HOUSE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON FISHERIES February 22, 1995 5:07 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT Representative Alan Austerman, Chairman Representative Gary Davis Representative Scott Ogan Representative Kim Elton MEMBERS ABSENT Representative Carl Moses, Vice-Chair COMMITTEE CALENDAR Presentation by the Division of Sport Fish, Alaska Department of Fish and Game WITNESS REGISTER JOHN BURKE, Acting Director Division of Sport Fish Alaska Department of Fish and Game P.O. Box 25526 Juneau, AK 99802-5526 Phone: 465-6187 POSITION STATEMENT: Initiated presentation TOM DONEK, Access Coordinator Division of Sport Fish Alaska Department of Fish and Game P.O. Box 25526 Juneau, AK 99802-5526 Phone: 465-4180 POSITION STATEMENT: Provided part of presentation ROCKY HOLMES, Regional Supervisor Southeast Region Division of Sport Fish Alaska Department of Fish and Game P.O. Box 240020 Juneau, AK 99824 Phone: 465-4296 POSITION STATEMENT: Provided part of presentation FRED ANDERSEN, Regional Supervisor Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim Region Division of Sport Fish Alaska Department of Fish and Game 1300 College Road Fairbanks, AK 99701 Phone: 459-7207 POSITION STATEMENT: Provided part of presentation KEVIN DELANEY, Southcentral Regional Supervisor Division of Sport Fish Alaska Department of Fish and Game 333 Raspberry Road Anchorage, AK 99502 Phone: 267-2224 POSITION STATEMENT: Provided part of presentation ACTION NARRATIVE TAPE 95-10, SIDE A Number 000 CHAIRMAN ALAN AUSTERMAN called the meeting to order at 5:07 p.m. He noted for the record Representatives Davis, Elton and Ogan were present and that a quorum was present. Number 010 JOHN BURKE, Acting Director, Division of Sport Fish, Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG), introduced his staff and said, "We have three goals in the Division and we try to measure all of our activities against these goals. The first one is to conserve populations of naturally spawning, naturally reproducing fish. Second, we would like to maximize both the reasonable opportunity to sport fish and the diversity of that sport fishing. The third goal, we've given ourselves over time, is to optimize the social and economic benefits of Alaska's recreational fisheries." He added, "Our main task can be simplified as making certain populations of sport fish are healthy, while at the same time providing as much opportunity to fish for these fish as we can provide." MR. BURKE then compared the Division of Sport Fish's in-season management of sport fish to that of commercial fishing, saying, "We have to go in afterwards and find out if we have the appropriate escapements and we have to actually analyze the amount of harvest there was, as well as escapement, without doing in-season management. Now there are numerous instances in today's crowded and controversial fisheries, where we do in-season management. These used to be the exception, they're growing more common all the time. In order to analyze our fisheries after the season takes place, to get the data required for us to know what happened in that previous year, we have what's called the Statewide Harvest Survey. This booklet I provided you is the most recent record from this survey. As you'll note, it's from 1993, the data generally lags the fishery by about 18 months." Number 110 MR. BURKE said, "Why do we have the harvest survey? Frankly, it's the best, inexpensive way we have to gather this data. Each year, questionnaires are mailed out to a representative sample of about ten percent of Alaskan sport license holders. When a person receives that questionnaire, they're asked to fill it out for that entire household," and added, "Nonrespondents are then issued a second questionnaire, as well as a reminder letter, and if that is not returned, we will issue then a third reminder and an additional survey. Now sometimes this creates confusion because of the overlap in mailing times. Sometimes people receive additional surveys even though they have responded to the first one. Over 55 percent of the surveys are completed and returned." He then said that carelessly filled out and obviously inaccurate surveys are discarded and discussed the statistical validity of the harvest survey. MR. BURKE concluded, "The information from the survey is used by us, after the year, to identify things that have happened that we might not have expected in some instances. It's used to go back and let us help us analyze effort throughout the state. Where did the people fish? Where was most of the effort put (indiscernible)? And it also enables us to analyze the catch, just how many fish were caught and how many fish were killed?" CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked if ADFG utilizes data from federal agencies who have reporting requirements and data. MR. BURKE replied that ADFG information is independent of other sources and added, "Now if we had an area manager who was going to analyze that fishery, he would take everything he had available to use." