20 years after the Alaskan oil spill...

[happy_liberal]

Facing a disastrous return, state biologists will close king salmon fishing on the Kenai River, the state's most important sport fishing stream, while imposing restrictions on nearby waterways....

This season's Kenai run has started so poorly that biologists with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game fear it may fall well short of the minimum number of fish they seek to perpetuate healthy runs -- 5,300 kings.

"The department projects a total run of about 3,800 fish, indicating that with additional harvest it is likely the ... escapement goal will not be achieved," said area management biologist Robert Begich in the emergency order.

Through Wednesday, only 739 kings have been counted swimming past the fish-counting sonar at river mile 8.6. No more than 75 fish have been counted any day since sonar operations began May 16.

Only 15 swam by Wednesday.

Nobody knows exactly why king returns have sputtered, though Vania and other biologists say that because the problem is widespread there is a problem at sea rather than in individual rivers.

Other troubled rivers include:

• The Deshka, where only nine kings have passed the river's fish-counting weir in the last six days -- and just 76 all season. Typically, the Deshka doesn't peak until mid-June, so biologists are hoping that the fish are merely late. Before the season, they forecast a return of 31,000 kings -- well above the river's minimum escapement goal of 13,000 fish. The Deshka return has come up short the last two years.

• The Chuitna, Lewis and Theodore rivers on the west side of Cook Inlet, which were all closed by biologists this spring after failing to meet their escapement goals for years.

• Kodiak's Karluk and Ayakulik rivers, where disastrous returns forced biologists to either ban king fishing or resort to catch-and-release only. Both rivers are seeing returns down about 90 percent from what they were during the middle of the decade.

http://www.adn.com/2010/06/03/1306549/kenai-king-fishing-closes-on-saturday.html

[Mnemosyne]

1. Thank you, hl. KnR for more visibility. n/t

[G_j]

2. K&R

[HuckleB]

3. Salmon runs in the northwest seem to fluctuate much more now than in the past.

One year will be a massive run, and the next year fishing will be shut down because the run is so skimpy.

[happy_liberal]

4. I wish the state of alaska would put all the oil money

into hatcheries.

[Bandit]

5. Thirty five years ago the Salmon industry in Alaska was in dire straits.

The annual catch rate was down as low as eighteen million salmon. The state created a Limited Entry Permit System. At that time a record annual harvest had been sixty million salmon. Now it is almost unheard of for the annual catch rate to fall below two hundred million salmon. There is not a single dam on any major Alaskan River which is by far the most devastating problem for the salmon industry. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game rates the overall salmon industry as not only Healthy but Very Healthy..The problem with the Kenai River has absolutely nothing to do with the Exxon Valdez oil spill. It is lined with subsistence fishermen on both banks with nets and rods and Alaska lost control of the Subsistence issue to the Federal Government. Alaska has a Constitution based upon the US Constitution which says each citizen must be treated equally. The Federal Government says Native Subsistence Rights are more equal than other citizen's rights even if they live in the same community..Since Alaska could not solve this dilemma they could not manage the fishery in the proper manner.