Subsistence board OKs $5.5 million for assessments

Published on January 22nd, 2010

By TAMMY JUDD

The Federal Subsistence Board met Jan. 12-14 in Anchorage. During its Jan. 13 meeting, the board considered the funding for projects on the Fisheries Resource Monitoring Plan, and it approved $5.5 million for the 2010 plan.

Prior to the Federal Subsistence Board's action on the draft 2010 Fisheries Resource Monitoring Plan, Pat Pourchot, special assistant to the Secretary of the Interior for Alaska Affairs, gave a review saying they largely completed outreach efforts, having traveled to many regions of the state, including Kotzebue area, Yukon Delta, Fort Yukon, Fairbanks, the Kenai Peninsula, Juneau and Ketchikan in addition to meeting with many people in Anchorage, including rural folks who have traveled in for various other meetings.

"We have met with both subsistence users and groups and other interested parties in the federal program, including sport and commercial interests; and we have met with the state of Alaska governor's office and ADF&G officials. We have received numerous verbal and written comments from many of these people and organizations," Pourchot recounted in an e-mail. "We are now going through the comments and categorizing by topic and identifying all the suggested changes in the program. We will then analyze these issues and suggested actions in the development of draft recommendations to give to the Secretary of the Interior for his consideration. I am guessing that this process will take another month or so."

After the board discussed council topics with regional advisory council chairs and heard public comments, it reviewed the 2010 Fisheries Resource Monitoring Plan.

Among the 44 proposed projects being considered in the monitoring plan were several requests for proposals for the Southwest Alaska region, including: Bristol Bay-Chignik Non-Salmon, which would "document trends in whitefish harvest and use from Lake Clark communities"; Bristol Bay-Chignik Salmon to "obtain reliable estimates of spawning escapement over time for Chinook salmon runs to the Togiak River system and to systems on the Alaska Peninsula of importance to federally qualified subsistence users"; and Kodiak-Aleutians Salmon to "Obtain reliable estimates of spawning escapement over time for Buskin River sockeye salmon" and "Obtain reliable estimates of smolt and adult production over time for Afognak Lake and Buskin River sockeye salmon." Also included in the 2010 draft plan was funding for an ongoing project titled Bristol Bay Salmon, an assessment of Lake Clark sockeye salmon.

The 2010 funding guidelines available for the Southwest Alaska Region was about $710,000. The Technical Review Committee considered five investigative plans and recommended funding for four of the five proposals in the 2010 plan.

The review committee requested $90,600 for the Buskin River sockeye salmon adult assessment; $139,536 for the Afognak sockeye salmon smolt and adult assessment; $241,342 for the Togiak River chinook salmon adult assessment; and $115,700 for the Buskin River sockeye salmon smolt assessment. The review committee did not recommend funding for the Lake Clark whitefish subsistence harvest and uses project.

The total requested budget for Southwest Alaska 2010 Fisheries Resource Monitoring Program was $587,178.

Other projects funded by the monitoring plan were three looking at aspects of climate change on subsistence fisheries in the Bering Strait region, Northwest Alaska and the Yukon River; several investigators working together to better estimate chinook salmon escapement using a counting weir in the Unalakleet River; a project developing historical run estimates for Yukon River chinook salmon; a genetics study addressing the stock composition of Bering Cisco commercial harvests in the Yukon River Delta; a study examining harvest permit reliability for the Copper River subsistence salmon fishery; and qualitative aerial surveys will be conducted in the Yakutat area to assess timing, distribution and relative abundance of eulachon, an important subsistence resource for which little information is available.

According to a news release, the 2010 monitoring program will provide 29 percent of total funding to state agencies, 27 percent to federal agencies, and 44 percent to Alaska Native organizations, universities and others.

The Fisheries Resource Monitoring Plan, a written overview, states, identifies and provides information needed to sustain subsistence fisheries on federal public lands for rural Alaskans.