of subsistence salmon harvests in any given year. The changes in chum and pink salmon abundance have largely driven the overall decline in subsistence salmon harvests in the Norton Sound-Port Clarence area. In order to conserve king and chum populations, the department has instituted reductions in time or closure to both of these fisheries.

Managers have also implemented restrictions to gear type throughout the area to conserve salmon.

Although this graph only shows subsistence harvests, I want to briefly mention that chum, coho, and pink salmon constitute the vast majority of commercial salmon harvests in this region. However, a sudden decline in chum harvests beginning in 2020 severely impacted commercial harvests. In 2024, only about 5,000 chum salmon were caught, a fraction of the historical average of over 230,000.

Next, I'll briefly describe subsistence salmon harvests on the Kuskokwim. Although there continues to be subsistence harvest opportunities for king, chum, coho, and sockeye salmon on the Kuskokwim, decreasing abundance throughout the drainage has driven an overall downward trend in the subsistence salmon harvests. Similar to the Arctic, commercial fishing is also an important source of income for Kuskokwim communities. Communities. However, the last large-scale commercial salmon fishing effort for salmon was in 2015, and there has been no directed king salmon commercial fishery since the 1980s.

As of 2024, there were nearly no commercial fishing permit holders remaining in the region.

This slide shows subsistence harvest by species on the Kuskokwim from 1995 to 2024. Subsistence harvest Harvests of salmon on the Kuskokwim have steadily declined since about 2006, driven largely by reductions in king salmon harvests, shown in yellow at the top of the bars, because of changing abundance. More recently, changes in chum salmon harvests, shown in green, have contributed to the overall reduction in total salmon harvests on the Kuskokwim in the last 5 years. Although there has been generally stable abundance of sockeye salmon, and there have been important— they have been important for subsistence harvest they're shown in orange. They do not fully replace king and chum salmon harvests in the lower river because of their different patterns of use.

Similarly, sockeye are not generally present in the upper river region and are unable to make up for declining abundance in other species.

As we move into the Yukon region, the severity of the salmon declines become more pronounced. In every region of the Yukon River, king salmon is considered the most important salmon species for nutritional and cultural reasons. Multi-species failures of King as well as fall chum and summer chum salmon have resulted in significant changes to harvest patterns of all wild foods in the region. To conserve King salmon, the department has closed commercial, sport, and personal use King salmon fisheries on the Yukon for more than a decade. Managers have also used conservative measures including significant reductions to time and allowable gear type for more than 15 years to get more king salmon to their spawning grounds.

Despite these efforts, there has been no directed king or fall chum subsistence opportunities in the last 5 years. And recently, as the board will hear in a following presentation, the parties to the Yukon Agreement of the Pacific Salmon Treaty signed a 7-year agreement to keep the king fishery closed in the mainstem Yukon River if the projected border passage does not meet or exceed 71,000 fish.

This slide shows the subsistence harvest of each of the salmon species on the Yukon River. Subsistence harvest of King Salmon, in yellow, was relatively stable until 2009. Since then, and despite conservation measures by the department, King Salmon have continued to decline and are now the focus of a rebuilding plan by the Yukon River Panel. A group affiliated with the Yukon River Salmon Agreement. Summer chum is shown in light blue.

Summer chum abundance has remained relatively stable until recently when the runs failed to materialize in 2020. Prior to this, lower river residents could still obtain good harvests of summer chum, which was only hampered by the need to protect king salmon because of their overlapping run timing. Since 2024, summer chum abundance has improved slightly and has provided some harvest opportunities. Community. Fall chum is shown in orange.

Historically, fall chum abundance has been tied to summer chum abundance, and this run also failed in 2020. With king salmon abundance at historically low levels and the absence of summer chum in upper river communities, fall chum are extremely important to middle and upper river communities. Fall chum have not yet shown improvement enough to allow for subsistence fishing opportunity. This multi-species failure has left communities on the Yukon with an unprecedented loss of a critical food source, a source of food for dog teams, and the cultural touchstone that harvesting and processing salmon has provided for millennia.

Oops. Doop. As members of the board are aware, the Amounts Reasonably Necessary for Subsistence Uses, or ANS, is one of several tools the board may use when evaluating whether reasonable opportunity for subsistence harvest is being provided. On this slide, we can see the number of times harvest has fallen within an ANS range by species in each region since 2015. Gray cells represent a species in an area that either doesn't have an ANS range or where a species is not present.

Green cells indicate species for which ANS has been achieved in each of the last 10 years. Yellow cells indicate species where the ANS has been achieved in some but not all of the last 10 years. And red cells are those where the ANS has not been achieved in the last 10 years. Starting at the top, we see that the ANS for Yukon River King Salmon was achieved once since 2015. ANS for Yukon River Fall Chum and Coho hasn't been achieved in the last 10 years.

And the Yukon River Summer Chum ANS has only been met 3 times since 2015. In the Kuskokwim, the ANS for King Salmon was not achieved a single time since 2015. Unlike the Yukon, the ANS for Chum Salmon has been achieved 4 times, while the ANS for sockeye has been achieved in each of the past 10 years. In the Norton Sound Port Clarence area, there is one ANS for all salmon species combined, which has been achieved 4 times. When trying to characterize the severity of salmon declines across a region as large as AYK, reviewing the number of years ANS has been achieved is one way to evaluate and describe the scale of decline and resulting impact to subsistence users.

With that background, I'd like to discuss some of the ways in which our division documents subsistence patterns to quantify and evaluate the role of hunting and fishing for customary and traditional uses. A strong pattern among all subsistence-based communities in Alaska through time and across cultural groups is what we call the 30/70 rule. That is, across all subsistence resources or all wild foods, approximately 30% of households harvest about 70% of a community's total wild food harvest. The data on this slide are from a middle Yukon River community of Kaltag in 2018. This is a typical example of a 30-70 curve.

The percent of households ordered from highest harvesters on the left to lowest harvesting households on the right is on the x-axis. On the x-axis, while on the y-axis we see the cumulative percentage of total pounds harvested in the community. There are 3 takeaways from this pattern I want to emphasize. First, a small number of households harvest the majority of wild foods a community uses. Second, sharing, a primary characteristic of subsistence economies in Alaska, is the primary way all households in a community are able to use wild foods even if they don't harvest themselves.

For example, elders who no longer can harvest or young couples that don't have the means or abilities to go out receive wild food through sharing. Finally, as we'll see in subsequent presentations, the concentration of harvest among a small group of households is further compounded when only looking at the harvest of fish. And even more so in a time of decline. Even more households become dependent on fewer fewer harvesters to get what they need.

Since the last AYK meeting, we've completed 12 fish-focused projects in 21 AYK communities. During these projects, we've conducted 155 ethnographic interviews with local and traditional knowledge holders pertaining to salmon and non-salmon issues. These interviews typically last between 1 and 2 hours and use semi-structured interview protocols interviews designed to answer specific research questions. Importantly, I want to note here that these interviews are not household surveys. By using rigorous social science research methods, including, including grounded theory approaches, we've identified several key themes regarding subsistence salmon harvests across AYK.

First, respondents are keenly aware that their fishing, processing, and sharing patterns are experiencing rapid change. And there's worry about the long-term impacts to cultural, nutritional, and personal well-being. On all projects in each area, we gather data about the disruption to the generational transmission of knowledge, or the way that fishing as an activity provides the means for aggregating and sharing knowledge well beyond what pertains just to the act of fishing. [SPEAKING IN NATIVE LANGUAGE] I want to conclude this presentation by emphasizing that the communities across the AYK region all maintain specific harvest and use patterns that can differ dramatically. Additionally, their harvest responses to changes in salmon abundance are not homogeneous.

Specifically, in the Norton Sound Port Clarence area, the rapid chum crash in the last 2 years has nearly eliminated the longstanding commercial fishery in that region. On the Kuskokwim, despite continued subsistence opportunity being provided, overall salmon harvests continue to decline because of low chum abundance. While on the Yukon, unprecedented multi-species failures have eliminated most subsistence salmon fishing in recent years. Communities are experiencing rapid changes to their fishing patterns, are having to rely more on other wild foods or store-bought foods, affecting their overall food security levels. Finally, declines in salmon abundance and harvest harvests are disrupting longstanding statewide sharing networks.

We'll hear more about food security and sharing in subsequent presentations.

Overall, subsistence salmon harvests in the AYK region account for a significant portion of subsistence harvests statewide. As a result, responses to changes in salmon abundance are upending longstanding subsistence harvesting patterns for a large portion of the state. I'd like to end this presentation by thanking the dozens of communities that have partnered with our division to do this work and extend our sincere gratitude to the research participants who continue to engage with us during this time of change.

And with that, I'd be happy to take any questions. Mr. Carpenter. Thank you. Thank you, Lita, for the presentation and also taking time to talk to me last week about some of these things. I'm kind of Looking at page 3 and 4, and page 3, I'm kind of looking at the box that you have highlighted in regards to the average amount of pounds per person per year in the 3 areas that you talk about.

And I kind of look at the graph you have on page 4, and when I look at the amount of salmon that is, you know, included in that pie graph. I mean, these— the information, at least the chart says it's from 2017. So basically 8 years ago. And a lot of things have changed in the last 8 years. Do you have any idea what that number would really be today?

Through the chair, thank you, Member Carpenter. Our division is currently working on an update to that document you see in RC4. So we'll have the specific numbers and the total contribution of salmon to all wild food hopefully very soon. We did discuss whether this would be a useful graph to present to the board today, and we ultimately decided that it was because 2017 was a year when there were some— there were declines occurring, but harvest was also still occurring. Those harvests were more reflective of the traditional customer use patterns that existed across AYK.

Okay, follow-up. The other question I had in regards to the 276 pounds per person on page number 3 is when you do— when you gather this information, is this only on state waters and state land, or does it include people that have access access to Park Service land or U.S. Fish and Wildlife land, whatever the case may be. Thank you. Through the chair, we don't differentiate land status, so we're interested in estimating total wild food harvests regardless of where they occur, as long as they're taken for subsistence.

Okay, thank you. Mr. Swenson, then Mr. Wood, then Miss Erwin. Thanks for your presentation. I just have one quick question. Some of those families, there was like 27% or something, that some of the families catch a lot more stuff.

Do they share it? Is that the reason that it's higher among some families than others, or there's some families just bigger and use more?

Fantastic question. Thank you. Through the chair, I will be giving some additional context for that figure in a following presentation, but to answer your question, yes, sharing is the primary means for which all households in a community that many of whom do not harvest themselves still use wild foods. It's because it's a matter of efficiency. There's some households that are specialized.

We call that a specialization curve because it requires a degree of specialization including gear, and knowledge and time, money, in order to be able to go out and produce so much wild food. So the harvest effort, the high harvesting effort, is concentrated among a small number of households who then distribute that catch throughout their community and region. Okay, thank you. Mr. Wood. All right, thanks.

I got a bunch of different questions, but to— for starters, on page 4 again of that slide, looking at that pie chart, when salmon go away and the other fish column would probably increase, I imagine, is it— when you look at these different areas throughout the state that rely so heavily on the subsistence, is that also taking into consideration areas like, you know, Kotzebue area where the— also the caribou population is down as well as— and moose. And, and then so all of a sudden that has to focus the amount of harvest, say, on those other fish. In this case, we've got sheefish proposals. So I mean, does it, does it push it on to that more because of the new restrictions on the game side of things? And then I'll add one more.

Even on a one-river system, people, people might have more access to moose in some area and less fish, but some upper higher on that river, they have no access to moose or fish. Do you take that into account when you're generalizing these areas? Thank you. Through the chair, so in— to answer the question about what the figure on slide 4 includes, caribou, you mentioned, are included in the category titled land mammals. And so this, this pie graph represents all wild food broken down into 6 resource categories.

You see land mammals, non-salmon, salmon. And we break it down that way because each of those categories has very specific harvest and use patterns. So to get at your question about if there's a decline in salmon abundance, or aren't people just harvesting more non-salmon? Well, not necessarily. It really depends on the region you're in, the season you're in, and the community specifically.

So, for example, we see on the Yukon, much of the non-salmon harvest was linked to salmon fishing because it occurred during the summer season at the same time. But where in the Arctic area, there's a large non-salmon fishery that occurs in the winter. So it's really different. But also their patterns of use for salmon are different than those on the Yukon. So it's not as simple as a, a Nonetheless, species replacement is never simple, and it really requires context to understand the patterns that drive harvest.

Ms. Irwin.

Thank you, Ms. Trainer, for your presentation. I really appreciate you. Um, my question is, um, on page 13, you talk about the ethnographic themes that came out of some of your interviews. Um, my question is for the second bullet point, to cultural, nutritional, and personal well-being. I'm really interested in understanding better how this shift in a lack of being able to rely on salmon can impact the health and well-being of people along the Yukon River.

Could you expand on any stories or reports that you heard from folks about their physical or mental health? Thank you. Sure, I can. And I— through the chair, Member Erwin, I just want to be really clear when we're talking about our methods, and I did mention this on that slide, that an ethnographic interview is not a household survey. When we travel to these communities, we seek tribal council approval, we work closely with the tribes or city government to identify local and traditional knowledge holders that have particular knowledge pertaining to the research question at hand.

Because you might be a traditional knowledge holder who knows a lot about this one thing but not a lot about our research. Research question. So we work with the community to identify that sample, and those interviews follow a semi-structured approach. If we're working— if we're asking questions about fisheries, especially in AYK, inevitably we hear about impacts that we aren't specifically asking about. And so in those conversations, we've, we've been hearing quite a bit about Youth not having activities in the summer.

They're not going to camps with their families any— as much or anymore at all. Older generations are finding it difficult to have a central location to come together and pass on generational knowledge. As I said, the generational transmission of knowledge does not pertain solely to fishing. It just is that fish camps offered a way to bring multiple generations together and talk about cultural values and other teachings. So that's been a disruption.

In another demographic, we see harvesters, especially male harvesters, middle-aged men who express a sense of loss in identity. If they were providers in their community and they were the ones who were supposed to share with so many others. What does that leave them if they're not doing that? And so that comes up a bit. There's a lot of, a lot of respondents just expressing questions about, you know, where, where do we go from, where do we go from here?

Thank you for that answer. A follow-up that I have for you is, with regards to these male harvesters, what is that loss of identity do to the community and their families from what you understand? I won't—. Through the chair— I prefer not to make any generalizations about that. It's really not my place.

I can only speak to the number of times when I've encountered those respondents myself. And in a few communities, which out of respect I just won't name, but there are communities that express a sense of turning more towards unhealthy pursuits. And that can be impactful not just to the individual, but obviously to their families and to the fabric, the social fabric of the community as a whole.

Mr. Wood. Yeah, thank you. On slide 10 and 11, when you talk about ANS, and I specifically for CHUM, summer and fall CHUM, Is it— so you might need to break it down for me, but is it wrapped up in that ANS, the use of those chum for roe stripping and dog food, as well as just human consumption?

Roast—. Well, through the chair, roe stripping was a commercial enterprise, so that's not a factor in the ANS range, wasn't part of the consideration when we set that range.

As far as dog food goes, yes, dog, dog food, and because of its support of dogs as transportation, which is recognized in the definition of subsistence, was included as a consideration when the board set the ANS for Falchum on the Yukon.

Thank you. And then on slide 11, um, it shows the Kuskokwim with sockeye being quite high and pink. In Norton Sound, were sockeye also contributing to the goals being met at least once? Was that a contribution by sockeye in the Norton Sound area? Through the chair, could you please clarify which goal you're referring to?

Um, we're—. Specific goals? So we're on slide 11, and it shows on the Kuskokwim the goal ANS met every year for— it was a 10 for sockeye and a 10 for pink. And then in Norton Sound and Port Clarence, it showed they're all combined, but they are being met at least once. I just wondered, was sockeye a contributor to that as opposed to other— the other salmon species?

Through the chair, yes, I believe so. Thank you. Last question on this slide is, how was the— whether or not the ANS was met assessed?

Madam Chair, it's assessed through the range. Each ANS, as you know, has a high and a low. Did harvest in any given year since 2015 fall within that range? Okay, so my question though is like the title says that ANS was met. How is that assessment made?

Presumably that ANS number represents— it's a number. So I'm just wondering how is the assessment about whether or not that number was met, assuming that that's what's being reflected in the slide? Thank you for the question, Madam Chair. I can clarify. Yes, I see why the subtitle may be a bit misleading.