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN pointed out that Kodiak charter boat operators have found a 20 percent difference between ADFG numbers and those of federal agencies in National Wildlife Refuge on Kodiak Island. MR. BURKE said, "If there were to be a controversy and this was a high pressure fishery and we thought we had a conservation problem, then all sources would be viewed as indicators and ADFG would probably go in ourselves with a creel survey". REPRESENTATIVE KIM ELTON asked if the harvest data delineates the harvest by sport resident and sport nonresident? MR. BURKE said, "Yes." Number 280 TOM DONEK, Access Coordinator, Division of Sport Fish, ADFG, said, "The Access Program is aimed at improving access for recreational boaters and sport anglers throughout the state. Our Access Program is founded on the principle that the finest fishing in the state would be of little value unless the anglers can get to it. Our emphasis is on access for anglers using boats. But we do accomplish other projects for non-boating anglers." He added, "We look for opportunities every time we can to work with the local community. The basis of our program is the Federal Aid and Sport Fish Restoration Act which mandates that we use 12 and a half percent of our federal funds for recreational boating access. Each year we try to set aside a smaller percentage of our funds for other types of access projects. Since 1985, when our program started, we have used about 15 percent of the federal funds available to us for access project. That translates into about $14 million in federal aid funds that we have brought into Alaska for access." Number 330 CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked what was the state's match to those federal funds? MR. DONEK said, "It's the same as any of our projects. It's a 25/75 match. Three federal dollars and one state dollar." The slide show viewing boat ramp sites was given. CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked how access projects are given priority. MR. DONEK described a ranking system and said, "And we depend, to a large extent, on the information that comes back from our area managers." He added, "We try to divide them up so everyone in the state gets something. We don't direct all our effort to one area. Right now, we're spending about 60 percent of our money in the Southcentral Region, about 25 to 30 percent in Southeast and about 10 or 12 percent up in Fairbanks, north of the Alaska Range. That roughly follows the angling effort in those areas." REPRESENTATIVE AUSTERMAN asked if it was a long project list. MR. DONEK said, "The last time I counted the list there was like 120 some projects on it." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked if Mr. Donek participated in any habitat restoration. MR. DONEK indicated that those situations are land management situations and ADFG manages the resource, not the land. Number 455 ROCKY HOLMES, Regional Supervisor Southeast Region, Division of Sport Fish, ADFG, testified while showing slides. He said, "In Southeast, 80 percent of the sport fishing effort is in saltwater. That's different than the rest of the state where 75 percent of the sport fish effort is in freshwater, as opposed to saltwater." He then spoke about the increasing number of recreational harvests of fish and said, "The reason we see a significant increase in the number of nonresidents in Southeast Alaska is that we've seen a lot more tourists coming to this state, to the area recently. That's created a large demand for short term charter fishing opportunities." Most of the rest of his testimony is indiscernible due to the slide projector fan blowing in the microphone. MR. HOLMES said, "The most popular fishery is the saltwater king salmon fishery and it accounts for approximately 36 percent of the angling effort in the region. It's also the biggest management headache in Southeast Alaska, operating the fishery under the quota established through the U.S.-Canada (indiscernible). In 1992, the Alaska Board of Fisheries allocated 17 percent of the salmon quota to the sport fishery (indiscernible). He then talked about the $500,000 annual expense of the creel survey saying, "That works out to about $12.50 for every king salmon harvested in the sport fishery. But to put that in perspective, that represents about two percent of the economic value of that king salmon fishery, which in 1988 was $23 million dollars." MR.HOLMES then said, "For the upcoming season there's a very good change that the Endangered Species Act (ESA) may effect both the sport and commercial fishery. Fortunately, in both of those fisheries, we catch a small number of Snake River fall spawning chinook salmon," and added, "Unfortunately, we may not know what the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) restrictions are going to be until after the sport fish season starts." He then talked about the decline in steelhead escapement, particularly in the Situk River. Number 584 CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked for the reasons behind the decline in steelhead runs, particularly seen in 1991. MR. HOLMES said, "We know it wasn't sport caught fish because the steelhead harvest in the sport fishery and really in the commercial fishery too, in Alaska, is pretty minimal. Most sport fishermen practice catch and release for steelhead and about 90 percent of them are caught and released." