The info that eyeFISH presented is something that everyone who fishes for chinook should consider. It is also worthwhile to know how the Pacific Salmon Commission works. It is an organization formed to implement the provisions of the Pacific Salmon Treaty. The Pacific Salmon Treaty is a treaty between the US and Canada, not between BC, Alaska, and Washington. It does not specify how the individual countries and regions should manage their fisheries, except that each country should get benefits that reflects the production of that country. Scientific info from a wide variety of sources is presented to technical committees. The technical committees develop a set of management recommendations that are presented to the commissioners. The commissioners negotiate a final plan and it is passed on to the federal governments of Canada and the US for final approval. What starts as a science based process ends as a political decision, in the US it is the State Department that has the final say. The father along in the process, the more politics has an influence. Senators and congress members can exert some pressure to benefit their states. AuntyM is correct that Slade Gorton had more than his share of influence and Ted Stevens from Alaska had even more.

Dr. Koenings is the Washington representative on the commission and as far as I can tell he may be the only US representative with a fisheries science background. That is a positive maybe. Shortly after he came to WDFW he gave a talk at UW and at the reception after the talk I had the opportunity to ask him a question. My question was what would he do to limit Alaska's catch of Washington chinook. His answer was that during his time in Alaska he saw no evidence that there was any catch of Washington chinook in Alaska fisheries. One can hope that he has learned otherwise since then.



If, like eyeFish, you are comfortable looking at numbers and reading long reports look at the Web site below. This is the ADF&G CWT lab online report page, using the various reports you can find out when and where a CWT fish was caught and when and where it was tagged for all fisheries and regions. It would take some time to learn how to generate the reports but it is the best way to get some idea of the catch in SEAK.

Alaska CWT Lab



That is probably true for sockeye, chum, and pinks, but it is not the case for chinook. Acquaintances who are fish bios, who are dedicated chinook sports fishermen and have lived and worked in Alaska for 30 years, say that ADF&G doesn't have a clue about how to manage chinook. The chinook problems in the AYK region underscore the poor management. The Yukon Panel of the Pacific Salmon Commission doesn't seem to think Alaska's management of chinook fisheries is that good. I think there is at least one chinook population outside of the AYK region that is being considered for ESA listing. ESA listing will force ADF&G to manage saltwater chinook fisheries in a manner where stock composition is a strong consideration. In that respect WDFG knows a lot more about what is going on than ADF&G. Ultimately I suspect that interception of ESA listed fish in Alaskan waters, in directed fisheries and bycatch in other fisheries will lead to a reduction in Washington fish being caught in Alaska. Because ESA listed fish are seldom tagged it will require more genetic data to arrive at that point. I know that Alaska did some genetic studies of the catch composition in the Copper River Delta fishery but I haven't seen any reports on the results of the study. Not all kings labeled as Copper River kings come from the Copper River.