The key shows, and the graph is intended to show, the table's intended to show, a variety, a spectrum of times any ANS range in any given area has been met. If it's been every time in the last 10 years, it's green. Does that, does that answer your question? I mean, not really. Okay, what I'm getting at is How do we know that it was met?

Like, what— through what mechanism are you, are you getting the numbers? You know that it's met? Sure, thank you. In each area, the department has different assessment programs to understand annual harvest.

Is it a survey? Is it— are they returning harvest reports?

There's a combination of those. On the Yukon, there's there's an annual, an annual postseason survey as well as on the Kuskokwim. However, on the Yukon, there are some areas, some communities that do require subsistence permit. And then there's intermittent assessment in the Norton Sound Port Clarence area. Okay, thank you.

Mr. Wood. So I'm sorry, I just would like to say it was my— I asked the question in a confusing way. I combined roe stripping and what was done with the fish afterwards as part of dog food. And so wondering if— so I guess my question would have been is how much is dog food included in that ANS and how does it compare in the past when there was a lot of dog teams and stuff compared to now? That's— hopefully that's more clear.

Thank you. Through the chair, yes, that is more clear. I think I'd have to do a little bit of research into the deliberations on the original ANS for Fallchum on the Yukon. However, what I can say about the use of dog teams is that while there was a general decline in dog teams across— through the drainage when snow machines really hit the scene in the early '70s, many communities continued to maintain dog teams up until very recently, and those numbers of dogs, which the department does count, stayed stable through that time. And it's only been in the last few years when there was a really unexpected crash of chum that communities were making decisions about whether to continue maintaining those teams.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you for your presentation. I just want to also say that I think that your final questions slide picture is really cool. It's a neat photograph, and I appreciate that's a lot of work. So I think I don't see anything else.

Appreciate your presentation today. It's about 10 to noon. I think we'll pause here for the lunch break, and let's plan on coming back. Oh, let's say about 1:15. And, um, Um, we'll come back on the record at 1:15 and we'll take up Norton Sound issues and staff reports.

All right, see you back at 1:15. Thank you.

All right, welcome back. Hope everybody had a restful and satisfying lunch. The time is 1:23. We're back on the record and we're going to continue with staff reports. I think up next is Norton Sound Port Clearance District and COTS District Fisheries.

So take it away, gentlemen. Put yourself on the record and begin when you're ready. All right, thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chair. For the record, I'm Luke Hensley.

I'm the Assistant Area Management Biologist in Norton Sound and Kotzebue, and with me is Kevin Clark, the Area Manager.

Today I would like to give an overview of fish stock status and trends in our region by highlighting fish abundance and commercial and subsistence harvest in recent years. This report can be found under RC3, tab 8. We'll start in the Norton Sound, where the management area is split into the Port Clarence District and the Norton Sound District. The region is characterized by numerous rivers that drain into marine waters, and the main salmon-producing streams are marked here in blue. We can also see the communities of the region, where residents use salmon for subsistence and commercial resources.

Nearly all our towns are located on the coast, and subsistence salmon are harvested in both marine and freshwaters.

With so much spawning habitat, enumerating salmon escapement is quite a challenge. Here we can see all the salmon monitoring efforts in the region, with rivers that are routinely monitored from aerial surveys marked in blue. Red highlighted streams represent rivers monitored by ground-based escapement projects, whose locations are labeled. I will describe some of these projects in more detail in upcoming slides.

First, we will focus on the Norton Sound District. This district is divided into two main areas, each with their own advisory committee: the northern Norton Sound, which is further subdivided into subdistricts 1, 2, and 3, and southern Norton Sound, which is made up of subdistricts 4 through 6. Commercial fishing takes place within the shaded waters of each subdistrict. With set gillnets. Salmon escapement and harvest trends tend to be similar within the northern and southern Norton Sound areas, so we will summarize stock status accordingly.

I would like to begin with Subdistrict 1 in the northern Norton Sound, which is where we live in Nome. The Snake River weir and Nome River weir monitor salmon escapement on the west side of Cape Nome, which is labeled in the lower portion of the map. And the Eldorado River weir is on the east side. Folks fish for salmon in each of the streams shown here in blue and in marine waters. There is a subsistence net fishing schedule west of Cape Nome with waters open for 5 days a week between June 15 and August 15.

Proposal 32 would repeal this subsistence schedule in marine waters and allow net fishing 7 days a week. Subsistence fishers using rod and reel in northern Norton Sound must adhere to regional sportfish bag and possession limits, but Proposal 35 would remove that requirement.

There are several salmon escapement goals in Nome Subdistrict 1, each monitored by a weir project. These goals were established in 2019, so we'll look at escapement performance starting from that year. West of Cape Nome, we have had some trouble meeting chum salmon escapement objectives in the last 7 years, falling under the goal about half the time in the Nome and Snake Rivers.

East of Cape Nome, in Eldorado River, we usually meet our chum salmon escapement goal, except this year, which was slightly under.

There are 2 pink salmon goals on the Nome River, an odd and even year goal assessed by the weir. In the Norton Sound, even year pink runs are usually much larger than odd years. We have had success meeting the escapement goal in both even and odd years except this most recent season which saw record low pink returns to Subdistrict 1.

There is a sockeye escapement goal in Subdistrict 1 I would like to highlight since there are several subsistence proposals related to this population. The sockeye escapement goal is assessed by aerial survey of Glacial Lake, shown here near the top of the map. Harvest of sockeye occurs with rod and reel in all waters of the Scenic River, and net fishing occurs in the subsistence area below Boulder Creek, marked near the center of the map. Proposals 30 and 31 both concern moving the current upstream boundary to a location closer to the river mouth. Effectively constricting the net fishing area.

We generally have had good success meeting the glacial lake sockeye escapement goal in the last several years, with only one year under the goal and only one year not surveyed since 2019.

Subsistence permits in northern Norton Sound requires all users to submit a harvest report at the end of each season season, so we can visualize sockeye catch on the Scenic River over the last couple decades. The number of fish is on the y-axis and the harvest year is on the x-axis. Data from the most recent season is still preliminary and will not be presented in this report. As you can see, subsistence harvest is generally under 200 fish. Proposal 29 would establish an annual household subsistence limit of 25 sockeye for the Sinek River.

Now we will move over to the rest of northern Norton Sound. Gullivin Subdistrict 2 and Elam Subdistrict 3. Each subdistrict monitors salmon escapement with a counting tower project on a major spawning stream. There's one escapement goal in Subdistrict 2 and several goals in Subdistrict 3.

There is a king salmon goal for the Quinniak River in Subdistrict 3. Annually, as monitored by the Tower Project. We have had trouble meeting the goal since it was revised in 2019 and have some of our lowest counts ever in the last few years.

There are two chum salmon goals in Subdistrict 3. Chum on the Quinniack River are assessed from the Tower Project, and they have had trouble reaching the goal since 2019, with only 2 years meeting the goal. The Tabatchuluk River is directly east of the Quinniack and has an aerial survey chum salmon goal. That system rarely can be surveyed due to logistical constraints, but Tabatchuluk chum salmon performance is considered to track closely with Quinniack River escapement.

Quinniack River in Subdistrict 3 has a pink salmon escapement goal for all years, and it is assessed by the Tower Project. We've had no problem meeting the goal in recent years.

There is a Coho salmon aerial survey goal on the Neokluk River in Subdistrict 2, but survey coverage is spotty. We have been able to do a survey every year since 2022, with 2 years being under the goal and 2 years meeting or being over the goal. There is also an aerial survey goal on the Quinniac River in Subdistrict 3. In years when surveys have been possible, Coho escapement has been over the goal.

Now I would like to summarize harvest trends in northern Norton Sound by highlighting subsistence and commercial catches of chum and coho salmon, our main commercial species, and both very important subsistence species as well.

Here we see subsistence harvest in northern Norton Sound with number of fish on the y-axis. Chum salmon is in orange and coho salmon is in blue. Remember that this year's harvest data is preliminary and not shown here. Harvest of both species has declined in recent years, but it is worth mentioning that Nome residents have been supplementing their subsistence needs with sockeye from Port Clarence District in recent decades, and I will describe in more detail in upcoming slides.

Now let's focus on commercial salmon harvest in northern Norton Sound. Chum salmon are characterized by extreme highs and lows, with the last several years showing less than average commercial harvest. Coho catch is generally not as abundant and has also experienced less than average harvest in recent years.

Now we turn to southern Norton Sound, which is divided into Subdistricts 4, 5, and 6. Subsistence permits are not required in southern Norton Sound, and subsistence harvest is estimated at using expanded counts from household surveys conducted by our office in the late fall of each year.

We'll focus on Subdistrict 6 since all the escapement goals are geared toward the Unalakleet River drainage. Here you can see the community of Unalakleet, the commercial waters of Subdistrict 6, and the North River Tower where many of the subdistrict's escapement goals are assessed.

There are 3 goals on the North River. The king salmon goal is monitored by the Tower Project and has been met or over only twice since 2019. And the last few years have been some of the lowest ever. Pink goals assessed by the Tower Project have been generally met in recent years with just 2023 and 2025 not making the goal.

The North River Coho escapement goal is assessed by peak season aerial survey, which has been tricky for the department due to logistical constraints, but the goal has been met in recent surveys.

Now let's look at salmon harvest in southern Norton Sound by tracking subsistence and commercial catch of chum and coho salmon, by far the region's most important commercial species.

First, we'll look at subsistence harvest. Again, the number of fish is on the y-axis, with chum salmon in orange and coho salmon in blue. The gaps in harvest data corresponds to years with incomplete surveys. Although harvest varies from year to year, total subsistence tends to be relatively stable.

On the commercial side, we see a decline after some huge years in the 2000s. 10S. This is partly due to changes in abundance, but it is also due to commercial restrictions the department has enacted for king salmon conservation in southern Norton Sound.

Next, we'll focus on the Port Clarence District, which includes the marine waters of Port Clarence and freshwaters draining into the Immeruck Basin. There is one salmon monitoring project in this area, the Pilgrim River Weir at the right of the map. The Weir enumerates escapement of the furthest north population of sockeye salmon in the state. Sockeye travel up the Pilgrim River to spawning grounds in Salmon Lake in the lower right of the map. There hasn't been a commercial fishery in the district for several decades, more due to a lack of interest than a lack of harvestable surplus.

There are two main areas where salmon are harvested for subsistence in this district. District, in the marine waters near the communities of Teller and Brevig Mission near the top of the map, and along the Pilgrim River below Salmon Lake. You can see in this map that the river is easily accessible by road and many Nome residents harvest sockeye there for subsistence.

There is one escapement goal in Port Clarence District for sockeye salmon. The goal was last modified in 2019. So we will look at escapement performance since that year. We have made the goal in 4 of the last 7 years, which characterizes this population's tendency to swing between highs and lows.

Here we see subsistence harvest of sockeye salmon in Port Clarence. Port Clarence subsistence data is collected from a permitting system much like Northern Norton Sound, and 2025 data is still preliminary and not shown here. The green bars indicate the proportion of sockeye that were harvested in marine waters, mainly by residents of Teller and Brevig, and the pink bars are sockeye harvested in the Pilgrim River, mainly by Nome residents. Overall, harvest generally follows abundance trends, but to mitigate the large fluctuations in annual run sizes, the department places restrictions on subsistence fishing to maximize escapement in years with low returns. Returns.

And years when the goal is projected to be reached, the department waives all household limits to maximize harvest.

I'd like to quickly highlight the escapement and harvest trends of king salmon in Port Clarence, as we have two proposals concerning their harvest in the subsistence fishery. Here we see king salmon escapement in the last 20 years as monitored by the Pilgrim River weir. Generally, escapement is expected to be less than 100 fish.

And we can visualize king salmon harvest by location from permit data, with green bars indicating marine harvest and pink bars indicating Pilgrim River harvest. In most years, most of the harvest takes place in marine waters, and overall harvest is generally under 100 fish. Both of the Port Clarence king salmon subsistence proposals before the board concern harvest in the Pilgrim River. Proposal 33 would require the non-retention of kings caught in beach seine subsistence gear in the Pilgrim River, and Proposal 34 would lower the household annual harvest limit of Pilgrim River king salmon from 3 fish to 1 fish.

Now let's move north and look at the Kotzebue Fishing District. Commercial fishing for chum salmon takes place in the shaded waters seen here on the map. Chum harvest in the fishery. Chum harvested in the fishery are bound for spawning grounds on the Kobuk River in the lower right corner of the map and the Noatak River near the top of the map. Unfortunately, escapement and subsistence harvest of chum salmon are not well estimated in this region.

The Kotzebue commercial chum salmon fishery has historically been quite reliable, with harvest generally over 100,000 1,000 fish. Unfortunately, the last 2 seasons has shown us that the fishery is not invulnerable, which has led the department to be more conservative with fishery openers since 2024.

I'd like to briefly summarize sheefish fisheries in the Kotzebue District. Sheefish are the largest of the whitefish species and are used extensively for subsistence throughout the region. There's also a small commercial fishery for sheefish in the view district.

Residents from the communities highlighted on this map harvest sheefish in the Kobuk and Solovik Rivers during the summer spawning run. In winter months, residents throughout the region travel to fishing locations in marine and lagoon waters to fish through the ice where sheefish overwinter. Proposal 40 would require a subsistence harvest permit when fishing through the ice for sheefish.

The participation in the commercial sheefish fishery is quite low, so most of that data is confidential. However, by combining harvest data with sheefish incidentally caught in the chum salmon commercial fishery and retained for personal use, we can visualize sheefish harvest in commercial fisheries over the last few decades. The combined commercial and personal use harvest is generally less than 600 fish per year. Proposal 43 would repeal the sheefish commercial quota in regulation.

I would like to quickly highlight some of the salmon research projects that are being undertaken by our staff in the southern Norton Sound. The Unalakleet drainage often experiences high-water events that make viewing salmon from the North River Tower impossible. For the last two seasons, our research staff has been investigating the feasibility of using sonars as a method that provides monitoring coverage while remaining robust to dynamic river conditions.

In Kotzebue, the department is planning on implementing a suite of chum salmon research initiatives, including expanded aerial surveys and sonar feasibility studies to monitor escapement. We also plan to collect genetic baseline samples to potentially allow us to estimate COBUC and NOAA tech stock proportions and run timing in the commercial fishery.

I was able to reference most of the Arctic area commercial and subsistence proposals in this presentation, but I would like to summarize the few that I was not able to mention. For proposals that would apply to all of the Norton Sound Port Clarence District, Proposal 28 submitted by the department would define beach seine gear in regulation. In southern Norton Sound, Proposal 36 would allow catch-and-release sport fishing for king salmon. If the subsistence fishery is open in either the marine or fresh waters.

In Kotzebue, Proposal 41 would allow for bow and arrow fishing of non-salmon species. Proposals 42 and 43 were submitted by the department and would close marine waters adjacent to the end of the Kotzebue runway to subsistence and commercial fishing.

Lastly, I would like to give the board a quick update on Norton Sound Subdistricts 5 and 6 King Salmon. The board designated the population a stock of yield concern in 2004 and most recently continued that designation at your October work session. The department will be refining our action plan over the coming months with potential regulatory changes and delisting criteria. Our goal is to present a draft action plan to the board at a future meeting next spring.

I would like to thank all of our collaborators that make our work possible, especially our regional CDQ group, the Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation, and our regional ACs for their tireless efforts in supporting fisheries in Norton Sound and Kotzebue. Thank you, Madam Chair. That concludes my presentation.

Thank you, Miss Irwin. Thank you very much for your presentation. Take a second if you need it. You just spoke for a long time. So on your last slide, you mentioned Subdistrict 6 stock of concern.

Is that the North River Kings then?

Yes. So that stock are Chinook salmon that are returning both to the Unalakleet and Shaktoolik Subdistricts, Subdistricts 5 and 6 in the southern Norton Sound And our main monitoring tool is the North River Tower that specifically looks at kings returning to the North River. Follow-up. Follow-up. And is that a stock of yield or management concern?

Thank you. Through the chair, that is a stock of yield concern that was designated in 2004 and last upheld last month.

And one more follow-up for that. So why did the department not recommend to increase to stock of management concern? As I understand it, often the department uses 4 out of the last 5 years if the escapement hasn't been met to increase. I'm not sure if that's— that's not in accordance to regulation, but I think that's the general practice. It hasn't— I guess I answered my own question.

It would fall within that bounds because 2022 it did meet it. So it wouldn't be 4 consecutive out of the last 5. But this is one of those concerns that I have for that interpretation of the stock of management concern designation. Because it is obvious that this is not meeting escapement as often as it should be. But because of the 2022 year meeting it, it wasn't advanced.