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked if the king salmon fishery in Southeast uses the creel survey or the State Harvest Survey sampling. MR. HOLMES indicated both. CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked, "How do you regulate the sport fishery cap?" MR. HOLMES said, "When we get close to our cap we, usually drop the bag limit. We've done other things: One year we banned down riggers because we got way to close to our cap with too much of the fishery left and we had to do something significant." Number 618 REPRESENTATIVE GARY DAVIS asked how sport fishers would be notified if and when NMFS cuts the king salmon quota substantially. MR. HOLMES said, "We do have plans but we want to wait until we have a little bit better idea of what the potential magnitude of what they're going to cause to happen." Number 638 CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked if ADFG knows enough to monitor the migration of the ESA salmon. MR. HOLMES said, "We've looked at that but we're not the ones that get to make the decision on how the cuts to the fishery will occur. That's a suggestion that we would make to NMFS, to say that we could probably have a much higher quota as long as we didn't fish in these areas, or at certain times, but that's not necessarily something that they're going to listen to and what we've heard is that they're much more likely to tell all fisheries of Southeast Alaska just to reduce their catch a certain amount." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN said, "Can you tell when those fish are in the area? Or when they'll be in the area?" MR. HOLMES said, "Yes we can, based on coded wire tag sampling." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN said, "Is there a potential harvest plan you could put together based upon the cycle?" MR. HOLMES said yes and, "Our people that are dealing with NMFS and US-Canada (Treaty negotiations) are aware of those things but, like I said, they're not necessarily listened to." Number 661 REPRESENTATIVE KIM ELTON said he had heard that sport allocation could be reduced to 17 to 20 thousand fish this year, compared to the 40,000 fish last year. He said, "Would you like to speculate the kind of management problems you might have if we increase outside marketing to nonresident sport fishermen, what that means to my next door neighbor who's a sport fisherman? What the impact on the Alaskan resident sport fisherman might be." MR. HOLMES said, "The worst case scenario is: The king salmon resource in Southeast Alaska is already fully allocated and every non-resident that comes up here to fish has the potential of taking some of those king salmon away from residents," and then added, "The sport fishery has the capacity to harvest 70,000 fish, but that of course is a Board of Fisheries decision." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked how fast ADFG can respond when they use Creel Survey information and they are close to a cap. MR. HOLMES described the sport harvest evaluation process and indicated reevaluation happens every two weeks. Number 710 FRED ANDERSEN, Regional Supervisor, Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim Region, Division of Sport Fish, ADFG, began his testimony using overheads and describing his region. TAPE 95-10, SIDE B Number 000 MR. ANDERSEN said, "Our Stocking Program, exclusively in the Tanana River drainage, we stock four species of fish. As the program was originally intended, it was a means of diversifying the numbers of species that were available to recreational anglers in that part of the state but in recent years we've come to view it more as a conservation tool in that we use stock fish as a means of drawing fishing pressure away from native species which, for the most part, can take relatively only light to moderate levels of harvest before going into decline. Northern Pike and Arctic Grayling for example. Studies have shown we can support something in the order of 15 to 20 percent removal on an annual basis before they start to decline. Unlike recreational fisheries here in Southeast and Southcentral Alaska, nonresidents constitute only about 20 percent of the anglers in our area." He then described some of the smaller conservation problems in Interior Alaska. He said, "For the most part we don't have a lot of conflicts between sport anglers and the subsistence fisheries and the commercial fisheries." