2025 Arctic/Yukon/Kuskokwim Finfish – (Day 2)

Well, good morning, everybody. We have 3 presentations. The time is 8:39. We're back on the record and we're going to wrap up with staff reports this morning, and then we are going to head into traditional knowledge reports and public testimony when we, when we finish with our reports. So we're fired up, we're awake, we're caffeinated.

Can't speak for my, my vice chair here, but And we're all ready to hear about Yukon River. So whenever you're ready, please put yourself on the record and begin. Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the board. For the record, I'm Dina Jalan. I'll cover the run distribution, size, timing, and harvest for king and summer chum salmon in the Yukon River summer season. And then hand the presentation over to Matt Olson to cover the Yukon River fall season. This is the Yukon River summer and fall season stock status report, which can be found under RC3, tab 13, and the written report is in RC3, tab 4.

So to start out with, here is a map showing the Yukon management area and the fishing districts. The lower Yukon area consists of districts 1 through 3 and the coastal district, which extends along the coast from the Naskanet Peninsula to Point Romanoff. The Upper Yukon area consists of Districts 4, 5, and 6 and includes the Kayukuk and Tanana Rivers and extends all the way to the U.S.-Canada border. Way back in the day, the Yukon River used to have a lower river fishery manager and an upper river fishery manager, but around the mid-'90s we switched to having summer and fall season management. So instead of handing management of the fisheries off in the mid-river, now the fishery managers manage the salmon runs as they pass through each of the districts on the way to their spawning grounds.

So two of our primary assessment projects are mainstream sonars located near the community of Pilot Station in District 2 and near the community of Eagle, just before the US-Canada border. These locations are about 1,000 miles apart. The Pilot Station sonar estimates passage of all 5 salmon species and is one of the main tools that is used to estimate run sizes in season for management. The Eagle Sonar Project estimates are used for border passage and are incorporated into run size models for Canadian origin Chinook and Fall Chum salmon. There are additional projects located throughout the drainage which include the Lower Yukon Test Fishery, sonars, weirs, counting towers, and streams that are surveyed by aerial surveys.

This next slide shows a map of the king salmon stock distribution. The king salmon run is found throughout much of the drainage and consists of 5 stock components that we can identify by genetics. The Canadian-origin stock is the largest component, on average comprising about 42% of the run. Alaskan-origin stocks combined make up about 58% of the run. At an average swim speed of 40 miles per day, it typically takes a king salmon 30 days to travel from the mouth of the river to the U.S.-Canada border.

This slide shows the summer chum salmon stock distribution. The summer chum run is made up of 4 stock components, and they typically don't migrate above the Tanana River. Summer chum salmon travel slower than kings, averaging about 25 miles per day. So it takes a summer chum salmon about 38 days to get from the mouth of the Yukon River to the Salcha River near Fairbanks. And so then, as you can see from this slide, the summer chum and king salmon runs overlap in much but not all of the drainage during the summer season.

And then in addition to overlapping in area, the king and summer chum salmon runs overlap in timing. So this chart shows the date along the bottom and the average daily passage estimates at Pilot Station sonar for summer chum in green and king salmon in red. And this is timing from late king and summer chum runs and does not include on-time or early passage estimates. So as you can see at the start of the season in early June, we may have a little bit more kings coming in than summer chum or equal numbers of fish. And then as the run picks up, we finally start to see summer chum coming in in greater numbers towards the middle of, middle of June and late part of June.

So this overlap can have a huge effect on harvest opportunities and our management strategies. And then however, as the runs progress upriver, this overlap changes as king salmon swim faster and summer chum don't travel much above the Tanana River. So the runs do spread out a bit more as they go upriver.

And so as I referred to the previous slide with late run, when we talk about late run for summer chum, what we've seen in recent years from 2019 to 2025 is that summer chum have been coming in later, and unfortunately the runs recently have been smaller. So we haven't seen pickups of the summer chum run until about a week to 10 days later than average. And the summer chum salmon.

Midpoint in normal years is on June 28th, and then in recent years the midpoint is around July 3rd.

And then of course in-season run timing has a huge role to play in in-season management actions, but perhaps more importantly is run size. This chart shows the King Salmon drainage-wide total run, so with run size along the y-axis and year along the bottom. So the— as you can see, the solid dark lines are the averages for each decade, and we've had kind of a stepping down in averages for each decade until the recent 2020 is where our average has been a run size of 74,843 fish.

And so this is the total run size and includes U.S. and Canadian stocks, and we— as we've seen the steady decline going through the years.

And of course, run size helps to determine whether or not there can be harvest opportunity. This figure shows the Alaskan harvest of king salmon by type of fishery, so So subsistence is along the bottom portion of the bar in red, and then commercial in gray, and then personal use and sport fishery making up very small parts of the bar at the top in white and black. So we have— sorry, there's been no directed king salmon commercial fishing since 2007. And due to run sizes and harvest restrictions, ANS has not been regularly met since 2008. It was recently met in 2019, but that's the most recent year.

These subsistence harvests include estimates from surveyed communities. The total harvest reported from permit areas, fish mortalities distributed from research and assessment projects, and fish that may have been harvested incidentally in non-salmon gear or early or late in the season when fishing restrictions were not in place. From '21 to '24, small amounts were harvested and taken in test fisheries, and this harvest of kings had been less than about 2,000 salmon per year. As you can see on the chart, from '20 to '20— from '21 to '24, test fish made up about a third of the king salmon harvested.

This next slide is a summer chum salmon total run. The escapement of summer chum salmon is in the lower green portion of the bar, and all the harvests, including commercial, subsistence, sport, and personal use, are combined in the white upper portion of the bar. The drainage-wide summer chum salmon goal was implemented in 2016 with a range of 500,000 to 1.2 million fish and is shown by the solid— by the black lines on the chart. Escapements were above the upper end of this goal range from 2004 to 2019 and within the range in 2020, '23, and '24. 2021 Was the lowest estimated run of summer chum salmon that we've seen.

And similar to the king salmon, this figure shows the harvest of summer chum salmon by type. So subsistence harvests are in the green lower portion of the bar, and then commercial fisheries are in the upper shaded portion of the bar, and combined personal and sport use fishing are the very tiny proportion up at the top in black. Since adopted by the board in 2001, subsistence harvests have met the lower end of the amount necessary for subsistence range in 13 out of 23 years. There has been no commercial harvest since 2020, and the average commercial harvest from 2011 to 2020 was nearly 4,000— 400,000 fish annually. And similar to Chinook salmon, in recent years with fishing closures from '21 to '24, An average of 1,500 summer chum were distributed from test fish projects to household, making up about 1/10 of the total harvest for those years.

This next slide has a summary of our king salmon escapement goals. No goals have been met since 2019. However, many tributary goals were met from 2015 through 2018. As covered by Danny Evanson yesterday, the previous IMAG, the the management escapement goal is no longer being used, and the new border passage objective for king salmon is 71,000 fish, which unfortunately we did not meet in 2024.

This next slide shows the three escapement goals for summer chum salmon. The drainage-wide escapement number is based on pilot station sonar counts and the estimates of escapements in the Andrieski River drainage, and then you subtract harvest from above the sonar site. No tributary escapement goals were met since 2019 for summer chum salmon.

Oops, sorry.

So in years with low run sizes, we try to provide subsistence harvest opportunity as much as possible while protecting salmon runs that are below escapement goals. In recent years, this has meant full salmon closures openings with selective gear for chum when run sizes allow, and restrictions in non-salmon fisheries to reduce incidental harvest of salmon. And the tools that we have to do that are time, area, and gear. So when we think about time, we think about perhaps falling back to the regulatory structure implemented in 2001, which has fishing windows. In some years, we have further reduced those by cutting those window time in half.

So fishing time is kind of reduced proportionally across the drainage. And this fishing time reductions also help to spread harvest out and let, let fish pass upriver through windows when it's closed. And then a lot of times in the Yukon, especially when we think about area, we think about our management actions following salmon upriver. So you may have portions of the river that are open and unrestricted, but those restrictions are coming and they're coming upriver kind of roughly at the speed that a salmon travels. And then as the salmon pass through an area, those restrictions may be relaxed.

And we also think about area in terms of tributary actions. So we may have tributaries open or closed to protect spawning areas or perhaps allow non-salmon opportunity depending on abundance. And then for gear, we have a range of management options to take, including mesh size restrictions, selective gear types, and live release options during times of conservation. You may remember at the last board cycle we expanded the gear to allow for— to allow for requiring release of any species of salmon as opposed to just kings. We kind of expanded those regulations so we can have selective gear and require, say, release of kings and summer chum while allowing retention of pink and sockeye salmon.

And then we also have options for non-salmon gear. We've— in many years, we've modified the non-salmon foreign shore smaller mesh gillnets to have them reduced in length and require them to be set near shore. And anytime that we're taking these gear restrictions, particularly using the management tools that we have, it's a balance of kind conserving the salmon species that has a conservation concern, and then also trying to maintain and preserve the fishing opportunity for non-salmon species or a more abundant salmon species.

And talking a little bit about non-salmon species, um, we've heard a lot of concerns in recent years that reduced salmon fishing opportunities will result in an increase in non-salmon harvest. And while this may be happening on local stocks and in local areas, Overall, in the drainage-wide harvest trends of the harvest estimates, we have seen lower numbers of non-salmon harvests in the recent 5 years. The lower blue portion of each bar is a combined harvest of large and small whitefish species, and in the recent years compared to previous years, the average whitefish harvest decreased by about 54%. Sheefish decreased by about 40%, and the harvest of pike has increased slightly.

So this is the last slide for me, and this slide shows the overlap and from summer to fall salmon— fall chum salmon passage at the transition at the pilot station sonar. So that solid dark line is the season transition date. And so summer and fall season managers, we coordinate on chum fishery management. This slide shows the overlap for recent years based on salmon passage and genetics. So summer chum salmon are in peach and fall chum salmon are in blue.

There's a small overlap in early fall chum salmon that arrive in the river as early as late June, and summer chum also continue to enter the river into August. So when we're thinking about summer chum, there's a couple recent years where we did have selective gear fishing open during that— a little bit past that transition date to allow more harvest on summer chum salmon when they're more abundant. But these are kind of things that we think about in season as we're transitioning from the summer to fall seasons. And with that, I'll turn it over to Matt Olson. You can introduce yourself for the record.

Yeah, good morning. Yeah, for the record again, my name is Matt Olson, Yukon Area Fall Season Manager, and I'll provide an overview of the fall chum and coho salmon stock status and fisheries.

Fall season salmon management begins July 16th in the lower Yukon River for fall chum and coho. Fishing season typically runs through mid-October. The blue fish markers on the map show the distribution and main stock components of fall chum salmon within the Yukon River drainage. We have two major stock components on the U.S. portion of the Yukon, which include the upper U.S., including the Teterinjik drainage, and the Tanana, including the Delta River. There are also two major stock components in Canada, including the Porcupine and Fishing Branch Rivers, and then mainstem Canada, shown with the Canada markers.

The orange fish markers on the map show the distribution of coho salmon within the drainage. The main stock components and spawning areas are in the lower and middle river. The Koyukuk River, and in the Tanana River, with a small number that are known to go into the Porcupine drainage and across the border. Fall chum salmon are the dominant species during the fall season, and therefore during the fall season, fishing schedules and gear are designed to meet fall chum salmon management objectives.

Fall chum salmon harvest management is guided by the provisions in the Yukon River Drainage Fall Chum Salmon Management Plan. And this plan states threshold run sizes to determine which fisheries can occur. The drainage-wide goal for Fallchum salmon is, is 300,000 to 600,000, which is what that management plan is based on. All fishing is closed for a run size below 300,000 fish. From 2020 through 2025, Fallchum salmon run sizes were very low and.

Less than that 300,000 fish threshold. So during these years, closures occurred for all fisheries.

During the fall season, districts switch to fall season management based on Fall Chum salmon migration timing. Since the start of the recent salmon decline in 2020, directed subsistence fishing targeting Fall Chum salmon has been closed in almost the entire drainage. New in 2025 is the opportunity to use 6-inch or less mesh gillnets in designated areas off the mainstem Yukon River to provide extra harvest opportunity for folks to target large whitefish species in areas where salmon aren't migrating or spawning. These areas were identified through the use of traditional and local knowledge and using the ADF&G Anadromous Waters Catalog. An example of the maps showing these open areas by district is shown on the right of the slide.

These maps were published in corresponding advisory announcements showing open areas in dark gray and closed areas in light gray.

This graph shows the Fall Chum Salmon total run from 1990 to 2024. The drainage-wide escapement is in blue, or is in the darker blue.

The drainage-wide escapement goal, shown with the black lines in the graph, And prior to the recent salmon decline, the drainage-wide escapement goal had been met in every year since 2002. Obviously, there's been no commercial fishing since 2019. Harvest of Fall Chum Salmon from the— from department test fish projects and incidental harvest in non-salmon fisheries since 2020 has averaged less than 4,000 fish compared to the 2010 to 2019 average of about 84,000. This table shows Fall Chum Salmon escapement goal performance since 2019. The drainage-wide escapement goal hasn't been met since 2019.

However, the Tietringer goal was met in 2023, and the Delta River goal was met in 2020, 2023, and 2024. Neither of the two, uh, US-Canada Treaty objectives have been met since 2019.

Uh, this graph shows the Coho Salmon Index of Escapement and harvest from 1990 to 2024. Again, escapements are in the darker green color at the bottom. Subsistence harvest since 2020 has averaged below 1,500 Coho salmon, including Tespis distributions and incidental catch, compared to the 2010 to 2019 average of about 12,000.

For the cycle, we have 3 proposals related to subsistence fishing during the fall season. Proposal 15 would close the harvest of fall chum salmon in the mainstem Yukon River for 2 years. Proposal 16 would prohibit the use of 4-inch or smaller mesh gillnets in the mainstem Yukon River after fall chum salmon are detected. And Proposal 17 would allow the use of 6-inch or smaller mesh gillnets in select non-salmon areas near Mountain Village. During times of salmon conservation.

At last month's work session, the board accepted the department's recommendations to list Yukon River King and Fallchum salmon stocks— er, as stocks of management concern. A draft action plan will be developed and presented at the March statewide finfish meeting. And we look forward to hearing from the board and stakeholders at this meeting and over the next couple months about what they would like to see included in this plan.

Special thanks to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service management team, Holly Carroll, Keith Heron, and Shane Ransberry, as well as YDFA, Yukon River Panel, Yukon River Intertribal Fish Commission, and other groups and individuals that provide input on management. And with that, we'll stand by for any questions or comments. Thank you for the presentation. A little bit of feedback.

You guys know your content so well, but you just went through about 25 slides in about 15 minutes. And so we're trying to catch up with you a little bit. The other thing that I think would have been a little bit helpful here for me to follow this is the— and you did a little bit in the back, but the, the flipping between the king salmon and the summer chum. Didn't allow me to absorb any of that information very well from the presentation. So if we would have like done king salmon, then switch to summer chum, then fall chum, that would have helped me.

I can't speak for anybody else, but I was just like, wait a second, where are we? But it's clear that you guys know your content really, really well, and I'm just trying to just do my best to keep up with you. With respect to the runs particularly related to king salmon, but also the chum, of course, it's unfortunate to see, you know, under, under, under, under, under. What I would be interested in seeing is what are the actual escapement numbers associated with those metrics, right? So in those quilt charts that you're presenting, having the, at least particularly for the king salmon, but also I think for the summer chum, since those are obviously receiving a lot of attention, that would be helpful for us to be able to gauge kind of where we're at, right, and what's happening over time.

Because I'm sitting here thinking to myself, like, what is going on in the Yukon, right? We saw a pretty okay year, I would say an improved year for king salmon in this last year around the state. Um, we learned about the Kuskokwim yesterday, so it begs the question, what's going on here and why aren't we able to we see any of this little bit of recovery, or are we, are we seeing little jumps in numbers? And that's the piece that I was hoping to maybe get. So maybe over the course of the day or the next day or two, if you could maybe RC something like that, that gives us a little bit more numerical context for where we're at, particularly with King Salmon, but also with the chum.

Any questions? Mr. Owen.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Dina and Matt, for your presentation. So I have one clarifying question about the stock of concern. Designations. So does the stock of the Yukon River Chinook and Yukon River Fall Chum stock of concern designations cover all of the tributary, all the individual species?

Because, you know, we were looking at prior escapement goals and stock of concerns, and it was specifically for like the North Fork, right? So I just want to clarify that— is that for all of the species of Fall Chum and Chinook? Yes, that includes all the, all the stocks, the whole run. Okay, thank you. And then a follow-up.

So, and then I have a question about our summer chum. I know that I've heard you guys talk before that there are concerns for summer chum, but it didn't quite meet the criteria for designation, as I understand it, this go-around. As I'm seeing it, it's not that 4 out of the 5 consecutive years haven't been met, it's that we don't have data for 4 out of the 5 consecutive years. So if you look at the last 5 years, we have data on that run. They haven't met escapement at all since 2018.

I'm wondering what was the 2020— I'm assuming maybe, maybe COVID had something to do with that. But what happened in 2020 and 2023 where there's no data for us? Because if we had data and they had not been under escapement, we would be looking at a stock of concern designation for this meeting. Yeah, thank you, Member Irwin, through the chair. So particularly the East Fork and the Anvik have had a lot of issues with like high water and flooding.

The East Fork Andrzejewski River, has been discontinued in large part because they haven't been able to keep the project in and have it be counting reliably. So that's kind of where some of the do not operate come from for those systems.

Other questions? Mr. Wood. Yeah, thank you. I guess I'll just tag on to that. I'm looking at slide 11 at escapements, and, and I am seeing that Summerchum have been, at least in '22, '23, and '24, either came close to or went beyond, like, median escapement, the lower end.

But then I've also heard that some of the rivers that you used to watch, you're not seeing the summer chum coming back there. Do you know where they're actually going? Like the Androevsky and the— I forgot the other one, but Yeah, thank you, Member Wood, through the chair. So we have seen a shift in productivity. We used to have a much higher percentage of the run coming out of Andrieski and Anvik, and we haven't really identified where that productivity has shifted to.

There has been some interest in doing perhaps a sonar further upriver on the Kayak River to figure out maybe if they're going up the Kayak River. There used to be projects on Gossassa and Henshaw, but those also haven't operated very consistently in the last I don't know, 5 to 10 years. So we don't kind of know if they picked up there and counts increased there. Particularly, I think in, you know, '23 and '24, we had, you know, 800,000 summer chum salmon, very small subsistence harvest, 20 or 30,000. So those fish went somewhere, but we did not really pick them up with the escapement projects that we had.

So it is a— it's a great question. So, yeah. Okay. And one more.

Are they— as we're seeing with Chinook, they're going through pilot. And then, when you're doing the Ichthyophonous studies up at Rapids, you're seeing pretty good, you're seeing them go through there, but you're not seeing them come out at Eagle, which could be, it seems like the fact that they're dropping out from Ichthyophonous.

Is there any concern at all in chum for Ichthyophonis?

It hasn't been, I think, widely or perhaps much or ever detected in chum. It's not as much of a concern. We can, again, certainly defer to Zach at the break to go into more elaborate on the fish that Ichthyophonis has and hasn't been detected in. And one last question. It sounds like chum in particular Chum, the summer chum could be chum that go everywhere in coastal western Alaska.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but fall chum you can actually parse out genetically. Like fall chum in the Yukon and fall chum in Kotzebue, you can find those if you do genetics ocean-wide, but the summer you really can't. Could you just clarify that for me?

Through the chair, that is My understanding is that you can identify fall chum from the Yukon.

Thank you.

Quick question on slide 10.

So on your y-axis, you have total Alaska harvest of king salmon, and then you have ANSs in there. I don't understand, are you talking about like Yukon River a lot, or all of Alaska? And if you're talking about total Alaska king salmon harvest, why is that germane for the king salmon? We— this is one chart where we, we don't have Yukon information or information from Canada. So sometimes when we think about total king salmon run, we're thinking about Yukon Canadian harvest and Alaskan harvest.

This is just harvest in Alaska, so it doesn't take into account, um, you know, commercial fisheries or subsistence fisheries that may have taken place in Canada. So specific to the Yukon, this is specific just We are gearing up here. I am working on it. The hamster is warming up here. Okay.

Thank you for that. And then back to sort of the pilot station numbers. How—. First, I am interested in sort of the numbers that we have for Kings and Chums for that matter. I see your graph there, but what are the— can we break that out?

For Pilot Station and for Eagle also, I mean, are you— because I don't see numbers related to Eagle, like how many are actually getting up there? Is that in here somewhere and I missed it because that hamster is slow this morning? No, sorry, ma'am. Madam Chair, a lot of the escapement numbers are in the written stock status report, and we certainly in combining both summer and fall seasons, we had to kind of be pretty brief with what we're— what we put on the slides. The Canadian origin run makes up about 42% of the Alaskan run, so a little under half.

And then we do look at genetics of the king salmon going through Pilat to see if any given pulse or group of fish, what their percentage is of Canadian. So you might see perhaps a higher percentage of Canadian origin fish in the first pulse, but the second pulse is larger, so you maybe have more Canadian origin fish in the second pulse as they go upriver. And then they take about 30 days to get to Eagle, you know, so And I think that's what I'm struggling with a little bit is that I think you've done a good job of trying to combine and condense that information, but my brain wants to tease it out. Commissioner? Okay.

All right. Any— Mr. Wood and then Ms. Irvine? Yeah, one more about Falchow. They have such a long way to go. And the ones that are going to Canada in particular, I know there's this host of reasons that are impacting fish ability to travel these long distances, but in particular, are there unique factors going on in both the Fishing Branch and like, say, the White River or the Kewaunee area that are making it difficult for these fish to spawn late in the season?

Yeah, through the chair, member Wood. [Speaker] There definitely are. And it's, I guess, maybe condensed down to a lack of water, I guess, is one of the main issues. So particularly in Kulani Lake, back in 2016, one of the glaciers that sits up on the mountain above it receded far enough that the meltwater coming off of that glacier that used to flow into Koolanie and provide a major source of the water level for that lake receded far enough that that meltwater diverted and no longer flows into Koolanie Lake anymore. Since then, what we've seen is a pretty drastic lowering of that water level.

And to the point where, particularly in that system, there is a portion of the spawning grounds that are utilized by fall chum that are no longer viable. So studies are ongoing, you know, evaluating exactly what the long-term effects of that might be. But we have seen that component of the overall fall chum stock decrease pretty rapidly, you know, since that time. So we think that's got a lot to do with with why that stock in particular hasn't come back as quickly as what we would like.

Yeah, thanks. I think— so are there fall chum spawning right now, this time of year? Through the chair, yes. Yep. Awesome.

Thank you. Ms. Irwin. Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is on slide 17. Dina, you said something about the start date.

I think you— I think you maybe mentioned pushing the start. Did you say pushing the start date back a few days to allow for additional summer chum opportunity in the lower river? Thank you, Madam Chairman, through the chair. So this is a transition date, like our kind of— so we switch from summer to fall season management July 16th in District 1. And so this is lagged a few days forward to account for travel time to Pilot.

And so this is when Pilot changes from counting fish traditionally as summer chum to fall chum. As you can see, in some recent years we've had a pretty significant group of summer chum coming in past that transition date. And so when we allowed selective gear fishing, it would have mostly been targeting those summer chum as they came through.

Follow-up. Thank you. And when you offer those additional opportunities for the lower river on summer chum, Does that affect your management options for opening the upper river? So like if there were incidental harvest of fall chum in a summer chum opening in the middle or lower river, would that affect upper river's ability to harvest or have an opener for fall chum? Through the chair, it, it may.

Just keep in mind that when people are going out fishing with selective gear, it's very, very inefficient. So instead of getting, you know, 80 or 90,000 summer chum, I think we've seen harvest with selective gear closer to 20 or 30,000 summer chum. So they're not taking very many chum. You know, whether or not you could, you know, tease out that 1 in 10 fall chum out of summer chum when you are out with your dip net, I do believe the harvest of fall chum would be small, would be minimal. It's also pretty late in the season.

It's kind of past the traditional date when people would be putting up summer chum. And so they may be kind of switching to other activities at that late transition date as the run comes in late. So we don't know how much effort was put into that little kind of 7 to 10 day window. So they may have harvested a few fall chum in that window, but I don't believe the number was, was very large compared to the potential summer chum that they might have had access to at that time, if that helps. Ben, thanks.

Staying on this slide, how are you determining sort of the overlap and the apportionment between fall and summer chum in that time? Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. So a lot of it's just kind of looking at the fish as they're coming in. Like, they still look like summer chum. We're still seeing counts of of large numbers of summer chum coming in.