Is that how you understand it? It wasn't advanced to management because of that? 2022 Year.

Thank you for that. Through the chair, I would likely defer to Zach and our research crew for more details about that. But yes, from, from my understanding, you know, we had some plans for better monitoring of returns of Chinook to this district that didn't quite pan out. And there have just been some some changes to our approach for monitoring that stock. For details on why that wasn't up to a management concern, I would defer to Aaron.

For the record, Aaron Tiernan, AYK management coordinator for commercial fish. Yes, Mr. Irwin, that's exactly how you described it. Thanks.

Thanks. So I am just kind of thumbing back through here, and I'm looking for the slides, if they exist, that show Subdistricts 5 and 6, King Salmon, escapement. I, I do not have a slide on— I do have, um, a slide on escapement goal performance, right? It is, right? So you have all these other slides consistently throughout the presentation.

Why are you missing that one? Through the chair, Madam Chair, for this presentation I tried to just show escapement performance for stocks with escapement goals, and I didn't want to get too far into details of specific yearly escapement. Those numbers are all found in our our written reports.

And our team felt that this graphic was sufficient for—. Why did you feel it was sufficient?

Madam Chair, um, sure.

For the record, Madam Chair, Kevin Clark. Yeah, we decided not to put the escapement numbers in there. Because of time constraints with this report. And overall, none of the reports that we've done, they were fairly consistent in using this format for showing what the statements were either met, over, or under. So we went with that same, uh, note, um, style.

Similarly, there isn't a graphic, as are all the other species listed, for the subsistence harvest of that species. Has there been any?

Madam Chair, there have been severe restrictions on Chinook salmon subsistence harvest in recent years, and we did not put a slide including their harvest for consistency to show general subsistence trends in the region. That information is all in our written reports. Again, consistent with what?

Consistent with this report? Yes, that's right. But that's not consistent with this report, in my opinion. Okay, we'll let it go. Let's go to slide 25 and 26.

My question on this is kind of related to King Escapement also. If I'm reading this correctly, and if I think if I heard you correctly, Okay, in the Port Clarence District King Salmon escapement, I'm looking at '24, '25, '23. Those are really low numbers. The scale is a little bit difficult to tell, but it looks like it's around 20 fish. Is that correct?

Yes, Madam Chair. Flip to slide 26. Port Clarence District King Salmon subsistence harvest in '23 and '24 is— looks like about the same, if not more, than the escapement. Why is that? Yes, Madam Chair.

Folks, Madam Chair, Kevin Clark. The reason the numbers look so different is this is strictly subsistence harvest. So you have subsistence harvest in the marine waters which are intercepting kings that would be headed to that area. Precisely. Yeah, that is why the numbers look—.

They don't look inconsistent. They look very inconsistent to me. And I'm asking, why is there subsistence harvest allowed when you're consistently well below the traditional escapement goals in freshwater? Why are you allowing that interception to occur? Madam Chair, that— there is no escapement goals on this system.

The amount of harvest— I mean, the amount of escapement that we're seeing has been fairly consistent, as you you can see from the last slide, we have one year that we had in 2007 there, you can see we had pretty good production. But since then, the production from that system has been fairly consistent so that, you know, there has been— since there is no escapement goal and it is such a small percentage, such a small stock, there isn't any— in order for us to shut down all the harvest of any kings going there, that would cause us to also close down any other subsistence fisheries for any other stocks that might be much more abundant. Madam Chair, that's what we do all over the place here, guys. It's called management. And I'm confused here.

I mean, your statement was there's escapement of 100 fish. I would say it has been consistent, consistently low.

So if you're allowing escapement of around 100 fish, even though there is no goal— and that's another question, a rabbit hole we can go down eventually— then I'm just concerned why the subsistence harvest is equal, if not more, than what has escaped. That makes no sense to me.

Madam Chair. Kevin Clark again. Basically, this is a very, very small stock. If we— any management thing that we're— that we do to this stock is not going to result in much difference in the numbers that you're seeing. We could close the fishery to all king salmon harvest, and it really wouldn't move the needle much.

You're talking about a very, very small population. It's almost an incidental population. Population. Madam Chair, do you apply a similar philosophy to Subdistricts 5 and 6?

Madam Chair, District 5 and 6 are traditionally a much larger stock run and can— traditionally that run has been much stronger than it has been in the last several years, true, but that is also a larger run so that there is a significant amount of fish that making management decisions to curtail other harvests could potentially result in meeting escapement goals that do— we do currently have on the books, Madam Chair. Okay, any other questions? Mr. Owen. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I had a question about on slide number 11, the Quinniac River kings.

Is there a stock of concern designation, and if so, what is it? Through the chair, there is not currently a stock of concern designation. Why did the department not recommend that the board give a stock of concern designation to this stock if they have been under and not meeting escapement for 5 consecutive years? According to the department's determinations on when to enact that plan, you said 4 out of 5 consecutive years. Consecutive years.

That's 5 out of 5, and this is the time to do it. The only— the next time we will be here for stock of concern designation is in 3 years. So why did the department choose to do that? Yeah, through the chair, Mr. Irwin. So that specific stock was not recommended for stock of concern because when we did that analysis, the 2025 data was not used.

So with that, right, we— they met escapement in 2020. So those were the years that we had. We used 2020 through 2024. Uh, follow-up question, um, did the— what was the department's outlook on this stock, the preseason outlook? Did it look like it was going to meet escapement?

We don't have a formal forecast for that, so—. Okay, thank you. It seems seems very inconsistent to me and seems like we're looking at these details of management strategies that the department is creating that's not actually in regulation. And for me, reading the definition of stock of yield and stock of management concern, my interpretation would be that it would be measured under that stock in the way that it's written in regulation. So it would be nice for the department to look over and see whether or not this is actually 4 out of 5 consecutive years is actually all that productive as a way to manage.

So thank you. Well, that in and of itself seems a little inconsistent since we have graphs here where you're using the escapement numbers for 2025 presented in this presentation. So when do we get it and when do we don't— when do we use it and when do we not? Seems a little inconsistent as well to me. Any other questions?

Okay. Oh, Mr. Wood. Yeah, thanks. I'm going to switch off of Kings for a minute, guys. I was just wondering about the chum salmon harvest.

When you refer to the chums in— in leading up to Kotzebue area, are all of these summer chum that you're referring to as the harvest, or are they a mix of summer or fall chum? Okay. Through the chair. These stocks are single stock. There's not like a summer or fall stock in the Kotzebue area.

Now the Kotzebue fish themselves are genetically much more closely related to the Yukon fall stocks than they are the Yukon summer stocks. But as far as being two separate runs, they're not. They're not considered a summer run or a fall run. They're just a single run, but they are more more closely genetically related to the fall stocks in the Yukon. Madam Chair.

Okay, just to be clear, so all of these are more genetically related to the fall stocks on the Yukon, all of the ones that you're having listed as chum here? Through the chair, uh, the Norton Sound fish primarily are closer related to the, uh, summer chum in the Yukon than they are the fall chum, uh, and then the Port Clarence and the Kotzebue fish are generally more closely related to the fall chum, the Yukon fall chum. So you kind of got a little split there between the Norton Sound, Port Clarence, and Kotzebue. All right, that's what I was driving at. Thank you.

Just once. Well, I don't mean to belabor this point, but I guess I don't understand if it hasn't meant for 4 years, back to this one deal here, who hadn't made an escapement in 4 years, and then the 5th year, as I understand it, you didn't have a number for the 5th year. And why is that? I mean, I'm just a little concerned. You had it for 4 years and then you didn't have the number for 2025 to where this would be a stock of concern then for 5 5 consecutive years?

I mean, I don't— I'm just asking you where that number go. Yeah, through the chair, Mr. Svenson. So when we were doing the analysis for stock of concern, projects were still ongoing. It was in the middle of the season, so we didn't feel comfortable using preliminary 2025 data for that. But since then, you know, that data, that data has become more finalized.

So the timing— yeah, I understand, but it would seem to me that if there's 4 years of, you know, not making it, and then all of a sudden you don't have the information, wouldn't it be more conservative to say, okay, we're gonna make it a stock of concern? Right, I see where you're coming from. Okay. However, when we're doing our analysis, you know, within this sustainable fisheries policy policy and the yield definition— or sorry, the stock of concern definitions, it uses, you know, the terminology of chronic inability. And at least within our region, when we do our analysis, we've defined that chronic inability to be 5 out of 5.

That also—. Then that sustainable also say that you should not overfish a stock of, uh, you know, a low stock of concern to fish a higher stock of concern. Does it not say that too? I guess I'm not following. Well, Commissioner, and then I have a question.

This discussion has gone on long enough. I'm not opposed to this necessarily becoming a stock of concern. I think we have— we now have a 5th year of data that came in since we had the work session. I think we can create it. I'm just questioning what are we going to do as a staff to address this.

I think the only thing we can possibly do at this point in time is probably close subsistence fishing. So if you guys want to create this as a stock concern, we're not necessarily opposed to it from a department perspective, having this new data into it. And at some point in time, I guess in this, in the statewide meeting, we'll bring back an action plan for the stock. Thanks. And that was going to be my question, is like whether or not it behooves having that discussion now versus waiting 3 more years and recognizing that closing the subsistence fishery may be the only actionable thing that you can do.

I think it's— I mean, that's, that's the discussion the board needs to have. So, okay. All right, gentlemen, thank you for your presentation.

All right, Kuskokwim area stock status and overview. Whenever you're ready, please put yourself on the record and begin.

Subsistence fisheries. I'm getting ahead of myself, sorry about that. Thank you. I was getting a look there.

I know, I was like, hmm, it doesn't look like the right people, but let's roll with it. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Madam Chair, board members, my name is Helen Kold, and I am the lead subsistence resource specialist for the Arctic Region of Alaska. Today I am joined by Alida Trainer, the Northern Region program manager for subsistence. This presentation provides information about the historical and contemporary harvest and use of both salmon and non-salmon fish in the Norton Sound, Port Clarence, and Arctic Kotzebue management areas of the AYK Region. This presentation can be found in RC3 tab 9.

This map shows the 4 fisheries management districts within the Arctic Region, which includes all waters from Point Romanoff in southern Norton Sound and St. Lawrence Island, and west of longitude 141 degrees west to the U.S.-Canada border. This area encompasses over 100,000 square miles and has a coastline exceeding that of California, Oregon, and Washington combined. Individual districts include, from south to north, the Norton Sound Management District, the Port Clarence Management District, the Kotzebue Management District, and the Arctic Management District. District.

Fish are an important subsistence resource for all communities in the Arctic region, and the role of salmon and non-salmon fish in subsistence diets varies greatly within the broader region. Generally speaking, salmon are more central to the subsistence economies of communities in the Norton Sound, Port Clarence, and Kotzebue Districts, whereas many communities located in the Arctic District rely more heavily on non-salmon fish such as whitefishes and species. There are commercial fishing opportunities for both salmon and non-salmon species in the Arctic region. Commercial fishery operations are small-scale, and most participants and buying station workers are Alaska Natives of Yup'ik, Inupiat, or Siberian Yup'ik descent. Wages earned through commercial fishing support subsistence economies in two ways.

First, the investment in commercial gear such as boats, boats, motors, and nets enable residents to use them for subsistence purposes. Secondly, wages help support the purchase of fuel and other subsistence gear, such as ammunition and snow machines that are used throughout the year. The next slides will review the geographic boundaries and general subsistence fishing patterns of residents within the 4 fishing districts in the Arctic Region. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] There are 12 communities in the Norton Sound and Port Clarence Districts with a total population of 7,500 residents. These communities all regularly harvest salmon and non-salmon fish in salt and freshwater environments.

The local linguistic groups include Central Yup'ik in the southern reaches of Norton Sound and Inupiaq from Unalakleet northward. Nome is the regional hub for this area. Residents of these districts have a heavy reliance on salmon as a primary food source. In summer, subsistence fishers harvest salmon with gillnets or seines in the main Seward Peninsula rivers and coastal marine waters. Beach seines are also used near the spawning grounds to harvest schooling or spawning salmon and other fish species.

A major portion of fish taken during the summer months is air-dried or smoked for later consumption by residents. Residents. Chum and pink salmon are the most abundant salmon species district-wide. King and coho salmon are present throughout the area but are more common in eastern and southern Norton Sound. Sockeye salmon are primarily found in two Seward Peninsula river systems: Glacier Lake, which is difficult to access, and the Sinek River in the Nome Subdistrict, and Salmon Lake and the Pilgrim River in the Port Clarence District, much of which is road accessible to Nome.

Residents. In addition to salmon, households within the Norton Sound and Port Clarence districts harvest large amounts of non-salmon fish for subsistence. Fishers catch Dolly Varden, whitefish, saffron cod, and rainbow smelt using a variety of gear types including rod and reel, jigging, seining, and gillnet.

Moving further north, we have the Kotzebue District, identified in yellow on this map. There are 14 communities totaling a population of about 9,600 residents within this district, including residents of Point Hope into the north and residents of Wales in the south. Households in these communities regularly harvest salmon and non-salmon fish in salt and freshwater environments. Fishing occurs within the sound itself, Hotham Inlet to the east, and the Noatak, Kobuk, and Selawik rivers and their tributaries. Kotzebue is the regional hub, and residents of communities in this district are primarily Inupiat.

Chum salmon are the predominant salmon species in the district, although small numbers of other salmon species are present. Recent ethnographic work in this area documented local concerns about poor chum salmon returns in Kotzebue Sound in 2024 and 2025. Subsistence salmon fishing in the Kotzebue District is an important activity for many households. Fish abundance and fishing activities vary between communities. Along the Noatak and Kobuk Rivers, where chum salmon runs are historically strong, household subsistence activities in middle and late summer revolve around catching, drying, and storing salmon.

In southern Kotzebue Sound, where salmon runs are smaller, fewer salmon are taken for subsistence. Some fishery participants base their fishing effort out of their community, whereas others move seasonally to fish camps where they stay for several days to several weeks. Most subsistence fishers use set nets to catch salmon in the Kotzebue District. Key non-salmon fish used by area residents include char species, whitefishes, and sheefish. Fishers use several methods to catch non-salmon fish, including gillnets, seines, rod and reel, and jigging.

The Arctic District includes all 8 North Slope communities totaling a population of about 7,900 residents that fish the fresh and salt waters within this district. Utqiagvik is the regional hub, and residents of rural communities in this district are primarily Inupiat. Non-salmon fish, including whitefishes, Dolly Varden, grayling, and burbot, are harvested and used in larger numbers than salmon in the Arctic District. Whitefish caught for subsistence are taken mainly by beach seine or set gillnets. Catches are usually dried and used for human consumption or dog food.

In some areas, fish are gutted and dried early in summer, whereas later in summer, fish are filleted and dried with eggs and viscera intact. Fish caught in winter months are often frozen and sliced and eaten raw with seal oil. Non-salmon fish species such as Dolly Varden, grayling, and burbot are frequently caught using set gillnets and by jigging. Fishing households along the Arctic coast report small numbers of chum, pink, coho, and king salmon in the area. Pink salmon are the most numerous, followed by chum salmon.

Although salmon are targeted by some fishing households in Arctic communities, many salmon are instead incidentally caught in gillnets when subsistence fishery participants target other non- salmon fish species.

With that orientation, I'd like to highlight some quantitative harvest patterns for fish in the Arctic region. Salmon and non-salmon fish are important resources for communities in the Arctic region, but they make up only a part of a seasonal round of subsistence resources harvested and used by area communities. The figures shown on this slide illustrate the relative contribution of of salmon and non-salmon fish to the total subsistence harvest comparatively between the Norton Sound District, Kotzebue District, and Arctic District from 2011 to 2023. Salmon harvests are shown in pink, non-salmon fish harvests are shown in light green, and all other wild resources such as land and marine mammals are shown in gray. The first pie shows subsistence harvests in the Norton Sound District by resource category.

In this region, salmon make up almost a third of the total harvest, and non-salmon fish account for another 20%. Together, fish make up about half of all subsistence harvests by weight in the region. Marine mammal and large land mammals also make up large contributions to subsistence harvests. The second pie represents Kotzebue District communities. Here, non-salmon fish are harvested in greater numbers than salmon, but both are within the top three resource categories for contribution to total subsistence diets.

Salmon make up 15% of the total harvest, and non-salmon fish contribute 27%. In the Kotzebue area, large land mammals, primarily caribou, are an especially important resource for communities and largely contribute to the maining wild food harvest in this area. The third pie on the right shows data from the Arctic District communities. Here, non-salmon fish represent 11% of total wild food harvests and salmon 3%. The remaining 86% of wild foods, represented in gray, is largely made up of marine mammals and large land mammals.