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked about the False Pass fishery. MR. ANDERSON said, "The False Pass fishery intercepts salmon bound for western Alaska, for the Yukon, Kuskokwim and Norton Sound and Kotzebue fish. For the most part, chums are not sought by recreational anglers, therefore, (indiscernible) we're not directly involved in that." Number 225 KEVIN DELANEY, Southcentral Regional Supervisor, Division of Sport Fish, ADFG, testified describing his region and said, "The region I manage supports approximately 73 percent, in 1993, of the total statewide sport fishing effort in the state." He then described the growth in angler days in Southcentral from 750,000 to 800,000 angler days from 1977, to the recent estimate of 1.5 to 1.8 million angler days, the present estimate. Regarding Cook Inlet, he said, "The Cook Inlet area of the Southcentral Region supports 78 percent of the effort that takes place in Southcentral." He then proportioned each subsection of this region out. MR. DELANEY said, "In Southcentral Alaska, we too have done some analyses of the economic value of sport fishing. We have a couple of different studies. The most comprehensive was completed in 1986 by consultants Jones and Stokes. I've taken the liberty to adjust those figures for the changes in the effort that we've seen since that time and made a very conservative change in the costs for direct expenditures, per day, based on inflation. Really what we're looking at now, the Cook Inlet fisheries generate approximately $200 million a year in direct expenditures from sport fishermen. These aren't direct expenditures, this isn't amortizing out the boat that you may buy or the motor home. These expenditures come from basically the time you leave your home until the time you rearrive back there and it includes both resident and nonresident." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked if airfares from faraway locations were included in those calculations. MR. DELANEY said yes and, "What we're seeing here is a somewhat of a leveling off. I think that's indicative of the crowding and competition that exists in a lot of fairly accessible fisheries. What I see occurring in Cook Inlet is continued growth, more likely than not, at the rate that we watched occur during the late 1980s." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked if the growth would be in the outlying areas? MR. DELANEY said, "A lot of it has to do with how we approach the management in Cook Inlet. It's very much like sticking your hand in a bowl of jelly in that reason, if you push effort, you restrict effort in one area, you can expect to lose some of it and expect some of it to flow over," and gave an example. He listed the many fisheries he is involved in and said, "Some of them obviously have been the center of a lot of attention here in recent years, particularly in recent months, the chinook salmon in the Susitna River Drainage, streams like the Deshka River, Lake Creek, Alexander (Creek), the Talkeetna River drainage. Also in the Susitna the very popular coho salmon fishery. Very small sockeye fishery, that's not a real popular species up in there. Rainbow Trout, Dolly Vardens support a lot of effort and, in recent years, we've seen a lot of interest in Northern Pike. And that's interesting because Northern Pike weren't native to the system. They were introduced illegally in the early 1950s. Spread real gradually through the system over time and then in 1986, we had a hundred year flooding event, a huge flooding event and after that we found Pike everywhere. MR. DELANEY continued, "Literally 120,000 angler days supported right in downtown Anchorage last year, we put 42,000 angler days on Ship Creek alone. That's all on stocked king and coho salmon. Very popular local fisheries. We try to satisfy a lot of the consumptive demands fairly close to the population bases. We don't use our hatchery products in the far flung and wild remote places. We do stock king salmon in Kodiak, that's about the farthest away we go." MR. DELANEY added, "Then we have the Kenai River which we basically are obligated to run like a checkbook. A sonar unit that counts fish in and we've got a daily estimate of harvest and effort subtract fish out. The most intensively managed sport fishery in the state of Alaska." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked, "Are you also on that one year to 18 months behind the cycle curve on your assessments?" MR. DELANEY said yes and, "It's one of the reasons we got in trouble on king salmon up in the Susitna. We're going to have to go back there now and do a better job of estimating harvest in season." He proceeded, "Bristol Bay area, world famous trout fisheries, excellent fisheries for salmon. A lot of lodge businesses out there. Overall, in the region about 60 percent of the effort is from residents but it varies a lot from area to area. Cook Inlet drives the total so it's 60, 65 percent resident. Bristol Bay, on the other hand, is about 80 percent nonresident. A lot of guiding and a lot of outfitting, largely nonresident." He then brought forth Kodiak sport fishing issues. Number 597 REPRESENTATIVE SCOTT OGAN said, "Some user groups believe that more fish in the river equates to more habitat degradation, what's the position of (the Division of) Sport Fish on this issue?" MR. DELANEY replied, "We've got