We typically see a lull between seasons and then the fall chum picks up. And so we're kind of still riding that slope down of summer chum. And then we're like, okay, that's going to pick up and be fall chum after that. So it is— it's a management decision that we're making in season, looking at the entry pattern, looking at the fish as they come across the dock in Neumonic. Later in the season, we can also go back and look at the genetics because they are taking genetics at pilot.

But that information comes in, you know, weeks later. So we don't have that genetic information to make that management decision, but we do get it later to kind of back up the visual assessment in season supplemented with genetics post-season. And I'm assuming that's fed into a model. Yes. Yeah.

The run size models. Yeah. And that model gives you this for the counts. Yes. Yeah.

Okay, thanks. Any other questions? Mr. Wood? Yeah, thanks. I guess in terms of concerning some of these proposals before us, are you— I've, I've been paying attention to how currently you're managing and you seem to be adapting these rolling— these— how they— you close the river in progression with the fish.

How has that been working for you, adapting to fish? Having the kind of these rolling closures, how's that been working?

Thank you, Member Wood. Through the chair, we've certainly reduced harvest. I mean, the harvest of the Chinook salmon has been.

King salmon has been really low. It's not gone down to zero. There is still some amounts of harvest being taken either before a restriction goes into place, after, or incidentally, or, you know, someone just going out and fishing, um, you know, because they want to go fishing. Um, so I think we've been pretty— I feel like we've been successful in reducing harvest as much as we can, trying to kind of target those openings and closures and have them start and stop when when we're trying to protect the thing that we're trying to protect and hopefully open up opportunity when it's appropriate to do so. I guess looking forward to public testimony, you'll probably hear a lot more about what the public thinks about our actions and how effective they are.

Thank you, Commissioner. Yeah, Mike, I think this is a really interesting question. You got 3 species that we're primarily managing for in this river. One is king salmon, which was a treaty fish. Pass fish, which we have obligation to pass fish.

Then we have fall chum, which is a treaty obligation which we have to pass fish. And then you got summer chums, which have no treaty obligation, but numerically outnumber both the fall chums and the summer. And so we're trying to— and then we have treaty obligations that we're trying to protect in the mainstem river because that's where our treaty obligations are. We're trying to harvest summer chums yet not end up harvesting kings that are heading to Canada or fall chum that are heading to Canada. It's a fairly complex system.

So in this chart up here, you see the chum runs, but if you overlap kings on there, it just becomes this complex matrix of how are you trying to provide at least some subsistence opportunity for summer chum in the context of trying to preserve, at least in the mainstem, king salmon that are headed to Canada. In fulcrums that are headed to Canada. Right. And that's— I mean, that's the conundrum. And that's why I'm like wondering how you're determining what is actually passing or being caught through genetics or otherwise.

And so my questions around this particular slide is, you know, are you utilizing genetics? How are you utilizing? How are you ground-truthing your models? And these graphics with genetics, and is that all part of the treaty process or not? Is there funding available through the treaty process for more advanced genetics?

Yeah, we can tell— well, we'll go back to the managers— but we can tell the difference in chums passing pilot station, whether they're fall chum or whether they're— whether they're Canadian orange chum or whether they're our chum. So in essence, the real crux of this issue is how do you provide in a big run of summer chum, and we've had those in several years, you know, we could end up with one next year. How do you provide that opportunity where you're trying to protect those kings and those fall chums that are out there? It's really hard. We face that all throughout the state.

It's classic weak stock management. Yeah. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER_MILLER] And it seems like the most important time period around that decision-making is, you know, middle of July. You're exactly right. It's that 16th, 13th period of time.

Okay. Other questions? All right. Thank you for your presentation. Appreciate you.

Good morning. For the record, my name is Aleta Trainer. I'm the Northern Region Program Manager in the Division of Subsistence here in Fairbanks. I'm joined by Jessie Coleman, our Research Analyst, and Gina— Gina Jallin, who you just heard from. The Yukon River summer season manager.

This presentation can be found in RC3 oral report tab 14. Typically, this presentation would cover background on the subsistence fishing practices and harvest patterns in each portion of the Yukon River. However, since the board last met, there has been very little subsistence opportunity in order to conserve king salmon and summer and fall chum salmon. As a result, this presentation will focus on some of our research that examines shifts occurring in subsistence economies and community response to salmon declines in the Yukon River drainage. Specifically, I'll explore themes pertaining to changes in sharing patterns that are occurring as a result of more concentrated fishing production.

Together, these analyses evaluate shifting subsistence patterns to meet our mission of assisting the board by reporting customary and traditional practices. Additionally, I'll provide recent food security data gathered by the division along the Yukon.

Where— oh my— You saw this map in Dena's presentation showing the fishing districts of the Yukon River. For the purposes of subsistence, we think of the river in three major sections. District 1 and 2 are considered the lower river. 3 And 4, including the Kayukuk River, are middle, and Districts 5 and 6 are the upper river. The lower, middle, and upper parts of the river are largely distinguished by geography, cultural affiliation, and language differences of the communities, as well as the use patterns of wild resources.

There are over 50 communities that harvest salmon from the Alaska portion of the Yukon River and its tributaries each summer. Communities range in size from approximately 50 to over 1,000 residents, although the average rural community has fewer than 300 people. All of these communities have relied on salmon as a source of food for cultural well-being and in many cases as income through commercial fisheries. There are 5 species of salmon present in the Yukon River, but their distribution is not the same throughout the drainage. While the lower river has access to all 5 species, the upper river only receives King, Fall Chum, and Coho salmon.

This creates wide-ranging variability in how communities have experienced and are responding to declines in abundance.

On this slide are data from the department's annual post-season subsistence harvest survey. Subsistence harvest in number of fish is on the y-axis and year is on the x-axis. Harvest of all species has declined through time. As you heard in the previous presentation, some of the harvest shown on this graph does come from department test fisheries prosecuted to assess run strength. To briefly review this harvest history by species, we see a significant dip in 2000 driven largely by lower harvests of king and fall chum salmon, shown in yellow and orange respectively.

The fall chum crash impacted all communities, but especially those who maintain dog teams. Harvests of summer and fall chum continued to dip in the early 2000s, then rebounded until recently. As a result of severe conservation concerns, directed salmon fishing for subsistence was closed in 2021 and 2022. Some harvest opportunity for summer chum salmon was allowed in 2023 and 2024, but the total salmon harvests in 2021 through 2024 were the lowest on record. On the next slide, we'll take a closer look at the king harvest through time because it's difficult to visualize at the scale shown here.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Here we see subsistence king salmon harvests in yellow from 1995 to present. The dark gray bars indicate commercial harvests and the light gray bars show overall passage of king salmon past the pilot station sonar. The ANS range is shown with the dotted black line. In 2009, an economic disaster was declared for king salmon when abundance was not high enough to provide a commercial fishery. Since 2009, king harvests have continued a general decline, and for the last 5 years, the department closed directed fishing for king salmon in order to conserve them.

Between 1995 and 2007, king harvest typically fell within the ANS range. However, since then, only the 2019 harvest has exceeded the lower bound of the ANS. King salmon have been foundational to Yukon River communities And historically, the harvest and use patterns were relatively stable through time. Regardless of other resource availability, for example, harvest and use levels of King salmon remained constant. The declining abundance of King salmon, shown in light gray, has been seen for far longer than what is reflected when looking at changes in harvest trends, shown in yellow on this graph.

This is an important point when trying to understand how Yukon communities have experienced and responded to declining abundance. Harvest remained relatively stable through time as abundance decreased because communities took adaptive measures to maintain efficiency within the fishery. For example, harvesters began fishing closer to their communities rather than staying at camps. They invested more time to harvest the same amount of fish and shifted harvest effort to more abundant salmon species. As a result, it wasn't until abundance became so low and the King and Chum fishery closed completely that these adaptive strategies were no longer able.

Able to mitigate such rapid change.

In the regional overview presented earlier, we heard a bit about harvest specialization and production curves, which visualize a prominent attribute of subsistence economies, the 30/70 rule, and how, when quantifying the harvest within a salmon fishery, the concentration or specialization is even more pronounced. This is what we see here. This figure shows the production curve with a cumulative percentage of community salmon harvest in pounds on the y-axis and the cumulative percentage of households for two comparable communities on the Yukon in two purposefully disparate years, 2008 and 2023. The red line represents a Monic household salmon harvest in 2008 when subsistence fishing opportunity was still largely provided. And the blue line shows Kotlik household salmon harvests in 2023, which was several years into near-complete salmon closures.

These two communities are neighbors at the mouth of the Yukon River and historically have had similar fishing patterns. What we see is that 22% of Amoniq households harvested 70% of the community's salmon. 15 Years later, in the neighboring community of Kotlik, 15% of households harvested 70% of the community's salmon. The important takeaway here is that as salmon abundance has decreased, the harvest of salmon has become more concentrated among fewer households, essentially shifting the curve to the left. From a community perspective, as key harvesters stop fishing for salmon over the course of multiple years of closures, a smaller number of productive fishers become responsible for providing salmon for an increasing number of non-fishing households.

As such, fishery closures don't just impact individual harvesters and their families. Non-fishing households are also affected and ultimately receive and use less salmon when there are fewer harvesters remaining in the fishery.

This is a visual depiction of a salmon sharing network we created from Nulato in 2018. As a central attribute of customary and traditional practices, sharing is the primary mechanism for the distribution of wild food within and between communities. In this figure, each shape represents a type of household, community, or community event. Additionally, the different shapes and colors indicate demographic features of each household, specifically the age, gender, and marital status. The relative size of shapes is scaled to reflect the amount of salmon that a household harvested, so the larger shapes are the higher harvesters.

The gray lines between shapes indicate a salmon sharing relationship with with thicker lines representing more instances of sharing. The purpose of showing this slide is to demonstrate that households are highly interconnected even in times of reduced resource abundance. Nulato residents stressed that widespread sharing does not indicate a surplus of fish, but rather speaks to the cultural and dietary importance of the resource and the willingness of people to share even during times of scarcity. Fishing closures, though necessary for conservation purposes, impact harvesting households as well as the non-harvesting households with whom they share. Further, there can be far-reaching effects for other communities throughout the state because they too are connected through longstanding sharing, barter, and trade relationships that help households statewide secure the wild food they need that is no longer locally available to them.

Network analysis has found that salmon shortages on the Yukon are disrupting these networks statewide.

On the next slide, we'll— we're going to zoom in and take a closer look at the households I've identified within this red circle.

As a reminder, all the shapes you see on this graph are households in New Lato from a 2018 study we did there. The large brown triangle represents a household headed by an elder single male. The size of his triangle is scaled based on the amount of salmon he harvested, roughly 2,600 pounds. You can see that there were 10 other households he shared salmon with. He shared roughly 200 pounds of salmon with someone in Galena and an elder couple in New Lato.

Similarly, there is a large brown downward triangle and a large downward orange triangle at the center top of this figure representing households headed by a single female elder and a single mature female respectively. They too are responsible for numerous instances of salmon distribution to elders and community events such as the Memorial Day potlatch. I highlight this because the food that a household needs is never entirely acquired by that individual household that uses it. If any one of the three households I've spotlighted on this slide were to be told the salmon season was closed, the remaining households on the network that are connected through their distribution of salmon would no longer have access to that supply coming from these households. If any of the high-harvesting households on this network drop out of the fishery entirely because of restrictions, closures, or a health event, the network overall is weakened, making households and communities more vulnerable.

The previous figure showed how salmon moved between households within a community. To understand how resources are distributed in times of shortage, we sought to understand if and how customary and traditional exchange practices may be responding to salmon declines. Sharing is still the primary mechanism for the distribution of wild food, but reduced salmon harvests affect all forms of exchange, including decisions about when to share, who to share with, when to barter, and when to purchase or sell wild food through customary trade. Before describing this slide, I want to pause and give a brief orientation to the terms I'll use here. Under state regulations, barter is defined 16.05.942 and can be summarized as the exchange of wild food or a good other than cash.

For example, trading salmon for firewood, fuel, or seal oil would be considered barter. Customary trade is defined at 16.05.948 and can be summarized as the small-scale, non-commercial sale of wild foods for cash. There are numerous stipulations around the practice of customary trade in both state and federal regulations that are beyond the scope of this presentation. Instead, what I want to focus on is that without salmon to barter in exchange for other wild or commercial resources, households are using the resources that they do have to buy or barter for salmon harvested in other areas of the state. This map is an example from CalTag, which shows trade and barter exchanges during 2021 which was the first complete subsistence salmon fishery closure on the Yukon.

We see that Kaltag households traded with households in Naknek, Unalakleet, and an unspecified community for salmon. They bartered moose for salmon with Cordova households. As participants in the study explained, cash is used like any other resource to get wild foods they need. Customary trade exchanges are fundamentally about securing food. Not making profits.

This research occurred during the worst period of salmon declines, yet we found that instances of customary trade increased as people sought opportunity to purchase wild food when they couldn't harvest it themselves.

Next, we will look at how changes in salmon harvest are affecting the production or harvest of wild foods throughout the river and associated food security concerns. You'll recall seeing similar pies in the Kuskokwim regional presentation, but to reiterate, the pies shown here show how reductions in salmon harvest affect overall subsistence harvests. The left-hand pie shows the composition of wild food harvests for lower Yukon communities from 2011 through 2020. During this period, the average community harvest was over 164,000 pounds, and 25% of that came from salmon. On the right, the pie shows the salmon harvests from 2021 through 2024, which comprised only 7% of the average community harvest, or 11,000 pounds.

If we then assume the average community wild food harvest weight was equal between both time periods, we see a 74% reduction in the average salmon harvest by weight. Or in other words, there be— there leaves a gap in the wild food that would usually be harvested by lower river communities. This gap is represented by the white slice. To compensate for this loss, communities have had to fill the gap by substituting resources other than salmon, such as moose, non-salmon fish. They may buy more store-bought food, or alternatively, community members may eat or use less.

This slide shows the same composition pies but for the upper river, demonstrating that salmon declines and the resulting reductions in salmon harvest are experienced differently in different parts of the river. Between 2011 and 2020, salmon, shown in orange and yellow, contributed 56% to the average wild food harvests made by Upper Yukon River communities. On the right, the pie shows salmon harvests from 2021 through 2024, which comprised only 2% of the average community harvest, or 1,450 pounds. If we again assume average community harvest weight remained the same in the upper river between the two time periods, around 68,000 pounds, we see a 96% reduction in the average community salmon harvest by weight. This creates a gap, shown in white, that has to be filled either by other wild foods, store-bought foods, or because upper Yukon River communities have a less diverse.

Composition of wild resources available to them, they may experience changes to their food security more acutely, with some households going without food more often.

To continue the discussion of food security, I will present data from two neighboring communities both prior to and after the most severe salmon fishing closures. The department is the only entity in the state that routinely gathers data on the contribution of wild foods to overall food security throughout Alaska. The Division of Subsistence administers food security questionnaires during every comprehensive subsistence survey we conduct. These data are crucial to understanding the drivers of food security for households that rely on subsistence foods. The food security categories listed in the key at the bottom of this slide are standardized food security categories as defined by the USDA.

There are 3 columns on this slide, each representing the overall U.S. food security scores. On the far left, Alaska scores. In the middle are Alaska's, and on the right are Mountain Villages. The blue sections of this chart represent households that are food secure, meaning they reported they did not worry about having enough food at any time throughout the year. Households with low food security, shown in yellow, worried about not having enough food, sometimes or often did not have the types of foods they needed, and/or they did not have the resources they needed to get food.

Very low food secure households, shown in red, reported times when adults in the household did not eat for a whole day or lost weight because they did not have enough food to eat. In 2010, no Mountain Village households households felt— fell into the very low food secure category. Overall, 91% of Mountain Village households were food secure, which was a level of food security common among Yukon River communities at that time. Although Mountain Village households were beginning to feel impacts from reduced fishing opportunity in 2010, the salmon crisis was not nearly as extreme as it is today. Now we will look at Alakanuk from 2023, the most recent year for which we have data.

Here we see the scores from the US and Alaska as compared to Alakanuk in 2023. As a reminder, Alakanuk and Mountain Village neighbor one another in the lower river and share very similar harvesting patterns, which make them viable options for comparison. In 2023, 18% of Alakanuk households had low food security and 22% had very low food security, meaning adults in the household lost weight and/or did not eat for a whole day because they did not have enough food. Salmon declines are at least partly responsible for the low level of food security observed in Alakanuk. Subsistence salmon harvests are much lower now, and commercial salmon fishing opportunities have disappeared without a replacement source of income for lower river communities.

As the regional overview explained, income from commercial fishing supported other subsistence activities and purchases of store food when subsistence foods, were unavailable.

Salmon has long been a foundation of subsistence ways of life on the Yukon River. Salmon declines and reduced harvests mean that salmon are no longer functioning in this way. However, the connection to salmon still continues to underpin identity, well-being, and connection within and between communities. There are regional differences in how communities have experienced and are responding to this loss. Food security data shows these responses include pivoting to different resources, traveling out of region to fish for salmon, purchasing wild food, relying more on public assistance, or in some cases, as seen through our food security data, having less food to eat.

In the Lower and Middle River, the sudden loss of commercial and subsistence salmon fishing opportunity in 2019 and 2020 respectively left communities struggling to adapt in real time. As abundance declines and fishing restrictions increase due to conservation concerns, fewer and fewer individuals are able to remain active in the fishery. This is shrinking communities' wild food production base, and it's having cascading impacts on subsistence economies across the state. Subsistence economies have long been characterized by their flexible and adaptive nature. However, the adaptive capacity is not infinite.

Our data indicate that the rate and severity of the decline of King and Fall Chum salmon on the Yukon River is straining the adaptive capacity of these subsistence-based economies. Yukon River fishers continue to report that they are working hard to support their communities and regions, and as our ethnographic data show, communities are currently facing numerous challenges beyond what we've described today.

Before I conclude my presentation, Subsistence Division staff would like to extend our sincere gratitude to the communities along the Yukon River who continue to share their knowledge of the, the fishery with us through our research efforts. We would also like to recognize the efforts of Yukon River fisheries managers who work hard to both build collaborative relationships with communities and individuals in order to conserve salmon. With that, I'll take any questions you may have. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Alida.

Mr. Chamberlain and Ms. Erwin. Thank you very much for that very compelling overview. I wanted to touch on a little more of the effects of food insecurity on the region and how that— the downstream effects of that. It may be beyond your study. Forgive me if I— feel free to let me know if I don't.

Can you give a description of, you know, as wild food is less scarce, what the food options are in terms of prices and quality in the local stores in the more remote communities, such as, you know, how much does it cost to get protein replacement and that, and in terms of that, what tends to be the type of protein that's replaced? Does it tend to be fresh foods, processed foods, or anything of the like, and what the relative cost of that would be compared to the more urban areas of Alaska? Thank you. Through the chair, Member Chamberlain, thank you for the question. For many years, the Division of Subsistence partnered with the University of Alaska here in Fairbanks to conduct cost of food surveys in addition to the comprehensive surveys we were administering in rural communities.

Those surveys were ones that there wasn't any financial gain for us to do that. It was something we— our staff did if we had time. So what that looked like was we would go into the local store and if any of you have been to stores in small town Alaska, you know that there isn't a lot to choose from. Produce is really scarce. Meat prices are very high.

There's a lot of canned goods, processed foods available. And we would mark down the price of each item so that the university could then compare it and answer that question. So what I— while I'm not able to give you exact numbers of the cost of protein replacement, I can say that it's significantly more expensive to buy meat in the communities we conduct our studies in than it is here. Some community members do choose to use various services in Fairbanks or Anchorage where you can hire someone to do shopping for you and have that mailed out to you. But again, that's quite expensive.

And so the options are limited in a nutshell.

Oh, thank you. And just using my, my hometown as an example, when I was living there or when I was there pre-pandemic, a gallon of milk was $18 and meat was close to— was over $20 a pound. The— I guess one follow-up there is, has— and this very well may be beyond your knowledge or your focus of study— have there been, since Western contact, has the change in diet resulted in health changes or health differentiate— differences between rural Alaskan and their urban counterparts? Through the chair, Member Chamberlain, health is not an aspect that the subsistence division covers in our work. Thank you.

Thank you. Ms. Erwin. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ms. Traynor, for your presentation. I want to say that those sharing network slides are always a little bit difficult to grasp if you're first looking at them.

And so thank you for— I think you explained it well, and limiting that box to what we were specifically looking at was really helpful. These graphics on page 12 and 13, these food security graphics, are really helpful and beneficial to look at. I'm assuming it's because you don't have funding right now, or the study was focused on lower river, but I'm pretty bummed that there's not an upper river graph that equates to number 13. But I'm grateful that we have that data to show that food security levels. My question is, might be for Dena, but so I'm looking at this 20, the 2019, and just for future reference, that 2019 bar Oh, I'm sorry, on slide 5 has a tiny, tiny gray sliver.

And you guys put the commercial harvest and the pilot station passage both as gray, and it's almost lost, but in 2019,.

2019, Was there a king commercial opener?

There was a very small amount of king salmon sold during the fall chum directed commercial fishery. Okay, so it wasn't a directed commercial fishery? Correct, it was incidental in the fall chum commercial fishery. Okay, thank you, Dena. Thanks for that clarification.

Follow-up. Okay, thank you. Um, and my next question will be, uh, for Alida. So this sharing network that you've described, um, you've mentioned that it's been able to be maintained even though we're experiencing extreme salmon declines on the Yukon. Um, how are these How are these households staying connected and still managing to continue customary trade practices during times of low salmon abundance?

Through the chair, Member Erwin, just want to clarify, you just said how can they maintain customary trade practices. I believe you mean their customary traditional exchange practices. Sharing is depicted on the slide. Yeah, that's a great question. It was something— this study was conducted in 2018 in New Lato.

That's in the Middle River. And New Lato is a wonderful place to work. Their tribal council is very supportive of our research and has always really good input into how we design our studies. But when we conducted the community review with the tribal council, there was real concern when we showed them this graph that it presents maybe a misleading picture that everything is fine, that sharing is really widespread even in times of decline. And it is true.

It still is widespread in times of decline. One of the ethnographic respondents that we interviewed at that study looked at this and said, "This does not show that everything's okay. What it does show is our willingness to, quote, 'give our last.'" So residents are sharing smaller quantities, but still sharing widely and sharing— willing to help and distribute food even at their own expense.

Thank you very much for, for that answer. I appreciate that. My question also is related to the difference in the upper and lower river portions of what, what the difference in after, after the lack of salmon harvest is. Do changes in fishing opportunities along the river affect who gets to fish at different times and whether or not these differences are greater or less of the piece of the pie. I guess my question is, do changes in fishing opportunity shift who gets to fish on the river?

Yeah, thank you, Madam— sorry, Member Irwin, through the chair. I'll try to take a stab at it. I think so. So part of it is that So the run is very dynamic. The run as it goes upriver is dynamic as stocks peel off, as stocks spread out, as we see different genetic components going through.

Fishing practices and methods are also very dynamic. You can use drift gillnets up through District 4. So that kind of gives you flexibility to kind of hopefully go where the fish are and target them and get in and get out. Up in District 5, you can only use setnets. As you get further up into the Yukon Flats, you've got all the braided channels and maybe come harder to fish fish.

That's part of why, like, that area used to be open 7 days a week because it might take you a week to dial in on a spot with your setnet and your fish wheel and actually find fish and harvest them. So it's really, really dynamic. I don't know if that helped at all. Through the chair, I could share my perspective on that, and I'll pull up the upper river pies that you saw here. Dina did a really great job in her presentation explaining how not all this— not all species are available to the upper river.

They primarily rely on king salmon as eating food in the last 15 years or so have started harvesting more fall chum for human consumption. And so when there was— when we were in a period of— before we were in a period of complete closure, there was often some discourse between different regions of the river. Lower River certainly wanting to make sure that they would have a harvest opportunity on one of those two species.

But as one complicating issue is run timing. Fall chum come in in the fall. That's a really busy time for upper river residents. So if there was no harvest opportunity on king salmon, then there has to— then a decision has to be made. Are we going to put effort towards fishing?

Are we going to go caribou hunting, moose hunting? And if the run's in decline, that's a question. But also if there's low abundance of those other large land mammals, you know, those are tough choices.

Thank you. And I guess this question is a follow-up to that, but it's probably to Dina. Has management ever considered, since there's the upper river only relies on 3 species, which also some of them are not in as great of historical abundance as prior years, and the lower river relies on 5, has there ever been management considerations to allow those species that get to the upper river to go all the way to the upper river to provide opportunity before there's any opportunity in the lower river provided? I know the timings don't quite overlap. I'm not suggesting that this be the case or that this is what should have been done.