The major takeaway from these graphs is that in the Arctic region, subsistence salmon harvest levels roughly correspond with latitudes. Overall, salmon harvests decrease the further north you travel. For Norton Sound District communities, salmon are often the largest contributor to total subsistence harvests, whereas in Kotzebue District communities, non-salmon fish harvests outweigh salmon harvests, and large land mammals and marine mammals are especially important. For Arctic District communities, non-salmon fish play an important role in subsistence economies, but salmon make up only a small contribution to overall subsistence harvests.

The data shown here are from the department's Norton Sound subsistence harvest surveys. Aleta already generally discussed this graph in her AYK regional overview presentation. I would now like to review harvest trends in more detail. All 5 species of salmon are caught in the region, but chum salmon, shown in green, and pink salmon, shown in pink, generally make up the largest portions of annual harvest. Harvests.

As such, changes in harvest of these two species greatly influence harvest trends over time. High chum salmon harvests in the early 1990s resulted in high overall subsistence salmon harvests, whereas by the early 2000s, pink salmon were the most heavily harvested salmon species, and chum harvests had declined sharply. Around 2012, chum harvests began to increase, although from 2015 to 2018, harvests harvests were again low, until increasing in 2020. Although harvest varies annually, overall the data indicate that in general, from the early 2000s to 2022, when fishers caught higher numbers of chum, they caught proportionally fewer pink salmon, and vice versa. This suggests that household harvest patterns correlate with species abundance and change accordingly for either species in any given year.

A rapid decline in abundance of either species could have significant implications for Norton Sound District households and subsistence harvests overall.

Because sheefish are the focus of several proposals this cycle, I want to provide the board with some information about the subsistence sheefish fishery in Kotzebue District to inform deliberations. Sheefish have long been utilized for subsistence throughout the Kotzebue Basin, especially in Kotzebue, Selawik, and the villages along the Kobuk River. These harvests include winter, summer, and fall catches. Summer and fall subsistence fishing for sheefish occurs along the Kobuk and Selawik rivers from June through October with gillnets, beach seines, and hook and line. In early winter, Kotzebue, Norvik, and Selawik fishery participants use gillnets set under the ice in Hotham Inlet and Selawik Lake.

In spring, residents of Kotzebue, Norvik, and Selawik harvest sheefish with hand jigs through the ice of Hotham Inlet and Selawik Lake.

This bar graph shows sheefish harvests by gear type for 4 communities: Kiana, Ambler, Kobuk, and Shungnak, located along the Kobuk River. One of the proposals before you at this meeting, proposal number 39, addresses the use of rod and reel by all fishers, including subsistence users, in open water. Although we do not gather this information annually, we collected these data over the course of the last 10 years during comprehensive subsistence surveys. These 4 communities harvest large numbers of sheefish for subsistence using rod and reel in open water. The bars show average annual sheefish harvests by commonly used gear types in pounds of usable weight.

Pounds of sheefish harvested using rod and reel are shown in green. Rods with reels are relatively inexpensive and are used by a wide variety of people, including youth and elders. The accessibility of this gear type makes it a popular means to harvest sheefish, and we see on this graph that rod and reels harvested large amounts of sheefish in each of these 4 communities. As Brendan mentioned previously, Proposal Number 39 seeks to reduce daily sportfish bag limits from 10 fish per day to 5 fish fish per day. Proposal #39 has a specific nexus with subsistence harvests in the Arctic region because subsistence fishers that use a rod and reel in open water to harvest sheefish are required to abide by sport fish bag and possession limits.

There are two other sheefish proposals for the Kotzebue District, but only one of these has a nexus with subsistence. Proposal #40 would establish a subsistence sheefish permit in the Kotzebue District. Detailed in this table, the most recent and comprehensive annual sheefish subsistence data come from subsistence household surveys conducted in 2014. In that year, 866 households in the communities of Ambler, Buckland, Kiana, Kobuk, Noatak, Norvik, Shishmaref, Shungnak, Seluvik, and Kotzebue reported a collective estimated catch of nearly 32,000 sheefish in total. This is an average of 37 sheefish harvested per household during 2014.

These data and the Rod and Reel data presented previously on slide number 9 are summarized in the staff comments. Overall, for the years we conducted subsistence surveys from 1991 to 2014, harvest has averaged 32 sheefish per household.

I'd like to conclude this presentation with some final thoughts. First, fish are an important subsistence resource across the Arctic region, but the relative role of salmon and non-salmon fish species in subsistence diets varies widely among districts and subdistricts. In general, salmon harvests decrease as you move north in latitude within the region. Salmon species, specifically chum and pink salmon, make up the largest proportion of overall subsistence harvests for many communities in the Norton Sound District. District.

In the Kotzebue District, salmon are an important resource, but large land mammals and marine mammals make up larger proportions of total subsistence harvests. For most Arctic District communities, salmon play a minor role in subsistence economies, although recent research indicates that salmon are becoming more available and harvests and uses are increasing in some locations. Non-salmon fish species contribute to subsistence diets across the region but play a larger role in the areas where salmon are less less accessible. In the Kotzebue District, sheefish is a key species harvested for subsistence throughout the year, and in many Arctic District communities, whitefish species and char species, such as Dolly Varden, are heavily utilized. Due to the department's limited data on subsistence salmon harvest and concerns from the Regional Advisory Committee pertaining to declining chum salmon abundance, the Division of Subsistence has begun to document the local and traditional knowledge of of salmon behavior, health, and abundance with residents of several Kotzebue District communities.

This paper is currently in prep. The Division of Subsistence plans to continue this valuable work.

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the board, for your time. I'd also like to thank the communities across the Arctic region who continue to share their knowledge of the fishery with us through our research efforts. With that, I'll take any questions you may have. Mr. Carpenter. Thank you.

Thanks for the presentation. Just a quick question. So I believe it's on page— I guess slide 10 or page 10. In 2014, most of the villages, it looks like, were surveyed, including Kotzebue. So I think that that number is very, very interesting.

So it's been, you know, 11 years, going to be 12 years since— do you plan on doing something in regards to household surveys to try and get some more up-to-date information about the utilization of salmon and sheefish populations and things like that in the next time period? You know, through the chair, thank you for your question. [Speaker:DR. MELISSA LEE] Yes. So the data on this table come from a variety of different sources. We do projects that do comprehensive subsistence harvest surveys where we work with communities to document not just fish but all other resources.

And those, depending upon how they're funded, are happening now in some key locations. The data that you see from 2012 to 2014 come from an effort to survey a lot of communities in the Kotzebue region, and it was fish-specific. We do have plans. We are soft money funded, so again, funding can be an issue, but we have some research plans to potentially repeat that work with select communities if funded. But in the meantime, we are also currently working with— the National Park Service has funded some work where we're doing comprehensive surveys in Upper Kobuk River communities.

So those communities on the Upper Kobuk, sheefish are one of the species that we're asking about harvests and uses. Thank you. Let me follow up on that because I had a very similar question written down, and I was looking at slide 10 also and was wondering if there's any idea or any way to, you know, decide whether or not this is— this use is still consistent, and are we able to parse out any estimates of sheefish harvest from the data that you presented on slide 6.

Thank you, Madam Chair. You mentioned slide 6. I'll look at that as well so I can refer back. There you have 2011 through '23, which is a lot more recent, and so I'm just wondering if you're able to sort of parse out any estimates of sheefish usage that's more recent than 2014. So the reason that we presented the data, and I highlighted the 2012 through 2014 is because that was the most comprehensive set where we could see the variety of communities harvesting sheefish in that area.

But we do— I will actually go on the very last slide. This is a really big detailed graph, but we have a data set, the Community Subsistence Information System, where information that we collect from all of our projects— it's a repository that's publicly accessible. And so this information is comes from that system. And again, you see the 2012 through 2014, but also more recently in 2018 in Buckland, in 2021 in Cayena. We did do comprehensive surveys, so that we do have sheefish information from those surveys and select surveys we're conducting right now.

So we don't have that slide in our presentation, so if you would RC that, that would be helpful. Will do. Thank you, Mr. Wood. Thank you for your patience. Yeah, thank you.

On slide 9, you've got sheefish harvest by gear type, and it's Ambler, Cayana, Kobuk, Shungnak, they're all far upriver. Do you have anything similar to that just for the, say, Norvik, Selawik, Kotzebue area as well, to see how that compares? Because that seems to be where the biggest harvest is happening. Currently.

Through the chair, yes, thank you. And so the, the table that I have on that last slide that you don't have, but we will RC, that does also detail in table format. But the information here is the fish, number of fish, what that equates to in pounds, and then also that is broken down by gear type. So you can see for the different communities we have surveyed and we have sheefish information for that is divvied up by gear type in that table. Thank you.

Mr. Herman. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you very much for your presentation. Um, my question is, is rod and reel recognized as a subsistence gear type in this area, in this region? Um, through the chair, yes, it is.

And follow-up: and, um, so if it's recognized as subsistence gear, I'm wondering why is Do subsistence users have to abide by the sports bag limit when rod and reel fishing?

Through the chair, Madam Erwin, and for the record, my name is Alita Trainer. In prepping for this meeting, all department staff were looking into this question, and we went ahead and reviewed the audio from the 2016 AYK Board of Fisheries meeting when rod and reel was legalized, recognized as a legal subsistence gear type. And at that time, there was really robust discussion about the long-standing use pattern of that gear. No questions there. But there seems to be— there was a discussion between the regulatory specialist and a board member about whether the sport fish bag limit would apply since there was one in the area already.

And the answer was, yeah, it will. And we don't have any additional— I don't have any additional context for you as to why. It may have just been a housekeeping error. Guessing it may have something to do with enforcement. But, Ms. Irwin, thank you.

Just a follow-up is, if there was known confusion about that before this meeting, perhaps it wasn't in the available for on-time submittal of proposals. But if my assumption is that if the department would have known about this before, would they have put in a proposal to fix this housekeeping issue since it is a confusion on the books?

Through the Chair, it is something— it was a topic that came up kind of late in the preparation for this meeting. So that is why staff comments didn't reflect this issue or spend much time on it. It is just a fact right now that in the books, subsistence fishers do have to abide by bag and possession limits using rod and reel in open water. Okay, thank you. Any other questions?

Thank you for your presentation.

Thank you.

All right, welcome. Switching to Kuskokwim Area stock status now. Whenever you're ready, please put yourself on the record.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the board. I'm Sam Decker. I'm the Kuskokwim Area Fisheries Management Biologist, and with me is Alita Trainer, the Northern Region Program Manager. If you could Just get a little closer to the mic. That would be helpful.

Thank you. Thank you. So I will be providing an overview of the fishery and the salmon stock status with an emphasis on years since the last board cycle. I would also like to thank Shawn Larson and Madison Hardwig for their contributions to this report. This oral report can be found in RC3, tab 10, and the written report can be found in RC3, tab 3.

That one. Thank you.

Maybe. There we go. Okay. So first I will introduce you to this beautiful area with a brief fishery overview, and then I'll talk about salmon stocks and briefly cover this year's proposal. All right.

So Alida has introduced the Kuskokwim River and described the trends in run size and subsistence harvest. In accordance with the state subsistence priority, when conservation is warranted and the subsistence fishing opportunity is limited, sport and commercial fisheries are severely restricted or closed. On the Kuskokwim River, our management plan requires front-end closures to enhance escapement and provide people on the upper river with harvest opportunity. We also use time, area, and gear authority to protect salmon on the spawning grounds or to target healthy while minimizing harvest of other species. Okay, the management structure on the Kuskokwim River is a dynamic situation.

Since 2013, the Federal Subsistence Board has annually approved federal special actions which result in the US Fish and Wildlife Service managing the fisheries in waters adjacent to the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge. The US Fish and Wildlife Service has created a fisheries management partnership with the Kuskokwim River Intertribal Fish Commission. On the state side of fisheries management, we have the Kuskokwim River Salmon Management Working Group, which has 13 representatives from all over the river. They meet weekly during the salmon season to advise the state biologists on management decisions, and the Fish Commission also has one seat on that working group.

Here is the Kuskokwim Management Area in yellow.

In times of conservation, the department divides the Kuskokwim River into subsistence sections, which allow the managers to distribute harvest across the river equitably. Here we have the area affected by the federal special actions. This coincides with our department's subsistence sections 1 through 3. In recent years, when the federal special actions are in place, there is a federal court order which restrains the department from taking fisheries management actions within this FSA area. Alida previously described the concentration of harvest on the lower river, and as a result, the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service manages the majority of the Kuskokwim River harvest. The rest of the yellow areas are managed by the department. Let me see if I can get my mouse on there. There we go. Okay, so we've got the upper— the headwaters up here, which are Sections 4 and 5.

We have the coastal area and we have the Kuskokwim Bay, which includes the North Bay, which is the area here which was so recently devastated by the typhoon Halong, and then the South Bay area.

In order to understand the run size and timing to meet our obligation for sustainable management, We have assessment projects spread throughout the drainage. The Kuskokwim River sonar is a few miles upstream from Bethel. There's a test fishery in Aniak. There are weirs throughout the drainage. There's an in-season harvest monitoring through a creel survey at the Bethel Harbor.

We have an array of one-time aerial surveys and an extensive post- post-season subsistence salmon harvest survey through our subsistence division, which visits every community in the Kuskokwim Management Area. All of these projects contribute to the management decision-making. These projects involve partnerships with local tribal councils and other agencies. It's a massive effort every year, and the crews work very hard to manage operations under all kinds of challenges. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] After several years of studying feasibility, the CUSCO sonar began in 2018 with the long-term goal of improving salmon and whitefish species assessment on the Kuskokwim River.

Prior to the sonar, a test fishery was used. Both projects provided similar data for managers to consider while making in-season decisions. However, the sonar provides a more complete picture of run strength and timing. For in-season management, we use the sonar passage with in-season harvest estimates, Fisher reports, and the ANIAC test fishery. To understand stock status, we couple sonar passage with a post-season analysis of escapement and our subsistence harvest surveys.

So we evaluate our stock status from our ability to predict the run in season, meet our escapement goals, and provide for harvest. The following slides will contain a longer time series of data to demonstrate the run salmon strength trends. The star here indicates the 2025 data are preliminary. So in dark blue, you can see the king salmon passage. The sockeye salmon run is in pink.

You can see how strong that run is. In orange is our chum salmon passage. So we have noticed that the sonar consistently underestimates the chum salmon run, so we consider the chum salmon passage numbers to be an an index rather than an estimate. We are actively investigating how to improve this, and we have a telemetry project that will be starting next summer that's part of that effort. The Coho salmon are in the green bars, and you'll notice that we have an incomplete data set.

This was due to funding instability. However, in 2025, we have secured state funding to operate the sonar for an additional month going forward.

Here is our escapement goal performance. Each year, the department evaluates 9 escapement goals across the Kuskokwim River. Since 2019, the green blocks show 40 times when the escapement goals were achieved or exceeded, 3 times when the goals were not met, which is shown in red, and 20 times when the goals could not be assessed. So NS indicates no survey, which can mean the project wasn't funded, weather conditions prevented the project from operating, or the data didn't meet our criteria for quality. And Zach did a great job of describing more details about that earlier.

Here is the total run size of king salmon from 1990 to 2025. Each bar consists of escapement in green, subistence harvest in gold, and commercial and other harvests in the medium and dark blue. Just a reminder, the star indicates that 2025 data are still preliminary on this graph. The dashed line is the average from 1990 to 2024, and the solid lines represent the escapement goal range. Like other areas on the west coast of Alaska, the decline in total run is apparent.

The king salmon run size has been well below average but fairly consistent since 2015. I want to acknowledge that salmon declines have impacted not just the harvest numbers but the lifestyle, the cultural and social aspects of life in the region. With low runs comes more intensive management, which also creates a sense of food insecurity and competition, as was described earlier. I want to highlight the escapement goal was created in 2013, and with the exception of 2013, it has been achieved or exceeded year since it was established. It's also easy to see how long it has been since the commercial fishing industry has had a substantial harvest.

This figure highlights a portion of the previous graph. This is just the king salmon subsistence harvest estimates. This project just finished collecting data, therefore we don't have 2025 yet. Sections 1 through 3 harvest harvest is the blue portion of the bars, while the upper river sections 4 and 5 harvest are shown in orange.

