TRUCK FIRE – Firefighters knock down a fire in a Ford Explorer truck in Arrowhead Trailer Park in the 1200 block of Sawmill Creek Road Saturday evening. One person received fire-related injuries and was taken to the hospital, Sitka Fire Department Chief Craig Warren said, and the truck was considered a total loss. The cause of the fire is under investigation, Warren said. The fire hall received the call about the fire at 5:33 p.m., and one fire engine with eight firefighters and an ambulance were dispatched, he said. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

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Daily Sitka Sentinel

Local Trollers Protest at Salmon Symposium

 

 

By SHANNON HAUGLAND

Sentinel Staff Writer

More than 150 local members of the fishing community turned out Monday evening for the Southeast Chinook Salmon Symposium at Centennial Hall.

Most were upset over what they’ve heard is a proposed 7.5 cut in Southeast Alaska Chinook quota under the Pacific Salmon Treaty on top of already deep cuts, and last year’s August closure that cost the troll fleet 31,000 kings in the summer troll fishery.

The meeting room at Centennial Hall was packed with trollers, charter fishermen, sport fishermen and other members of the public.

 

Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Sam Cotton, right, listens as more than three dozen Sitkans protest outside Harrigan Centennial Hall Monday afternoon. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

 

Sam Cotten, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and Charles Swanton, deputy commissioner for Fish and Game and Pacific Salmon Treaty Commissioner, headed the state delegation at the meeting.

Fish and Game biologists presented information on the abundance index, Chinook returns and conservation measures taken in all gear groups in response to the historic low returns to most Southeast rivers.

“This is really unprecedented, what we’re seeing now,” said Ed Jones, Fish and Game Chinook Salmon Research Initiative coordinator. 

Swanton provided a history of the treaty, under the title “Treaty Transparency, a summary of the treaty past, present and future,” and responded to questions.

A protest outside the building before the symposium highlighted some of the concerns of local fishermen.

“We understand in years of low abundance we need to cut back,” said troller Caven Pfeiffer, addressing the crowd of about three dozen. “Do we want to give our king salmon to Canada? ... No treaty is better than a crooked treaty.”

The protest was organized by a handful of trollers, with adults and children joining in on the call-and-response protest for about a half hour before the symposium started. Deborah Lyons, head of the Chinook Futures Coalition, also addressed the crowd.

Trollers have said the proposed 7.5 percent cut that they’ve heard is part of the Pacific Salmon Treaty will have a devastating effect on the fleet and other fisheries, and is unfair. 

Lyons said Canada is giving up fish to help the Northwest U.S. fishery in Puget Sound, and Alaska is being asked to give up its share to Canada.

“It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul,” she said.

In a recent letter to the editor she said two years ago Alaskans were told they would have to take a 10 percent cut under the treaty. 

“Why? The Alaska fisheries actually have very little impact on (Endangered Species Act) listed stocks, but the Canadians do. Washington state wants reductions in the Canadian harvest of ESA-listed Puget Sound salmon, and to provide more chinook salmon as a food source for ESA-listed killer whales that have forgotten how to eat marine mammals. ... The Canadians agreed to make reductions but insist that Alaska pass more fish to them to make up for their loss. Alaska had no choice but to agree, otherwise the National Marine Fisheries Service nonvoting commissioner will not issue a Section 7 permit (finding of no jeopardy to an ESA listed stock) and the fisheries cannot be conducted without one.”

Donohoe said on top of the reductions from a low abundance index, Swanton cut the allocation for all gear by 10 percent this year.

“Charlie is making a bad situation unnecessarily worse,” Donohoe said today.

Pfeiffer said today that the fleet has lost confidence in the treaty process.

“The number one objective for the treaty team was to not give up Alaska fish,” he said. “That was a statement by the commissioner. They’re trading 5 to 10 percent of our quota for the next 10 years, as a political chip. This has nothing to do with abundance: the treaty model has an abundance index built into it – in years of high abundance we catch more, in years of low abundance we catch less. What this team has agreed to give up is a full-scale cut of 5 to 10 percent, in spite of what ocean abundance is.”

Pfeiffer said he was disturbed by Swanton’s comments Monday that 85 percent of the fish caught in Alaska “is not our fish.”

“He’s wrong because they’re here, they’re rearing here, they’re growing up here. They’re as much our fish as anybody’s,” he said. “For our deputy commissioner to say that, to say it’s not our fish, it makes me wonder who he’s working for. That is not what we want our lead negotiator to be saying. That’s why the fleet is not behind him.”

Pfeiffer added later, “We need governor Walker to play a more direct role in this treaty process. We do not want the treaty signed as it stands.”

 

 

 

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20 YEARS AGO

March 2004

Businesses using the Centennial Hall parking lot testified Tuesday against a proposal to charge them rent in addition to the $200 annual permit fee. City Administrator Hugh Bevan made the proposal in response to the Assembly’s direction to Centennial Hall manager Don Kluting to try to close the $340,000 gap between building revenues and operational costs.


50 YEARS AGO

March 1974

Alaska Native Brotherhood Grand President William S. Paul Sr. will be special guest and speaker at the local ANB, Alaska Native Sisterhood Founders Day program Monday at the ANB Hall.

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