Now that the commercial gill-net fishery for Kenai sockeye is closed, the Kenaitze educational fishery is closed, the Alaska resident personal use fishery is closed, and the sport fishery reduced to (a hypocritical?) one-fish a day limit, we'll want to know why? Why have Alaska's Board of Fisheries and ADF&G managers failed in their mission to provide a sustained yield from the second run of Kenai sockeye? Why is there virtually no yield from the second-run Kenai sockeye return this year?
There is no yield this year because more fish were allowed to "escape" into the ecosystem than the ecosystem is capable of supporting and producing a sustained yield. Today's Peninsula Clarion (7/20/06) reports United Cook Inlet Drift Association president Steve Tvenstrup as saying "he believes too many fish have been allowed to spawn in recent years, straining food sources for salmon fry and harming the fishery." Tvenstrup went on to say the problem will not end anytime soon — "I think this is a long-term problem. We put too many fish into the system and the system crashed."
Anchorage Daily News writer Craig Medred reports in today's ADN (7/20/06) : "With turbitity up 65 percent, researchers have reported an 50 percent drop in the biomass zooplankton — the main food source for red salmon fry." In other words, too many fish have eaten themselves out of house and home. Medred continues: "Biologists believe the stunted fish have a lesser chance of survival in the ocean."
So here we are with no "sustained yield" from the fishery, in fact, with virtually no yield at all because of trying to put bigger escapements into the system than the system can support and produce a sustained yield. Perhaps now those wondering whether "overescapement" is real and those wanting the nets on the beach so they can get more kings into the river for their personal and commercial exploitation will realize the results of short-sighted, naive, and politicized fishery management.
There is no yield this year because more fish were allowed to "escape" into the ecosystem than the ecosystem is capable of supporting and producing a sustained yield. Today's Peninsula Clarion (7/20/06) reports United Cook Inlet Drift Association president Steve Tvenstrup as saying "he believes too many fish have been allowed to spawn in recent years, straining food sources for salmon fry and harming the fishery." Tvenstrup went on to say the problem will not end anytime soon — "I think this is a long-term problem. We put too many fish into the system and the system crashed."
Anchorage Daily News writer Craig Medred reports in today's ADN (7/20/06) : "With turbitity up 65 percent, researchers have reported an 50 percent drop in the biomass zooplankton — the main food source for red salmon fry." In other words, too many fish have eaten themselves out of house and home. Medred continues: "Biologists believe the stunted fish have a lesser chance of survival in the ocean."
So here we are with no "sustained yield" from the fishery, in fact, with virtually no yield at all because of trying to put bigger escapements into the system than the system can support and produce a sustained yield. Perhaps now those wondering whether "overescapement" is real and those wanting the nets on the beach so they can get more kings into the river for their personal and commercial exploitation will realize the results of short-sighted, naive, and politicized fishery management.
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