It's clear that most fish harvested for subsistence are taken in the lower river, which is consistent with the information given earlier in previous reports. You'll see the same trend on following slides. While the amount necessary for subsistence was originally set in 2001, on these slides we see the most recent revision since 2013. You can also see that the harvest is well below the ANS range. This is due to the low run size and the harvest opportunity restrictions.

This is the chum salmon subsistence harvest. Again, 2025 data just finished, uh, being collected. In 2021 and 2022, there were very low chum runs across western Alaska, and on the Kuskokwim, our chum runs made a modest recovery in '23 and '24, as opposed to the Yukon. As previously shown, there is only one escapement goal for the chum salmon on the river. It was not assessed in '23 or '24, but it was achieved in 2025.

You can see that the recent harvest of chum salmon is well below the ANS range. 5 Out of 12 recent years have achieved ANS.

This data clearly demonstrates relates to low run strength and limited harvest opportunities in recent years.

Overall, sockeye salmon run sizes have remained healthy and have provided for sustainable harvest in recent years. However, fishing restrictions for other species have reduced subsistence opportunities for the sockeye run. As previously shown in slide 8, there's a single escapement goal for sockeye, and that has also been achieved or exceeded annually. Annually. On this slide, you can see that ANS has been met every year.

Finally, at the end of the summer, we have the Coho salmon run. 2022 Was a very low run size, but it has rebounded since then with nearly 400,000 fish past the sonar in 2023 and 2024. In slide 8, we saw that in 2025, the Gwethlyk weir was not funded and high waters prevented an accurate count of coho salmon at the Kugrugluk weir. Though this year, with almost 400,000 fish past the sonar, the escapement goals were likely achieved. ANS has been achieved 6 out of the last 10 years, and subsistence harvest of coho can depend on weather.

In 2022 and 2024, they were exceptionally stormy, uh, weather systems during the coho salmon season.

Now we're going to move down the coast to Kuskokwim Bay. The rivers within Kuskokwim Bay have historically had a variety of assessment projects similar to the mainstem river. However, recent funding shortfalls have resulted in run strength data coming only from local knowledge reports, aerial surveys, and post-season harvest surveys. Broadly speaking, these areas have seen some fluctuations in run size with similar declines lines in salmon runs as the rest of the Kuskokwim area.

The department has 8 escapement goals across Kuskokwim Bay. Since 2019, we have met or exceeded our goals 22 times. One time the run came in under our goal, and 33 times we have been unable to assess the escapement goals due to funding or weather.

Successful aerial surveys depend on airplane availability, safety, water clarity, and other factors. The biggest challenge to aerial surveys on the coast is the wind. On this table, you can see the effect of these difficulties on our ability to assess run strength through aerial surveys. While we didn't assess sockeye in 2025 due to high winds, recent assessments have indicated that they are abundant in the bay. For example, in 2024, in the Kenai River, we counted over 180,000 sockeye, which is 400% of our sustainable escapement goal for sockeye.

Due to the lack of funding, we have not been able to assess chum or coho returning to this area since the last board meeting.

Here we have the total salmon harvest in Kuskokwim Bay. While the in-river ANS is for individual species, the ANS for the Kuskokwim Bay is based on all species of salmon combined. King salmon harvest is in blue, chum salmon harvest are in orange, sockeye are in pink, and coho salmon are in green. Subsistence harvests have decreased in the last 10 years but have met or exceeded the amounts necessary for subsistence. Residents have also reported that harvests are good and fish are healthy looking.

In the Kuskokwim Bay, our management strategies have consisted of what is specified in the regulations. In District 4, in front of Quinnahock— that's the Kennechtok River— uh, during king salmon season from June 1 through July 15, fishing is open 6 days a week and closed on Sundays, and each boat may only have one net.

The last commercial opportunity was in 2021. Since then, there has been no processor, but there is local interest in having a sustainable commercial opportunity.

So that is the end of the stock status report for the Kuskokwim Management Area. The only proposal regarding subsistence and commercial fisheries in this board cycle is to add eel sticks as legal subsistence gear under 5 AAC 01270, lawful gear and gear specifications. We'll discuss this more later when we read in the proposals, but I want to take this opportunity to show a picture of a lamprey. And the fishing style. So lamprey are an ancient boneless fish that bend around the eel stick as it is swept through the water like a paddle.

The alternative gear is a small dip net similar to what's used for hooligans. There's no anticipated impact to the fishery by adding this gear to the regulations.

And I want to thank all of the agencies who work on the Kuskokwim River and provide the data with which we make our management decisions. Thank you to the board for your attention. Do you have any questions? Thank you. I've got a bunch.

Unless— Miss Irwin and then Mr. Carpenter. Yeah, thank you very much for your presentation. Um, looking at these different escapement goal performances, um, there's a lot more green than in, than in previous presentations. Um, I recognize that the Kuskokwim River is a very different river than the Yukon. There's a lot of different considerations and in management strategies and practices.

There's vast differences in habitat and length of river system. But is— what do you attribute the— in terms of management and what we have control over, what do you attribute to the Kuskokwim meeting or over-escaping in this, in this river system for the past couple of years as it kind of compares to the Yukon. Is there anything, any advice that the Kuskokwim management can give other regions that are having a hard time meeting their escapement goals?

Thank you for the question, Member Erwin. I think that the main reason why we aren't meeting escapement goals on other rivers is not due to the management. There's nothing more that can be done than be extremely conservative. The reason why fish are still doing well on the Kuskokwim, I think, has to do with the specific genetics and habitats that they're in. And I think that we have a suite of programs that are looking into investigating those reasons.

Mr. Carpenter, then Mr. Wood. Thank you, Madam Chair. So on page 10 or slide 10, where it talks about the Overall king salmon run totals.

So you got the total escapement there, which is, you know, within the SEG, and then you have the subsistence harvest that's pulled out. Does that subsistence harvest include the numbers that come out of the federally managed portion?

Thank you for the question. Yes. And so those have been included there in taken out of the actual escapement numbers themselves, total escapement. So state harvest, federal harvest has both been subtracted from the actual escapement.

Yes, so the escape— the subsistence harvest is shown in yellow. That is from the entire drainage wide, the collected from our subsistence divisions post- Post-Season Harvest Survey, where they visit every community and survey about 80% of fishing households. It's an extensive program. Um, the escapement data is produced from all of our projects, including those with research partners. Does that answer your question?

It does. I guess it's a little different because in a lot of places that we go, there's actually federal reporting required in certain federal subsistence fisheries, for example. And a lot of times that information is either hard to get or it's not completely backed off until a much later point in time. And so I was just curious, in this report, the, the total subsistence harvest is an accumulation of both the federal and the state in the, in the survey information. Is that correct?

Yes. Okay, thank you. Mr. Wood. Thank you. Slide 17, and kind of back to Member Erwin's questions about the Kuskokwim and how they differ from other areas in the state.

That slide 17 almost makes the sockeye in the Kuskokwim look like the Most Valuable Player award, like it's, it's helping out having a healthier fish population in the Kuskokwim. Are you Are they expanding their area through into the upper Kuskokwim as well, providing more opportunity for folks all the way up the river? Thank you for that question. Through the chair, yes, this last year we had reports from upriver of McGrath that they were seeing sockeye in their nets, and that's a new expansion for them. And these mostly river spawners, or are they in-river spawning, or they head trying to find lakes to spawn in predominantly.

Through the chair, we have both kinds of sockeye salmon on the Kuskokwim River, lake type and stream type. I believe our most common type is the lake type. Yeah, the lake type. Into the mic. Thank you.

Thank you. A couple of questions for you. Going back to slide 7, you mentioned with the aerial surveys that they were one-time aerial surveys, what is the timing of those surveys? Are they done near to each other? Do you space them out?

What does that look like? Madam Chair, those are one-time aerial surveys. We aim for peak spawning, which is between July 21st and August 5th, ranging through all of those rivers. We have slight variations in when the peak spawning windows are. But we start—.

Yeah, we start on July 21st up in McGrath, and we work on those uppermost rivers, the Salmon River, the Pitka Fork, and the Bear Creek. And then I work our way down, and a lot of that depends on weather. This year I spent 3 extra days weathered into McGrath with unflyable weather, and then another couple of days weathered in at Antioch. Okay, thank you. On the next page, you mentioned in your presentation that there was a difference between the index versus the estimate of the CHUM, specific I think to 2025, but you can correct me there.

What is the difference between an index and an estimate number?

Thank you for the question. Do you want to take that one? Okay. An index generally is lower quality data. So I'll turn it over to Zach for a better explanation.

Thanks, Sam. For the record, again, my name is Zach Liller, Regional Research Coordinator for Division of Commercial Fisheries. So basically what's going on here at the SONAR project is that there is indication that chum salmon migrate up the center of the— a portion of this chum salmon run migrate up the center of the Kuskokwim River beyond the portion of the river that is insonified by the sonar. So there is some, some portion of the run that goes uncounted as they move upriver, whereas all other species, they they tend to be more bank-oriented within that portion of the Cuscoquim, so they're all being counted through the sonar beam. So what we're trying to differentiate by index is that it is— we believe that the proportion of the run that we monitor each year is relatively consistent such that trends are reliable, but the absolute magnitude of the count is some— something less than than truth, where all the other species we think it's a reliable, accurate estimate.

[Speaker:COMMISSIONER ARKOOSH] Thank you for that explanation. That's helpful. On the following slide, 10— or I'm sorry, on slide 10, kind of back to touching again on some of Member Carpenter's questions, I'm looking at this, and this is actually quite, you know, a decent picture relatively speaking to what we usually where at least since 2015 it appears that the king salmon total run has, you know, exceeded the upper end of the SEG, definitely exceeded the lower end of the SEG. So my question is, given that, why hasn't there been any commercial opportunity allowed?

Thank you for the question, Madam Chair. During the times when the FSA is in place, the federal government does not have the ability, the authority to offer commercial opportunity, and the state is not in control of the fisheries in that area. But on your slide it says Kuskokwim River, that's a specific— the Fed has a— I'm assuming— what is FSA? The FSA is the Federal Special Action. Okay.

So how does that apply to the entire river? Or I guess the lower mouth of it in the marine area. Yeah. So the FSA covers the waters adjacent to the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, which is the lower section of the river. I have a slide where I can show that.

Yeah, I think I remember seeing that. Let me see. It was back at the beginning.

There it is. Yep. [Speaker:DR. LISA JAMES] So the lower area of the river is where the fish are most abundant before they start peeling off into separate tributaries for their spawning habitat. Traditionally, the commercial fishery has been in the lowest section of the river, which would correspond with Sections 1 and 2. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER ARKOOSH] Okay.

So there isn't any commercial harvest that happens in the marine environment, so in the bay? There has not been a buyer since 2021 in the Bay Area. Makes sense. But there is interest from the people in the community. There is interest in having a responsible commercial fishery in the Bay.

Thank you. I was kind of curious about that. And then kind of probably along those lines a little bit to slide 12 and sort of some of the subsequent ones. I mean, there's a pretty marked difference between subsistence harvest between Sections 1 through 3 and Sections 4 and 5. And my question is, is there— are there any goals or allocations that exist in reg between the lower and the upper river users?

Madam Chair, I'm not sure I understand the question. [Speaker:DR. LISA SMITH] So I'm looking at this and you have Sections 1 through 3 in blue. [Speaker:DR. JEAN GATZA] Yes. [Speaker:DR. LISA SMITH] And their harvest, subsistence harvest, and this is specific to chum salmon on this particular, but even in the prior slide, sort of this whole suite is similar for coho, chum, and king salmon. There's a significantly larger harvest of salmon in the lower sections.

Sections of the river, Sections 1 through 3 versus Section 4 and 5. Is that merely a function of population and that those upper river users may or may not require some of those larger numbers, or is it a, or is it a function of opportunity? Thank you, Madam Chair, for that clarification. I would say a big part of it is the distribution of the population of people that Alita described in her overview. So approximately 80% of the population of the river resides in Sections 1 through 3.

So we rely on the front-end closure, which is part of our regulation, to get fish up into Sections 4 and 5 enough to provide for harvest and for escapement. 80% Of the escapement area is in Sections 4 and 5 in the headwaters. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Thank you for that. Yes, Commissioner. I just want to do a follow-up on that one.

So population explains part of it, but a better index is, is the household— the number of king salmon harvested per household subsistence permit. And in the lower river, that's up to almost 11 or 12 king salmon per household permit. In state waters above there, we're now harvesting 1 to 2 king salmon salmon per household permit. So even though there's fewer people living up there, their opportunity to harvest king salmon is significantly constrained because they're being taken in the lower river. Again, as I said in my opening remarks, we would manage this a little differently to provide a more equal foundation in terms of opportunity to harvest king salmon.

Thank you for that. That's kind of getting exactly what my question was. And then I think my final questions relate to Just looking at the ANS ranges on in-river versus what you have depicted in slide 17 for total Kuskokwim Bay. And my question is, is that in, in-river, are there specific ANS ranges per species? And in the bay, is that an aggregate ANS?

So that's the distinction there? Madam Chair, that's correct. Okay, got it. All right, any other questions? Mr. Irwin?

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. One quick one, um, if you could go back to slide 10 for me, um, oh, maybe it's 9, that one. Yeah, thank you. Um, what year did, uh, the, um, did on the Kuskokwim River the, uh, Kuskokwim Intertribal Fish Commission get into a co-management agreement with the federal government and begin this salmon working group arrangement with the Alaska Board of— or with the department?

Yeah, there's, there's a variety of answers to that. Through the chair, Member Erwin. So the working group started in 1988. I am not sure when the Fish Commission first came into being.

2014. Was the co-management—. Was the first year of the Fish Commission? That would be a question for the federal government. Maybe Scott would have the answer to that.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

Mr. Ayres and then Commissioner. Go ahead. You want to defer? Commissioner? Sorry.

Thanks. I just— I just saw him light on first. Happy to defer to the commissioner if he'd like to speak. So we had a working relationship with the Kuskokwim River Working Group. That was what our relationship was in terms of managing that river.

The— that group is still kind of there, but it's really not functional in that section of federal jurisdiction. That's now the Intertribal Fish Commission that's doing that. We don't have a relationship with the Intertribal Fish Commission, nor the Office of Systems Management, the Federal Subsistence Board in managing— or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in managing that section of the river. As I said earlier, we're precluded by court order from issuing any order that's different than what they have.

So there is really no relationship there. We—. But I will say we provide nearly 95% of the data that's used to manage that portion of the river.

Mr. Carpenter, trying not to be deliberative here, but to, to something that you said, Commissioner, So this court order, I mean, it's obviously hamstrung the department's ability to provide subsistence opportunity in those upper sections specific to— in regards to king salmon, because most of the harvest is taking place in the lower sections of the river. And so there's— and what I'm hearing is there's no cooperative agreement from the federal government at all that takes that into account to provide harvest in those upper regions?

You kind of summed it up.

Mr. Wood. Okay, and I guess along those same lines, is there any ability for the state to do— have enforcement in that lower river currently, or how are the federal Feds enforcing the regs? Through the chair, thank you, Member Wood. The federal government is in charge of enforcement of their regulations when the FSA is in place.

All right. Yeah. Mr. Pappas and then Mr. Chamberlain. Thank you, Madam Chair. Earlier in the discussion, we were talking about harvest per household For this particular situation in the low numbers of fish, it might be best to discuss harvest per capita instead of household.

We're past that part of the discussion. We can talk about that later in the sidebar or later on. I can reach more information, but I was—. My staff wanted to bring that up. If you have any more questions about that, we can expand upon it.

It's up to you. We might be past that point. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Chamberlain. And just for a point of clarification for the department, while the So I'm forgetting the acronym.

While the federal management order was in place, the department still maintained control over the river above Antioch and was able to keep— under my understanding, was able to keep fishing open for a large portion of the time in recent years, correct? We're trying our best to provide for that equal opportunity above the federal area of federal jurisdiction. Thank you, Commissioner. Okay. All right.

Well, thank you for your presentation. Let's go ahead and take about a 20-25 minute break and come back on the record about 3:15, 3:20.

All right. Welcome back, everyone.

Go ahead and settle the conversations, please. I'll use my afternoon teaching voice. Just kidding.

Time is 3:24. We're back on the record and we're going to continue on with staff reports. Next up is a subsistence overview of the Kuskokwim River and we'll push through until about 5-ish and see how close we get and make a decision whether or not we pause or keep going for a little bit to try and wrap up the staff reports today. There's been quite a few but they've been very informative. So whenever you're ready, please put yourself on the record.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and board members. For the record, my name is Tim Benbenek, and I'm the lead subsistence research specialist for the Kuskokwim River Region with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game Division of Subsistence. I'm joined here by Alita Trainer, the Northern Region program manager with the Division of Subsistence, as well as Sam Decker, the Kuskokwim Management Biologist. This presentation provides information about subsistence harvest and use patterns in the Kuskokwim River drainage. This presentation can be found in RC3 Oral Reports, Tab 11.