I'm simply asking, since we know that there are 3 secured stocks that go that far, 2 more stocks than lower river, has that ever— has management ever taken that idea up or considered how could we do that equitably in any way? Yeah, thank you, Member Erwin, through the chair. So there's a few kind of different ways that we, that we do it. Like if you look at the regulatory, the window schedule in the lower river, it's like 2 36-hour periods per week. And then as you go upriver, it's 2 48s.

And then by the time you get to District 5, it's open 7 days a week. So that kind of recognizes that you need windows, you need time to pass fish through a district. So a normal fishing period in District 1 might be, you know, 36 hours or cut down to 18. That's a lot of time when fish can go through Harvest patterns are also very different. While we've seen a really consistent harvest of king salmon throughout years, you also see a pretty consistent kind of desire for king salmon throughout districts.

Like, you'll see a lot of households want kings. You don't see a very high harvest of fall chum in Districts 1 and 2. Like, their harvest of fall chum is a lot less than District 5. And so while they may have more fishing opportunity, they may not take advantage of it because they may have already met their needs for the few fall chum that they, that they do want. But it is definitely a consideration we have in management.

Like when we, when we have those fish, it's almost like launching an airplane from, from pilot station. You've got a run that's going upriver, and so you've, you've kind of got to let fish go by. You've got to balance where you are in the run, you know, not hammering the first part of the run. You might have to wait and then, you know, allow more opportunity upriver to kind of You've also kind of got that benefit of time. You might see that, okay, for summertime, like say you've got— you see 80,000 fish go by pilot in one day.

Districts 1 and 2 may have missed opportunity to harvest that 80,000 fish, but we might then, you know, try to get an opening in in Districts 3 and 4 where they're on that 80,000 fish. So it is again dynamic and it is a balance. And yeah, hopefully that helps. Sorry. Yeah, thank you.

That was a tough question, Dina. Thank you for your answer. Mr. Wood. Yeah, thanks. Slide 7 in the sharing network.

Do you have information? I'm thinking back to a slide yesterday that was by Sam Decker about these, or maybe it was you guys, about the combat fishing areas that you talked about. Do you have data on where people are going elsewhere off their river to get food, to harvest the food and bring it back to these communities, whether it's the Kuskokwim or Cook Inlet or whatever. Sure, yes, whenever we conduct these surveys, we also have a spatial mapping component. So if there is a harvester in a community, we will know.

They will report where they went to harvest those fish. I can say that I've been doing this work for 16 years. I've never heard of a Yukon resident going to the Kuskokwim to fish, but in recent years I have been There have been more reports from the interior communities where, you know, Fairbanks is their hub. They can just— not just, it is an expense, but they fly to Fairbanks and then drive down to Chitina. There's also the map that I showed here.

There's a lot of this going on, a lot of trade occurring, or barter occurring, with people along the coast who have more access to salmon. We've heard reports of Facebook being a really useful tool for people to connect with other Alaskan residents who they may not even know to be able to exchange berries for fish. But it is requiring a more concentrated effort to get a taste. [SPEAKING NATIVE LANGUAGE] Thank you.

All right. I just want to say that I happen to absolutely love the sharing graphs and this one, and I would love to see some of the work that's— be expanded upon for Sitka Herring and Copper River and all the things. I know they do a little bit of that, but it's really, really helpful to envision just how broad the scope of the subsistence economy is around some of these these species and communities. So I just really, I appreciate the graphs a lot. So, all right.

Um, I just want to let people know that you got about 5 minutes, 5 and a half minutes to sign up for public testimony. So if you're going to do so, I encourage you to drop your blue cards at the front table and let's go ahead and take about a 15, 20 minute break for folks to go ahead and do that. And then we'll come back with our final presentation.

Yeah.

All right, welcome back. Time is 10:27. We're back on the record and we are going to bring it home with a summary of Minto Flats and Northern Pike sport and subsistence fisheries. Welcome. Thank Thank you for being here.

Please place yourself on the record and begin when you're ready. Okay. Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the board. My name is Andrew Griska. I'm the area management biologist for the Tanana Management Area for the Division of Sport Fish.

To my right is Klaus Wuttig, the area— or the Region 3 management coordinator for Sport Fish. My presentation today will describe the sport and subsistence fisheries for Northern Pike and Minto Flats. A copy of the presentation may be found in your board packet in RC3, Oral Reports, tab 15.

Oops. There are 3 proposals to modify the Minto Flats Northern Pike subsistence sport fish management plan. And this presentation will provide a background to those proposals for your deliberations.

This presentation will describe the Mentaw Flats area, the sport and subsistence fisheries, the management plans for the sport and subsistence fisheries, important aspects of northern pike biology, habitats and migrations, and stock assessments. Finally, participation and harvest by sport and subsistence user groups will be described.

Mentaw Flats area, highlighted in light green, is part of the Tolovana River drainage. It is a large area covering 800 square miles. It is in the Tanana River Valley, 28 miles west of Fairbanks. Although it is not very distant, it is remote. To access the fisheries, a Fairbanks area resident needs either a boat or a float plane in summer or a snow machine in the winter.

If not in a plane, most sport fishery areas areas require 4 to 6 hours of travel one way from Fairbanks.

Mental Flats area has 3 northern pike fisheries, and each has its own regulations. First, there is the subsistence fishery area highlighted in light green. This area is the Tolevauna drainage permit area, and as the name implies, a subsistence permit is required. Subsistence fishing is allowed year-round without harvest limits. Excluding 14 miles of the Chatanika River.

The Chatanika River subsistence ice fishery is its own unique northern pike fishery, and it occurs in the Chatanika Harvest Area, abbreviated the CHA.

The fishery also requires the Tolovana Drainage subsistence permit. The CHA does have harvest limits and requires weekly harvest reports from participants. The CHA is 13 miles of the Chatanika River from the Fairbanks non-subsistence boundary to 1 mile upstream of Gold Stream Creek mouth. A 1-mile section of the Chatanika River immediately upstream of Gold Stream Creek mouth is closed to fishing to ensure protection of a portion of the northern pike population. Finally, there is a sport fishery for northern pike.

Although the fishery occurs throughout the area, a majority of sport fishing occurs in the Minto Lakes area. The sport fishery has a special regulation regarding the open season, which is June 1st through October 14th. In addition, the bag and possession limit may be reduced as stipulated by the management plan.

The Minto Flats northern pike management plans for sport and subsistence fishing were established in 1998. These plans were approved by the Board of Fish and codified. The purpose of the plans is to guide the department's management for sustained yield and reasonable opportunities for sport fish and priority subsistence fisheries.

For both management plans, harvest of northern pike may not exceed 20% annual exploitation by all users in Mentaw Flats. Exploitation by all users is determined by collecting post-season harvest reports from those holding Tolovana Drainage Area subsistence permits, weekly CHA subsistence harvest reports, and statewide harvest surveys of sport anglers. The harvest numbers from each fishery are summed annually and compared to estimates of abundance of northern pike in the CHA. Sport and subsistence plans each have specific regulations and management triggers based on subsistence harvest numbers in the CHA. These management triggers require regulation changes to ensure harvest in the winter subsistence fishery and summer sport fishery are sustainable.

Sport fishing primarily occurs in Minto Lakes and is usually accessed from Fairbanks via the Murphy Dome Road to the Chatanika River. A sport fish license is required and it's open to both Alaska residents and non-residents. Additionally, there are a few guiding operations in the area.

Excuse me, I went back one.

Regulations are a daily bag and possession limit of 5 pike, only one of which may be equal to or greater than 30 inches. The season is open June 1st through October 14th and is closed while the winter subsistence ice fishing is open.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] To participate in the subsistence fishery, Alaska residents must obtain Tolovana Drainage Area household permit. Subsistence fishing for northern pike occurs throughout 800 square miles of the Tolovana Drainage permit area highlighted in light green. Much of the winter subsistence fishery occurs within 13 miles of the CHA and has become a popular winter fishery for many Fairbanks residents. The CHA has its own subsistence regulations.

The subsistence fishery regulations of Minto Flats, excluding the CHA, are open fishing season year-round. Gillnets may only be fished April 15th through October 14th. Rod and reel is limited to ice fishing only, and there are no harvest limits.

Most permitted subsistence users ice fish in the CHA, which is popular among Fairbanks residents who snow machine the Murphy Dome Road winter trail. The CHA is a specific regulatory area. It is 13 miles of river from Fairbanks non-subsistence boundary to 1 mile upstream of Gold Stream Creek. 1 Mile of the Chatanika River from the CHA.

Boundary to the mouth of Gold Stream Creek mouth is closed to subsistence ice fishing for northern pike.

The regulations specific to the CHA are a daily harvest limit of 10 fish per day, only 2 fish may be 30 inches or longer, possession limit of 20 fish, only 4 fish may be 30 inches or longer, a weekly catch report is required of permitted anglers, and bait and single hooks only are allowed.

When the CHA subsistence harvest of 750 fish or more between January and iceout, a sport fish bag limit reduction is triggered. By emergency order, the sport fish bag limit in Mentaw Flats is reduced from 5 to 2 fish a day, and only 1 fish may be 30 inches or longer.

When the CHA subsistence harvest of 1,500 or more fish between January and iceout, a closure of the CHA subsistence fishery occurs, and sport fish bag limit reduction remains unchanged. Additionally, the remaining 800 square miles of Mentaw Flats remain open to subsistence fishing year-round with unrestricted harvest.

How are the management plans implemented? Well, the goal of the management plans is to provide opportunities for subsistence and sport fishing and have harvests that are sustainable sustainable by ensuring exploitation does not exceed 20% of northern pike population for Minto Flats. To evaluate exploitation, there are several important components we consider. Pike biology and behavior are important for evaluating both stock assessments and harvest information. Stock assessments describe abundance and size composition of the population.

Participation in harvest will result in an exploitation rate.

The biology of northern pike, and in particular certain aspects of life history, are important. They are long-lived species, living up to 25 years. They reach sexual maturity at 16 to 20 inches when they are 2 to 4 years old. A pike may reach 30 inches at 4 to 8 years old, and a pike may reach 40 inches at 12 to 16 years old.

More than 90% of northern pike larger than 30 inches are females, which means males rarely grow larger than 30 inches despite being 10 years old or more. The largest females may have 300,000 eggs, and to highlight the importance of large females, a 30-inch pike has 4 times the eggs compared to an 18-inch pike. Research has shown that female northern pike are more susceptible to angling through the ice. This may be due to aggressive feeding patterns in relation to their upcoming spring spawning event.

Because 30-inch and larger northern pike are females and have substantially more eggs that can ensure adequate future recruitment, regulations have been crafted for both the CHA subsistence fishery and sport fishery to ensure adequate protection of these important fish. For the CHA subsistence fishery, the daily harvest limit is 2 fish 30 inches or longer. For sport fish, the daily bag limit is 1 fish 30 inches or longer. With these regulations, exploitation of larger females is limited and harvests are more sustainably focused on smaller hammer handle pike that are more numerous and only 4 to 7 years old.

An important aspect of the sport and subsistence fisheries are the summer and winter habitats and migrations between them. Northern pike are dispersed widely throughout Mentoe Flats during summer, but they migrate to select areas for the winter. Many areas of Mentoe Flats become anoxic during winter and northern pike migrate to waters with sufficient oxygen.

Several radio telemetry studies over the past 30 years have revealed that there are 3 major overwintering areas. Highlighted by the ovals, and that the Chatanika River location is the most significant. These congregations of fish result in high densities of fish that are easily targeted.

Those radio telemetry studies also revealed that most Minto Lakes fish migrate to the Chatanika harvest area for winter. In general, the Minto Lakes pike are their own discrete stock that constitute roughly two-thirds of the overwinter occupants in the CHA. While the other 1/3 have migrated into the CHA from downstream areas. As I said before, the CHA overwinters about half of the Minto Flats northern pike. In the past, stock assessments were conducted in the Minto Lakes region.

However, beginning in 2018, an overwintering estimate specific to the CHA was conducted because it was deemed better able to assess population trends and exploitation rates.

There have been two recent stock assessments of the CHA during 2018 and 2025, and the estimates were very similar between years. There are roughly 15,000 fish larger than 24 inches, of which approximately 3,400 fish were greater than 30 inches. So these larger fish constitute about 20% of the assessed population.

Now we'll switch to the human component of the Mentow Flats fisheries, participation and harvest in the sport and subsistence fisheries.

Starting with subsistence, the number of permits issued to Fairbanks area residents are depicted on the graph by the black portion of the bars, and the blue portion of the bars are the number issued to Mentow Village residents. This graph shows subsistence participation has increased by nearly 400% since the late '90s and early 2000s. Participants increased modestly through 2015, largely by Fairbanks area residents fishing the CHA. But from 2016 onwards, there was a significant, significant increase in permits issued to Fairbanks area residents. It is surmised that social media has contributed to additional Fairbanks area residents participating in the CHA subsistence fishery.

This figure describes subsistence harvest over time.

Prior to 2011, CHA harvest data were not collected. So the bars represent total of all subsistence harvest. After 2010, the black portion of the bars is subsistence harvest in the CHA, while the blue bars are all other subsistence. The other harvest is largely open water gillnetting. The moderate increase in participation in the early 2000s led to an increase in CHA harvest, particularly by a few anglers keeping 100 or more fish angled through the ice during 2007 and 2008.

Concern developed for the overexploitation of the northern pike population, and the subsistence management plan was amended in 2010. Subsequently, CHA subsistence harvest limits were set at 10 northern pike a day only 2 fish 30 inches or longer, a possession limit of 20 northern pike, only 4 fish 30 inches or longer. The 30-inch length limit was an important part of the regulation in recognition of the importance of conserving the smaller population of larger fish, which are female and more easily angled in late winter when they are preparing to spawn in May. In addition, permits required subsistence harvest in the CHA to be recorded. This ensured better documentation of the CHA harvest and of its management, as can be seen by the black portion of the bars beginning in 2011.

Depending on CHA harvest numbers, management actions are required. The orange line represents the harvest threshold of 750 fish, at which point the sport fish bag limit is reduced from 5 to 2 fish, only 1 over 30 inches. As indicated by the orange diamonds, 8 times that threshold has been exceeded and the sport fish bag limit reduced. The 2-fish bag limit has become the de facto sport fish bag limit since 2021.

The red line represents the harvest threshold of 1,500 fish, at which point the CHA is closed to subsistence fishing until breakup. As indicated by the red circles, Twice that threshold has been exceeded and the CHA fishery was closed during early April. While the CHA was briefly closed, the rest of the Tolovana drainage permit area remained open.

Unlike CHA subsistence harvest, sport fish effort, the black line, and estimated harvest, the bars, have been steadily decreasing since the late '90s. When CHA subsistence harvest exceeded 750 fish, The sport fish bag limit was reduced to 2 northern pike, and the orange bars represent estimated sport fish harvest when there was a 2-fish bag limit.

For this figure, we take a closer look at the effect of the reduction in sport fish bag limit. During the most recent 12 years, harvest of northern pike varied little, and the overall average was 420 fish harvested. Comparing the most recent 6 years of the reduced bag limit orange bars— to the most recent 6 years with a 5-fish bag limit— in blue bars— the average harvest under each scenario differed by only 31 fish. It has been concluded that reductions in the bag limit have had very little effect on the sport fish harvest.

This presentation has provided background information useful to your deliberation of the 3 proposals to modify the Sport Fish Management Plan. Although there are slight differences in each proposal, all proposals endeavor to increase sport fish opportunity by eliminating the provision of the plan to reduce the sport fish bag limit when CHA winter harvest exceeds.

150 Fish. One proposal also adds a geographical component to the management plan, and the other two proposals extend sport fish season by opening the sport fish earlier. Realistically, the fishery would open after breakup during early to mid-May. This would add 2 to 3 weeks of additional fishing season and would include Memorial Day weekend. If the bag limit reduction is eliminated, the season opened earlier then harvest is expected to increase slightly.

Depending on date of breakup, a 5-fish bag limit is expected to increase average harvest by about 50 fish.

My presentation is concluded. I'll be happy to address any questions you may have. Mr. Carpenter. Thanks. Thanks for the presentation.

Um, on page 21 or slide 21, where you talk about the overview, the stock assessment, the mark recapture, uh, experiments in the Chatanika harvest area, it's kind of interesting that it seems relatively stable from 2018 to '25, even with, you know, a participation level that's gone up quite a bit. And I'm just curious, does that— can you expand? Do you think if you expanded that project into the entire area, would you see similar results and the kind of stable, you know, assessments? Sure, I would, yeah, I would expect it to be fairly stable across the whole flats. One thing that's happened since I think 2013 is we've been in a much more wet period, so there's actually more water in the flats, and so there's just a greater amount of area, and that's pretty much across the whole flats.

So there's— the recruitment of fish has been very good over that time. There's just more area for fish. Thank you. Mr. Swenson, then Mr. Irwin. I have several questions.

Has there been any thoughts about having a maximum— you can't keep a pike over 30 inches? I mean, if these are the egg-bearing females, it's just like a halibut over 100 pounds is females and so on. And I know they don't restrict those, but what about restricting pike and not allowing them to be kept over 30 inches? That's one question I have. Sure, through the chair, the bag limit is 1 over 30 inches.

So there's— there it's— there's 20% of the population, the assessed population, is over 30 inches, and there's a limitation on the exploitation of that population. It's 1 over 30 inches as opposed to You could conceivably keep 5 under 30 inches, or if you kept 1 over 30, you'd have 4 under 30. I'm also confused here about— you just— 10 fish or 20 fish? I guess I didn't see the differentiation there. How does that— you have here that it's 10 fish per day?

That's on the CHA subsistence area. Okay, right. That particular regulation, the daily bag limit is 10 fish only 2 over 30 inches. The possession limit is 20 fish, or 4 over 30 inches. So don't those, those numbers seem awful high?

I mean, I, I don't know. It doesn't seem like they're being— it's being managed very conservatively to me. And you've had at times when you've had to, you know, you've had to cut things down, the sport fishery, whatever. I don't know. I mean, it seems like Do you need 10 pike or 20 pike a day?

Sure. The, the CHA is a subsistence fishery. It is under the subsistence area permit that you would have to get. If you're outside of the CHA, your harvest limit is unlimited and the season is open year-round. There are no restrictions.

So the CHA It's recognized that half of the fish in the flats are in that particular area during winter. So there is a closure of the lower 1 mile of that CHA area. And to put some perspective on that, I think it was 2016, they— the Board of Fish, there was a proposal to expand that area to 3 miles. And there was a year that that occurred. And in that year, the subsistence harvest was reduced dramatically.

And I think then there was a proposal to change that again just to try to wedge it down to just 1 mile. So there is a protected area in that dense population in the CHA. So what exactly does the CHA stand for? I understand where it is. Chatanika Harvest Area.

OK. And the last question I have for you is that I think you said that The limits don't affect the sport fishery much, yet you drop the limits of the sport fishery at different times. I'm a little— don't quite understand that when you say that the limits don't affect the sport fishery much. Sure.

Sport anglers may or may not keep a fish. It's up to them, right? If they catch it, they may release it. Whether or not we have had a 2-fish bag limit or a 5-fish bag limit, the difference in the harvest level has not been very great. In other words, anglers are probably not keeping every pike that they can keep.

Some anglers may, but some anglers may not. It's just, you know, it's an average, right? Yeah, I know. Some would like just to catch and release and so on. Okay, well, thank you and thanks for your presentation.

You're welcome. Mr. Owen. Yeah, thank you, Andy. Thank you, Klaus, for being here and thanks for your presentation. My first question is just a clarification.

Why is it that hook and line is only allowed under ice during, in the Mentoe Flats subsistence fishery area? Why isn't hook and line allowed other times?

Through the chair, that's a good question. I don't recall because that's— I don't know if you recall. That was 1993. Oh, 1993. I—.

Yeah, I'm not familiar. I could dig that up for you, but if there's enough notation from that meeting. Thank you. It's not relevant to any of the proposals that I'll be deciding upon, but I just wanted clarification. My other question is that you said that if one of those proposals was passed to repeal that bag limit reduction, that you would anticipate an increase of about 50 50 fish harvested.

So how does that affect the— how will that affect that trigger, that 1,500 trigger point? Would it close? Is there potential for the subsistence fishery to close early because of that, or is that 50 fish not effect— going to be effective? Um, through the chair, no, that would not be affected because there are two different management plans. So the subsistence management plan addresses that.

Component of the fishery. The sport fishery does not influence the sport fish or the subsistence fishery. Okay, thank you. And one more follow-up: what's the northern pike's ability to, like, rebound its population? Through the chair, their ability is quite good.

Their reproductive potential of pike is quite, quite, quite large because, you know, some of the larger pike can have up to 300,000 eggs. So if you're thinking of some other fish species may not have as many eggs, you know, that's if under the right scenarios, many of those fish will survive. The number one predator of pike is northern pike. So if there's not very many out there, then you release a bunch of eggs, those fry are going to have a little bit better chance of surviving than the young pike. And so they can recover from lower numbers much more quickly than other species.

Thank you. So I have a couple questions on slide 26, and I'm tracking like the sport fish thing, so that tells me that the majority of the users are probably subsistence, you know, for the folks that are going out there and actually angling, right? So if you're not seeing a big impact in the bag, you know, the harvest rates from the bag limit reductions. I don't think that the sport fish permit holders are the ones that are making the biggest impact. It seems to be that most people are probably choosing to get a subsistence permit, I'm guessing, which goes to my question about these thresholds.

So how is it that we're— you're managing the threshold? So I see the 750 management action. That reduces the sport fish bag limit, but I don't see that there's any sort of— or I don't know whether or not there's any sort of correlating reduction in the subsistence until you hit that 1,500 threshold. Or do— is there a reduction in the subsistence? Do you manage bag limits for subsistence users once you hit that 1,500 threshold?

Because it's being blown past in recent years, and I'm just kind of curious, when you hit that 1,500 threshold, what happens?

Sure. Through the Chair, if you look at the black bars of the CHA harvest, and so there's been a couple years where they have reached 1,500. The subsistence plan requires the CHA harvest area to be closed when it hits 1,500. The blue bars that are.

In addition to those black bars are subsistence harvest throughout the mental flats, and there's no regulatory. Got it. That makes more sense. I'm tracking. Thank you for remediating me.

Mr. Wood. Yeah, you can stay on that same slide 26. What happened in 2017? Through the chair, that was the year that we had the 3-mile closure area in the downstream area. And although it's, what, 14 total miles from the non-subsistence boundary to the Gold Stream Creek, if you look at the density of pike through that area, it actually increases as you get down towards the last 3 miles.

And so, when you prevent anglers from, or the subsistence users from fishing that last 3 miles, then they're forced to distribute their effort through the other part, and it's just a little more patchy, the distribution of pike. So it's a little bit harder to get after them. And when we open it back up to everything but the last mile, then those two of those three miles are actually quite dense with fish, and it's just easier for anglers to pick them up. Thank you.

Commissioner, and then Israel. I just have one question for you guys. So All Alaskans are subsistence qualified users. So anybody that— if we reduce the sport bag limit, the only— those people could switch to the subsistence limits is my understanding. So I'm struggling a little bit.

The only people that would be impacted potentially by a reduced sport bag limit would be non-residents. How many non-residents participate in this fishery?

Through the chair, Klaus Wig, Department. We don't have a good handle on resident/non-resident participation in that. We don't break out the statewide harvest survey for that particular area. But I would suspect it's pretty low. There's a couple guides, and my inclination is that the guiding component would be more leaning towards non-resident, but it's pretty minor.

But in essence, if you reduce the sport bag limit for for residents, they could just switch over to a subsistence fishery. [SPEAKING NATIVE LANGUAGE] [Speaker:MICHAEL] The fisheries are quite different. So you have the summer fishery where people are kind of your typical recreation in the summer fishing. There's a lot of cabin owners and stuff down there. Whereas the subsistence fishery is in wintertime, and people really like going in winter to go down there.

And it's not— it's a combination of getting out in winter in March, running the snow machines down the trail, it's really accessible, and being able to harvest some pike. So they're kind of two different entities. So I don't think there's much, you know, if you affect the subsistence fisheries, there's going to be a corresponding effect in the summer sport fishery. No, they're kind of independent. There's not going to be a shift between users so much.

Israel. Thank you. Follow-up on Ms. Irwin's Questioning about pike recovery, just as a reminder, in South Central we have an invasive species crew that's dedicated full-time to killing pike in the Matsu Valley and elsewhere, and we have very liberal limits. You basically cannot release a pike alive. You must kill every pike you catch, and we're still losing the battle there.

So they're very prolific, especially given the habitat. And I fly over this area coming back from sheep hunting, and it's a vast, vast wetland of of pike habitat.

Mr. Swanson. Just one quick question. Is the density of the area that's open for subsistence, that there's no limit, are those densities about the same as the CHA or are they different or have you ever really— do you know?

