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Date Posted: 17:14:11 07/17/12 Tue
Author: Don Johnson
Subject: Where Have All The Kings Gone? 2012

Where Have All The Kings Gone?

The average anglers fishing Cook Inlets rivers and streams today will pack up their gear and head out with high hopes of landing a bunch of giant king salmon. That angler will then return home with the sobering reality that it is much more difficult to catch a king today than it used to be. If they do the research they will eventually come across the records of how king fishing used to be. The story may take many twists and turns but it comes down to a tale of who got the fish. We had a lot of kings in Alaska waters just after World War 2. During this period there this was when our commercial fish traps started having a devastation effect on our salmon. Our salmon resources were in good shape but that didn't last long and the traps wiped them out by 1959. Once those runs reached great abundance so they caught the attention of both our fish traps and foreign fisheries. Back then the U.S. had a three-mile territorial limit which allowed foreign fisheries to basically come in and off the three-mile limit with trawlers and gillnets. All the commercial effort basically wiped out our salmon by 1959 so we stopped our own commercial fishing effort prior to 1976 and ended the foreign fishing rip-off with the Magnuson Steven Fisheries Act of 1976. The Act effectively expanded the three-mile limit into a 200 mile U.S. Economic Zone which greatly reduced foreign commercial fishermen from accessing our returning salmon stocks. The local and foreign shut-down was very successful and limited entry came into effect in 1973 as only a limited number of commercial fishermen were then allowed to access our salmon fisheries. Around 1979 to 1995 we again began to allow our commercial fisheries to start fishing again as we experienced huge returns of king and silver salmon on the Kenai River and Cook Inlet.
We did not know it at the time but the removal of the foreign and unlimited local commercial fishing fleets resulted in our Cook Inlet salmon actually being allowed to somewhat freely migrate back to their home rivers and streams. We could actually go out fishing on the Kenai River for kings at this time and see ten to twenty kings swirl to the surface when making a single drifting pass on a hole. It was not unusual to go out king fishing in July, have four to five persons in a boat limited out within a couple hours and most of that time was spent landing giant kings, which fought for at least twenty to thirty minutes each. The fishing was fantastic, runs came in early, peaked and remained strong until the end of the month or were closed by regulation. As the commercial gillnets increased in and around Cook Inlet, we began to notice run slippage. At first it was just a slight delay of only a few days, which was quickly made up for later when the main body of the runs arrived. Each year from 1995 - 2005 resulted in these runs arriving a few day later.
By 2002 commercial trawlers, seiners and gillnets had increased so much in and around Cook Inlet that many people also began noticing a reduction in the size of giant Kenai kings along with their late arrival. The first reaction was shock as the ADF&G began reading off the record of what was happening to the first run of Kenai kings. The Board of Fish and the public scrambled and arrived at their solution, which was to severely restrict freshwater fisheries in an attempt to make up for the losses. At this time I personally began researching the by-catch figures of Kodiak's commercial fisheries guarding the entrances to Cook Inlet, which by the way begin commercial fishing June 5th each year. I was astounded as to the dramatic increase in Kodiak area commercial fisheries by-catch of king salmon. Kodiak commercial seine and gillnet fisheries which had previously reported only a by-catch of a few thousand kings annually in 1980 suddenly soared to a by-catch of 20,000 - 30,000 kings annually by 2002. At the same time the Bering Sea commercial fishermen were by-catching 30,000 - 40,000 kings annually and then those by-catch figures rocketed to 100,000 - 120,000 kings annually. These are kings which are illegal to keep so they are just thrown overboard DEAD. At the same time king by-catch figures within the Gulf of Alaska also began soaring from 20,000 kings annually to 50,000 kings and most of this was kings being dumped over the side DEAD because they were either targeting other stocks or illegal to keep. At the same time these commercial trawlers are by-catching kings they are also by-catching and tossing overboard dead the smaller bait fish which king salmon feed on, thus reducing the prey these salmon have access to. Salmon types like sockeye salmon basically feed on zooplankton so they are basically unaffected by this tremendous trawler by-catch killign and dumping of smaller bait fish. Tremendous schools of herring, cod, rockfishes, sand fishes, hooligans, candle fish, smelts, sticklebacks, wolf fish and squid are being permanently wiped out with by-catch killing and dumped back into the ocean. This prey loss then forces our kings to forage longer to meet their daily and future calorie intake needs. Upon entering the ocean, young kings require huge amounts of prey to allow them to build fat reserves sufficient to allow them to migrate back to their freshwater rivers and streams. During the years prior to returning to freshwater, kings feed voraciously in order to grow and build strength for the coming journey ahead. When trawlers kill and dump this king prey back into the ocean, they cause kings to fail to achieve sufficient fat reserves to make it back to their native freshwater rivers and streams. This killing and dumping of king prey then forces kings to forage longer thus exposing them to additional predator encounters with salmon hunting killer and beluga whales along with seals. The additional predator exposure and the reduction in fat reserves then further reduces a king salmons chances of ever returning to its freshwater home. What is happening here is these commercial trawlers are hitting our king salmon from all sides. When they by-catch kill & dump the king salmon's food source, they work to kill them with a basic lack of fat reserves. If somehow these kings are still able to stagger along anyway, the trawlers then force them to forage additional hours just to survive, thus causing them to encounter many more salmon hunting whales and seals. If by some chance a king salmon manage to survive all these trawler killers, the trawler then directly by-catches, kills and dumps those few surviving kings back into the ocean. Just about everything our kings are trying to do to survive out in the ocean is being destroyed or interfered with by our commercial trawler fleets. If the trawlers can't starve them out, they send something to try to kill them. If the starving and additional forging fails to kill them, the trawlers then just directly by-catch kill and dump them. The grand result of decades of this "triple trawler wipe-out effect" is that very few king salmon survive.