The department conducts postseason salmon surveys with households in 28 communities in the Kuskokwim drainage each year. Sam described the districts used by management staff. However, data from this annual harvest survey project are organized by 4 sections of river as understood by local residents: the South Kuskokwim Bay, the lower, middle, and upper Kuskokwim River subregions. Now let's take a closer look at each of these sections.

Beginning in the lowest portion of the Kuskokwim Management Area, also known as the KMA, The South Kuskokwim Bay subregion extends from Cape Newenham to the mouth of the Kuskokwim River. It contains 3 communities with Quinhawk serving as the hub community.

The Lower River subregion extends from the mouth up to the community of Tuliksak with Bethel serving as the local hub community.

The Middle River subregion includes lower and upper Kalskag Aaniak, and Chuwatpuluk, with Aaniak serving as the local hub community.

And finally, the Upper Kuskokwim includes all communities from Crooked Creek upstream to Nikolai and the South Fork Kuskokwim River, with McGrath serving as the local hub community. There are a number of regional differences in the subsistence salmon fishery that distinguish these four sections of river. Approximately 15,200 people live within the Kuskokwim Kuskokwim drainage. There are about 1,800 fishing households active each summer in the four river sections. I'll discuss these differences more in the next slides.

Now that we have a little orientation to the four distinct regions of the Kuskokwim, I'd like to provide a brief depiction of salmon harvest declines throughout the region. On this slide, we see total subsistence salmon harvest by species. Species. The overall decline in salmon harvest is driven by declining king and chum salmon, as shown in yellow and green respectively. However, coho harvests, which are shown in blue, are experiencing a declining trend as well.

Sockeye harvests, represented in orange, have remained relatively stable over time. Kuskokwim fishers do not harvest large numbers of pink salmon when compared to the other 4 species of On the next several slides, I'll provide some general characterizations of South Kuskokwim Bay, the lower, middle, and upper portions of the river to describe the nuanced community responses to declining salmon abundance on the Kuskokwim.

7% Of the population, or about 1,000 people, reside in the 3 communities of South Kuskokwim Bay, including the hub center of Quinhahock where about 680 people live. There are roughly 160 fishing households in the subregion that harvest on average about 8% of the total annual KMA salmon catch. The communities of the South Kuskokwim Bay subregion are situated along the coast and not located on the Kuskokwim River mainstem. Most subsistence salmon fishing for all species occurs either in the open ocean, within the Kaniktok and Good News River drainages, or at the river confluences. Fishers in this subregion mostly utilize drift gillnets, setnets, and rod and reel to harvest salmon.

82% Of the population resides in the 13 communities of the lower Kuskokwim subregion, including Bethel, where about 5,800 people live. There are roughly, roughly 1,500 fishing households in the lower river that harvest about 83% of the total annual annual salmon subsistence catch. The lower Kuskokwim is a broad, low-gradient, tidally influenced river that flows across the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta floodplain. This area represents the widest stretch of the Kuskokwim River with multiple channels and sandbars, and it contains many good places to fish with drift gillnets up to 300 feet long. Set gillnets are also easily deployed in the lower river subregion as well.

Each season, fishers here have the greatest opportunity to harvest all species of salmon when the fish are at their highest abundance as they enter the river from the sea. Notably, this area is under federal management and the state is precluded by court order from managing it.

7% Of the Drenge's population lives in the Middle River, including the hub community of Antioch. About 167 Middle River fishing households harvest on average 6% of all subsistence salmon in the Kuskokwim each year. The middle Kuskokwim is narrower with fewer channels. Fishers can use setnets and drift nets. However, there are fewer good setnet sites.

Drift nets are not usually more than 150 feet long and often shorter. Fish wheels are deployed in the middle river and are usually shared by several households or a community. Many fishers use rod and reel to harvest coho late late in the season. Abundance of some species is lower here than further downriver.

Approximately 5% of the drainage-wide population resides in the 8 upper river communities. The hub for this section of the river is McGrath, with a population of about 300. Here, 115 fishing households catch about 2% of all KMA salmon harvest. In the upper Kuskokwim, fishers primarily use set nets to catch available species of salmon. The channels can be narrow and often have too many large snags for drift nets.

Fish wheels are also used by communities in this section, and people commonly fish with rod and reel gear as well. This region has the fewest species available to them for harvest, and sockeye are available for harvest about upstream of Stony River drainage, and recently more subsistence fishers are reporting the presence of sockeye as far upstream as McGrath, as mentioned by Sam. Above that point, in the three uppermost communities of McGrath, Tokutna, and Nikolai, fishers rely mainly on king and coho salmon for their food. The following slide will provide additional information about subsistence harvests in each of these river sections.

Next, I'd like to discuss the composition of wild wild food harvests with a focus on salmon within the three subregions of the mainstem of the Kuskokwim River. We'll begin in the lower river subregion. The pie chart on the left represents the composition of average community harvests of wild foods for lower Kuskokwim communities between 2011 and 2023. During this time, the average community harvest of all wild foods was 304,582,000 pounds in the lower river. Salmon species, shown in the colored slices, accounted for about 41% of the total wild food harvest.

All other wild foods, including moose, caribou, birds, non-salmon species, and vegetation made up the rest, or about 59%, as shown in gray. The pie on the right side of the slide shows the composition of average community harvest of wild foods in 2024, again with salmon in the colored slices and all other wild food shown in gray. If we assume that the average community wild food harvest by weight was equal between both time periods, we see a slight 3% percentage increase in salmon harvest. This indicates that the lower Kuskwim River in 2024— yeah. A slightly higher proportion of the wild foods harvested consists of salmon compared to the earlier time period.

In the next two slides, I present examples of middle and upper river communities where salmon harvests have decreased. These regional differences are examples that highlight the point Alita made in her overview presentation. That is, changes to salmon abundance are experienced differently across regions.

In the Middle River on the left-hand side, between 1995 and 2010, there was an average total community harvest of 50,893 pounds, with 62% of that coming from salmon, as seen in the colored slides— or slices, pardon me. On the right, the pie shows the salmon harvest in 2024, which comprised only 37% of the community harvest, or 19,080 pounds. If we assume the average community wild food harvest weight was equal between both time periods, we see a 40% reduction in average salmon harvest by weight, resulting in a gap in the wild food that would usually be harvested by Middle River communities. The white slice on the right represents this gap from the salmon that were not harvested in 2024. Or roughly 25% of the average community harvest.

To compensate for this loss, communities have had to fill the gap by substituting other resources like moose, non-salmon fish, or store-bought food. Or alternatively, community members may eat or use less.

Lastly, in the upper river region, between 2011 and 2023, We see on the left-hand pie shows the total wild food harvest was 50,351 pounds, and 26% of that was salmon. On the right, the colored slices of the pie show the salmon harvest in 2024, which comprised only 15% of the average community harvest, or 7,228 pounds. If we again assume the average community wild food harvest weight was equal between both time periods, we see a 44% reduction in the average salmon harvest by weight. This creates a gap of 11% in the wild food that would usually be harvested by upper Kuskokwim communities. Again, to compensate for this loss, the communities have had to fill the gap by substituting resources other than salmon, such as moose, non-salmon fish, donated food, or store-bought food.

Or alternatively, community members may eat or use less. The upper river subregion has fewer available and less abundant salmon species, as well as a diverse resource base when compared to the lower river subregion due to its geographical location. This creates a situation where salmon declines, even moderate ones, result in swift and significant impacts to upper river communities. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Next, I'd like to share results from a recent ethnographic study. We work closely with the communities of Napakiak, Nunapachuk, Kesigluk, and Eek to document traditional salmon fishing practices in the lower Kuskokwim and how these patterns are changing in light of salmon declines, as well as the increasing need to address conservation concerns through management actions.

The study results indicate that the necessary conservation measure— measures taken to protect king salmon have resulted in changes to the lower river fishers' traditional fishing timing, their decision to fish from camp or from their community, and their ability to transfer knowledge to younger generations because of shifts away from the use of fish camps. Additionally, respondents reported that conservation measures particularly reductions in fishing time, have had the unintended consequence of making fishing from traditional campsites infeasible for economic reasons and concentrating fishing effort within the mouths of the lower river tributaries, which leading to increased fisher concentrations, resulting in heightened competition. In addition, area and gear restrictions have added financial stress in the form of equipment and fuel costs for the fishers, further compounding the stressors experienced by the communities.

This study is one of the first to document combat fishing conditions on the mainstem of the Kuskokwim River within the mouth of the Johnson River and inside Payette Slough. We were able to use kernel density modeling, which is a statistical expansion of spatial data to reflect the fishing intensity of all KMA fishers in the lower river. Fisher density before 2012 is shown on the left and post-2012 is on the right, when more frequent subsistence closures began occurring for conservation reasons. There are 3 colors associated with each figure, with green representing low densities of salmon fishing activity, yellow indicating medium fishing densities, and red depicting high densities of fishing activity. As you can see, subsistence salmon fishing densities were more spread out throughout the lower Kuskokwim River subregion prior to 2012 and became more concentrated following salmon stock declines and the corresponding conservation efforts.

Combat fishing is a term typically used to describe crowded sport, commercial, or personal use fishing conditions, but respondents in this study applied the term to describe similar conditions in the subistence salmon fishery. According to respondents in this study, combat fishing results from a high number of subsistence harvesters targeting salmon in a small area, thus crowding the water and aggressive competition for prime fishing spots. Respondents in all 4 communities reported that this new fishing pattern is a result of limited and infrequent fishing opportunities on the Kuskokwim River. Conservation concerns have resulted in management measures that delay season openings and employ an opening schedule where only discrete windows of fishing— salmon fishing are permitted. This has caused fishers to face uncertainty as to whether they would have the opportunity to fish or be able to fish in ideal conditions.

Respondents reported needing to take advantage of each opportunity to maximize their salmon harvest. This shifted fishers out of their traditional fishing areas and concentrated them more heavily in productive sites in the lower river where salmon are typically more abundant. This shift both increases fisher efficiency during limited openers but also creates a competitive fishing environment uncharacteristic of subsistence fisheries.

In conclusion, the Kuskwim River contains 4 distinct subregions The lower river contains approximately 82% of the households and harvests the majority of the total salmon subsistence harvest from the mainstem river. The total drainage-wide estimated subsistence harvests of king, chum, and coho salmon are all experiencing declining harvest trends. The contribution of salmon to the total composition of wild foods varies by subregion. The lower Kuskokwim River subregion reported the least amount of change, drainage, and the upper river subregion reported experiencing the most drastic shifts in recent years. Lastly, fishing patterns throughout the Kuskwim drainage are changing rapidly, where management changes to timing and location resulted in changing— changes to preservation methods, shifts away from the use of fish camps, and increased competition between fishers for productive fishing locations.

And finally, we would like to express our gratitude to all the Kuskokwim area residents that have participated in our research projects. This includes Tribal Council office staff, local research assistants, and the hundreds of households we contact each year throughout the Kuskokwim Management Area. Thank you all for your collaboration, sharing your keen knowledge of the Kuskokwim subsistence salmon fishery with us. And with that, I would be happy to field any questions for you at this time. Thank you.

Thanks. Board questions? Mr. Carpenter. Thank you. Thanks for the presentation.

So I'm trying to wrap my head around what combat fishing is like on the Kuskokwim, because I mean, I know what combat fishing is, and so it's probably a little bit different than what I'm used to. But I was— while you were talking, I was thinking about a slide I saw presentation just before this one, where it kind of overlaid the federal corridor that's being managed on this river system. And then when I look at the slide that you just presented in regards to this, you know, I guess migration to certain parts of the river, where I guess you're talking about this combat activity, the federal So the federal area includes most of the lower three sections of the river. So I guess my question is, is if that's the case, why is there this migration to a very narrow part of the river where traditionally these people that fish up there have utilized a much bigger area? It just doesn't seem Something's not kind of sitting right with me.

So if you could maybe touch on that. Through the chair, I'll take this one. For the record, my name is Alita Trainer and I was the principal investigator on this project. There's a couple of things going on and I'd really like the chance to explain these maps a little bit more. First, we did conduct ethnographic interviews with respondents in 4 4 communities, those of the lower river.

Those respondents spoke to the window schedule, which predated federal special action, uh, being the reason why they were feeling increased, um, competition and pressure to harvest quickly and efficiently in this area. But what you see depicted on this map actually, like Tim mentioned, comes from kernel density modeling which draws from all of the post-season salmon harvest surveys we conduct throughout the entire KMA. That's over 1,000 surveys that we gather annually. And on those surveys, we ask respondents to indicate where they harvest. So it's a combination of things.

We're actually able to use the responses on those surveys to expand spatially the fishing pressure occurring in the lower river. And so we do see an increase in concentrated fishing in this lower portion, specifically around the Johnson River.

This study did not specifically ask about federal special action or the response to that management system. However, we did hear a lot of our respondents spoke— actually, all the respondents spoke to the changes in their fishing patterns that were occurring because of a window schedule. I would also note that this area is just— it's more abundant. There's more abundant species. You have access to all the species there.

And when there's less time to fish, defining characteristic of subsistence economies is efficiency. So you want to go to the place that has the best chance of catching the most fish in the least amount of time. A quick follow-up. Thank you for that answer. I guess what I'm trying to get at also is the low— the access to the lower river, which certain communities have always utilized, is not gone now.

And when I hear that fish camps, you know, we're just talking about this particular area, aren't being utilized the same way that they were, say, even 10 years ago, is that because these fish camps are not located in the lower parts parts of the, of the three sections. Is that why they're not going? Because if they are still there and they do have access to fish under this federal regime, why aren't they utilizing it? Through the chair, that's a great question, and we have been hearing quite a bit about that. It's nuanced, but in a nutshell, what I'd say is that fishing from camp is— when, when fishing was wide open, It made a lot of sense to go back to your campsite, bring your whole family, bring the supplies you needed to stay for a week, 10 days, 2 weeks.

That became less efficient as a window schedule for conservation purposes was put in place because your fishing effort was disrupted or interrupted. And so many fishers would have to spend, or families would have to spend longer periods of time at camp to get the same amount of fish they were accustomed to. Which ultimately wasn't cost-effective if you have to take time off work or bring, you know, groceries with you to stay for that long of a time. So that's why there are still camps in the lower river. They're just not being utilized in the same way.

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Swenson, and then Mr. Chamberlain. Wouldn't you say that the major issue is fuel, cost of fuel?

Through the chair, certainly the cost of fuel is a huge consideration, and impacts that efficiency that I spoke to. Mr. Chamberlain. Thank you, Madam Chair. And so this being my backyard growing up, one of the limitations for fish camps, a lot of people, ANC member, village corporation members are limited to the surface area of their village corporations for fish camps where, as most of the delta is kind of centered or migrated into the Bethel area and you're experiencing more centric version of the population where the, by nature, fish camps when you're limited to your village corporation area would be more spread out. Would that also account for the increase density near just downriver of Bethel.

Yes.

Mr. Irwin. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Benbenek, thank you for your presentation. And Alita, I really appreciate the regional differences that you guys broke down and how you had the percentage of the population that was within that region versus the entire river. As well as how many households and the percentage.

That was really helpful for me to visualize how much fish is being taken from each of these fisheries. So thank you for that part of your presentation. And my question is with regards to starting on page 12, the composition of wild food harvest. I'm sure that this is somewhere in a longer report within my RC binder, but could you give me an idea of access to grocery stores or processed, I guess, non-wild foods? With these communities.

I recognize a lot are not on the road system, so what does that access look like to, to a grocery store for these residents?

Through the chair, Member Irwin. You got my name correct, thank you. Yeah, most of these communities do have grocery stores, although there are flight services and air services that are impeded by weather. There are delays. There are times when there isn't well-stocked groceries in these communities.

And wild foods are an important cultural component as well in these communities. So it's a holistic, bigger picture look at obtaining food and wild resources.

Thank you for that answer. My other question is these— this gray box, the other wild resources. I see that you guys have kind of mirrored the reliance from the prior years to 2024.

You're not—. You guys don't work for the Department of Game, so I'm not going to ask you specifically, but in general, how are folks in these areas is there reliance on these other wild resources? Are they able to switch this reliance to other resources, or are those resources also experiencing declines?