Yes, so In summertime, the pike are spread out everywhere, back in the weeds, and so that's when gill nets are allowed to fish. And in winter in the CHA, it's an overwintering area, so you have, you know, our estimate doesn't include some of the smaller fish in that area, but you have 20,000 fish packed into a 3-mile section of river. So they're quite different, and to expand upon Mr. Wood's question earlier relative to 2017. So within that overwintering area that they're compressed in that lower section, but any given year where they aggregate can shift upstream or downstream. So that particular year they just happened to be sliding downstream of the, the regulatory boundaries.

So that's— it was poor fishing that particular year.

Thank you. All right, I think that concludes it. Thank you for your presentation, and we will take just a short break and we'll get set up for traditional knowledge reports, and then we'll get going on those. Thanks. Wait, wait, wait, wait, sorry about that.

Mr. Ayers, you were not— the government was not open when we had our work session when I had requested that we just get a brief update from OSM and the Federal Assistance Board. So if you would be so willing to just give us a quick update on what is going on in your world now that the government has reopened and any changes that is happening around that process or what is going on. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Happy to oblige.

So, members of the board, I have two brief updates for you from the federal subsistence program and some upcoming meeting dates to share. Again, thank you for fitting this in today. We'd hope to provide the update, as you said, at your October work session. But, you know, so since our last update to you in March of 2025, several things have happened, including an administration change and the appointments by President Trump of Secretary Berggruen. As the head of Interior and Secretary Rollins as the head of Agriculture, which was quickly followed by a slate of new bosses for us.

We most recently endured a lapse in congressional appropriations resulting in the government shutdown. 8 Of our 10 regional advisory councils had to be postponed for this fall, and we are currently working to reschedule them as soon as possible.

Published the fisheries regulations that we have on our side for the 2025 to 2027 cycle in July of this year, which included a decision by the Federal Subsistence Board to designate Ketchikan as a rural community under the federal program.

The Secretary of Interior's Senior Advisor on Alaskan Affairs, Cara Moriarty, and her office announced a targeted program review of the Federal Subsistence Management Program. There will be more information coming out on this in the near future, and should you need more detailed information, her office is the office to request information from. And off the record, I can certainly give you more information or provide a web address that has some updated info on that end. And then just for some upcoming meeting dates, the Federal Subsistence Board will hold a Fisheries Resource Monitoring Program work session on February 5th. In Anchorage.

Tribal and ANCSA consultations on the wildlife regulatory proposals and closure reviews will be scheduled sometime in February. Those dates are still to be determined. They were supposed to have happened last month. April 20th through 24th is the board's wildlife regulatory meeting. So that'll be coming up here early in the year.

And then the board will issue a call for proposals to change fisheries regulations early in the spring of 2026. And then we would expect the next Fisheries Regulatory Federal Subsistence Board meeting to be scheduled in early 2027. So we do our cycle slightly differently with fish one year and wildlife the next. And then just lastly, as a brief— there was a question yesterday on the date that the agreement was signed between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Kuskokwim River Intertribal Fish Commission when we were having the discussions about the Kuskokwim area, and that was in 2016.

So thank you for your time and let me know if you have any questions. Thank you, Mr. Ayers. Any questions? Commissioner? So what is the status of the president's request to have a review of the federal subsistence program?

How is that being kicked off? [Speaker:MR. BURRUS] There were a number of things that were targeted towards Alaska and the Interior Department from the administration early this year. And we have been working— I think all the Interior agencies have been working with the department and also with the with the Senior Advisor for Alaskan Affairs on trying to figure out timelines on those various different items. Included in that, as you noted, were some items related to the subsistence program. That has been in some ways outside of our office at a higher level.

And so there are things, including more regular meetings and consultations with the department, that we have been working on. And we are ticking away at other things. I believe this programmatic review probably includes some of those items that.

Were in the president's actions or his executive order, as well as a number of other requests that have come to the Interior and Agriculture Secretaries pertaining to this program.

So, so will you, as part of this requested review, reach out to the state of Alaska as well as this board as to insights that we may be providing to you as you go through this review?

That would be a question for the Secretary's office, for the— Carrie Moriarty and the special assistant. The programmatic review is happening outside of our program, just as it's targeting our program specifically. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate the update. All right, let's take about a 10-minute break and we'll get set up for TK.

All right. Welcome back. Time is 11:16. We're back on the record. Just a quick announcement.

So we are anticipating that our fire alarm is going to happen in the hotel. We've been told it's going to occur at 12:15, but in the event that it happens sooner than that, we just wanted to let folks know that we're good to just kind of hang out. And I don't think we'll be talking very much, but, we'll pause briefly while that happens and then resume. So just in case the fire alarm goes off, you've been warned. Um, let's talk about traditional knowledge reports for a second.

Um, so new to this board's process since the last AYK meeting is the inclusion of traditional knowledge reports from the public. The board recognizes local knowledge and traditional knowledge as important aspects of best available science. As such, access to these knowledge systems should be an important part of informing the board's decisions through their close proximity and intimate, often longstanding relationships with fish resources, the environment, and the ecological systems that are critical to fishery sustainability. The board endeavors to incorporate traditional knowledge more intentionally into its process by seeking and inviting traditional knowledge holders recognized by their community, tribe, or other organizations to share their experiences, values, alternative and/or independent observations and data collections directly with the board. For the purpose of this meeting, this invitation was made through a new agenda item.

The board has provided the opportunity to sign up to provide traditional knowledge relevant to the proposals and subject matter under consideration at this meeting. The time allowance will be 10 minutes, and this is intended to be sort of building on a trial or pilot approach that we've been working on for the last year or two to incorporate the specific information into the board's process. The board, through its process committee meeting, will solicit feedback on this approach and suggestions for how it might be improved for future regulatory board meetings. So this is still a bit of an iterative process. We didn't— the process committee didn't meet last year specific to this issue, but I'm interested in hearing feedback from the public and participants and department board members, all the things about how this is working and whether or not it is deemed valuable to, to the public and to, to members and also to people who are participating under this new agenda item.

So with that, we have 3 traditional knowledge holders that have signed up to provide testimony to the board, and I'd like to invite Seth Cantner to present if he's in the room.

No Seth? All right, I'll give him another shout out after we get through our list.

How about Stanley Peete? Is Stanley here with us today?

Welcome Stanley, thank you for being with us. Either one of the microphones is fine. You'll just have to press the button to turn it on when you're ready.

Thank you, Madam Chairman, for this opportunity. Before I get into my report, is it all right if I do introduction? Yes, please. Thank you, Madam Chairman. [SPEAKING NUNAMIUT] My name is Stanley Peet.

I'm from the village of Nunamitko, a small village on the mouth of the Yukon. My father's name was Dennis Peete and my mother's name was Donna Peete. The translations of the name is my dad was one who sits and my mother's name translated is one who ventures forward. And my traditional name is Ekuinngilnguuk, which means, the translation is, one who doesn't falter. So I'll do my best to uphold to the name that I was given.

Traditional knowledge for my people who reside on the tundra in the Yukon Delta Coast has been absolutely essential for survival of our people. The Yup'ik people thrived on the coastal region of Yukon Delta, honing their skills for thousands of years. Master mariners and resourceful fisher people. The pre-colonial lifestyle was absolutely rooted in traditional knowledge. A lifestyle of living in harmony and sustainability, a perspective that is different than Western science.

Traditional knowledge goal is to preserve cultural heritage. The importance of traditional knowledge is gaining recognition by scientists. The insight of traditional knowledge on environmental management The deep understanding of the ecosystem from plants to fish and wildlife interconnectedness is now an invaluable source for understanding environmental and ecological stewardship of resources. In early colonial times, Yup'ik traditional knowledge was disregarded as not important. Traditional knowledge is passed down through stories, songs, dances, actions, community practices, and direct mentorship.

Environmental conservation and stewardship of resource was essential to survive. Traditional knowledge was a must to coexist with environment. Our people used the environment to create traps, nets, spears, all at the same time respecting the salmon, Salmon as spiritual and cultural resource. Our traditional knowledge was refined for thousands of years regarding salmon and other resources as co-inhabitants of an environment provided by our Creator. The utilization of oral history, the keen observation of weather, environmental conditions, animals, interactions sharpened our knowledge of the environment we live in.

The traditional knowledge was incorporated to all aspects of our lives in regards to salmon. Learning at an early age to utilize whole salmon in songs, sharing, and not to waste. The salmon was treated as a living resource essential to survival and treated with high regards and respect. The stewardship or management of resource was initially a relationship with the resource. The songs, utilization, reverence, recognition given to salmon was a spiritual act of thanking our Creator for the resource.

Traditional knowledge holders from Nunamiko area.

Recognize ecosystem dynamics. The late James O'Malley said, "The reason there were so many settlements in our area was to keep people to resource in check." If you have too many people in one area, people will deplete resource. An area of land can only sustain a certain number of people. Traditional knowledge provides a framework for sustainable fishing practices in regards to modern management practices. Currently, over 5 billion salmon are released into Pacific Ocean, which is a very alarming number, and it goes against traditional knowledge teachings of overcrowding a resource.

Wild stocks— wait, excuse me— traditional knowledge on ecosystem dynamics was adhered to adhered to by people from my region to avoid overpressure on certain fish or other species, and other species were targeted. The rotation of fish species is currently being practiced by local residents targeting non-salmon species while at the same time keeping the predator and prey number in check. Before colonial times, villages moved to access different resources. The detailed knowledge of fish life cycles, migration patterns, and ecosystems were strictly adhered to, to avoid disrupting the balance. Currently, there is a disruption in the balance.

Everything from aquaculture, climate change, contamination, industrial development, and infectious diseases.

Traditional knowledge on aquaculture from a Yup'ik perspective. Aquaculture depletes essential food sources from native wild Yukon stocks. Selectively bred salmon can outcompete wild populations for food and can interbreed with Wild populations changing genetic stocks. Currently, the in-river diversity of local stocks are changing.

From a Yup'ik traditional knowledge standpoint, aquaculture implications are noticeable in wild stock, wild Yukon salmon stock. Salmon are smaller, which can only be interpreted as not eating enough. To truly be sustainable, aquaculture practices must consider its implications on wild stocks.

The Yup'ik people of Nunamitgo have seen firsthand the very rapid effects of climate change on our environment. Thawing permafrost, sea ice loss, changing weather patterns, and later freeze-ups, to name a few, change and alter wild salmon populations in our region. Seeing creeks turn orange, permafrost degradation changing chemistry, seeing more algal blooms in rivers and lakes, are all indicators of changing environment. All these natural environmental changes are being amplified by human interactions on the environment. Changes in environment affect food availability, causing cultural practices and social gatherings to be altered.

In this very fast-changing environment, Concerns about food contamination and disease are on the minds of all users. There are many accounts of food being discarded because of disease and lesions on fish, and fish abnormalities are noticed. Sewage discharge, non-point pollution, Mining tailings and catastrophic chemical spills are contributors, contributors that cannot be ignored. Our community members and surrounding communities document and monitor these changes. Now and more than ever, our traditional knowledge should be incorporated and used as guides for scientific research.

Our people advocate for policy changes. We are the voice of the environment for sustainable development with minimal impact on environment. We have a renewed hope in our adaption to modern changes. Traditional knowledge in our area is deeply— mm— Traditional knowledge in our area is deeply tied to cultural resilience, environmental adaptions, revitalization of community practices.

Bing la du lu tun.

A Yup'ik word in our language means to continue forward in regards of all opposition.

Even with climate changes and cultural disruptions, our knowledge holder says there's hope. These last few years we've seen Bering Cisco, Yukon Eels, Tomcods, and Smelt populations rebound. We hear of commercial opportunities in Norton Sound and Kuskokwim areas are now being discussed. Our traditional knowledge and adaptation have been here for over 10,000 years. The experience and deep understanding of our environment of our environment held by traditional knowledge holders should be integrated into management strategies to produce sustainable and holistic outcomes.

Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you very much for your testimony. Appreciate you being here. Are there any questions? Ms. Irwin.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Kweyana Stanley, for your testimony. I really appreciate you being here. Thank you for being our first TK report for the day. I appreciate it.

I wanted to thank you for including the natural indicators of environmental change through traditional knowledge that you noted. That was very helpful. I have two questions for you. The first is, you mentioned social gatherings are being altered. Could you expand on that for us?

A very good example of social gatherings being altered is traditionally family members and communities coerced around harvesting salmon.

In doing that, they renewed family ties and sometimes made amends with each other. Currently now, a lot of— many families, not only in the Lower River, I'm sure in the Middle River also, the only time they get together and make amends with each other is during a family loss, and that's one of the very— and it's a sad— it should be done in when I think that's, that's what I'm, that's my response to your answer, that the only time they're really getting together is if there's a loss now. Thank you very much. Follow-up. My second question for you, thank you Stanley, is you mentioned, you called them co-inhabitants, our animal relatives, so could you tell me what other co-inhabitants or other marine life populations that you guys rely on in Nunammiqwa other than salmon?

Traditionally, prior to these recent years, we never had much moose. It was all mostly an upriver thing. But even sea mammals were treated with such respect as they were honored even after they were caught with giving them water as a respect to the animal given its life, so they gave the animal water as thanking them and treating them with respect.

Absolute respect. They weren't just a sustenance. They were treated with reverence. Okay, thank you. Any other questions?

Commissioner? Yeah, you had provided very great testimony. Thank you. It was from your heart, and traditional knowledge is critically important as we try to grapple with some of the issues facing these fisheries. Right now, the Yukon panel is looking for a lower river advisor, and you kind of stand out to me as somebody that could potentially be very valuable in that process.

If you're interested, talk to our staff and we'll try to get you an appointment on the lower river panel because they're developing a recovery plan now that could be really informed by the traditional knowledge that you're talking about. Thank you, Commissioner. It's an honor to be a leader. In my community. And with being a leader, you carry all the hopes, dreams, and burdens of the people.

So it would be an honor to try to give back to the people in creating these new paths to salmon recovery. Thank you. We have one more question from Mr. Chamberlain. Thank you.

And I want to just start with, you know, I grew up in a traditional lifestyle. I was Yup'ik mixed with Dena'ina. And yeah, and one of the things we really did was we treated animals as cohabitants and that they gave themselves to the worthy. Were the hunters and those who lived a good life. What does— and I also want to add that, you know, based on your testimony, I think you've lived up to your namesake very well.

Can you just elaborate a little more on that relationship and kind of the circular nature relationship between people and the animals in the Yup'ik culture?

Would you rephrase the question?

I'm not quite—. Okay.

Where we grew up, it was more of a— we viewed the— or in my region, and granted I'm a long ways away from Nunamequa, the animals were co-inhabitants and they gave themselves to hunters who treated them with respect. You know, we had very strict rules where we grew up, or you wouldn't, you know, you had to speak, even speaking of hunting, you had to do it with reverence. And it created kind of a relationship with the animals. And I was just wondering if you had the same, or if you could elaborate a little more on that relationship and that cooperative nature with relationship with the animals? I'll do my best.

I think that in our area we had similar beliefs that the animals gave themselves up to a worthy hunter.

That we sometimes say that, yeah, the reason, like, suppose I didn't catch one, We would say that animal's waiting for someone else to catch it or is destined another person to catch it, not you. Or, and if it were, if I were, if I caught it, it was giving itself to me. Sometimes it's, we would not speak of we're gonna go catch something. We would say if it allows us to get it. Instead of solely putting it on our shoulders that we're out to get it, that if it gives itself up to us.

So we never treated them, we treated them as, we didn't want to say we were going to go and catch one. I think the nature of the traditional teachings was you don't want to jinx yourself, but also at the same time having reverence for the animal that you were going to try to get. I hope that answers your question. Thank you. Thanks.

I found what you just said particularly compelling because if there's nothing to get, then what does that impact on the individual if you— if the animal is waiting for you, right? I don't know. I just think that's kind of interesting. Thank you very much for your testimony, Cleanna. I'm glad you were here.

And you've given me a lot to think about in the last 15 minutes. Mr. Wood. Yeah, thank you so much. I think one thing that I get from listening is just the perspective of how durable and long-lived the culture is in this— on this land here. And I think one of the reasons I really like fish is because they also echo that same durability.

And hope that they'll continue to be there in the future. And you mentioned the idea of overpopulation and not only of fish, but that works with all species. And I just wondered if you have any insight into, you know, in our ability to manage, you know, population of fish and people, how, Do you have any insight on that would help us do that?

I'll try to answer your question.

In regards to what traditional knowledge, we never targeted a specific resource. We always tried to share the burden amongst all the fish available to us. We didn't put the sole burden on salmon or humpback whitefish or brood or blackfish or pike or burbot.

If we did that, we would deplete one source and the other fish would go unchecked. I will give you a really good example of what's happening now. I stated that that the stock composition is changing. Traditional knowledge tells us that. We see a huge influx of sea fish.

Well, the diet's changed. Somebody mentioned that today here. The diet of the people is changing. You don't see children coming home from school saying, "I'd like a big old slab of sea fish." You know, their first thing is gonna The first thing they're going to do is grab what's available. They have microwave pizza now, microwave burritos.

They're accustomed to that because during their academic rearing, they're being fed that kind of food in the schools. They're not raised on a diet of traditional foods. That changes the dynamics of the river just by the children doing, learning a new way of eating that is not what people used to eat 20 years ago. You know, I grew up on a different diet than my children have now, and I'm sure all of us sitting around a table have seen even their children's diet changes. But even, but when When the diet changes, it changes that— it's transferred to the animals and the fish that we're surrounded by.

Because if we're not eating the fish or eating the moose or the ducks or the bird, you know, the wildlife, the populations may increase. And sometimes one species will take over. I was astonished to hear that. Pike can have that much eggs. I didn't know that.

And traditionally, people ate a lot of pike because there was no food availability prior to the colonization of the people. Thank you. I hope that answers your question. [Speaker:MAN] Oh yeah, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

Thank you for being here today. Thank you again.

Charlie Wright available?

Hi, Charlie. Welcome.

Thank you, everybody. Sorry for that. I got a lot of notes. Pretty hard act to follow. I really thank Stanley Peete for that excellent traditional knowledge report.

And I'd like to thank you all for this. Let me do my introduction first, please. I'm Charlie Wright. I grew up between Tanana and Rampart on the Yukon River. I'm a lifelong hunter, trapper, and fisherman.

I really pride myself on paying attention to what's going on in my waters, on my land, in my area. Just like all the fish commissioners on the Yukon River and the Tribal Fish Commission, they're all professionals in their own area. Every area is different, even 50 miles. I serve my people from the Canadian border to the Bering Sea on multiple boards and commissions, 12 of them actually, and I chair 6 of them. So it's a lot of work, and I also appreciate your time.

Thank you. Thank you for the chance to be here today. Today I come to you and sit in front of you with my Yukon River Intertribal Fish Commission hat on. I am the chair of the fish commission.

Some of the villages in our area and on the Yukon River are in no other mean situations right now. There's grandmas that are hungry. There's people, you know, they don't have no store.

They don't have Costco. They don't have no salmon, no meat. Game is getting scarce in the interior. Like you hear people say, the moose are moving west. And it's true, 100%.

It's really hard to find moose in my area right now. And there's not a big resource there for anymore because of the effects of the highway and mining and colonization. It's— Round Parts had a gold strike in 1898. When that was over, there wasn't even a tree left. I thought, I asked my grandma, was it just that long ago that the ice melted away, there was no trees?

She said, no, they cut them all and used them all. And they ate all the animals that were in the area. And in my area, And Rampart doesn't even have a general store. So when it gets to be January and dark, there's tough times. And we know who's having a hard time and we help them as much as we can.

You heard the subsistence report this morning. We help as much as we can. I'm one of those people. I gather and collect game continuously. Every season I take advantage of so I can share.

Sharing brings me good luck. We call it karma. If you don't share, you don't have good luck hunting and fishing no more because you're not sharing. That's how we were raised. We help everybody that we can.

In the last 50 years, I've seen some changes. I want to get to something anyway with all this story, just so you know. I've seen some changes. As a child at Grandma's camp, we could see the king salmon coming up the Yukon River. They're actually jumping in front of the pulps.

We could see them. "The fish are coming," we'd holler to our elders, you know, 'cause we're in right below Round Part. It's really narrow there, so the fish really bottleneck together and we can actually see them below the island where's my grandma's camp on a high bank. And fish actually jump to look where they're going, what channel they're gonna take. On a calm night, we could hear the extra-large kings hitting the box of the fish wheel across the river.

Sometimes those big fish The fish were big enough to break that box.

The dried king strips were taller than some of us as kids. I was a commercial fisherman as a young man on the Yukon River and around Rampart. When that was stopped, we went to the mouth near Imonik, my uncles and I. In 1987 season, I worked in Imo. There was a long line of fish processing plants.

On the bank, over 700 boats in that area fighting for position to drift.

And working in that area, I was blown away by the size of the kings and the astronomical amount going up the bank on conveyor belts, monster fish. I say this not to point my finger at nobody or point blame, but just to say that I'm part of the problem myself and admit that. I have to. I, after fishing in Emonik with my uncles for a couple years, I realized what we were doing and I told them that I couldn't do it anymore. I said, "I can't fish on these fish that hard knowing that my family is upriver waiting for fish to come." So I stopped going there to commercial fish and I never commercial fished again.

The number of salmon returns that come in every year continuously lowered. Sometimes the managers would lower the escapement goals to help with commercial fishing, make it happen. It always bothered me.

And in some of the discrete stocks and contributaries, those escapement goals are not even looked at anymore.

So when you run a trawl boat, in one trawl, one tow, you could take out a discrete stock from a contributary on the Yukon River. One tow. As a young man, all our contributaries, the ones that haven't turned brown yet, like Stanley said, are clear. So we could see the fish going in there, the chums and the kings. And believe you me that every one of them creeks had fish bumping on the bank trying to get into them creeks.

And they're just not there no more.

Oh, excuse me.

The ecosystems in these contributaries are failing. There's no salmon coming back up to the 200 species are affected in one valley, right down to the blue fly.

A wolf pack will drag 200 chums up on a bank and leave for a week, and they come back and they eat the meat— or the skin, I mean, excuse me. They don't like the meat. They leave the meat for everybody else to eat, all the other species, birds, animals, bugs. They come back and eat the brains and the skin.

The diabetes has exploded in the Tanna Chief Region up to 70% in 5 years. Elders are sick, getting cut off, and their limbs are getting cut off at the leg and knee, and people's food and health is affected. The mental, physical, and spiritual— it's mental, physical, and spiritual to the people. Salmon culture on the rivers near my village, Rampart, are just about gone. All the camps are brushed over and grassed over.

You can barely tell they're there anymore. It was a healthy lifestyle, really healthy to grow up. I was raised on the Yukon, and I raised 5 kids on the Yukon. And my kids would tell me, "Really, Dad? You figured out another way to cook salmon?" That's what they ate.

I put salmon on the table every day. And they'd eat it when they came home. And I'd come home from work, there'd be a skin, a dry fish skin on the table with nothing on it, and I was proud of that. And to this day, they're still ready to cut fish and looking downriver for it to come back again.

I grew up in Rampart, and not too far below there, we found our old village. Fish vertebrae, 13,000 to 15,000 years old in there. We've been eating fish for a while, and we've been stewarding fish. And game for a while. Up until I was 16, the village of Rampart didn't have electricity.

So we couldn't— we didn't have no freezers. So we dug hills into the— holes into the mountain. We put doors on them and we filled them with blocks of ice on each side in the spring so that we can keep things cold through the summer. That was our freezer. So we couldn't keep much king salmon.

And the native people of Alaska and on the Yukon Rivers and other tributaries couldn't keep much king salmon. That's why there was so much. They would get bad on us. But once a week, my elders would take the king— cut dried king salmon out of canvas bags and they'd check every piece and they'd wipe every strip to make sure that mold wouldn't start on it. So it wasn't until very long ago we were able to start keeping more king salmon.

We've been stewarding this land for thousands of years, like I said, and I think that the fish commissioners on the Yukon River and the Tribal Fish Commission are ready to continue this practice going forward.

The Yukon River and Tribal Fish Commission would like to support Proposal 17 with the friendly amendment to add the entire river system. We want to support 6-inch inside sluice and tributaries and lake systems that don't have anadromous salmon in them. This will help people catch, catch better. It's really hard to catch fish in a 4-inch mesh, no matter what it is or where it is. The bigger ones fall out and the smaller ones swim through.

So you're not— if you're not right on a whitefish run, you're gonna have a hard time catching fish to eat. You couldn't feed a dog team off of one of those, you know, let alone a family.

We know where all the nadruma streams are in each respective area along the river near every community, and we'd like to work with the managers to help that happen and do it in a good way.

And it also helps how many times you have to go out and.

