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Date Posted: 21:38:22 10/11/12 Thu
Author: Don Johnson
Subject: 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 is when our commercial fish traps started having a devastation effect on our salmon.
Our salmon resources were in good shape then but that didn't last long as the traps wiped them out by 1959. Once those runs reached great abundance 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
rip-off the three-mile limit with trawlers and gillnets. All this 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. This local and foreign shut-down was very successful and then limited entry came into effect in 1973 as only a limited number of commercial fishermen were 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 from around 1980 - 1990, 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 king runs arrived. Each year from 1995 - 2005 resulted in these runs arriving a few day later. By 2002 our ADF&G also began
to notice these same run slippages on all of Cook Inlets king runs as saltwater by-catch factors began to take their toll. By 2002 limited entry commercial trawlers,
seiners and gillnets had increased so much in and around Cook Inlet that many people began noticing a reduction in the size of the 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.

Back in 2002 I personally began researching the by-catch figures of Kodiak Islands commercial fisheries guarding the entrances to Cook Inlet, which by the way begin
commercial fishing around 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 Bering Sea commercial trawler fishermen began by-catching 30,000 - 40,000 kings annually and then those by-catch figures rocketed to 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 trawler fisheries also began soaring from 20,000 kings annually to 50,000 kings and most of this were kings being dumped over the side DEAD because they were either targeting other stocks or illegal to keep. While these commercial trawlers were by-catching kings they were also by-catching and tossing overboard DEAD smaller bait fish which king salmon feed on; thus reducing the prey our kings have access to. Salmon types like sockeye salmon feed on zooplankton so they are basically unaffected by this tremendous trawler by-catch killing and dumping of smaller bait fish. Tremendous schools of herring, cod, rockfish, sand fish, hooligan, candle fish, smelt, stickleback, wolf fish and squid have been permanently wiped out with by-catch killing and dumped back into the ocean. This environmental destruction 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 home. As trawlers kill and dump this king prey back into the ocean, they dramatically increase the chances of a king failing 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 really 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 they manage to survive all these trawler king killers, the trawlers then directly attack them with by-catch, killing and dumping those few surviving kings. Just about everything our kings are trying to do to survive out in the ocean is being attacked or interfered with by our commercial trawler fleet. 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 a by-catch of about 24,878 kings in just twelve days of fishing. 24,878 kings is just about enough salmon to fuel a good part
of the Kenai Rivers 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 markets but the vast majority of this king by-catch is dumped DEAD.
Some may think this waste of fish is so offensive that someone would have noticed the 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 is right before their eyes. It was not until Gulf of Alaska king by-catch figures began soaring to over
40,000 - 50,000 kings annually; when that happened it also 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 Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) finally attempted to take a look at this uncontrolled trawler king by-catch spiral. The NPFMC voted to stop the pollock trawler fishing when they hit a by-catch of 60,000 kings in the Bering Sea. In 2011 the NPFMC voted for a 25,000 king-cap on the Gulf of Alaska trawler 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 trawler king by-catch, they cannot even hope to repair the long term environmental 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 naturally recover from this kind of wholesale ocean slaughter. Since this 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 trawler king by-catch factor is completely eliminated.

To finally 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 within commercial gill netting and trawler fisheries, while the State of Alaska has been assuming that it is a "natural statewide lack of abundance of king salmon" 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. Because the state incorrectly assumed that sportfish anglers were the problem, it decided to require anglers to pay a variety of extra fees to help restore our once great king salmon runs.
Our ADF&G Sport Fish Division's main mission is to basically enhance king salmon opportunities for sport anglers. They get their funding from many sources but a couple of the main sources are sportfish licenses and king stamps. This means that the state collects millions of angler dollars to pay for king stocking programs; only to have those kings promptly killed and dumped DEAD by the trawler industry. This horrific connection serves as a giant reality check to those who believe we are helping restore our king runs by purchasing sportfish licenses & stamps. So if you want to know where the money or the kings went; well the money and kings are just gone. You can look at it like a silent matter / anti-matter
explosion; with the resulting NOTHING. So the answer is not as mysterious as you may have been led to believe. Most of these kings have not gone anywhere, most remain where they were commercially caught, killed and dumped DEAD. This is not a complex "naturally low abundance issue". It is a simple lack of wise fisheries managers who are able to address commercial fisheries by-catch issues 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 our kings killed and dumped DEAD? Our trawl fisheries, our governor and our ADF&G Commissioner are all demanding to be allowed to continue killing our kings and dumping them over board DEAD. Our commissioner and governor are 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? Alaskan's need to hold their governor and ADF&G Commissioner accountable on this issue. 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 fined or required to process those fish and donate them to a food bank or something, the incentive would be opposite, they would have to spend cash to take care of there own mess. As it is every resident and tourist in Alaska is spending their cash to clean up their mess. 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 basic duty to use it. If you want to use our ocean as your "private ranch" and sell billions of little fish sticks, that's okay but part of the deal is that someone has to eat what you catch and you cannot WASTE OUR COMMON FISHERIES HERITAGE! Someone either eats what you catch or WE WILL STOP YOU from fishing period.
It might be old-fashioned but that is the way it should always be.

It is possible to require our trawl fisheries to develop new technogy which will not catch or kill other marine life when fished. When fish traps were banned in Alaska
the commercial salmon fishing did not go away, it just developed new fisheries technogy which allowed the industry to continue fishing but with a little less efficient. This is what must be done with our commercial trawler fishing industry; the current highly efficient trawler killing machines must be forced to use less efficient gear. The Stone Age did not come to an end because people ran out of rocks; it ended because they found a better way.

"And the sea will grant each man new hope." Christopher Columbus, August 3rd, 1492.

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