Today just twenty commercial trawlers from King Cove and Sand Point near the tip of the Alaska Peninsula averaged a by-catch of 3.4 king salmon per metric ton of Pollock. These guys have estimated that they obtained this by-catch of about 24,878 kings in just twelve days of fishing. 20,000 kings is just about enough salmon to fuel a good part of Cook Inlets entire annual recreational fishery and if those kings had been caught by anglers the state would have received 30 - 40 times more revenue than if those fish had actually been delivered to commercial markets. Unfortunately most of those kings never even made it to any markets because they were dumped over the side DEAD. A smaller amount of commercially gill netted king by-catch makes it to commercial fisheries markets but the vast majority of Alaska's king by-catch is dumped DEAD. Some may think this waste of fish is so offensive that someone would have noticed these changes, well some of us did notice and we tried to generate the attention the situation deserved but many people just refused to see what was right before their eyes. It was not until Gulf of Alaska king by-catch figures began soaring to over 40,000 - 60,000 kings annually; when that happened it caught the attention of Lower 48 fisheries managers. These managers had endangered king stocks from the Upper Willamette and lower Columbia rivers which are known to swim the waters of the Gulf of Alaska. When they caught wind of these huge king by-catch numbers they also began to ask questions like we have been asking since 2002. Those questions continue to this day.