Fish. If you have a 4-inch mesh in, you're gonna have to fish continuously to try to eat. A 6-inch mesh can— if on some whitefish, some sheefish, it'll catch you a nice pile of fish, then you don't have to keep going and wasting gas. As it is right now, people who live in the village have to gang up on one boat to go hunting because the gas prices are so high, and they have to decide in the wintertime whether they want fuel, electricity, food. This is real hardship.

I share with my community every opportunity— fish, meat, whatever's going on, potlatch, covered dish. I am one of the lucky guys to be able to purchase fish from Bristol Bay and ship it all the way over. I ship it to Anchorage and have it trucked up here on Lynden Transport, and I pick up 900-pound bundles at the It's a freezer over there at the end of Pegah Road. I distribute that to many villages in my area. Culture camps, potlatches, families.

When I run a culture camp, people come there and they cut fish and they take some home. We give what we dry to the elders in the fall time. The kids— it lifts the kids up. It's inclusion.

And there's less dropout.

I know myself in my area what swims where, taught from my elders.

I can put a fish wheel in and I could catch almost all of King Salmon or chum. I know where the fish, the whitefish swim. I can move my fish wheel half a mile and I can catch more whitefish than anything. In the fall time, late. So that's why I say the commissioners are ready to help.

We know, we know where things are. I also support, with a 6-pack license, I support some biology, some biologists going out to do midriver sonar feasibility. And through that, I found out that there ain't no more big fish swimming up Mill River. These fish are side-orientated now. While running sonar and drifting to try to prove what we're seeing on the sonar.

We weren't hitting anything. We thought something was wrong with the sonar. Then because it was pretty shallow, the sonar's about here to chair out. So when we started drifting, we weren't catching them.

It was driving us nuts. So then finally grabbed the net and drug it on the beach and pushed the boat out and started started to drift and here they're in knee-deep water. They're just right against the bank actually hitting you in the boots. So things are changing. That's proof that, you know, there's— the fish are not in good shape.

They're small. They're running out of gas. They don't have the fat no more. They're just not swimming up the middle and doing what they used to do. Things have changed.

The whitefish, you know, you can't use a 10-year-old study on what's going on today. That stuff from the past, you have to throw it out. They've got to start over. The climate has changed. There's gorging going on.

Minerals, ice is permafrost melting and different minerals are surfacing and making creeks not good for salmon or any freshwater fish anymore. After big rain events, you see rock mountain humpy whitefish pulverized on top of drift piles. The birds are eating them. Rampart I'm talking specifically about my area, so this is only in one area. In Round Park in the wintertime the other year, we had a big 4 or 5 day rain event, caused a flash flood.

All the fish, baby fish were out on top of the river on the ice. Trees and stumps, anything you could think of was out there. And all the animals and birds are just going crazy having a potlatch out there. So there's so many different things in effect here. In the '90s, we had drought.

Nobody even talked about it. I'd walk up trying to find— actually, I was hunting, and the creek on my mom's land started— it was so low that it started running under the rocks and coming out on the edge of the river. You could see a little bit of clear water there, and the chums were bouncing on it. Charlie, I'm gonna make sure— I want to make sure we have time for questions. Okay, wrap it up.

You know, I could keep going all day. But I just want to say that we're ready to manage with you guys. I just want to add to that, in 1976, there's a Department of Fish and Game biologist that's told and reported that cannot use large mesh nets on the Yukon. It's not going to work. And elders have been continuously saying this.

You know, so we can't cry over spilt milk, but we can do better and work together going forward. And I appreciate you guys' time today. Thank you. Thank you, Charlie. Any questions?

Mr. Swenson.

I just want to say that it's great. You guys have given great presentations here. I've had my doubts in the past about some of the different things of traditional knowledge, but you guys have got— have convinced me that it's pretty important. And I would hope that we can help you get that moral fabric back. If you work with all of us who are sitting up here, let's hope that we can get it back for you together.

Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Irwin. Thank you, Madam Chair. Anabaase, Charlie, for your testimony.

I really appreciated you sharing the traditional knowledge about the wolves. I had never known that piece of the biological history, and it's interesting to think about that cyclical nature and how the wolves help the other animals as well. My question is, Have you participated in fisheries in other regions to make up for the loss of harvest on the Yukon?

Yes, like I said earlier, for a few years we've been, we've been buying it commercially and having it shipped over. But this past summer I went to Ekwok and did participate in that fishery over there for some personal use, and my family is really enjoying it, and my mom was really happy. I flew it into Anchorage and I drove it all the way to Yukon River Bridge frozen and hauled it down to my boat so that my mom could experience that again. And I try to do that every year one way or another. She stands on the bank looking downriver, hoping and praying.

That's all she knows. She also has diabetes really bad in the last few years from not having salmon, and that even pushes me harder to do this work.

Thank you. Yes, and Charlie, to that point of, um, with regard to the diabetes that you mentioned, could you refer back that 70% increase in 5 years? Where's that data coming from? That's come from Tanna Chiefs Conference, the health service they have right there. They do their own— they do— they're paying attention to what's going on.

Yep. Thank you for your testimony.

Thank you for being with us today. Thank you so much for the opportunity, and I thank you guys for doing all the hard work and all the time you spend away from your families, just the same as we do. We're all connected through salmon, so I hope that we can do the best we can going forward. I appreciate you all. Thank you.

Before we break for lunch, folks, folks, I just, I appreciate the applause, but we try not to do that here. Okay. So please, please, please give your congratulations personally and your thanks personally. Okay. Before we break for lunch, because of an emergent situation, I wanted to make sure that we get one more public testifier available for a 3-minute public testimony.

Mr. Steven Steve Guinness. I would like to welcome you to the microphone and please state your name for the record and if you're representing anybody and you'll be given 3 minutes for your personal testimony today.

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the board. My name is Steve Guinness. I come from Gwich'in. That's Fort Yukon. And I was born and raised there.

I was born in 1950. And, you know, over the years, I have been involved in the advocacy of our fisheries on the Yukon River. And I've been advocating starting in 1974. And I've had the honor of being the president of 10 chiefs. I've been on the National Congress of American Indians board as area vice president representing all the tribes in Alaska.

And there's other boards that I've been involved in. But what I wanted to speak here today Is that I hope all of you would have the political will to help our people address the intercept fishery.

I pray that you do. You've heard it over and over and over. From our people and there's no action has been taken.

And I'm convinced that, you know, if everybody took a stance on that intercept fishery, we will see the results. The fish will.

Start coming back.

You know, in my language, our elders used to tell us, "Chopoki," which means listen.

And I've practiced that throughout my life.

I listen and I take action. When somebody is speaking to me and wants something done, I take the action to do the best I can to respond to that.

And so that's what I wanted to say here today. Listen to us. Help us.

To do what I believe is the right thing to do.

Put any political differences you may have on this issue, but do the right thing.

I really ask of all of you to do that.

So in closing, we say in our language, That means may God be with you.

And I say, which means thank you very much. Thank you for your time. And I know you have a big responsibility, the board, including the staff. You have a huge responsibility of managing over 2,000 miles of river.

I get that.

So again, please help us out. Stand with us.

That's part of our cultural values, right? Helping each other out. With that, I thank you so much. Masi shi shoo, Steven. Is there any questions?

Thank you for being here and for your testimony today. I appreciate you. Thank you.

All right, folks. We are at 12:06, 7. We got just a couple minutes before it gets real loud in here. And I'm going to do a second call for traditional knowledge report for Seth Cantner right after we come back from lunch. Let's come back from lunch at 1:30.

All right, we'll see you back at 1:30. Thank you.

[Speaker:COMMISSIONER ARKOOSH] All right. Welcome back. The time is 1:48. We are back on the record. And I have been informed that our third traditional knowledge person that had signed up to report is not here and won't be here.

So we're going to move directly into public testimony at this time. So let's give a little bit of instruction about public testimony and then we'll, we'll be off to the races. So if you've signed up for public testimony, when your name is called, please come forward to the microphone, state your name for the record and whom you represent, if anybody. If you have written materials for the board, you should identify those materials by RC, PC, or AC number. I'll provide you— I'll provide the board members an opportunity to get that paperwork before them, and we're not going to charge that time against you before before you begin to testify.

At this meeting, the public will be given 3 minutes each to testify. Advisory committees and regional advisory council representatives will each be given 10 minutes. When you begin your testimony, the executive director will give you a couple min— or a couple moments to introduce yourself before starting the timer. When your time is up, you will hear a beep. Please stop speaking when the timer goes off, or I will ask you to stop speaking.

When you're finished, please remain seated so the board members can ask any questions if they have some. We ask that you confine your oral testimony to the subjects under consideration in as concise and direct a manner as possible. It is the intent of the board to deal with the merits of the proposals before us based on the general principles used by the board. The board does not deal in personalities, so Public testifiers are encouraged not to, and I will admonish you not to refer to people by name, any person, staff member, or any board member. Advisory committee and RAC representatives should also fill out a blue card.

I think you've already done that. If you are representing an AC or a RAC and you've also signed up to give personal testimony, please just let me know which hat you're going to be wearing so that we can set the timer appropriately.

If you are testifying as an AC member, please confine your testimony to the position the committee took on the proposals or issues and give minority opinions of the committee if there are any. Um, and again, if you have signed up for public, your own personal testimony, please just let me know and I will make sure that clear in the record and also that you get the appropriate time allotted to you. If your name is called and you are not present to testify, I will give a second call. If you miss both your first and second calls, you will not be able to testify at this meeting. If your first call happens this afternoon, your second call will either occur at the end of public testimony today if we wrap, wrap it up, or I will give the second calls for today at the beginning of testimony tomorrow.

Does that make sense? So if, if you miss your call today and we wrap up public testimony today, which I think is probably unlikely to happen, but we'll see, I'll do second calls at the end of public testimony today or at the beginning tomorrow if, if we bleed over tomorrow a little bit. And I'm going to do my best to make regular announcements about those second calls so people can plan accordingly if they miss their first calls. Okay. Any board questions?

Ready for go? All right. So I believe that the public testimony list has been published and should be also available online if it's not, and hopefully on the door there. First up today is Larry Nathaniel representing the Yukon Flats Advisory Committee. Is Larry here?

Welcome.

Hi. Whenever you are ready, please just press the button on the microphone and put yourself on the record. Yes. Larry, are you going to give your personal testimony or advisory committee testimony first? I was just going to mention that.

I would like to do the the AC report and testimony first, and then behind that I'll do my— Very good. Thank you. Yes, good afternoon. My name is Larry Nathaniel, born in Fort Yukon, raised in Circle City where I now reside.

And I've been to this kind of public testimony a number of times. The last one was for the youth, for the North Pacific Urban Fisheries about a year ago, where I talked on the low-count fisheries and both chum and king salmon. But today, starting off with the A/C, sort of report that we had when we had our meeting October 30th, this past October. Via teleconference.

And at that meeting, there was a number of department people. Department people there gave their reports on the low count of both species of salmon, both chum and kings. And we also talked about the probability of restoring Introducing bison back to the Yukon Flats area.

And those reports are similar to the one that was given here yesterday and today.

So at that meeting, we only dealt with 3 proposals that's before the board here today, and that's number 15, 16, and 17. On the number 15, which reads, to establish a 2-year closure on harvest of Yukon Flats fall chum and salmon. The committee discussed the multiple conservation measures already in place for fall chum and that there is no evidence an additional 2-year closure would aid the recovery. So having said that, that we kind of— there was 1 in favor of and 4 opposed.

And then on number 16, that's the closure of mainstem river, Yukon River, to a 4-inch or less Mishkellner for Fall Chum Salmon Conservation. There was no comments, but my personal take on that is when I questioned what the mainstem Yukon River was, it was explained to me that the mainstem would be any current flowing in the Yukon, that which will cover almost bank to bank on both sides of the river. That will prohibit us from targeting non-Salmon species if we wanted to.

So that's— excuse me.

So we kind of oppose that too because that's further To me, it sounds like, "If you're going to prohibit us from doing it in the mainstem, that's just like covering the whole river and we have no chance to harvest any non-salmon species." So that to me seems like it should be just a closed season, period. That's what I feel like it's saying to me. That's why we opposed it. And on that number 17, it's allowed use of 6-inch or less mesh gill net during the time of salmon conservation. I think that has to do with— excuse me again— streams or small rivers that are tributary to the Yukon where there's no spawning chum or king salmon, that these be allowed to fish for non-salmon species.

I think that proposal was targeted for the Three Rivers down around the Amonok area. But there was also an amendment to that which would allow the use of injureless mishkelnit, In the Upper Yukon and tributaries and the area around there, there is a number of creeks and a couple small rivers listed on that amendment. It's quite lengthy, so I won't read them all, but I'm sure you see it in the proposals.

And that's where we— and as far as the rest of the proposals, that's not pertaining to the Econ Flats, we decided that although it's not pertaining to the Econ Flats area, that we should support them also because who knows, one day it might impact Econ Flats. So we're all in support of whatever, whoever intensifies and, and pass these resolutions or proposals. And we also gone under future food security. We've talked about that, I mentioned, uh, reintroduction of bison in Yukon Flats. That was given that the targeted date, and that would be 2027, and it'll be 60 animals, and it'll be somewhere in Yukon Flats.

I think the targeted region is in the Martyr Lake area, and that's between Chilkoot and the Circle. I know this area pretty well. That Martyr Lake used to be a huge lake, but now due to permafrost melting and the warmer weather, it's kind of drained out and the soil is just a small little pond there. But there's still good ground where I think bison would survive.

All our village meeting hasn't occurred yet. There's one scheduled for Circle, in which I think that when I talk to the people in Circle that they will support because we have evidence and testimony even from the late Reverend and the Chief Reverend Dr. David Salmon alluded to the fact that he was told by his father, grandparents, that the bison were actually in the area and that might be a good idea to reintroduce them back to our area. And on account of the lower moose count too, that's why we need another source of protein, another source of food to survive. As we all know that the fish stocks are getting lower and lower each year. It kind of concerns me that we're still here talking about it after about 25 years, I think it was about 25 years when we started talking about it.

But the Bison is a good plan, and I think it would be a great idea. Because I remember back some, I don't know how long, when I was with CATG, the Native organization from Fort Yukon that includes 9 villages in Yukon Flats, we were the ones that started the Bison project. We wanted to start it with the help of Fish and Game, but for some reason they said it wouldn't work or there was not enough support.

And then that's where we just let it go. And about 2 or 3 years later, they took up the project and they introduced bison into the— was it Nowitla? River down around the Kuskokwim area, and that herd is thriving now. And just lately, this past spring, they introduced bison into the mental flats area. So I think that this will be a good project for any village or any region that's concerned about food security and introduce And respect to the— in their homeland.

And as far as king salmon and chum salmon, I won't comment on that on my AC testimony because I don't— like I said, I was with the AC only for the first time for this meeting, but I've been to other meetings, but I don't know what their feelings or what they talked about. On the Chum Salmon and the King Salmon. So not knowing how, what they talked about and how they talked about it, what they wanted, it wouldn't be right for me to say this is what they wanted because I'm not sure if they actually said that or not. So I won't make any comments on that.

So with that, these proposals and the meeting we had, that would conclude my AC Testimony. Very good, thank you. Are there any board questions for his AC testimony?

Not seeing any. If you'd like to do your personal testimony now, you may do so. Go ahead. If you'd like to give your personal testimony right now, you, you can. Sure, I will.

And starting off, I I think I just said, how many years have we been talking about the salmon fisheries? It's been quite a few years now. And it seems like to me, this is my opinion, I know it might be opinion to others too, that time for action is now instead of talking it over and over again. The things I've said before and the things I want to say I said before the North Pacific Rim Fisheries testimonial this past year, and also for the record, I have a recorded interview done by Fish and Game back in 1995. In that recorded testimony, interview, I said the same thing.

About why the fisheries were getting low and what we need to do about it and where the problems I thought was coming from.

I might be mistaken, but you know, some of these things do happen and I think they happen for a reason. Excuse me.

And salmon is a big concern for me. It's a concern because it's like some of the testimonies you might hear today, even Charlie mentioned, it's sort of like medicine to us. Every year we go out to practice harvesting king salmon at a fish camp. Fish camp is just not only a place we go to just fish. We go there to teach our kids cultural activities, how to do things the right way.

You know, if there's arts and crafts, they learn. They learn how to cut fish. They learn how to gather wood, how to keep the fire going. How to cook fish on an open fire. Now, things that they need to learn as they grow up being Native and Natives of Alaska and the resident.

And I remember years ago when I was just a small lad fishing with my grandpa at Six Mile Camp. I was a young boy then. 'Cause he ate all. But I'm still young. Maybe the years is a little larger, but I'm still young.

There was plenty of fish to get at that time. I remember getting so many fish that they had to stop their fish wheel to catch up with the fish that they got that day. And then sometimes if there's too many for my mom or my grandma or my aunt to take care of, Grandpa Cornelius would take some in his boat, take it to Circle and give it to those that didn't make the fish camp or those that didn't have fish camp or those that didn't go fishing. They had no way of going fishing. They don't have no gear.

But back then too, there was no commercial fisheries. There were no rolls during operation. There were no big trawlers out in the ocean catching bycatch.

And the fish survived. They came back year after year. Now we're interfering with the process of the fish doing exactly that, returning. There are too many gauntlets for them to run. So we have to overcome that and try something new.

I know this is going to sound outrageous, but you know, we have to take some drastic measures and action that people might think is, "Oh, he can't do that because it's against the law," or, "No, he can't do that because it's against our right." And that's to start with— and not start with, but to stop fishing. All users should stop fishing Maybe if a moratorium of 4 years, see what the 4-year cycle will bring back at the end of 4 years, up to 4 years from year 1, 2, 3, 4, take count of these salmon that are returning. And I can almost guarantee you that the numbers will increase. Thank you. If we leave them alone for a number of years.

Because nature has its own unique way of rejuvenating itself. And it does that. It's evident in the country. If you leave land alone out there and don't touch it, pretty soon you'll see brush growing. You'll see trees growing.

You'll see animals on the land. That's what nature does. It rejuvenates itself. So maybe we just let it go for 4 years. All users, I mean everybody, take a step back and see what happens in 4 years.

Thank you. If that don't work, then I think we're just lost cause. Okay. Are there any questions? Ms. Irwin has a question for you.

Thank you, Mr. Nathaniel, for your testimony. My question is, when is the last time you harvested a salmon at fish camp?

I'm sorry, but that was, I think that was 9 years ago. I just so happened to be there, was one year, one year before. And my wife died.

Thank you. Are there any other questions?

Thank you very much for being here. Appreciate your testimony today. Thank you.

Charlie Lean with the Northern Norton Sound AC.

Hi, Charlie. Welcome back.

Hi, I'm Charlie Lean for the record, and I'd like to do my AC testimony first.

So I'm just recently reappointed to be the chair of the Northern North Sound AC. Been doing that for a while.

We mustered 13 members at our meeting just a couple weeks ago, and we considered proposals 28 through 38.

So Proposal 28 is a proposal forwarded by Fish and Game to define beach seine in more specific numbers. And currently the practice is just if you're using a net as a seine, it's a seine. If it's a gill net, it's a gill net. But this would be more conventional and have a defined length, defined web size, defined twine size, all that stuff. And so it was probably our most contentious proposal and we split our vote, 4 in favor and 9 against, I believe.

Yep. And the contention was about the fact that this would be an added cost to people that didn't have the money to do it. So we had a Murbach storm and then we had the Hanloon storm just this year. And in both cases, it inundated the coastal communities and wrecked a lot of fishing infrastructure for people. And there are people in locations where the runs are pretty poor.

And it just doesn't pencil out for some people to go buy whole $800, $1,000 net just to perhaps be able to use it this year. So anyway, just demographically, the 4 pros were from Nome, a little bit better economy in Nome, and the opposition came from outlying communities.

Proposal 29 would establish a limit of 25 sockeye for subsistence annually on the— on the Sinik River. And this is a proposal you may have seen as an ACR a couple years ago. The proposer and I both tried to do an ACR.

Currently, the limit is 100 sockeye per year on the Sinik, whereas the much higher-producing Pilgrim River is 25.

So it kind of sends a false signal to the, to the fishers that all's well on the Sinik and we've got a really mind our P's and Q's on the— on conservation on the Pilgrim. And I think that's just the reverse.

And anyway, that was a unanimous decision on our part to endorse that 25 fish limit.

Proposals 30 and 31 are virtually the same. Proposal 30 has a lot more— has an anecdote in there about the proposer's experience on the Seneca and somebody doing illegal fishing. And it's not really pertinent to this idea. So the— so we tabled Proposal 30. And ran with Proposal 31.

And 31 moves the boundary for subsistence fishing downstream, so it shortens the distance where you could subsistence fish. And that's much more in.

Keeping with the original proposal that occurred, not sure, '96 or thereabouts, and at the time the upper limit of subsistence fishing was— we were instructed by the Board of Fish in Nome to hold subsistence fishing not on the spawning grounds for chum salmon so that this fishery is mostly about Sockeye, but nevertheless, the original boundary was downstream, very close to where this is proposed, and over time that boundary migrated upstream, not through the board process, but by managers. Anyway.

We were unanimous in that.

Proposals 33, 34, and I think it's 37 are kind of a package deal, and they all speak to king salmon on the Pilgrim River.

And the idea here is to reduce king harvest on the Pilgrim River without closing the red salmon fishery. And so in combination, we think this is our— it was originally proposed by NSCDC, and I should have said that I'm a part-time employee of NSCDC. I didn't write this proposal or any of these proposals, but I receive money from them. So The idea is to return all king salmon caught by beach seining to the water alive, hopefully. And that's Proposal 33.

Proposal— Proposal 34.

I'm getting this mixed up. Proposal 33. Proposal 34.

Proposal 34 would allow keeping one, one king salmon in gear other than beach scene. And what didn't come out, I think, in the staff presentation was that The fish run from Port Clarence to Grantley Harbor to Tuxuk Channel to Emmerich Basin to the Pilgrim River to Salmon Lake. And so the fishing that occurs downstream of the Pilgrim River is virtually all gillnet fishing. Furthermore, there's chum salmon stocks, so there's— people asked about where the line was between the Kotzebue stock and the Norton Sound chum stock. And that's in Immeruck Basin.

So on the north side of Immeruck Basin, they're Kotzebue genetically related fish. And on the Pilgrim River, they're Norton Sound related chum salmon. So they're early. We have a summer and a fall run on the Pilgrim River. So, so anyway, The— in reading these two proposals, you might go, well, they're contradictory.

They're not. What the idea is to allow the harvest of an incidentally caught king salmon in a gillnet, but to return it to the water from a beach scene. That's the idea.

And we as a group supported those.

Proposal 34 speaks to the disparity between rules for hook and line subsistence fishing and net fishing.

And so in Norton Sound, I just— or Nome Subdistrict, I mentioned that there were lower portions of the river allowed subsistence fishing. But if you're hook and line fishing and fish the whole length of the stream, in some cases the enforcement has been that if you're fishing in the subsistence zone, the subsistence limits apply. But if the— if you're fishing above the subsistence zone, you can only keep 2.

This This proposal was an attempt to do that, and we, we got thoroughly confused on it and we took no action. I think the proposer is going to come to you in later testimony and propose her solution for this conundrum that we faced. But, you know, we didn't, we didn't vote it down because we thought there was merit, but it was way too confusing. And we hope that there can be a solution to it.

Proposal 36 is a proposal to allow catch and release of king salmon in Subdistricts 5 and 6F.

If there's an opening allowed in marine waters. And so we all looked at this with a jaded eye and thought that really what this is— is—. Finish your thought. It's an attempt to be able to advertise catch and release king fishing. And, and as a group, we felt that the king situation in eastern Norton Sound is dire and we just prefer not to see that catch and release advertised.

It's still physically possible. You can say, oh, I'm trying to catch dollies or grayling and I catch a king by accident and I returned it to the water. Got it. Charlie, what was the AC's positions on 37 and 38? Since you mentioned that you took up 28 through 38.

Yeah, 37 we endorsed, and that was part of that 3 package. Very few Chinook have been caught anyway, but we wanted to close that just to be consistent. 38 Was a hook size issue, and somebody got busted for too large a hook, and they thought they were using a legal lure. Apparently they weren't. And we voted it down.

We didn't see it, didn't see the need for this proposal. Thank you. Any questions?

All right. Would you like to give your personal testimony? Yes. Thank you. Yeah, I'm a, I'm a long-term Nome resident, more than 50 years.

And 45 of those years I was a Fish and Game biologist or a federal biologist. I was a manager, either an assistant manager or an area biologist for 20 years with the state. And then I was 5 years OSM manager for Northwest Alaska as well. And then more recently I've been a biologist for NSCDC.

