The situation of king salmon on the Yukon River is bleak as the prediction goes that this winter will be tougher than last. Some villagers reported they couldn’t afford to buy both food and heating fuel. In addition a sonar station used to count salmon — a key source of cash and food along the river — wasn’t working correctly. More fish were making it upriver than estimated, meaning some of the restrictions may not have been necessary.
Russ Holder, Yukon River federal fisheries manager, informed that the authority took some unprecedented measures because they thought the run was looking (to be) one of the poorest they have ever had. It is told that there is not much comfort for fishermen in Western Alaska, who faced a string of closures and lost a rare source of cash. In one village, fishermen were angry enough to stage an illegal subsistence fishing trip in protest.
Tim Andrew, natural resources director for the Association of Village Council Presidents, which serves 56 Yukon-Kuskokwim villages, said that the situation is terrible. AVCP president Myron Naneng said he plans to tell the federal task force that the Yukon’s salmon are being mismanaged and that something needs to be done immediately to reduce the number of kings wasted by the massive Bering Sea pollock fleet.
It is observed that the authority is trying and reverse declining chinook runs this summer, Yukon regulators once again banned commercial fisherman from pursuing kings. They took the extra step of barring subsistence fishing on the first pulse of Canada-bound chinook, using a series of rolling closures that followed the fish up the river.