So what has resulted from all of those king by-catch questions and revelations?
In 2009 the North Pacific Council finally attempted taking a look at this uncontrolled king by-catch spiral. The North Council voted to stop the Pollock fishing when they hit a by-catch of 60,000 kings in the Bering Sea. In 2011 the North Council voted for a 25,000 king-cap on the Gulf of Alaska king by-catch. So theoretically if the Pollock fleet in the Gulf of Alaska passes the 25,000 king by-catch limit, the fishery will be shut down. In 2010 the Gulf of Alaska fleet killed more than 51,000 king salmon as by-catch, an all-time high. You can use your imagination as to what has been happening out there since. These are only caps on the commercial king by-catch, they cannot even hope to repair the long term damage which has been done to Alaska's king stocks. Even if this king by-catch problem were totally eliminated today it would take a minimum of 10 - 20 years to recover from this kind of wholesale slaughter. Since the king slaughter has only received measures to prevent it from getting worse, what we currently see for king returns will be our best case future scenario. The worse case scenario is that those returns will get even worse.until this unacceptable king by-catch factor is eliminated.
But to answer the question of "Where have all the kings gone?" Commercial by-catch figures on king salmon have gone from next to nothing to monstrous numbers, while the State of Alaska has been assuming that it is a natural statewide lack of abundance of king salmon resulting from excessive freshwater angling. This incorrect assumption fueled extensive freshwater fisheries restrictions and forced those fisheries to give up fish allocations which they could not afford to give up. The vast majority of these missing king salmon were dumped DEAD over the side by the commercial fishing industry and now blissfully drift among the ocean currents. So the answer is not some mysteriously murky issue like Global Warming; it is really much more simple than you may have been led to believe.
Most of these kings have not gone anywhere, most remain where they were caught, killed and dumped DEAD. This is not a complex "naturally low abundance of king salmon issue". It is a simple "low abundance of wise fisheries managers" WHO ARE ABLE to address commercial fisheries by-catch problems at the saltwater source rather than the freshwater symptoms.

Why are commercial fishermen throwing away our kings DEAD? Why are we purchasing ADF&G king stamps just to have a commercial fisherman kill our kings and dump them?
Our trawl fisheries, our governor and our ADF&G Commissioner are all screaming to be allowed to continue killing our kings and throw them over board DEAD.
Our ADFG commissioner and governor are all currently advocating for us to maintain the historic average of kings caught as by-catch and then dumped DEAD thus allowing this unbelievable king by-catch issue to continue. Isn't it about time for a King Salmon Revolt? Alaskans need to hold their governor and ADF&G commissioner accountable. We all need to take a stand against throwing away our Alaska King Salmon Resource. Our govern and commissioner are advocating for us to continue throwing our kings away DEAD. A 25,000 king-cap by-catch in the Gulf of Alaska is unacceptable. A 60,000 king-cap by-catch in the Bering Sea is unacceptable.
Does anyone really believe that we can hope to rebuild our decimated kings runs with these commercial fisheries shredding our ocean like this? The reason these trawl fisheries are forced to throw kings away, is so they can't sell them and make a profit. The logic here is that if they were able to keep and sell by-catch, that would incentivize them to be sloppy and "accidentally" catch a bunch of kings. If these trawl fisheries were required to process those fish and donate them to a food bank or something, the incentive would be opposite. We should do the same as we do with big game guides as they are forced to salvage the meat off the bears or anything else.
If you are going to kill something out of the ocean, you have a duty to use it. If you want to use our ocean as your "private ranch" and sell billions of little fish sticks, that's fine but part of the deal is that someone has to eat what you catch and you cannot waste our common fisheries heritage. You either eat it or someone eats what you catch or we are going to stop you from fishing period.
It might be old-fashioned but that is the way it should always be.

Would you like the ocean by-catch of king salmon to END? Sign the Petition.
http://signon.org/thanks.html?petition_id=19764&id=-4973638-zWWsf8


Contact Alaska Governor Sean Parnell or Cora Campbell the ADF&G Commissioner at the below information.

Governor Sean Parnell
P.O. Box 110001
Juneau, AK 99811-0001
Phone (907) 465-3500
Fax (907) 465-3532
http://gov.alaska.gov/parnell/contact/email-the-governor.html
Anchorage Office
550 West 7th Avenue, Suite 1700
Anchorage, AK 99501
Phone (907) 269-7450
Fax (907) 269-7461

Fairbanks Office
675 7th Avenue, Suite H5
Fairbanks, AK 99701-4596
Phone (907) 451-2920
Fax (907) 451-2858

Washington DC Office
444 North Capitol NW, Suite 336
Washington, DC 20001-1512
Phone (202) 624-5858
Fax (202) 624-5857

---------------------------------------------------------------

Cora Campbell, ADF&G Commissioner
P.O. Box 115526
Juneau, Alaska 99811
Phone: (907) 465-6166 - Fax: (907) 465-2332

dfg.commissioner@alaska.gov
http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=contacts.emailus

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