Through the Chair, Member Erwin, the reason why we've shown the difference in white is because without the ability to conduct annual comprehensive subsistence surveys in all of these communities, we're not able to answer that question with any certainty. Certainty. We just know that there is now a gap.

Follow up on these charts. So why did you select 2024 to segregate?

Could you repeat that question? I didn't hear you. Why with these pie charts did you select the year 2024 to segregate from the other data?

Madam Chair, we chose 2024 because it's our most recent salmon harvest data that we have for the Kuskokwim. Yeah, I'm just— I'm curious how apples to apples that is. If you have years prior to 2024, like near-term years prior to 2024, like 2022, '23, '21, whatever, that also experienced declines. And sort of to dovetail off of that, on slide 13, when you're talking about the Middle River communities, you use a 5-year period, '95 to— or I'm sorry, 15-year period from '95 to 2010, which is different than the other time periods. So I'm just trying to figure out like, what does that mean?

Sure. We chose 1995 to 2010 because those are years where we have— well, two, two reasons why. It's a period of time that was not under or experiencing severe declines in abundance. And it's also a time period where we had a lot of comprehensive survey work work due to the Donnelly Creek mine, we were able to get to, I believe, 28 communities and conduct comprehensive subsistence surveys. And so that, that allowed us to create a pretty reliable estimate of this relative contribution of wild resources in each section of the river.

And then 20— because we don't have similar comprehensive survey data, we wanted to use our most recent salmon data from the postseason survey on the right.

Thanks. And then I guess to kind of hearken back to some of the questions that Member Carpenter was getting at, and you just used the words, I think, severe declines or something very similar. I'm not, I'm not seeing that represented in the numbers. So I'm looking at, for example, slide 7, and I see declines since about the year 2012. And I'm going to ask a question about specifically the window management.

But, you know, in the previous— in the previous presentation, there was certainly declines related to chum, but in terms of salmon harvestability, there's increased sockeye availability. We've mentioned that they're meeting the, the king escapement goals. So I just— I'm failing to understand why there is this window concentration. I feel like I'm missing something here, and I don't know if you can read my mind, but I'm struggling. I'm struggling with this a little bit.

And what is the difference? A significant management difference pre-2012, is that— were there window— when did these windows that seem to be affecting everything go into place? Was that in 2012? Yes.

But if you're managing for windows and there's still abundance— you were going to say something, go ahead. Sure, I'm going to take a stab at reading your mind and you just tell me if I'm wrong, okay? Okay. And I'll rely on Sam feel free to jump in on this at all. Windows aren't— the department doesn't consider windows a restriction.

They're a conservation tool. We're allowing harvesters to take equitable bites out of the run as it comes in so we don't overharvest on any one part of the run, right? Subsistence users some often experience that differently and it does feel like a restriction to them. So it was, it was a change, a notable change in the way we manage. What we see on slide 7, this total subsistence harvest by species, is— I want to just emphasize that this is total harvest across the whole drainage.

When we look at those pies, we're looking at the regional patterns. I don't want to get hung up on the percentages that are represented in those pies. You were cluing in on these— the different time frames. But these— those pies represent patterns of harvest that are unique to each region of the river. So the way that decline— a decline in abundance is experienced in each region is quite different.

So we actually saw in the lower river, well, okay, salmon abundance is declining but their harvest went up. In the other regions, that's not the case.

Does that help? It does, but it doesn't really explain why you're seeing that concentration of activity in those areas. And that's the part that I'm trying to wrap my head around a little bit. It makes no sense to me that people are concentrating based on management practices.

But perhaps you're not talking about management practices. Maybe you're talking about fishing practices, and maybe that's what I'm failing to understand. What are the changes in the fishing practices, and why would they concentrate there other than something like fuel costs, or, you know, I'm trying to get at that, because if it's not an abundance issue necessarily, presumably entirely, then what is it?

Maybe I can ask a question here. So maybe to our manager down there. So nothing is in the lower river is closed. There's windows. So in essence, the opportunity is kind of being self-directed by the users for other factors because we don't have those waters closed.

The windows are open. Pretty much that whole area. So you could choose to go to an area that's less crowded. You're just going to that area because I'm guessing fishing is better or the cost of fuel is lower to get to that area. But nothing is closed that ends up having that area.

Am I correct?

We're going to double team this one.

Thank you, sir. The chair—. The maps that we showed in those particular study years were years when the federal special action was in place. And I double-checked and prepped for this meeting— they did offer drifting. I think it's important to remember the type of gear that's being allowed.

And that's— that there were no drifting opportunities in those years under statement in state waters. So that could have also contributed to the desire to travel downriver where fishing is more efficient. You can use a drift net where they had, you know, typically used that gear elsewhere in the drainage. Okay, all right. Well, my only, my only thought is that, you know, lower river, the fish come in there first.

So a lot of the people, they're going to get down there and get their first bite of the apple. As they go on upstream, more of them are caught downstream. So that is also, it seemed to me, to be a pretty simple One of the simple reasons that they're moving that way, isn't that correct?

For the record, this is Sam Decker. I want to add a couple of things.

Is the commissioner still there? Okay. So in talking about the windows, I want to point out that upstream of Antioch in the state water sections 4 and 5, When you remember those blue and orange bars, those orange bars up in the state waters, fishing was open 24/7 after that front-end closure. So when we're talking about windows, we're talking about the, the federal section where fishing was closed for the species that they had concerns over, which were king salmon, chum salmon, and coho salmon. And then they issued these small windows to open the fisheries.

To Alita's point of concentrations being caused by the, um, issue with folks not opening up their fish camps, because the population concentration is in Bethel, when fish camps aren't opened, people are doing day trips from Bethel. And so yes, fuel is a cost. The cost of fuel is a factor in their decision of how far they can go from Bethel, but they're bringing the fish back to Bethel to do the processing in— at their homes with running water and all of those conveniences, rather than taking them to their fish camps. And so the— by not opening their fish camps, it is— it— there is a concentration of harvesting around this day trip travel zone from Bethel. So that is a conscious decision by the individual user, not that's anything that is a consequence necessarily of lack of opportunity or lack of abundance.

That is a choice. It's a choice based on many different factors. Okay. All right. Last question.

Go ahead. All right. So, I'll try to keep it light then. The— so all this food are the fish that are taken, is strictly for human consumption, or could it potentially be for dog— or is there dog food added to that as well? Seeing as how Bethel is such a hub of really good dog mushing still, it seems—.

Are they—. Is this still a source of food for these dog teams that are excelling, I might add, in that area?

Yes, for those households that do still maintain dog teams, some of them do harvest fish to feed their dogs. And that is counted in our household surveys for us as a subsistence use. Thank you. Okay, thank you. I think we've beaten this dog.

Um, thank you, appreciate your presentation. It's very interesting. I appreciated the discussion. All right, moving on to Yukon River.

Okay, let's go ahead and hear about the Yukon River Salmon Agreement. Ms. Evanson, welcome back. Good to see you. Thank you, Madam Chair, and good afternoon, members of the board. For the record, my name is Dani Evanson.

I'm an extended jurisdiction program manager for the Division of Commercial Fisheries. All this to say, I handle a lot of things that hit us from outside the state, the treaty being one of them. This is your Pacific Salmon Treaty Yukon River Salmon Agreement overview. It can be found in RC3, tab 12. And we're going to take a step back from all that research and management and hopefully all the controversy.

We're going to not have any data in this presentation. We're going to talk about the really riveting stuff, policy.

Well, back in January at the Southeast Alaska Finfish Board of Fish meeting in Ketchikan, we— I was here providing a presentation on the Pacific Salmon Treaty. We did a deep dive into chapters 1, 2, and 3, which go as far north as east of Cape Suckling. And now we're going to talk about chapter 8, the Yukon River Salmon Agreement. To make this easy on folks, I used a similar framework. We're going to do a treaty overview, talk about decision-making authorities, the treaty role in our fisheries treaties here in Alaska, obligations under the Yukon River Salmon Act and Salmon Agreement and the Salmon Act.

Both are YRSA's. And we'll talk about the most recent 7-year agreement between Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The Yukon component of the treaty is very different than down south, so along the way, I am hoping to show some of the nuances between the two in the way the authorities, the decision-making authorities go in the rules. Okay.

This should look familiar. Why do we have a treaty? I always start here. The U.S. and Canada entered into the treaty to conserve Pacific salmon in order to achieve optimum production. And secondly, to divide the harvest so that each country reaps the benefits of its investment in salmon management.

More simply put, it's to share the burden of conservation and the available catch. I like to think of the treaty as essentially one large mechanism to manage interceptions between the U.S. and Canada and rebuild runs, but it could also be said that the treaty is this one large umbrella to have bilateral coordination and collaboration of our shared resource. So it is a treaty between the United States and Canada, and that being as such, it's the highest law of the land and supersedes other authorities, including some of our domestic authorities. For example, the board and the department have limited authority over establishment of of escapement goals for covered stocks. This said, we retain authorities over some issues such as domestic allocations, but even in these cases, sometimes the treaty has oversight.

Okay.

All right. Oops, went too far.

Okay, again, I put this in as an example of why we have a treaty. Obviously, the Yukon originates in Canada, and one-third of the drainage of the Urso is about in Yukon Territory in northern British Columbia. 58% Of our Chinook salmon are of U.S. origin. So the remaining 42% come from Canada, and 25% of the fall chum are Canadian origin. So they do migrate through our waters, and it is a shared stock of shared— of mutual interest.

Wrong way.

All right. So there's a lot of upfront language in the treaty that applies to all chapters of the treaty, including the Yukon. And treaty principles, for example, which are conservation and sustained yield, preventing overfishing, providing for optimum production, fair sharing, which we call the equity principle, avoiding undue disruption of existing fisheries, and reducing interceptions. This holds true across all the chapters.

The treaty in and of itself The ANIF does not expire, but 7 of the 8 chapters do. Um, and they expire on 10-year horizons, uh, and get renegotiated. We're starting that process to update those chapters, uh, for, uh, Chapters 1 through 7. Chapter 8, however, the Yukon is different. Uh, it can only be renegotiated upon consensus the parties.

And unlike the other regional panels and committees established under the Pacific Salmon Treaty, the Yukon Panel follows its own internal procedures and does not report into the Pacific Salmon Commission, which is the body formed down south by the U.S. and Canadian governments to implement the treaty. So they really are a standalone. So they don't report into Doug as the commissioner in the Salmon Commission, although they do report into him as the Commissioner of Fish and Game.

Interestingly, the treaty proper was signed in 1985. The Yukon chapter didn't come about until 2002, but even in that original signing of the treaty, the parties had contemplated included adding the Yukon. And Article 8 of that chapter— of that— sorry, of the treaty proper contemplated having a Yukon— some sort of Yukon agreement to ensure conservation, to develop collaborative research, to track escapements and harvests, and also to identify enhancement opportunities. Treaties. So in 2002, we have the Yukon River Salmon Agreement becomes Chapter 8 of the treaty.

It is— reflects an international commitment to the restoration, the conservation, and the management of salmon. It established the Yukon River Panel as the advisory body to the management entities. It's a 12-person body. We have 6 panel members, each from the U.S. and from Canada, and they represent the interests of Yukon River fisheries, First Nations tribal councils, fishery managers, and others who depend upon salmon for subsistence, cultural, commercial, or recreational purposes, as well as one seat from the federal government and one seat from the state of Alaska.

And among other things, the Yukon River Salmon Agreement established a bilateral restoration and enhancement fund to support projects. I mention this because it really forms the backbone of bilateral coordination and collaboration and bilateral agreements, similar to what down south, the sockeye enhancement program on the Taku and Stikine do. Without that, you wouldn't see the level of agreement.

See, isn't this much more fun than data?

Now into the Yukon River Salmon Act. This is also abbreviated YRSA, so for this I'll call it the Act, and I'll I'll try and call the Yukon River Salmon Agreement the agreement or treaty so that we don't confuse the two. This is the Congressional Act that sets forth the U.S. rules of engagement. It establishes the panel, the alternates and advisors to the panel, and it defines the representation, the appointment process, compensation, and the function, roles, and responsibilities. In there, it also has authority and responsibility.

And unlike the remainder of the treaty, that authority rests with the State of Alaska Department of Fish and Game. We are the responsible management entity for the U.S. for the purposes of any agreement with Canada regarding management of salmon stocks originating from the Yukon River Canada. And this is important for when I get down to the 7-year agreement, which I know there's a lot of questions on. Okay.

Decision-making authorities.

So similar to down south, consensus of the U.S. is required to take a position to Canada. And just like down south, the federal government seat does not get a vote. So it's consensus of all non-federal entities, so 5 of the 6 seats. In practice, we do look around the whole table to make sure everybody's on board, including the alternates. And then it requires consensus of U.S. and Canada to recommend an action.

Again, authority for U.S. decision-making is vested with ADF&G, with the panel serving in an advisory role. So the signatory countries in the agreement are expected to manage for bilaterally agreed-to objectives using existing authorities or their designated management entities. So as the designated management entity for Alaska, fisheries management under this agreement is facilitated through the regulatory authorities and responsibilities of ADF&G. And when there's bilateral consensus on fisheries management objectives, guidelines, or principles, then Fish and Game And the board are expected to act on their respective authorities to try to achieve them. Okay.

Similar to the presentation I gave down south, we have— I just put together a schematic of what the U.S. delegation looks like. To the Yukon River Panel and its bodies. We have 12 panel members and we have— sorry, 6 panel members and 6 alternates. I do note there are several vacancies there. We have a vacant federal seat and a vacant alternate federal seat.

Those were casualties of the recent rift. We also have a vacant panel member seat. And so this will be a shameless plea. If anybody's interested, come find me afterwards. Thank you for indulging me.

And then we have advisors. Those are all pending because they're 2-year appointments. Also only have 4 applications for those, looking for more. You'll see on the screen they're divided between Upper River and Lower River. The Yukon River Salmon Act isn't prescriptive on that, but we like to see representation of interests across the board in these processes.

And then there's a technical committee that assembles, collates the data to make the decisions and has a number of tasks that are outlined in the treaty. More recently, there is a communications Committee and a Traditional Knowledge Committee. So because of its importance to the culture and the economy of the region, we are heavily invested here. It is a 34-person delegation with 20 stakeholders, 9 ADF&G staff, 5 federal staff, and lots more in the support staff category. The other thing I want to note here is that the panel last year created or earmarked reserved certain advisor seats to encourage getting youth engaged and involved in this process in honor of Mary Peete and her legacy for advocating for subsistence and mentoring young people to do the same.

All right. So the scope of the chapter is salmon that originate in the Canadian portion of the Yukon River. Oversight is the Yukon Panel established for salmon originating in the Yukon River and The species are Chinook and Fall Chum predominantly, although the chapter mentions Coho, and it can include porcupine Coho if at some point in time there are sufficient data available to do so. Coho are tricky to get good data on, particularly because they're fall migrators and you're that far in the north, and they're under-the-ice swimmers. Again, just like everywhere else, implementation requires a lot of intensive bilateral cooperation and coordination.

You really can't overestimate the amount of time it takes. The parties have as their principal goal, per treaty language, to rebuild and conserve Canadian-origin salmon stocks and provide benefits to the fisheries of both countries on the Yukon River, recognizing that effective conservation and management of— So in terms of general obligations, last year, I think starting in September, I just— or in the October work session, there are 4 general obligations that pervade the entire treaty. We have to manage to achieve bilaterally agreed to escapement goals, in this case, Chinook and fall chum stocks. And the word manage, not meet, because when you don't have enough fish, there's no way you can meet them, and you shouldn't be penalized if a run is really low. So we have to demonstrate we're managing.

We need to manage consistent with catch sharing arrangements. There are stock and fishery assessments we need to conduct to collect the data, and then again the bilateral coordination and cooperation piece.

So the Chapter 8 structure is very different than the rest of the treaty. It has a general section that lays out the parties' aspirations for a conservation-based and coordinated Yukon River salmon regime. And it says, and I'm going to quote for you, the U.S. shall manage its its fishery with a view to delivering to the Alaska-Yukon border the agreed spawning objective plus the midpoint of the Canadian guideline harvest range. So that language is a lot softer than what we see down south. Down south, the language is a lot of shallows.

There's a lot of penalties. So if you overharvest on Chinook and you exceed that limit, You're paying back those fish. If you miss an escapement goal or miss— you're over an incidental mortality limit, you get called on the carpet and there's sort of a cause and effect. There's a penalty. This is a lot softer in the language.