My family's— my dad lived in Nome before I was born. Anyway, I have many strong opinions, but the one I'd like to concentrate on today is the escapement goals. And I'm very happy that the Kibbutzulik escapement goal was changed and eliminated, I guess. I thought that was a really poor poorly crafted goal. And the conditions on the Tabatcheluk and all the other rivers are somewhat different.

Tabatcheluk's a fast-running stream. It's difficult to survey. And you get a different proportion count when you aerial survey there than you would on the Quinniuk or many other streams that are clearer and calmer.

And I was happy to see the Pilgrim River upper goal I was happy to see it. I wanted to see it lowered, but it was removed. That's better than it was anyway. The problem with the Pilgrim and several other places that had upper limits and now are just lower limit goals is it doesn't address when you get over escapement, the damage that can occur. And so if you have a— humongous pink run, you shouldn't say that's fine.

You should say, well, we'd rather see it at some number that wouldn't impact all the other species later. And the same went for the Pilgrim River. So I believe that there should be an upper and lower limit on goals, and I would urge the board and the department to do that.

They may not be attainable. We may not have the fishing power to address an out-of-control fishery or an out-of-control run, but we should know that there's impacts both to the species that you're talking about and the— or the stock you're talking about and other fish in the same stream. So, anyway, I would urge you to think about that and I would think there should be an upper and lower goal and.

Consequently, management would focus on something in between. And then it's a real temptation. We hear people, "Well, you managed to the lower goal." And I know that I didn't do that, other people probably don't do that, but it seems that way because if you have chronic low runs one after another and you really want to offer opportunity, you end up Managing to the lower goal because as soon as you get over that goal, you open a fishery, it's a really slow incoming stock, and your fishing power is proportionally greater than it would be on a, on a better run. So you end up lowballing every time. And so I think having a midpoint goal as a target with understanding that the lower goal is has value, but the midpoint's better.

Okay, thank you. Any questions? Ms. Irwin? Yeah, thank you very much, Mr. Lean, for your testimony and for your service to the state as well.

Um, my question is, do you have concerns for the Quinniac River Kings right now? I, I have concern for all the Kings. Yes, thank you. All right, thanks for your testimony today. Thanks for your service on the AC.

All right. Mitch Wisnowski, followed by Ragnar Ahlstrom and Elmer Beans. So Mitch— sorry, I got one of those— I got one of those names too. So please correct me.

It's Wisnowski. You were close. You're close. I know. All right.

You're ready. Please begin. Thank you. Hello everyone, and thank you for letting me be here today and speak. For the record, my name is Mitchell Wisniewski, and I'm the owner of the Unalakleet River Lodge.

I'm also the author of Proposal 36, which I'd like to clarify looks to open a catch-and-release king fishery on the Unalakleet River when subsistence fishing is closed. The tiered system that we have currently right now that dictates what we can do with kings, there is an option for catch-and-release that coincides with subsistence. However, we haven't been able to have that option available to us. So by doing this, this would open up a catch and release kingfishery for us on the Unalakleet. Coming from a business lens, this is economic viability for me as a lodge owner in the future.

We're looking at celebrating our 50th anniversary next year, and it's really exciting. But, you know, if I want to continue this on, or if anyone else wants to continue this on for another 50 years, we need to start thinking about other options and opportunities for us. I know geographically where I'm located kind of limits me to how long I can operate, but I'd like to be able to get back to a 10 or 12-week season from my 8-week season that I currently have right now. I'm just capped at logistically what I can facilitate and how much I can charge people. So if I want to continue this on, or anyone else wants to continue this on, again, just want to look at some other opportunities for us.

To have a really cool fishing program. And, you know, this is not something that, you know, we just pulled out of the hat and decided to do. And, you know, this wasn't brought up lightly. You know, I wouldn't have decided to do this if I didn't think that we could do this sustainably. It wasn't proven it could be done sustainably.

And if we weren't actually seeing fish out there on the river, there was a study done by Alaska Fish and Game in 2017-2018 on the Nushagak River that was studying king mortality rates with the catch-and-release fishery that was there. In 2017, there was 107 fish tagged with a 6.7% mortality rate, and in 2018, there's 210 fish that were tagged with a 6% mortality rate. The total pool data, the 5-day survival estimate for those fish, is 93.4%. So, I mean, obviously I'm aware that we will have some impact on the fishery if we do go out there, but it's proven that we, you know, it can be done sustainably. And this was done— 60% of those fish were caught with bait, 40% of those fish were caught artificially.

It didn't say whether that was treble hook or single hook, but I can tell you right now, at the lodge we use artificial, we use single hook, and we're barbless on top of that. We really try to make sure that we're doing our part out there. And we're— I'm not in the meatpacking industry. I'm in giving people an experience and an opportunity industry. And when I realize how much of a privilege it is for me to come up here every single year and do what we do, It's amazing.

The salmon run is an amazing phenomenon. It happens every single year. I love exposing people to that. I think it's my job as an outfitter, as a guide, to educate people and change people's worldview. I do agree that having a closed fishery sends a strong message about what's going on, and we need to pay attention to that, take care of this resource.

But I also know that giving folks an opportunity is something that is unforgettable. And that holds a lot of weight too as well. And that's all I have for today. So thank you very much. Quick question for you, Mitch.

Are you an Alaskan resident? No, ma'am. Are you aware of the subsistence priority in law? Uh, yes and no. Okay.

Any other questions? Mr. Carpenter. Thanks. Thanks, Mitch, for coming. Um, I was going to ask a very similar question.

That the chair asked. And I guess my assumption is, is that most of your clientele are from out of state. Is that, is that correct? Fair statement? That's correct.

Yes, sir. And this is a really, this is a really unusual proposal, at least in my eyes, because, you know, as you've sat here listening to all the problems, especially with king salmon that we're having, to give opportunity to people when subsistence is closed is a very, very hard ask. And I know you understand that. And you're right, there is some mortality associated with catch and release. And the subsistence fisheries closed because there's kind of a problem.

And I guess understanding the idea that you're, you know, you're trying to make a go of this business and I wish you success. Did you take all that into consideration before you put the proposal in? Yes, 100%. Um, you know, I grew up— I'm from Western North Carolina, from Asheville, North Carolina, full-time fly fishing guide back home. Um, you know, I really understand, you know, all the aspects of it that goes around in this industry, um, from myself to how it affects the people who are there.

Um, so, you know, I do think about this, um, and it is something that kept me up at night a little bit, and I know what seat is going to put me in here. But again, I wouldn't do this and I wouldn't be here— I'm not trying to take anything away from anybody here. I'm really just trying to, again, open this up for people. This is a really cool opportunity, and I know it's a hot topic, but I know we could do this sustainably, and a few years down the road, I don't feel like we would see any difference.

Okay, any other questions? Thank you for your testimony today. Thank you. Ragnar Ahlstrom, followed by Elmer Beans and then Tiffany Aguiar. Welcome, Ragnar.

Madam Chair, my name is Ragnar Ahlstrom. I'm from the village of Aluknuk on the Lower Yukon Delta. I was born there and I've lived there all my life. I'm employed as the executive director of the Yukon Delta Fisheries Development Association. That's a community development quota group consisting of 6 villages on the delta.

Madam Chair, we're opposed to proposals 15 and 16. And in regards to 17, we believe that the actions which we supported by the federal and state managers addressed the, the proposal, what the people were proposing in Proposal 17. We— it was refreshing to see the federal and state managers make, make that effort to allow fishing in those backwater lakes and sloughs. Regards Proposal 15, it has— we feel it has two fundamental problems. One, we haven't been fishing downriver for 5 years, I think the report says.

And that's because when returns get that low, the Yukon River drainage folsom management plan prohibits, as the Innu Dene have directed, folsom subsistence. We've been closed. And you can't, you know, this proposal closes what's already been closed. The other problem we have with 15 is that when those folsom stocks are detected, then the closure occurs. And we've seen in the report by the ADFNG that that can occur on the 15th of June.

In fact, I've seen other reports where you can detect folsom even earlier in June. So it's a double— It's a double whammy. We're restricted from subsistence effort by the concern for Chinook, which is a rightful concern, and then this will further restrict it. Even though if that, when first detected, is changed to the regulatory date in the Lower River of July 16th, that still doesn't address the fundamental problem that this is addressed in the Yukon River Fossil Management Plan. On 16, proposal 16, which we also oppose, which is it—.

Closes the use of 4-inch or less mesh. In all these reports, what I haven't seen is why we use— we hear it, but I haven't seen reports, you know, presented why we're using 4-inch mesh in the mainstem. There's a report by the Joint Technical Committee of the Yukon River Panel that shows at the pilot station sonar, what are called other species, including cisco, whitefish, brood and humpback sea fish and so on. And at the sonar, it shows that, you know, 2024, 408,000 of those fish passed, 551,000. 2022, 934,000.

That's what we're targeting. Is that migrating fish that's going up the stream. Madam Chair. Thank you, Ragnar. Questions?

Thank you for your testimony. Are you going to be around for Committee of the Whole? Madam Chair, yes, I am. Good. We'll talk to you more then, I'm sure.

Thank you.

Elmer Beans.

Welcome out. Welcome.

You got to press the button there, sorry. Now you're good to go. Sorry about that. Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you this afternoon. I'm from Mountain Village, and it's located about 100 miles up the Yukon River, and all the tributaries tributaries in the Yukon Delta become one at Mountain Village, so we have a very wide river there, almost a mile wide.

We have a couple of channels, and because of the currents, bank erosions, and shifting winds, eddies for 4-inch nets are very few. Proposal 17 addresses that to a degree, by allowing the use of 6-inch nets in the Nanwernuk, Inritjuaq, and Anunnak Rivers. I support Proposal 17 because the bulk of the fall and the fall chum salmon and coho salmon pass by the main Yukon River before September 1st and don't go up these rivers. When fishing in one of these three rivers, fishers set their nets when they go out on day trips and remove them out of the river before going home. Sometimes you can see the boats sitting by their net, watching the net.

Others might leave their nets overnight to get more for their winter supply.

When fishers get what they need, they pull their nets out. My village, it's not uncommon to hear announcements over the radio or on Facebook for people to pick up fish. And it's beneficial for the elders and for those who don't have the means to go out and get the fish on their own.

September is a time when you can catch very good quality fish in a short amount of time by using 6-inch mesh nets. You can notice a difference when comparing the fish caught with a 4-inch mesh or a 6-inch mesh size. We're grateful to the board that we had an opportunity this year to fish by emergency order on August 17th. Passing Proposal 17 would give us concrete dates and remove the uncertainty of not fishing in these rivers. I can speak for the people who use these rivers for their subsistence needs because I know the rivers.

Fish Village River and Kayasokowik River are two other rivers that we used to use but aren't on the list of these 3 rivers that proposal 17 addresses.

There are other rivers used by other villages below and above Mountain Village that were used to fish their subsistence needs without, without endangering migrating salmon. They can identify these rivers and seek to open them just as we have at Mountain Village. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Are there any questions?

Mr. Wood. Yeah, what size or what type of fish would you catch with the 6-inch mesh? Oh, we try to— personally, I go after whitefish, and you also can catch cheefish.

Pike-chee and the broadhead whitefish. Thank you.

The 4-inch nets get those same fish, but they're a lot smaller with less fat content, and the meat isn't as firm as the bigger fish that are good.

All right, thank you very much for your testimony today. Hi, Tiffany, welcome.

Good afternoon, my name is Tiffany Egyar. I'm here representing Yukon Delta Fisheries Development Association. I'm from Alakanuk. It's one of their 6 communities that they represent, and I'm here I'm here to speak on proposals 15, 16, and 17. We oppose 15 and 16, and I'm getting mixed messages on 17 as they are written.

But then in other RCs, or within further in the document, you could see the department's comments, and we agree with those. Make a lot of sense and they're pretty good. And then seeing, seeing that as it is, we can agree with the amended language also shown in RC10. We have experienced their suggested amended language last summer. It isn't the best way to have our summer harvesting and it's not very efficient, but But it's better than being completely shut down.

We're already heavily regulated and seeing the hurt happening and also the way the people are adapting their ways of life to fill their freezers and try to make up for what salmon used to take up.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] But really, in the end, if the numbers allow according to subsistence rights, we should still be able to harvest the healthy stocks and the whitefish that are in the river and without further complicating everybody's lives. Thank you. Thank you. And just so that I was clear on your testimony, you supported I think the amended language for Proposal 17 in RC-10, or was it for the other proposals too? I just wasn't sure.

Pardon? What RC-10 says. Okay. Okay. Got it.

Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Next is Darlene Peat, followed by Carrie Stevens. And then Charles Mundaluk.

Hi, Darlene, welcome.

Good afternoon, my name is Darlene Peete. I serve as the tribal administrator for Nunamahcoa Tribe. This role gives me a firsthand understanding of the immense challenges facing our people and our community on the Lower Yukon. I am here to formally oppose proposals 15 and 16, which would impose further restrictions on our subsistence traditions during this critical time.

The majority of our community depends on subsistence fishing for sustenance. Our survival is intertwined with the ability to harvest our traditional foods. The current heavy regulations on subsistence activities already put an immense strain on our ability to provide for our families, and these proposed changes would only intensify that struggle. Our people are not driven by greed. We follow ancestral teachings and take only what is needed, nothing more.

Our community, which lives off the road system, access to fresh food is severely limited. We have no supermarkets, and the food available in our local stores is mainly processed, leading to significant health disparities. Relying on ordering fresh goods is not a viable solution. The extremely high freight costs make it unaffordable for most families and The long, unpredictable shipping times mean that fresh produce and goods often arrive spoiled or inedible. This reliance on processed foods has dire consequences for the health and well-being of our community, especially for our children and elders.

We need the ability to harvest non-salmon species to fill the nutritional gap created by these logistical and economic barriers. Using a 4-inch mesh net is a necessary tool to targeting alternative food source which are abundant and healthy. Denying us the use of this gear would further push our families toward an unhealthy diet for months and even years to come. We have a long and unbroken history as a subsistence people. Time and time again, we have had to repeat our request for basic consideration to have our traditional way of life acknowledged and protected.

Our cultural survival is on the table with these decisions. Subsistence is not a luxury for us. It is a critical necessity for our physical, cultural, and spiritual health. In closing, I urge the board to consider the human impact of these regulations. These are not ideal policy questions.

They are matters of life and health for the real families in rural Alaska. I stand in opposition to proposal 15 and 16 and ask that you support us to secure healthy food through our traditional subsistence practices. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions?

Thank you for your testimony today. Thank you. Carrie Stevens. Hi, Carrie, you made it. I made it.

I checked my luggage. Drop my heart on all of you and run out the door. I'll introduce myself first to save a little bit of my 3 minutes, if that's okay, Chair. So for those of you who haven't met me, my name is Carrie Stevens. I— my family is, uh, I married into Stevens Village, that is on the Upper Yukon, that is in 5D.

My first experience on the Yukon was in 2000. My husband caught 3 salmon. I am also faculty at UAF in tribal governance. Hello to all of my students who are listening. Our tribal stewardship— introduction to tribal stewardship class is listening in right now on YouTube, so I'm really happy that You stream all of your meetings.

So I'll begin. I want to thank Marit and I want to thank all of you, to the chair, to the board for being here, for giving your time.

I want to flip the tables. I want to scream. I want to cry. We're burying our young people. We've lost 3 young people in the Upper Yukon in the last 3 days.

This is life or death. I really want you to grapple that. I want you to grapple that this is a public health imperative. My own family members have, uh, struggled with diabetes since the crash. They were perfectly healthy prior.

It's a biological imperative We know that this is a keystone species. We act like it's just fine that they're all of a sudden not going to be in the ecosystem. It is an economic and food sovereignty imperative.

We didn't have to be here. None of us had to be here. Decades of mismanagement needs to be recognized. This board had within its purview for decades the ability to stop us from getting here. 3 Years ago, we were already here.

17 Years ago, we were already here. And we have seen little to no action except for to make the people who did not cause this crisis suffer and bury their loved ones. It is exhausting. It is painful.

And it will cause generational trauma to endure and continue.

You are tasked with upholding the law. Subsistence priority is the law.

Because of failed cases and some bad runs at law, you have a million little technicalities to fly by. You heard from Aleta Trainer. You are starving out the people. They have no food. And we ask them to go without.

While on both sides of the ecosystem no one is paying the price.

So I ask you to really engage in your precautionary approach, 39.22(c)(5)(a).

You have no other choice.

Just have one more comment. Really, I want to push on you to really use your position to work cross-jurisdictionally. Tribes have to show up in every single space. We need you at the panel. We need you fighting the dam and the new requirements for the turbines and the ladder.

And we need you at the council. And we need you to take action in the oceans. The people of the river cannot be the only ones to constantly pay the price. Thank you for your leniency, Chair, and thank you for being here. Thanks, Carrie.

Any questions? Miss Erwin.

Thank you, Professor Stevens, for your testimony. Um, you said that in 2000, um, in Stevens Village, I assume, or 5D, your husband caught 3 king salmon. Um, since 2000, what was the highest number of king salmon that you guys were able to catch in 5D in a season?

You know, I'm not a statistician. I'm a people person, although maybe not some people. But I think that for us, my family is one of those 30 that feed the 70. So the impact has been on multiple families and the sharing networks are across the state that the fish used to go to. We have never met that full subsistence need as long as I've known my husband.

Maybe twice since 2000 have— I want to say 3 times. That they were able to harvest to a level that they could feed and share with the people that they usually would share with. It goes to the fact—. If I may—. The pressure— several of you have asked over the course of the reports— the pressure on other systems We're all eating Bristol Bay fish thanks to many big hearts taking care of us.

We're all eating Copper River fish. So if you think that this is not a statewide crisis, that is a fallacy. We are putting a lot more pressure on every other system. We are eating in my household a lot of pike. That is what feeds my husband's people in times of starvation.

That's why their villages are located where they're located. But pike cannot— two small pike fisheries cannot feed the village. And we eat a lot of pike. We also trade for a lot of caribou dry meat. We also, of course, as we always have, eaten moose.

We are seeing such increased pressure for moose hunting in 25D East and 25D West. It's alarming. The people are very concerned. They have no fish. And now everyone is coming into the region for moose.

There was flooding downriver and we had more moose hunters.

When I say that people are being starved out, I really want you to feel that. It is very hard when the pressure is on everything that you rely on and everyone else is also starting to show up in your areas to harvest. So I could go on. I have One thing I just want to say is that imagine, vision, a Yukon full of big, fat, heady females full of eggs. You all know it as well as me, they were as big as me and they filled the river.

Those fish that we catch in the last few years are all jacks. There are no kings. Kay, I need you to focus it to her question, please. Yep. Thank you, Mart.

Thank you. Uh-huh. Chair, I don't mean to be disrespectful, Madam Chair. I'm sorry. No, no, we got you.

I don't mean to be disrespectful. I understand. We just got to keep it to the question. No, no, I just mean to call you Madam Chair. I don't mean to be disrespectful.

Thank you. Appreciate your testimony today. I don't think I see any other questions. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Next is Charles Manadeluk followed by Nicole Brame and Eileen Tanuchuk. I'm apologizing if I'm mispronouncing names.

Welcome, Charles. Thank you. And thanks for calling me Chuck.

[Speaker:CHUCK] I am Chuck Maneluk. I'm the Quirque Subsistence Resource Program Director. I'm here to read for Quirque and I'll just read it right now and if you have any questions I'll be happy to answer them. Quirque Incorporated is in support of proposals 29, 33, 40, 43 and opposes proposal 28.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Opposes Proposal 28 for the following reason: this would put undue difficulty on subsistence fishermen since they are already having to buy new gear to replace the fishing gear destroyed by Typhoon Murbach. And we all know how long it takes to get disaster money and, you know, I'm a I'm sure it's coming around the corner, hopefully. So they will, if this passes, they will have to not only, if they get their new gear here now, they'll have to buy new gear next year. So I think that would be it. That was the reason why that came to be.

And that's why Quiric supports or opposes it.

Proposal 29, Quiric supports a conservation harvest limit in order to preserve the Sinek River red salmon. It will ensure subsistence fishing is preserved for residents of our region. Okay.

Proposal 33. While K'waerix supports all subsistence activities, it also supports conservation efforts, especially in relation to the extremely low returns of king salmon in the Pilgrim River. We believe that non-retention of king salmon in subsistence activities that do not target King Salmon would aid in their conservation. And these last two, if I don't run out of time, I'm just saying that we're just— we're not, you know, basically what I'm trying to say is we're not for or against both of these proposals, 40 and 43. But I just wanted to maybe highlight and to make known better was that Queric believes that in a fishery you need statistics.

Statistics to me are the bread and butter of management. I'm not a manager, so I might be talking through my butt, but it sure makes sense to me.

And that's the crux of these two, why we support it. Establish a subsistence sheefish permit in the Kotowi area area as follows. Queric has no position insofar as fishing permits are concerned, okay? But it is established that these permits are a valuable tool to gauge the effects of fishing activity in a fishery, commercial or otherwise. That is the main reason Queric supports this proposal, especially if there, if there are limited data to show the impacts of an uncontrolled fishery on a species, and if those impacts are or may be detrimental to the species preservation.

And I could go on with 43. And yeah, if you just very briefly summarize the thoughts on 43. And to repeal the commercial fishing season for sheefish, the only reason Quirks would support this is there is no data to show how many sheefish are in the Kotzebue Sound. I don't know, I may, I may be wrong, but it sure doesn't seem like it. So if you want to open a To keep a commercial fishing season open, you would need that data to manage it.

So, and that's my spiel. I have a couple of personal things I wanted to say, but—. Thank you. Are you going to be around for Committee of the Whole? Yes.

Great. Well, I'm sure we'll get a chance to talk to you more and pull some of that out under new information. Any questions? All right. Thank you for your testimony today.

Nicole Brame.

Brame. Yeah.

Welcome. Thank you. And I did submit RC-14, which I'll speak to as well as Proposal 35.

Just getting my notes together. And should I wait till you all have RC-14 open?

I've got it. So we're good to go. Okay. Good afternoon. My name is Nicole Brown and I live in Nome, Alaska.

It was very close. And I fish in Subdistrict 1 for about everything using rod and reel, which is a legal subsistence gear there. Uh, gillnet, jigging, cast net even, uh, both in marine and fish waters.

Um, I'm here to testify on behalf of Proposal 35 as it would be modified in RC-14. Um, I was the person who submitted 35, but as originally written, I sought to remove the requirement that people using rod and reel, a subsistence gear, in northern Norton Sound keep to sport fish bag limits. RC 14 clarifies that this would only apply to areas that are open to subsistence fishing. And it would only apply to Subdistrict 1.

In Subdistrict 1, we are required to carry a subsistence permit when we're fishing for salmon. It lists our annual harvest limits for each river system. Additionally, there are ADF&G markers in place that indicate at which point upstream is closed to subsistence fishing. These are there to protect the spawning fish. The nature of our district is they're very accessible, and the spawning fish would be very vulnerable.

Downstream of these markers, subsistence fishing is open. You can stick a net in the river and get your 20 coho you're allowed in the Salmon River using a subsistence gill net. However, standing there with a rod and reel you would be fishing under sport fish bag limits, which are 3 per day. So I can go out there and put my net in where it's legal, get my 20 coho in one day if I have a good day, but I'd have to go back 5 times with my rod and reel if I were fishing in that manner, which is efficient. I mean, not everybody has a gill net.

So that was the intent of this proposal, which I wrote poorly because I forgot about the closed areas. So in RC-14, I've offered two options for the board to make this change. One would specifically list where the regulatory markers are stating, you know, you can use subsistence bag limits with rod and reel downstream of each marker. In speaking with department staff, they suggest it would be simpler to simply state that you wouldn't have to apply sport fish bag limits when fishing in waters that aren't too close to subsistence. So the nets and the rod and reels could do the same thing in the same locations that are open that way.

And that's, that's it for me unless you have any questions. Thank you. Any questions? Not seeing any at this time, but I'm sure they'll come up. Thank you.

And Eileen Tanuchuk, I'm not sure if I'm saying your name right. Is Eileen with us? Oh, yeah.

Welcome. Thank you, Madam Chair, everyone. My name is Eileen.

Tanujuk. I'm from Kotlik and Stevens.

When they told us we can have our own testimonies, I grabbed one of those blue papers and I held it.

That felt like a privilege and an honour to speak for my community. And my people.

And I held it for a while and I had so many things that I wanted to share and talk about, but I know all these people are speaking on behalf of me and every Indigenous community from the mouth of the Yukon to where it ends. That's why we live there.

And I sat there and I thought, how can one person make so many people hear me? I'm by myself and I have my own opinions. And then I remembered when I was in either junior high or elementary, there was this, uh, wildlife trooper that went to Kotlik and he came into our school and he started talking to us, explaining to us about the emperor geese. They were endangered. We love our fish, we love our birds, we love our land, we respect it.

