Title 5 . Fish and Game

Chapter 33 . Transportation, Possession and Release of Live Fish; Aquatic Farming

Section 363. Management guidelines for allocating Southeast Alaska pink, chum, and sockeye salmon between commercial net fisheries

5 AAC 33.363. Management guidelines for allocating Southeast Alaska pink, chum, and sockeye salmon between commercial net fisheries

(a) Present management of state-financed hatchery and enhanced stocks represents the collective biological, social, and economic factors which have been applied over time and have resulted in current regulations.

(b) Similarly, present management of wild stocks represents the collective biological, social, and economic factors which have been applied over time and have resulted in current regulations.

(c) As a general matter, the harvest of fish stocks will be managed primarily for the benefit of the user groups within the district to which those stocks are bound. The board recognizes that biological, social, and economic factors and the current regulatory structure may result in the need to harvest such stocks outside the district for which they are bound.

(d) The board recognizes that stock fluctuations will result in differential harvests of stocks bound for other districts. The board will not consider such changes in harvests as a basis for regulatory changes not based purely on conservation concerns. If conservation concerns necessitate a change in management, these changes will be reversed when, if, and to the degree, that, there is no longer a conservation concern.

(e) In applying this policy to mixed stock cape and corridor fisheries, deviation from the current management should not be allowed except to access harvestable surpluses of significant stocks that will otherwise go unharvested. Harvest of these stocks must be conducted in a manner that minimizes the incidental take of other species and that does not jeopardize the conservation of any stock. The board recognizes that it may need to establish the allowable number or percentage of incidental catch in these highly mixed stock areas in order to ensure that the department is not forced into making allocation decisions.

(f) As a general proposition, private nonprofit hatchery stocks supported by fishermen assessments will be managed to

(1) maximize harvest in the common property fisheries consistent with wild stock conservation concerns and the facility's management plan; and

(2) give primary emphasis to the facility's plan for allocation within the common property fisheries within the special harvest area.

(g) Southeast Alaska salmon fisheries have been impacted by the U.S./Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty. The future extent of those impacts will continue to depend on fish availability and long term implementation of the treaty. Over time, the board will evaluate the impact of the treaty in light of the effects as they occur and may provide allocative relief consistent with this policy.

(h) Consistent with management guidelines for allocating pink, sockeye, and chum salmon between the commercial net fisheries, the following allocations between the purse seine and gillnet fleets have historically occurred for the period 1960 - 1988, based on the total catches of the Southeast Area net fisheries minus the Annette Island Reserve catches, and will be considered by the board in future allocation decisions:

(1) pink salmon: 95 percent purse seine and five percent gillnet;

(2) sockeye salmon: 51 percent purse seine and 49 percent gillnet;

(3) chum salmon: 73 percent purse seine and 27 percent gillnet.

(i) It is the intent of the board that if conditions require that salmon management for the net fisheries in the Southeastern Alaska Area be significantly altered, the actions will not disrupt the allocation balance that has taken place over time and as described in the management guidelines in this section, and that the burden of conservation for the net fisheries not be significantly altered.

History: Eff. 6/25/89, Register 110; am 7/26/2003, Register 167

Authority: AS 16.05.251