Then there's the panel section and it sets forth the role of the panel, which is to make recommendations to the management entities concerning the conservation and coordinated management of salmon originating in the Yukon River in Canada. Again, this is different because down south the panel members actually implement the chapters and they actually negotiate those chapters when we come up for— when the treaty is expiring. And all that gets approved for the commission— by the commission. But the commission in practice doesn't weigh in unless they get high-centered.

It describes the tasks of the Joint Technical Committee. It has a section on rebuilding mainstem Yukon River Chum and Chinook stocks. It sets forth the circumstances for developing and implementing a rebuilding program. There's a section on the Porcupine River. There is a section on habitat acknowledging that habitat such as unobstructed access and water quality is important and should be maintained.

And then there's a section on the Restoration and Enhancement Fund programs. That one is $1.2 million annually that comes through, through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. There's also a section on on escapement goals and harvest sharing found in Appendix 1 and 2.

So now for the numbers part.

Uh, there's 3 management objectives for the Yukon under the treaty.

The first one is for the mainstem Yukon. For Chinook, there is a 71,000 Management objective that was not established under the treaty. It was not developed by— it was not reviewed by the Joint Technical Committee. It was established under the 7-year agreement. So that's the goal, that's the management target, and that is border passage.

We have a Mainstem Yukon Fall Chum management objective of 70,000 to 104,000 fish. And we have a fishing branch fall chum management objective of 22,000-49,000 fish. And these all only apply, apply to stocks originating in Canada, and these underpin all harvest sharing arrangements that we have. And I use the term management objective instead of escapement goal because it's a little bit different than the way we think of escapement goals here in Alaska with the having the heavy technical component. All of these have technical underpinnings.

They just haven't had the same level of, let's call it, technical rigor. There's an element of panel negotiation and agreement that goes into them. Harvest sharing. This is a lot clearer. Okay.

So for Chinook, if the total allowable catch— so this is escapement $110,000, the Canadian share is 20 to 26%. The US did really, really well on this. And this is just of Canadian origin fish. So we get— what is that? 74% To 80% of the available catch.

When we get above $110,000, we get that 74 to 80% And then for everything above 110, it's a 50/50 sharing. For fall chum, when we're less than 120,000, the Canada gets 29 to 35%, so we get 65 to 71% on our side, and then 50% of everything on top of that 120. So we did really, really well on this. And probably the strongest language in this component of the treaty is the U.S. shall manage its fishery with a view to delivering to the border the agreed spawning objective plus the midpoint of the Canadian guideline harvest range.

And I think that those are the only numbers I have in here. All right. All right, moving on.

Madam Chair, if it pleases you, I can pause here and take questions on that component of the treaty. Keep going. Excellent. All right. 7-Year agreement.

The impetus for this, we were recognizing there's been persistent decline in Chinook, and that, that's really resulted in an inability to meet conservation objectives over— across a long period of time to provide benefits to the fisheries of both countries. And we've, you know, I don't think I need to belabor the point of what's been happening, but more was required. And so the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and Fisheries Oceans Canada, serving as the representatives of the US and the Canadian parties to the treaty got together to be responsive to the significant declines in Canadian-origin Yukon Chinook.

The agreement is a reflection of the parties' commitment to the treaty process, and the Yukon River Panel is the body to oversee its implementation.

And this was done— It was initiated in response to rising political pressure from some factions in Canada who wanted to withdraw from the treaty, which does not serve us. We are stronger together. And as well as we had threats to potentially petition to list Yukon Chinook under the Endangered Species Act.

Companion legislation in Canada, which is the Species at Risk Act, and all of which serves to remove oversight from the Yukon panel and from local control and add a whole host of regulatory hurdles.

And I promise for this presentation we won't be mentioning ESA again. Okay. I'll just quickly walk through the elements of the 7-year agreement. We're utilizing a 7-year— that's a one Chinook salmon life cycle approach consistent with treaty language regarding rebuilding these stocks. And, you know, we heard from talking to people along the river that something different was required and that a life cycle approach would be more appropriate.

So we decided to do this across 7 years. It was bold, and we set forth the rebuilding target of 71,000 Chinook international border passage. This number is expected to maximize recruits to the spawning grounds.

So for the foreseeable future, for long-term average, we want to maximize that, and is large enough to offset pre-spawning mortality that may be occurring before Chinook reach the spawning grounds in the upper portions of the watershed in Canada. So we know that that's happening and we built in that buffer.

It pauses all directed commercial, sport, domestic, and personal use fisheries targeting Canadian-origin Chinook salmon through 2030, 7 years, as well as Aboriginal fisheries in Canada. But it allows— there's, there's an off-ramp in here for subsistence harvest opportunity in the circumstance where the run is projected to exceed the rebuilding target of 71,000. And that would be indexed at Pilot Station sonar. So if we are projecting a 71,000 run there is going to cross the border, we can go ahead and liberalize subsistence subsistence a little bit. It also acknowledges the importance of fish for ceremonial use and the transmission of, of cultural knowledge and allows limited harvest opportunities for these purposes free from international obligation.

It requires Alaska to continue to minimize incidental harvest of Chinook in all other mainstem fisheries.

And also puts a priority on stock assessment and scientific research on Chinook health, a whole host of other things to better understand the causes of low run abundances and identify possible solutions.

And also priority on traditional and local ecological knowledge research to do the same. And then a big one is the development of a rebuilding plan to have a comprehensive rebuilding plan for the entirety of the drainage bilaterally.

There we go. And then the treaty itself in Chapter 8, Section 12 speaks to increasing the in-river run by reducing marine catches and bycatches of Yukon River Chinook to the extent practical, and has— it's part of the agreement— Alaska agreed to maintain those efforts. And then finally, it acknowledges the depressed status due to a suite of factors and commits the parties to work collaboratively on habitat and stock restoration activities, support research, and seek increased funding.

Okay, so that was a year and a half ago. I'm going to give you a quick progress update. Yukon is closed to all directed Chinook fishing. That's just the mainstem where we do have harvestable surpluses available in tributaries. Can open fisheries just like normal.

We have actions in place to reduce incidental catch in non-target fisheries. And I'll let the managers get into that with you if you have questions. And we were able to get educational permits established under 5 AAC 93-212 to offer opportunity for the transmission of cultural knowledge and ceremonies. So it's under two sections for B, teaching and preserving cultural practices. I think that's culture camps.

And then for ceremonial, funerary, or memorial purposes related to traditional cultural purposes. And that's your potlatches. ADFNG has continued efforts to reduce bycatches in both federal and state managed fisheries. So the North Pacific Fishery Management Council has taken previous action, as folks know, to reduce king salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea trawl fishery, and is poised to take action in this coming February to reduce chum salmon bycatch. This board has taken action to reduce chum salmon harvest in the South Peninsula seine and gillnet fishery 3 years ago, and will We'll be revisiting that this spring.

And we as a department are also collecting genetic tissue samples and will be presenting preliminary genetic information on Chinook harvest in South Penn fisheries this spring. And I believe the commissioner spoke to that a little bit in his opening remarks.

As for the rebuilding plan, we hired a contractor, a consultant, Ecofish Research, who has just recently completed the Fraser River rebuilding plan. Fraser's another long river with similar challenges, so we keyed in on them. There's been 3 special sessions so far. They've completed a framework. That work is ongoing.

And the panel put together a steering committee to guide all the framework tasks and to conduct a lot of public outreach, recognizing that that the panel doesn't have a monopoly on wisdom and we want to engage as many people as possible on that process.

And with that, I conclude my talk and happy to field any questions. Thank you.

Thanks, Dani. I got a couple and then I will kick it over to Member Carpenter. Relative to the 71,000 Chinook target, Where are we at? Give me maybe some 24, 25 numbers.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to have to phone a friend. I am not the numbers person. Fair. Ballpark-ish.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, board members. For the record, my name is John Linderman with the Alaska Department Department of Fish and Game. I'm the Arctic Yukon Kuskokwim Regional Supervisor and the current co-chair of the Yukon River Panel. Um, not very well, well below that 71,000 figure. We've been seeing numbers across the border for the past several years now in the 20,000 to 25,000 range.

Thank you. And then, um, on that rebuilding plan, is there a time frame or completion deadline associated with it? Does that dovetail into any new negotiation processes, or when are we expecting to have that rebuilding plan drafted and ready for review and then finalization? Yeah, great question. Um, it's not perfectly defined.

It's very much contingent on ongoing funding. We have adequate funding right now. We've been very successful in both countries of identifying funding to support that process in that regard, but it's an ongoing challenge to continue that funding. I think the timeline probably isn't more than a couple of years. It's still very iterative in its process.

This new steering committee that just got active back in August, I think things have really started to jumpstart. It's finding its stride in that regard, and we'll start to see quicker progress. One thing that we will benefit from dramatically is that the timing of this overlaps with a Canadian domestic process that predates this bilateral rebuilding plan by about a year or two. And so we have a lot of that initial work done in Canada that can help to jumpstart the bilateral process and speed things up a little bit. But hopefully within 2 years is the current horizon.

Thank you, John. Member Carpenter, then Member Wood. Thank you. Just a quick question about the education permits. Um, are those to only be issued if Alaskan tributaries have a harvestable surplus, or can that take place on the mainstem as well?

Yes, through the chair. Thank you, Board Member Carpenter. Uh, good question. They can take place anywhere. Part of the 7-year agreement was to allow that free from an international obligation.

Okay, thank you. And a quick follow-up: and does— do the Canadians have the same allowance when it comes to directed fisheries in king salmon on their side of the border for educational type purposes?

They are able to do that if they want to do it. What we haven't heard is that they're heading down that path yet. And so we usually hear about that. That's part of the treaty process is we share all that information. But it was important to us that we had access because there are some folks who don't live close to Chinook-bearing tributaries and are heavily reliant on those mainstem river fish.

Member Wood. All right. Thank you. If you go to slide 18 and 19, I somehow— I wasn't flipping through them at the same time you were talking, but I'm looking at 6, 7, and 8, and then down to 10. And this weekend I read a paper by Alvon Finster, the Summary of Issues Facing Canadian Origin Yukon River Chinook Salmon and Reviewing Limits of Ecosystem and Habitat Factors.

And I've always been kind of obsessed with habitat issues. And I found that report in particular just really spelled things out very clear and was super interesting. On—. And he just kind of took away the human factor of fishing and said, oh, there are all these environmental factors that are hurting the salmon coming back to Canada from this time they're coming out of the gravel to the time they're coming back to spawn in the gravel. I'm just wondering, when you look at 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, how much research are the Canadians and the U.S. doing like the Alaska salmon project that we were involved in, working together to try to better understand all of the environmental issues that are preventing these salmon from making it all the way up to the headwaters in Canada?

Yeah, through the chair, Wood, that's a great question. I think in—. I'll try and— there's a lot to that question, clearly. So I'll try and summarize as much as possible. What you tend to see in Canada, like you're describing in that report, is more of a focus on habitat and habitat restoration programs.

A lot of those programs are funded through that R&E Restoration and Enhancement Fund that Danny mentioned in her presentation. It's not exclusive to that, there's certainly other sources of funding, but that is a big component of what we see for Canadian-based programs programs are focused on trying to restore habitat in some form. So on the U.S. side, what you tend to see is more focus on, say, marine research or in river-focused research that can assist with better management of those stocks. Ichthyophonous— and very significant in the ichthyophonous research program is where a lot of that recent year focus has been placed. One of the main reasons being is that the identification and concern for fish that are infected with ichthyophonas, which is cyclical.

The amount of infection will cycle from highs and lows over time. But when those infection rates are high, there is a growing concern that many of those fish, especially those going to Canada, were not making it to Canada because they were dying of that disease before they even got to the border. So we have been implementing over the past 4+ years a very comprehensive research and assessment program to try and quantify the impacts of higher rates of infection on ichthyophonas. That would directly translate to how we approach management in Alaska, because you count the fish as they're coming in. If you have high infection rate of ichthyophonas, a certain percentage of those fish that you're counting at the mouth are not going to make it to the border.

When you think of the presentation that Danny gave about our obligations in the US under the treaty to put a certain number of fish across the border, having more better-informed management decisions by estimating how many fish are not going to even make it to the border because they died is pretty critical. That's been a significant focus of that ichthyophonous research, amongst other things, but that is a core component of what we focused on. All right, thanks. Yeah, well, I have to say the one thing I appreciated about this report more than anything is he didn't focus just on the human factor of commercial fishing. It was a very holistic approach to all the factors that are affecting salmon from the time they're put in the gravel to they're going back, coming back to the gravel.

And ichthyophonous was just one very small part of that, but it really ultimately gave you kind of this mosaic of all of the factors that are affecting them, whether it's dams or hatcheries or you name it, you know, which was pretty awesome. And I'm just wondering that one thing that he really pointed out was the data gaps. And the data gaps need to be filled with scientific research and money to afford them. And I'm looking at this page 18 and 19, 6, 7, 8, and then at the final one, 10, where it says work collaboratively on habitat and stock reconstruction. I'm just wondering if somehow this treaty agreement holds everybody's feet to the fire a little bit to try to help fill these gaps.

Thank you. Through the chair to Board Member Woods. So this is part of the rebuilding plan, right? And so— and part of it is also doing a lit review. I am certain that paper will be distributed to the Yukon River Panel for their consideration as they work their way through the process.

But part of the goal here, you develop the plan, then you can prioritize your resources. We have a huge amount of area to cover here and a lot of data gaps because it is so remote. And so these types of exercises help prioritize, and then we can leverage funding. Member Erwin. Thank you, guys.

And then Member Swenson. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have two questions. The first is, was there a public comment period or any public process where public input was involved in the making of the 7-year agreement? Thank you.

Through the chair to Board Member Irwin, no, there was not. We were trying to respond in short order and where We recognize that's not optimal. The state of Alaska and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada do have the authority to do this. That is— I will acknowledge that's the number one criticism that we received. Most folks that we've talked to since that time have seen the value in the agreement and don't necessarily disagree with all the elements, but do not like the way it unfolded, and we can own that.

I just would say that if we had gone out, it wouldn't be done right now. So thanks for that. Thank you. And my other question is maybe for Linderman, but it's— I recognize that the ADFNG and Board of Fish We manage to sustain yield principle, and as I understand it, Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Canada, they manage to conservation. How do those two principles work together when in-season management or big decisions like the 7-year agreement are being made transboundary?

How do those two principles align or conflict ever, and how do you determine which one to base it off of?

Yeah, through the chair, Member Erwin, great question. So there is a variety of different approaches to management that can be taken in that regard. When it comes to the bilateral aspect, you refer to and reference the treaty. What the treaty references is a sustained yield approach, maximum sustained yield approach. In that regard.

Now, that doesn't— that's an overly simplistic way of saying it. There's ongoing debate with respect to various approaches that can be taken that proceed through the Yukon River Panel process. But if it comes down to what the guiding focus is on trying to reach a consensus, it's the treaty itself and what the treaty has to say about it. That's super clear. Thank you for your answer.

Mr. Swenson. Just one quick question. Is there mining pollution issues on the Yukon River and the Canadian side of this?

Through the chair, the, the answer is yes. To, to what degree and what the level of impact is, we don't know. We do have water quality monitoring. We haven't clocked any water quality issues with them, but we do know that there are some challenges. Commissioner and I recently flew to— there was a tailings mine failure in the Victoria Eagle Mine, and on June 24th, 2024, we flew in the Canadian response to that, and the cleanup was incredible.

It was beyond what we could have done and really impressive. And the level of water quality monitoring has been great for that. But there is some relic mines on that side of the border. And so I'm going to turn it over to the commissioner. I see you.

I'm not so sure there's water quality issues as much as there's habitat degradation of mining in Canada. They used to have a lot of mining. They took us on a tour up there, and the river system up in the Klondike that they took us on was basically dredged from the mouth of the river all the way upriver. So I'm not convinced there's a lot of water quality impacts on the US side of the border, but I am convinced that there's significant habitat damage that probably could be restored up there to have better habitat.

It just seems to me that that's something Canada could control with the ichthyosis. Issue. I mean, that's, that's tough to control, but Canada could control that.

Okay. All right. Thank you for your presentation, for being with us this afternoon. I think what my plan is here is to pause for the day so that we can approach the Yukon River overview status and overview tomorrow morning with fresh eyes, fresh ears, fresh brains, and give it the attention attention that it's due. Once we complete the staff reports, there are 3 more, we will roll into traditional knowledge reports and public testimony.

So with that, we'll go ahead and adjourn for the day and we'll see you back tomorrow morning to complete staff reports at 8:30 a.m. Have a good evening.

Happy birthday, Member Wood.