They explained to us that they've been endangered and not to use lead shots because it'll harm our land. He talked to us and he explained everything.

And we walked away with pride to share with everyone, "Hey, don't use lead. Don't use lead shots. You're gonna hurt our land." Don't kill emperor geese, they're endangered. We want them to grow. We want them to keep coming.

That's what came to my mind. Knowledge is power and communication is key.

We took that and we helped each other and the emperor geese. They bounced back.

I'm wondering what, how it can help everybody up here and everybody back here.

If we, I couldn't get over all the data and research and surveys that was presented. I'm so thankful for everybody who who know how to put that on paper and come and tell you what's going on.

Where I live, people come and they want to do surveys and count our fish and go house to house. And since we haven't been fishing for a while, there's lots of families who feel like Fish and Game is against us. They want to count our fish so we won't fish. They're getting the wrong message. If they understand why people come and survey and ask all these questions, and they speak the truth and be honest, then the numbers will show the true reflection of what's really happening in our villages and how many fish we're catching.

And it'll show— it'll be more accurate when it comes to you guys and you guys see all these numbers.

The people in the communities need to understand that when the surveyors and everyone come and ask all these questions, they're there to help and they're there for everyone. If we can somehow find a way to let every Indigenous community know that These numbers are really important in helping our communities get back into the safe, you know, those numbers so we could fish again.

Thank you. I think that's really insightful. And as you continue to hopefully be present throughout this meeting and continue to think about this, I would be really interested in hearing your thoughts about how we and the department and everybody working on these issues can better communicate that with the people in the community so that they feel comfortable sharing that information because it really is important. So thank you very much for your testimony. Any questions?

Appreciate you being here and look forward to talking to you more. Thank you. All right, let's go ahead and take about a 20-minute break and come back on the record at 3:30. Thank you.

All right. Welcome back, everyone. Hope you got a little refresher break. The time is 3:31. We are back on the record.

We're going to go ahead and continue with public testimony. Next up is Darlene Herbert, followed by Teresa Vicente, Stanley Peete, and Al Burrett. So if Darlene is here, I welcome you to the microphone. Hi.

We got to get you on the microphone for the record. There you go.

Hello.

Soje Darlene Herbert Nunnally.

My name is Darlene Herbert. I'm from Fort Yukon, Alaska. I was born in Fort Yukon, Alaska. I was born— my parents came from Fort Yukon and my mother came from Fort Yukon. My father came from Tanana.

My father is 7% Yup'ik and the rest of him is a Northern American Indian. And my mother's side, they're all Indian from Fort Yukon. So I come from two best worlds in state of Alaska.

Anyway, I grew up in Fort Yukon. I'd rather talk in my language, but you all wouldn't understand me, so I will talk in the language that I was forced to learn at 6 years old when I went to BIA school in a little log cabin in Fort Yukon, Alaska.

When I was growing up, you know, they had— we had king salmon. I mean, the king salmon were about this big and they were so big you just had to slap them on that table, cut the head off and zip it open and put the eggs in the bucket there. And there was so many fish every summer. I mean, it's just a routine thing we do every summer. We all go to the fish camp.

Everybody had a fish camp in the village. And I'm not talking like thousands and thousands of people. I mean, our village at the time when I was growing up there, I think there was about 900 people there. And as of today, there's only 454 or something today. But when I was growing up, I mean, everybody had something to do.

We all had our job. We all knew what we did. We have to do in order to get the fish.

So we get the fish and we slice it up and then we have to build a cache.

To hang up the fish and we had to build a fire and we had to get a certain kind of wood because you can't just pick any kind of wood you want out there in the woods. It had to be a certain kind to make smoke and to keep the flies away from the fish. And we had rows and rows and rows and rows of it and we save it for the winter and we save some and then we have dog salmon and that we save for the dogs in the winter. And when I was growing up, there was a lot of dogs in the village and they use it for trapping.

We lived out on the trapline until I think I started going to school at 6 years old.

And I see now, I mean, my mother was pregnant with me when they were out on trapline And then it was January 27th when I was born, 1948. And they had my father, my father had to put her in a sled and hitch up the dogs and go to Fort Yukon. And that's like about 60 miles. And then I was born there and it was 60 below.

But I see nowadays people are committing, men are committing suicide under the age of 50 because our fish been closed for, I don't know, I never ate fish for about 7 years, maybe 8. I never had king salmon for 8 years. In my family alone, we have MS in my family. We have lupus in my family. We have cancer in my family.

And before that, my grandparents, they never— I don't know where those kind of diseases come from because we have to eat processed food, I guess. I don't know. But we need to open back up the Yukon River for our livelihood so our men will stop killing themselves, our kids will stop killing themselves. When we had fish camps, we all lived there and we all learned. We learned how to live on the land, and we need to know how to live on the land because we've been there since the time of immemorial.

And we have to teach our kids how to live off land because someday there's going to be a World War III, and we are going to save your kids. All right, and I just, I'm so worried, worried, worried every day because I never eat fish. When a Native person don't eat fish, they get sick. And right now I do feel sick because I never— I just got a box of fish from TCC the other day. I think there's about They cut it in half, so there's about 3, 3, 3 this big fish and 3 heads, I mean 2.

But that's not Yukon fish. Yukon fish is beautiful. Yukon fish is, it tastes so good, I could taste it right now. I mean, it's just so, it's so oily. And it tastes— I mean, that tastes nothing like anything.

I went down to Seattle. I had the privilege—. Darlene, Darlene, we're a little bit past time and I just want to make sure that we have time for questions if anybody has questions for you. Ms. Erwin. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Herbert, for your testimony and for traveling in today to testify. My question is, that fish that you received What was— how was the quality of that fish, and is it making up for the loss of being able to harvest salmon? I mean, this is only one little box of fish that's supposed to last me all year. Like I said, the only king salmon I really see nowadays is on my ears, and I can't eat this.

And whatever decisions you make, I think you should consider all the small villages. Ask them, ask them how. And I mean, when we get fish, we don't overdo it. We always make sure there's some left. So I don't know why they close the middle of Yukon when Seattle has all our king salmon from the trawls.

Thank you, Darlene. Any other questions? Thank you for your testimony today, and thank you for being here. Appreciate you.

Teresa Vicente, welcome. Thank you.

Okay, good afternoon. For the record, my name is Therese Vicente, and I am testifying for the Kuskokwim River Intertribal Fish Commission, which works to support the 33 tribes of the Kuskokwim River drainage in fisheries management, research, and monitoring. We've been celebrating our 10-year anniversary as an organization this year after being founded in 2015. As well as 10 years of formal co-management with Fish and Wildlife Service under our MOU, which was signed in 2016.

The Fish Commission is not testifying in regard to any of the proposals, but rather in regard to our C-11. This is our 2025 end-of-season summary published earlier this month, and this provides the Fish Commission's assessment of Cusco Quen salmon stock status. I hope it will help address some of the comments and questions that were around the table during Cusco Quen presentations yesterday. First and foremost, we want to be clear. Kuskokwim tribes and communities continue to face a humanitarian and ecological crisis because of sustained multi-year, multi-species salmon disasters.

These disasters are threatening food security. They're threatening cultural integrity, ecosystems, the holistic well-being of our subsistence-dependent communities. Chinook salmon stocks remain depressed in 2025, with total return size and harvest below long-term trends.

Our Fish Commission and Fish and Wildlife Service aim for the upper end of the drainage-wide Chinook salmon escapement goal range because that is the first step toward recovering salmon stocks and using a precautionary management approach as outlined in our joint management strategy. Despite meeting the escapement goal for the last 12 consecutive years, all under federal or since 2016 federal tribal co-management, Chinook salmon stocks are not yet recovered, and moreover, the entirety of the burden of conservation is on our subsistence people. It's subsistence people who are sacrificing their food and their culture to meet these escapement goals in an effort to restore king salmon abundance. So the bottom line: the Kuskokwim is still in conservation mode for Chinook salmon. Similarly, chum salmon stocks remain far from full recovery of historical abundance.

The sole chum salmon escapement goal at the Kogroglok River was attained in 2025, again because of precautionary conservation-based management by the tribes and Fish and Wildlife Service and the sacrifices of subsistence users. But stock status and harvests remain well below average. So bottom line, we're still rebuilding chum salmon on the Kuskokwim. Coho salmon runs have been showing signs of decline since about 2018. And in 2025, coho returns were above the recent 5-year average.

But the problem with comparing this year to recent averages is that 3 of the last 5 years were the poorest on record. When you compare coho salmon returns this year to the long-term average, we're nowhere near recovery. So we're still rebuilding coho salmon stocks on the Kuskokwim. Sockeye are heralded as our one shining light on the Kuskokwim, and the abundance of sockeye has helped fill some gaps in food security for some people on the Kuskokwim. However, in our mixed stock fishery, sockeye run at the same time as Chinook and chum, so opportunity to fish unrestricted for sockeye salmon has been limited while conservation efforts are in effect for Chinook and chum.

I have a couple more points, but I'll just let you read the rest of the summary in full and really encourage you to do so. I'm happy to take any questions about any part of it, and thanks. Thanks for your time. Thank you. Questions?

Mr. Chamberlain. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, Ms. Vicente, can you elaborate a little on how, uh, the depressed salmon stocks are affecting culture in the Kuskokwim River? Sure, yeah. So because we're seeing declined runs, we're seeing a lot more restrictions on Kuskokwim people.

Um, people aren't able to meet the food security that they've had in recent years, and that has impacts on the sharing networks.

The cultural values that people have around salmon, those are spoken to by Division of Subsistence staff very clearly this morning. I think, you know, in these times of scarcity, people still want to share, but they're not able to do it to the extent that they once were.

Other things that we're seeing now with stock declines are these windowed openers for fisheries. And I've had one of our tribal leaders tell me, You know, we're trying to teach our kids to be real people, to be Yup'ik, to be Dene in 12-hour windows. How are you supposed to do that? People are starting to transition their fish camps to the villages because it doesn't make sense to move to fish camp for an entire summer when you're only allowed to fish 3 days in the month, and the cost of gas is so expensive, the cost of fish camp upkeep is so expensive, people are starting to move those to the villages, and that's changing this very core part of cultural exchange and elder-youth interactions and just the ancient traditions of processing salmon through the summer. So even though people are still putting up a little bit of fish on the Kuskokwim, the scarcity of salmon, it's really changing the cultural fabric of the people of our river.

I hope that answers your question. Yes, thank you. [SPEAKING NATIVE LANGUAGE] Now you also said you go for the upper end of the escapement range. Why is that? Yeah, thank you for that question.

This is something we talk about a lot as a co-management team, and it's spelled out pretty clearly in our, our joint management strategies. There's 3 primary reasons why we aim for the upper end of the escapement goal range, and for king salmon is the only escapement goal that is drainage-wide on the Kuskokwim. It's 65,000 kings up to 120,000 kings, and we try to target 110,000 kings getting to the spawning grounds. That's kind of our upper-end target. Um, the first reason why we aim for that is uncertainty.

We don't have certainty in our preseason forecast, which is why our in-season co-management team relies on in-season indicators of stock status or stock strength, stock timing. We also have a lot of data gaps with that in-season information. Some of the in-season information we rely on is local harvest through our in-season harvest monitoring. We rely on the Kuskokwim sonar that Fish and Game runs. We rely on local and traditional knowledge.

All of this is really helpful and our managers consider it holistically. But we still have uncertainty in how the run strength and the run timing is gonna manifest in a year until about the midpoint of the run. So we try to aim first for the upper end of the escapement goal, tap the brakes, be precautionary until we have more certainty in how the run is showing up that year. The second reason why we aim for the upper end of the escapement goal is because our salmon are getting smaller. And I think you spoke about this yesterday.

Smaller salmon means fewer eggs. Those eggs are often less healthy, less viable. So every single fish that gets up to the spawning ground really, really counts, and we need to be aiming for more fish on the spawning grounds. And then the third reason why we aim for the upper end of the escapement goal range is because we need to protect the genetics of all those fish. We need to protect the discrete spawning populations.

There's all these different fish heading for different tributaries running around the same time of the season. We need to be protecting all of those. And, you know, trying to keep this diversity across our watershed is really important. And how we aim for that is by aiming for the upper end of this drainage-wide escapement goal range, if that, if that makes a little bit of sense. So the So those are some of the reasons, the key reasons why we aim for the upper end of the escapement goal range to try to rebuild, to recover these stocks that are so critical for our people.

Thank you. Mr. Owen. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Vicente, for your testimony.

So going off of Member Chamberlain's question, I guess my assumption would be that in aiming for the high end of escapement goal, your managers and commissioners have to make a decision to forego some harvest. How are those decisions made? Made, and what's the feeling among users when there's an opportunity that's not taken advantage of because you guys are waiting out to hopefully meet that higher end of the escapement? That's a good question. Our co-management team's decisions are made, as I said, using holistic in-season information, you know, these different indicators that we have of run strength, some from Western scientific run projects, some from local and traditional knowledge, some from community harvest reports and updates.

These are all evaluated evenly. They're all considered. They're discussed. Our decisions are made on a consensus basis, and they're made with true consultation between the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service and our intertribal fish commission, the 5 tribal in-season managers that are elected every year by our tribes. We're not in an advisory role.

We're truly making decisions with the federal government and helping guide those. Our tribes, our elder advisors are helping guide those decisions. It's really hard.

The co-management meetings are very challenging because it's I mean, it's subsistence people making decisions to not fish.

And it's subsistence people and elders saying, well, they've grown up knowing when fish are in the river, that's when it's time to fish. And now they're telling their own people, "No, like we're not fishing right now." It's very hard, it can get very contentious. But again, we try to work towards consensus, and our team always ends up getting there. We try to take a river-wide approach, even though our co-management only extends about half of the Kuskokwim River from the mouth up to Aniak. It's roughly in the middle of the Kuskokwim.

As the Kuskokwim report said yesterday, that's where about 80 to 90% of the harvest is taken. And all the fish, the fish are swimming upriver. So decisions made in that stretch of the river impact the entire fishery. And it's— that can get really, really challenging, but we have river-wide representation in our in-season managers. So it's tribes river-wide are represented at the table trying to make decisions together with, with our federal partners.

So I don't know if this is answering your question well, but it Yeah, it's never easy. It's never easy to tell your own community members and your own relatives stand down, but that's what tribal people are choosing to do so that future generations can hopefully fish and practice culture and have food security. Thanks.

Thank you, Ms. Vicente. And my, my last question is just on page 8. You include available genetic data of 20% Chinook harvested in Area M. Are from western interior Alaska. I'm just wondering, is there a citation on that, or where's that data coming from? Yeah, great question.

That data is in a publication by the department dating back to a 2014 Chinook salmon genetic study that was done in the Area M fishery. I believe the citation is Shed et al., 2016. I don't remember the fishery management plan number off the— or report off the top of my head, but But that's where that data comes from. Does that help? Absolutely.

Thank you very much. A couple of quick questions. So if I heard you correctly, you said that in the, in the co-management scheme, you have drainage-wide, river-wide representation amongst the tribes and you always make decisions by consensus. So those opening and closing decisions are made by consensus. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. We really try to not move to a vote in our co-management meetings, but to work together until we're all on the same page. Have you guys had conversations or similar decisions around gear?

Uh, could you clarify what do you mean by gear? Mesh sizes, net length, things like that. Um, yes, and some of these date back. Um, I was just looking through some records, you know, there's conversations about 4-inch mesh and 6-inch mesh back in like 2019, 2018, both in federal and state processes. It's, as I understand it, it's really well agreed throughout the Coastcoquim that 4-inch gear is not to be used for king salmon, and people would love to use 7.5 or 8-inch king gear.

That is king gear. However, it's also well understood that we're trying to get the big females to the spawning grounds, and using 6-inch gear allows those big kings to evade nets and continue on upriver while still catching some of the smaller kings that people can for subsistence when there are openers. So there's always conversations around gear, and I mean, I think we've— a lot of people have gotten used to.

6-Inch mesh throughout the season, or, you know, up to 6-inch mesh.

I mean, I could speak more to the specifics. I guess I don't know what exactly you're looking at. No, I mean, that's kind of what I was getting at. I was just kind of curious what those conversations were and if they had occurred. And then similarly, not just specific to the King Conservation question, but also chum.

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I think one of the things that comes up now more a days because we've extended our co-management and our conservation into chum, which also then extends some of these restrictions onto the sockeye, which are super abundant, is how do we utilize tools in our toolbox and encourage the use of gear that can effectively target sockeye while protecting kings and chums. And we try to do this, you know, for the past several years we've had openers for set gillnets, which target shallow-running bank-oriented sockeye, tend to let the kings and chums that run in the deep channels go up. I personally have witnessed more people using dip nets down in the lower Kuskokwim to catch sockeye, and it's not as efficient as a gillnet, but it can— you can catch a lot of sockeye that way, and that's helped You know, through sharing networks, people are getting more sockeye in their freezers. So we try to, you know, encourage these alternative selective gear types as much as possible so that we can tap into the sockeye abundance and help that fill food security needs while protecting kings and chums.

Does that help? You're speaking my language. Okay. Literally. I am sympathetic to the issues that you face.

So thanks. Thank you very much for your testimony today and for being here. Thank you. All right, next is Mr. Stanley Peet, followed by Albert Max Egar and Luda Erickson.

Welcome.

Thank you, Madam Chairman, for this opportunity. I will be referring to PC-10, a public comment that the Nunamiko Tribe submitted.

Again, thank you for this opportunity, Madam Chairman. I will not read PC-10 word for word. As it's available to you, but I will skip to the very end in our public comment. Given the existing management guidelines already in place by both state and federal agencies to address salmon abundance, we believe these new proposals, proposals not only unnecessarily but actively are actively detrimental to the well-being of our people. The Nunamiko Yup'ik Tribe strongly urges the Board Office to oppose Proposals 15 and 16 and to instead focus on a holistic management approach that addresses the full range of biological and environmental factors impacting salmon rather than unjustly penalizing subsistence users.

In the April 1, 2024 agreement with the U.S. and Canada, it states on item 10, in the absence of fisheries, the status of Chinook salmon has continued to be depressed and reflects the long-term cumulative effects of other factors, particularly habitat degradation resulting from resource and hydroelectric development, competition from hatchery productions, cyclic natural phenomenon, and large-scale environmental variability affecting population. Both marine and freshwater habitats. It seems in the April 1, 2024 agreement with US and Canada, it's not the subsistence users' faults for the decline. It says it in black and white. Now, my comment to this board is it's already been— the reasons for the decline are identified in the agreement.

It seems that no more new restrictions should be on the subsistence users. In my opinion, if you put so much load on a house of cards, it's going to crumble. If you put so much regulations in place, is the answer more regulations? But it's already been identified in the agreement that They know what's wrong. Now, I don't know if the state, both governments are addressing a rebuilding plan because I'm not on the Yukon River Panel.

And for the burden to be placed on the people to have, with all these restrictions, and have that number rebound somehow, I don't know how that's going to happen because it says in the absence of fisheries. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you, Stanley. Questions? Are you going to be around for Committee of the Whole?

Yes. Great. Glad to hear it. Thank you for your testimony today. Thank you.

Al Brett?

He'll be here in the morning. Okay. I was going to say I haven't seen him yet. Thanks for the update. How about Max Egger?

Welcome, Max.

Good afternoon. My name is Max Aguiar. I'm from the native village of Alalnak, which sits on the south mouth of the Yukon Delta. I'm opposed to both 15 and 16.

Lower River is already heavily regulated. "We haven't fished for some years now and it is already closed for the kings as they migrate up the Yukon, and I feel that 15 and 16 duplicate what the closure of the king salmon." "Foreign scaries used to target both some species of whitefish and pinks during the summer months." "Little info on traditional knowledge." As our subsistence lifestyle, our diet changes with the seasons. And I support 17, the announcement from the state, number 11, August 14, 2025, and the temporary special action number 2, FC-06-25, by the federal. I feel that there's other little rivers that need to be added to fish for whitefish. I.e., when we go out to bear picking, we're not on the main stem of the Yukon River.

We're in little sloughs. We're up Black River. We're inside the creeks and inside a kuirak slough. We go into other little creeks along with our neighboring villages.

And in the fall time, some fishers use the 4-inch gear to fish for the Bering cisco. And this year they were pretty big. That's what most of the guys were using. And that's all. Thank you.

Questions? Appreciate your testimony today. Thank you for being here.

Delula Erickson followed by Crystal Lapp and Holly Carroll.

Hi, Delula. Welcome.

Good afternoon.

For the record, my name is Delula Erickson. I work with TANF Tananá Chiefs Conference as the Tribal Resource Stewardship Department Director. And I'm here on behalf of TCC to just read our record comments into the record.

The Tananá Chiefs Conference is a consortium of 42 members, including 37 federally recognized tribal governments, representing the indigenous people of Interior Alaska and serving as a unified voice for the protections of tribal sovereignty, lands, fish, wildlife, and traditional ways of life. TCC serves more than 18,000 tribal citizens across the interior Alaska, advancing tribal self-determination, sustainable resource management, and the protections of cultural and subsistence lifeways. And I won't read the whole comment, but I just wanted to emphasize that we're aligning our opposition of Proposals 15 and 16 as they're written with the Yukon River Intertribal Fish Commission, recognizing them as a leading group in co-management on the Yukon. Um,.

And then we also have a request in our comments asking that to ensure meaningful participation in these spaces and decision-making, TCC respectfully requests that the Board of Fish offer virtual public testimony options for future meetings so that tribal citizens from remote Yukon River communities, many of whom face high travel costs, limited winter transportation, and unpredictable weather, can participate equitably in the regulatory process. And TCC remains committed to working in partnership with the Yukon River Intertribal Fish Commission, ADFNG, and the Board of Fisheries to restore and protect salmon for future generations. Thank you. Any questions? Miss Irwin and then Mr. Carpenter.

Thank you. Thank you, Miss Erickson, for your testimony. Um, we heard from another testifier that TC— that they had received donated boxes of fish from TCC. How much has that cost? Do you know the estimated cost of what that's put on Tanana Chiefs Conference to provide that subsidy for their villages?

Yes, thank you for the question. Through the chair, TCC spends, and our tribes collectively, we spend about $2 million a year on fish distribution. And that comes from— there's no pot of funding that comes in for that specifically. We use it from our general funds. Thank you.

So we're paying out of pocket for it.

Mr. Carpenter, thank you. Thanks for being here. I just had a quick question. It's in your comments on— not sure what page it's on. It's regarding Proposal 15 and 16.

And I was curious, it says that TCC respectfully requests the Board of Fisheries defer action on Proposal 15 and 16 and move them to the statewide meeting. I guess I'm curious why. That needs to happen in your opinion? And did you not, or was there not ample time through the notice process for this meeting that you felt that you could bring your comments forward to us when we dealt with these? I'm gonna phone a friend and ask my policy analyst to respond.

Good afternoon, I'm Crystal Lapp. I'm the natural resource policy analyst for Tanana Chiefs Conference under the tribal resource stewardship Department. You'll hear from me personally here shortly. But regarding asking for statewide deferral, so I work with all of our federally recognized tribes and our partner organizations.

And oftentimes as I'm forming comment, I'm also getting feedback from our tribal citizens out there. And unfortunately this meeting just kind of came real quick after a real tough summer. A lot of our tribes and rural residents, you know, berry season was real bad, fishing was obviously real bad, but moose season and caribou season were heavily affected by flooding, massive amounts of rain, wildfires that happened before that. So people were kind of in a mad scramble as things dried up just slightly, and they weren't really available to read and provide comments. So they were asking if we could go to statewide deferral.

There just wasn't enough time between the natural issues happening and not being able to go out and subsist at normal times. So they haven't had enough time to really review this to form what they would want to have an educated opinion. So that's why I put in there that we were asking for statewide deferral for more time.

All right. Thank you for your testimony today. And you can— Crystal, you can keep the mic if you'd like. Thank you. Thanks.

Well, that was convenient. So you guys already kind of got my introduction before. This is a morphed, I guess, testimony, slightly personal, but also slightly not. So I'm going to read from my script because there's some data in here. Good afternoon, Chair and members of the board.

My name is Crystal Lapp, and today I want to bring forward some information that directly relates to the board's responsibility.

Understanding how the loss of salmon is impacting the health and subsistence economy of Alaska Native communities along the Yukon River. The information I'm sharing comes from sources that the board typically does not receive in state reports, specifically Sections 3.1.2, 3.1.3, and 3.1.4 within the DEIS main documents. So And then the TCC authored Appendices 9A and 9B in the Bering Sea Chum Salmon Bycatch Draft Environmental Impact Statement. It's a lot of words for 4:30, right? So TCC is a cooperating agency.

