Alaska salmon fishery
Overfishing in the middle of the 20th century led to a precipitous decline in stocks and the development of a comprehensive fisheries management system overseen by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
This led to over fishing, which resulted in such low salmon stocks that President Eisenhower declared Alaska a federal disaster area in 1953.
This decline helped promote the enclosure of the salmon fishery in 1973 under a limited entry permit system.
There are five species of Pacific Salmon of economic importance in Alaska: Chinook, Sockeye, Coho, Pink and Chum.
Salmon managers open and close fisheries on a daily basis to ensure that adequate spawning escapements are achieved.
When run failures occur, managers close fisheries to provide for predetermined escapement needs and therefore ensuring long-term sustainable yields.
These members represent various stakeholders, including commercial and recreational fisheries as well as federal, state, and tribal governments.
Chapter 3, however, encompasses a broader coast-wide agreement concerning Chinook salmon, covering the region from Yakutat, Alaska, to Cape Falcon, Oregon.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game adjusts annual catch limits each year in accordance with the latest treaty provisions.
[citation needed] It is relatively clear that the reason for increased populations of salmon fisheries was the conversion to state management in 1959 and then the limited entry permit system in 1973.
The most important change that showed instant increases in salmon populations was the enactment of the Magnusson Stevens Act in 1976 that moved the jurisdiction of Alaskan waters out from 12 miles to the 200 mile limit, effectively excluding foreign fleets from fishing within these American waters.
This and sustainable escapement goals that allowed salmon to reach their wild spawning river systems allowed the salmon to return and reproduce naturally so that wild systems recovered from the over fishing, creek robbing, and the serious cold winter temperatures of the early 1970s so prevalent leading to the recovery of stocks seen all over Alaska without any artificial propagation.
Modern salmon hatcheries in Alaska were developed too late in response to record low wild-stock runs in the 1970s so millions of dollars were wasted in building these expensive infrastructures.
[11] Alaska now has 33 production hatcheries in a program designed to enhance fisheries but is masking the maintenance of healthy wild stocks.
Therefore, the natural cycles and strict management to protect American waters is an alternative explanation to the recovering salmon population surge.
This is defined as “a chronic inability (over four to five years, despite use of specific management measures) to maintain yields or harvestable surplus above escapement needs.”[1] In 2001 commercial fishing of the Alaskan Portion of the Yukon River was closed, due to poor runs recorded in the previous years.