And then the other document that I'm referencing is a document from 2021, which was the Tanana Chiefs Conference Food System Assessment. These documents compiled decades of data and make clear connections between the collapse of salmon and measurable health outcomes. I was going to say that you could find this in RC. I did put in RC with the links to these documents, otherwise I, I'd go over all the pages. So I'm going to start with health.

At the State Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, they held a hearing in 2023. This is also referenced in the DEIS. Health officials testified that Alaska Native diabetes rates had risen sharply in the period that salmon access had disappeared. Statewide, Alaska Native diabetes increased from 5.2% in 2009 to 6.3% in 2019, and in the interior it was even higher at 6.9%. Within TCC's region, diabetes increased 24.6% between 2013 and 2016, 11.3% between 2016 and 2019, and another 24.6% between 2019 and 2023.

The prediabetes increased by 70% during that last 4-year period.

It's not a coincidence. We know that salmon provides healthy fats and nutrients to fight and protect against diabetes. With salmon gone, people are forced to rely on cheap, high-starch store foods that drive chronic disease. Now for subsistence economy, I am going to reference Appendices 9B, it documents that back in the early 1990s, Yukon River households used an average of 346 summer chum per household. By 2021, that number dropped to 2.19 fish, the lowest ever on record.

I'm not going to go into all the other numbers, but I would love to. So, uh, the other one is the NRTC food system assessment in Appendix 9A. That really helps us understand what these declines mean for real families. Even before the collapse, only 60 to 65% of households in the Yukon and Kuskokwim communities that participated in this study through TCC considered themselves food secure. So I'm at my time limit, my apologies.

There's a lot of data here. Do you have a concluding sentence? Oh yeah, I can conclude real quick. Sorry, one sentence. Yep.

I just want to say that the health impacts and economic consequences are not abstract. They're happening right now in our communities. And as you consider the proposals before you, I urge you to weigh this information as part of the best available science on subsistence and public health. Thank you. Any questions?

Thank you for your testimony today. Appreciate it. Holly Carroll, followed by Rich Fryrick.

And Lillian Hart.

Good afternoon. I'm Holly Carroll with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I'm currently the in-season federal manager, and we do have a record copy that's number 10, but our team will be available during Committee of the Whole, so I wanted to make some more generalized comments. I want to make a few acknowledgments that weren't covered in some of the really excellent presentations made today, and the, the first is the acknowledgment that was brought up in some public testimony, and that is that On all of those charts that you saw, the subsistence harvest, the subsistence practices, our western data only goes back a few decades, but what you can see is that it's consistent over time.

And I don't think there's a single biologist that would ever say that the crash that we're experiencing on the Yukon has anything to do with subsistence harvest. Like Mr. Pete said, that is not the reason. But unfortunately, the brunt of the conservation, The hardest hitting effects that you've heard about, life and death, health, uh, family wellness, mental health, all of that is being borne by the subsistence users almost exclusively. Um, and that is true, and I think it's important to acknowledge that. And as a manager with a mere 20 years of experience, I don't have a lot of solutions for how to fix that.

And unfortunately, we come with more closures. Closures that will be needed into the future. We bring those burdens and we ask them to embrace them. And so I just want to acknowledge to everyone in the room that I am sorry that I don't have more solutions for you and that those hardships are not acknowledged often enough. The second thing I would like to say is that many of you have treated myself and the Fish and Game staff like experts and you ask our advice on these things and that's really empowering and flattering, but I would like to acknowledge that everyone in this room, specifically the people I am not.

Facing are the experts as well. Please, please address the chair. Are the experts. And so when we include them in our deliberations, which I've been doing for 20 years, so I don't wanna speak for all managers, but when we include the fishermen, we become smarter and we have more solutions available to us. We understand the fishing, we understand where the fish go.

So to that end, the more that we can work together, not put ourselves in different boxes, state, fed, upriver, lower river, troller fishermen, subsistence users. If we can break some of that down and work together more, we're going to come up with some solutions to help fix these problems quicker. So to that end, I just want to acknowledge the work of the Fish Commissions, the Tanana Chiefs. I want to acknowledge the work of the Department of Fish and Game. Our team could not do what we do without the data and the knowledge of the Fish and Game.

So to that end, we've been working really together to find consensus, but also we'd like to include the Fish Commission and the 55 Federal tribes, YRDF, all these other organizations, because if we can bring all that wisdom together, and if we can get a little bit more buy-in as to the solutions because people feel empowered, like they've helped come up with the solutions instead of being externally regulated, they will buy into that more. Kind of like what Eileen was commenting on in her comments. Proof of that came this summer to me when I went to Eagle. There was a YRDF training camp for technicians. And we had all lower fishers, and they did not know that the salmon crisis was as bad as it is.

And after a couple of days of seeing the upriver fishing, the upper river counts, they were absolutely convinced that there's a conservation problem. So if we get people talking to each other more, we're going to be more successful. So that was the main point I wanted to make today. Thank you. Um, any questions?

Thank you for your testimony today.

Rich Freyrich.

Thanks. And just a reminder, um, to everyone who's testifying, please don't refer to anybody specifically by name. Thank you.

Perfect. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and esteemed members of the board. Um, my name is Rich Freerich. I'm from the village of Grayling, and for the record, here today I'll be, uh, testifying on the RAC committee, namely the GASH committee. And I'm here to talk about the new salmon permits that were issued for educational and The other one, uh, let me start here.

I'm here to talk about the— yeah, someone who lives on the river and tries to follow the rules. To be honest, the way this permit was rolled out has a lot of us confused and worried.

First, the regulation was pushed through fast. And when people went to apply, there wasn't even a real permit form. The regulation says that we're supposed to turn in an application 15 days before we even start an educational activity.

How are we supposed to do that when ADF&G hasn't given us any actual paperwork? Folks are being told to call the biologists and figure it out from there. That might work for some people, but for a lot of us on the river, that's not a system. That's a guessing game. And that leads me to the second problem: enforcement.

The regulation says you have to keep the permit on you while you fish. And show it to enforcement if they ask. But if we're not getting physical permits, what exactly are we supposed to carry? And how is enforcement supposed to know who is actually fishing under this regulation?

None of that feels clear or safe to us. Another thing folks in my community, our respective communities, are really worried about is how this is basically— this is basically first come, first served. The regulation sets a hard limit: 300 kings, 1,000 summer chum, 500 fall chum, 500 coho for the whole river every year. Once that cap is reached, Nobody else can get a permit. So if a— if someone downriver gets their permit early and the numbers get filled, someone upriver, possibly maybe someone who hasn't had any salmon in years, could be left with nothing.

That doesn't seem fair for a river as big as the Yukon.

And honestly, without paperwork or a reporting system, How will the department even know when we reach these caps? The regulation says we have to notify the Department of Fish and Game when we're done harvesting, but if there's no standardized report or tracking system, how does the Department of Fish and Game know when to stop issuing permits? How are they adding it all up in real time?

Another thing I, I need to say, and I know a lot of elders are talking about this, is that this permit allows king salmon harvest up to 10 kings on an educational permit and 5 on a ceremonial permit, with a total of 300 kings a year allowed under this regulation. But we're in the middle of a Chinook moratorium. We've been told for years that kings need protection. So a lot of us are confused about how that fits into the conservation message we've been hearing. Here's the bottom line from me, from Grayling, from someone who lives this.

We want to pass our traditions on. We want to know the rules. But right now, the, the process feels like it's rushed, unclear, and risky for regular people who just want to do things the right way. I am asking the Department of Fish and Game to slow down and get this right. Create a real application, real paperwork, clear guidance, and a fair way to distribute these permits along the whole river.

And please make sure tribal councils are part of that conversation. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Appreciate your testimony today. Questions?

And just so that I'm clear, you're referring specifically to the educational and the cultural permits that I think were just implemented last year for the first time? Yes, Madam Chair. Okay. Well, I think that those are some very interesting questions and Hopefully we can work to try and get some clarity about how those, how those are issued and, and how the enforcement is done. So yeah, and with all due respect, Madam Chair, I, I realize this program's in its infancy, so there are going to be some teething problems along the way, but we would, you know, we'd be, we'd be eagerly willing to work with the department to, you know, maybe set some of these standards as a working group because we think it's beneficial.

Thank you. I think clarity makes sense, so thank you for your comments. Would you like to give your personal testimony at this time? Uh, yes, Madam Chair. I'll be brief with that.

Okay, and whenever you're ready, please go ahead. Okay, and it— and it— and for me, it's more of an informational than really a testimony. Um, I just our salmon back home are pretty undersized, and I've been doing a lot of soul searching. It's what I do. And in my mind, and I'm not going to get into the political aspects of it or anything with the pollock industry or nothing, because we're neither here nor there, and I don't want to turn that here.

But I've been thinking a lot and For pretty much 40 years, we've been— I don't want to say we— the industry has been fishing, the pollock industry, pretty heavy on both A and B season to the 200 metric tons. I think I look at our salmon in size and everything, and what particularly bothers me, it's not just the bycatch aspect of it, it's the all that fish that's being harvested over that 40-year period, nothing's replacing those nutrients that the pollock might have otherwise have given back to the waters in the Bering Sea. So cumulatively speaking, over that 40-year period, could there be a correlation between the size of our salmon, and it's now just manifesting itself, you know, as a systemic.

Because 40 years is basically, for all intents and purposes, our salmon are not just on the Yukon but on the other river systems are on a 4 to 5 year cycle. So if those nutrients aren't— what is giving back to provide those nutrients to get the fish back? And has there been any studies and will there be in the future? I guess that's my question, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Any questions? Well, you bring up a lot of good points. Appreciate your testimony today. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Lillian Hart, followed by Mark Richards and Josephine Edmund.

Welcome.

Hello, thank you. Hi, my name is Lillian Hart. I'm here representing myself. I am a graduate student in the fisheries program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. As a scientist, my role is to study the world and issues and attempt to address these issues, as many of you currently are doing.

As a person, I I know that my well-being is tied to the well-being of others. I'm not here to support a particular proposal. Instead, I'd like to voice my support for the meaningful engagement with Alaska Native knowledge holders. This is for many reasons, but one is to restore respect for Indigenous stewardship in the region. The abundance of fish in the state— the state is known for— is a product of Indigenous ways of knowing and being.

Which have been refined and tested over millennia. It's time to acknowledge the brilliance of these knowledge systems and peoples. This is why I support meaningful engagement with Indigenous knowledge holders in fisheries decision-making, as well as engagement with Indigenous knowledge systems in these processes. Thank you. Thank you.

Questions? Ms. Irwin. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you very much for your testimony, Ms. Hart. Do you have any suggestions on meaningful ways ways to include Indigenous knowledge in our— in the system, the process, as far as you've been here to witness?

Yes, thank you. I, I think that it's great that the board is piloting this traditional knowledge holder report session. That being said, I think that there's a lot more that can be done to include Indigenous leaders and tribal leaders in the decision-making processes themselves. So Indigenous representation I think is a really big component of that. Thank you.

And by Indigenous representation, I mean there's 4 of us sitting at this table. Do you mean formally or how do you mean specifically?

Yes, formally is great. But I think there's just more that we can do and continue to do to ensure that, that Indigenous voices are heard, Alaska Native perspectives are heard. And I just want to encourage and support all the efforts that have been done thus far to do this. So thank you. Fair statement.

Thank you. Any other questions? Appreciate you being here. Thanks. Mark Richards?

Is Mark here with us? Okay, got it. How about Josephine Edmonds?

Hi, Josephine, welcome.

Hello, good evening, um, Madam Chair and members of the board. Thank you for this opportunity. My testimony is to oppose proposal number 15 and proposal number 16. My name is Josephine Edmund. I'm from Alakanak, that's located west of Alaska at the mouth of the Lower Yukon River.

From past meetings and testimonies, we know and are aware of the effects of past and current regulations that negatively impact our communities.

If proposals 15 and 16 are voted for and passed, they will cause extreme hardship, a higher degree of severity on us as subsistence users. We are already very limited in what we can put away for the whole winter.

Not only that, we give to elders and those that lack the means to get what they need. We share all our catches throughout the winter months. We share almost all of our first batch of fish because it is what we wait for and we know it will be enjoyed, even if it means that we will have less.

Our subsistence fish and foods provide bring health to all areas of our whole being.

With continued rising costs, I worry. One of the valuable teachings my ancestors had was to process our hardship. By giving us this opportunity and listening to us, you allow us to release.

For that I am grateful. We desire outcomes that will be of help instead of bringing distress. Please vote no for proposal 15 and 16. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony today.

Any questions? Appreciate your time. Thanks. Shelby Edmund.

Followed by Shirley Clark and Craig Chythluck.

Welcome. Thank you. This is my better half.

Madam Chairman, members of the board, I thank you for allowing me to be here, sit before you, and I'm speaking against proposal number 16. My name is Selby Edmund. I'm from Moloknak. I'm a village at the mouth of the Yukon. I'm here to let you all know that we adhere to the changes that come our way on the Lower Yukon.

By following those regulations, even though it causes hardship upon us.

We are a resilient people. However, however, how much can a person absorb before a breaking point occurs?

I'm speaking about the physical, the mental, the well-being of individuals, families, and even community members, especially the men.

The men are the ones that go out and hunt, gather, because they are the ones that carry that weight of providing subsistence foods for their families. Proposal 16 puts the burden of conservation upon the subsistence user, which puts greater hardship upon us to feed our families. We have followed the regulations going from unrestricted, which was 8.5 and higher, down to 7.5 to 6 cents. We went to dip nets, beaching, and now we are down to 4-inch.

Anything smaller, we will be fishing for smelts, herring, and tomcod, and those come and go. You have to travel 50, 60 miles to go get herring. It's unfeasible.

These non-salmon species are hit and miss, as with whitefish.

The Forenz gear allows us to harvest whitefish. That's a staple food source. And without the Forenz, we will be unable to harvest the non-salmon species. And this is why I oppose Proposal 16 due to the increased hardship that it will cause to families. Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony. Any questions? Ms. Irwin and then Mr. Chamberlain.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Edmund, for your testimony and for traveling here to share with us today. You mentioned using a 4-inch for whitefish in your area. Is a 6-inch whitefish net also usable to target whitefish in your area, or would you need to move areas to use a 6-inch net? I don't use 6-inch.

I use 5.5.

And I target— if I was allowed to use 5.5, I would target broadhead humpback whitefish and sea fish.

Mr. Chamberlain. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Mr. Edmund, for your testimony. Oh, sorry.

Yeah. Still have more questions. So you mentioned having to travel 50 miles to harvest fish. Can you kind of describe what vessel you're using, how far you're going, what are the costs associated with that, as opposed to traditional salmon fishing and any risks associated with that? Madam Chair, I don't travel that distance because I work.

I don't have time for that. The people I know travel that distance, and they travel from Aluknak all the way down to Scammon Bay for herring, for tomcod. But for smelts, some go outside of Nunamequa, which is about 18, 19 miles out down the river, right at the Right where it starts flowing out of the Yukon.

And when you went salmon fishing, where did you traditionally go? Was it that far of a drive? Yeah, I usually go for salmon if I'm allowed outside of Nunavut, which is roughly about 18, 19 miles below Alaknaq. Thank you. Thank you.

Mr. Wood. Yeah, thanks. To the size of your net and fish, um, are you finding that you would, um, the web that you'd use, the bigger web, would actually just hold those bigger fish better rather than dropping out? Yes, I, um, when I look at all the gear I have, uh, I'm— my focus is on the 4-inch, and I look at it as that's the only thing I have available to me to use.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate your time today. Shirley Clark.

Shirley here with us today?

Craig Chythluk.

Hi, Craig. Welcome.

Good evening, everybody. Chair, members of the Board of Fish, thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Craig Chythluck, and I am speaking on behalf of the Yukon River and Tribal Fish Commission, representing 44 sovereign tribes of Alaska along the Yukon River watershed. For thousands of years, our people have cared for the fish of the Yukon River based on distinct Indigenous knowledge and practices. These fisheries are not just food, they are the foundation of our culture, spiritual and economic well-being.

Today we face unprecedented challenges: declining salmon runs, regulatory burdens, and the impacts of disasters on our communities. Despite these hardships, we remain committed to stewardship and sustainability. We are here to address the 3 proposals our Executive Council has taken an official stance on in opposition to Proposals 15 and 16 and to support and the expansion of Proposal 17. On Proposals 15 and 16, the Yukon River and Tribal Fish Commission opposes these 2 as currently written. These proposals add layers of regulation on our subsistence users, effectively regulating us into hunger.

Subsistence harvest accounts for less than 1% of the total take, yet our communities bear the burden of conservation measures. At this time, the department has failed to uphold its fiduciary responsibilities in science and management and in law to protect our tribes, to protect our ways of life against other sectors like the ocean open trawlers. State-managed intercept limited entry fisheries under the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council and the self-regulated area and fisheries who continue to bycatch and fish with far less accountability. This approach is inconsistent with the state's own sustainable salmon policy and mixed stock policies, which require equitable conservation measures in recognition of cultural and subsistence needs. Instead, tribes on the Yukon are not meeting ANS year after year while being subjugated to increased restrictive regulations.

Meanwhile, the state has failed to consult tribes on major decisions such as the Pacific Salmon Treaty, 7-year moratorium on Chinook harvest, which directly impacts our communities. These decisions were made without our voice, yet we are expected to carry the burden. Further, the state's interpretation of sustainable yield prioritizes maximum harvest for commercial sectors rather than true sustainability for future generations. This intercept interpretation ignores Anilka's rule and traditional preferences and federal trust responsibilities to tribes. When the state fails to defend tribal sovereignty, consult, or uphold its fiduciary obligations, it perpetuates systemic inequities in fisheries governance.

Our request is simple. Based on our written public comments, we request that you delay decisions on Proposal 15 and 16, move them to the statewide meeting. This will give our executive council and advisory committee committees time to build consensus and return with solutions that unite, not divide, our river communities. We need space to craft proposals that uphold tribal sovereignty and ensure sustainability, sustainable stewardship for all. At the very least, take action by listening to formal requests and adopting the stance of the Yukon River Tribal Executive Council, which represents 44 tribes.

So I have more. I think the most important part on Proposal 17, and we've heard a lot of issues and concerns about this day, this already today. We are really wanting to focus in and hone on the positions of self-governance and why that's so important. We have tribes along the Yukon that are bearing the burden of conservation that created that created this abundance in the first place. We're bearing significant burdens of conservation, um, with— without acknowledgement of our Indigenous ontology, our epistemology.

And what we're considering looking at, Proposal 17, in the rationale for expansion, it gives us an opportunity to self-identify not only with the AWC, the catalog, but include our traditional knowledge like we heard from this morning from Charlie and Stan, who are both executive council members of the Fish Commission, giving our tribes on the Yukon the opportunities to self-identify, to build those relationships with our area managers and continue to provide reasonable opportunity with appropriate fish gear. So 6 inches or smaller. Yeah, just really, I think there's a lot of frustration. I'm brand new in this position, by the way. So there's a lot of frustration of criminalization of our tribal members and the lack of accountability across all sectors, state and federal.

So significant recognition of the brilliance of our tribes and really looking forward to continued relationship building with the state. So thank you. Thanks, Craig. Any questions? Thank you for your testimony.

You're going to be around for committee? Good. Committee. Yeah.

Kimberly Nicholas, followed by Jasmine Bent and Kelsey Ivanoff.

Welcome.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the board. My name is Kimberly Nicholas. I am a Caltake tribal member and I was born and raised out there in Caltake and I grew up on the river. I am reading this letter on behalf of our Caltake Tribal Council.

[SPEAKING NATIVE LANGUAGE] On behalf of the Kaltag Tribe, we submit our comments regarding the upcoming Alaska Board of Fish meeting. As a federally recognized tribe with deep cultural subsistence and economic ties to the fish and wildlife resources in our region, we respectfully request that the board consider our perspectives and concerns in its deliberations. Our tribe relies on fish and wildlife for subsistence, cultural practices, and community well-being. We are particularly.

We are particularly concerned about proposal 15 and 16. We believe that further regulations on subsistence users are not the answer to the current Yukon River salmon crisis. We as subsistence users represent less than 1% of salmon harvest. Given that the low salmon runs are pointing towards issues in the ocean environment, we urge the Board of Fish to take action for restrictions and protections of salmon in the ocean environments rather than implementing regulation that would further restrict and complicate management in the river environment. Furthermore, we request a virtual testimony option for a tribal representative during the public comment portion of the Board of Fish meetings.

Travel during the winter months from rural communities into town can often be prohibitive due to unpredictable weather patterns. Additionally, it is a financial burden for tribes to pay for travel and lodging for a representative initiative to attend the Board of Fish meetings in person to give public comment as the current process requires. To ensure CalTAKE— I mean, sorry, to ensure tribal governments and our tribal members who oftentimes represent a wide variety of user groups ranging from commercial fishers, subsistence fishers, and sports fishers, we are able to be meaningfully engaged in the process, providing An opportunity for virtual testimony would only increase public access to this public process.

We appreciate the board's commitment to sustainable fish management and request that our comments be included in the official record of the meeting. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you require additional information or wish to discuss our concerns further. Namaste. Thank you for your testimony. Any questions?

Appreciate you being here today. Jasmine Vent.

Is Jasmine with us today? Nope. Okay. Kelsey Ivanoff.

Hi, Kelsey. Welcome.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the board. For the record, my name is Kelsey Ivanoff, and I'm here to provide personal testimony. [SPEAKING NATIVE LANGUAGE] My name is Kelsey Ivanoff. I'm from Unalakleet, where I currently live and work remotely for Native Peoples Action.

I also currently sit on our area's AC as well as our RAC. And despite my affiliations, I remind you my testimony is on behalf of myself and my family.

Before speaking on the proposal, I want to bring up a little story to emphasize the diversity of salmon. We hear people testifying from the Yukon that the salmon they get from elsewhere is different from theirs. As someone not from the Yukon, I can only speak on this because of customary trading. Years ago, when they still had salmon to trade, my cousin tried grilling the Yukon king and his grill blew up in flames due to the higher oil content. Our relatives on the Yukon deserve to feed themselves and their children with the salmon that they are accustomed to.

I'm testifying on Proposal 39 regarding the sheepish limit in the Northwest Area. Añiin miikii'riis. Someone from Unalakleet is testifying on a proposal from the Kotzebue area. As I stated, my mom is from Kotzebue and her parents, my grandparents, still live there. I spend a lot of time up there with my family and extended family, of which many spend their spring sheefishing.

As we heard yesterday, there has been no survey since 2014 where sheefish were proven to be abundant. In talking with many people and seeing it for myself, there does not seem to be an obvious decline, nor has it been considered for a stock of concern. With the smaller salmon runs and the unpredictability of the caribou migration, the use of sheefish has increased. As Stanley Peat stated today, we cannot rely on one resource, it's a balance. While I am not implying a reliance on sheefish, "The increased use has surely supplemented not only our people but our dogs' diets." Kotzebue is one of the few places in Alaska that's kept the use and sport of dog mushing alive in their community.

Many mushers rely on sheefish to feed their dogs, giving them clean, unprocessed fuel to run and pull their sleds.

Sheefish have helped to fill a void in the Northwest Area and others. In Unimokleet, we do not get sheefish. The last time I know of someone getting one they turned to Facebook and asked what it was. It's a hot commodity and people gladly trade to diversify our freezers. Adaptability is crucial where we live.

Trade is crucial where we live. And both have kept us here for thousands of years. There is a concern over people flying out with boxes of sheefish, but I don't believe the people who rely on sheefish now more than ever should carry the burden. Not only are grocery prices sky high, our people benefit physically and mentally when we are able to eat our own foods. I think there are other solutions to this issue.

If not, I strongly believe that a survey needs to be done before cutting the limit in half. In conclusion, I oppose Proposal 39 until a proper survey has been completed. Perfect. Good timing. Well done.

Thank you. I almost kind of want to end there because it's so good. But are there any questions for Kelsey? No? Thank you very much for your perfectly timed testimony.

Thank you all. But we're going to do at least one more. So I would like to invite Janessa Newman and Charlie Wright with the Tanana Ramport Manly AC to the mic if you are here.

Maybe I was pushing my luck.

Maybe I should have just like stuck with my instinct, right?

All right, let's go ahead and, um, and pause for the evening. Um, the time is 4:51, and I think what we'll do is we'll begin first thing in the morning at 8:30 with the second calls for the following people. We'll do second calls for Albaret, Mark Richards, Shirley Clark, and Jasmine Vent, and then we will continue on with our list beginning with Janessa Newman and Harley Wright with the Tanana Ramport Manly AC. Have a good evening, everyone. We'll see you in the morning.