about 100 fisheries in Southcentral in our management, and the character of each one of those is different. And so for each one of those, I'd have a slightly different answer. In general, if we are not sensitive to the damage we can do by trampling banks and running boats and building cabins, more is worse. In general, I think that's a very accurate statement. But where we can educate people, where we can go in with our access program and harden up sites, where we can change the character, rather than just to let more . I think you can do an awful lot and there still will be signs. You can't put 100,000 anglers and not have some sign that they were there but whether that sign that they were there equates to a lack of fish production is something you need to look at on a case by case basis. I'll give you an example, on the Kenai River, there's absolutely no question that when you trample the banks above the Soldotna or even above intertidal, that you're going to be doing something to the rearing habitat for chinook salmon." He then spoke of intertidal area in the Little Susitna River which is less vulnerable in salmon rearing. Number 645 REPRESENTATIVE OGAN pursued, "Well obviously, you mentioned that there's been a lot of controversy with the decline of the king salmon, especially in the Susitna Area. I've said all along that it's a multifaceted problem. It's a common issue. Probably too much sport pressure in some areas, a lack of enforcement and people from my district have, I think all districts have, a tendency to look down the inlet. The unfortunate part of that, being on the very end of where the fish spawn through and then with the inlet being such as it is, it's a long narrow thing. There's going to be interceptions of different fish stocks. The people of my area, especially that whole Susitna drainage, are looking for answers to what we're going to be doing a year from now, five years from now. What's being done with all the user groups? Is everyone being treated fairly here or do you think sport fish people are bearing most of the burden? Do you think sport fish people are most of the problem?" MR. DELANEY replied, "You've asked things that are definitely my responsibility and you've asked things that are definitely not my responsibility to answer. They're my responsibility to make people aware of the issues and information. Fairness is one of those. I can't do fairness. I can carry out the plan, but I can't make the plan, I can help make the plan but we simply don't do fairness. And fairness is really a big part of the whole allocation debate. You're right though, it's really a multifaceted problem with king salmon in Northern Cook Inlet and you hit on both. We've got a major system there. A system that historically produces about a third of the total return, 25 to 30 percent of the total return, the Deshka. For some reason we've experienced a drop in production there. It's a fairly substantial drop in production. We haven't seen that same drop in production. At least through 1993, in the other streams of the system. Talkeetna River drainage, up the Yentna, those east side streams through the Susitna, they're doing fine. The last year we could get our arms around all fish, 1993, we're doing fine. But we let the fishery get too powerful there for the number of fish that we have coming back, on average. Now it isn't way too powerful, basically, it was kind of like: With the Statewide Harvest Survey and the kind of assessment work we've done it's like flying a big heavy airplane and your altimeter light, you've got like an indicator that says 'Opps, you just passed the altitude you wanted to stay at'. Well, a big heavy airplane, you get through that altitude, if you know it right when you hit it, you got a while to go before you're going to get her corrected and get back down to the level you want. That's kind of what we've got to do. But within that general approach, you've got a conservation concern in the Deshka that frankly we're at a loss to explain right now. You've got the flood event in 1986, and you ask yourself a lot of good questions. If they're getting hit somewhere else, how come Deshka fish seem to be getting hit disproportionate to others. I don't know the answers to some of these questions. Our Assessment Program, that will be beginning this year, is going to be geared to sort that out, we're going to be coded wire tagging the Deshka fish. We got a weir in the Deshka so we can do a more accurate rebuilding of total return there." He added, "We know we let the fishery get too big around Lake Creek and up in the Talkeetna River Drainage, but we don't know what's going on in the Deshka." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked if there is a creel count done on the Deshka. MR. DELANEY gave some history and said, "We did creel surveys in 79, 80, 81, 82, 83 and then as we really started to get our feet on the ground, we started to back away from those intensive surveys and go more with the statewide harvest survey. Because our estimates had been very comparable and the only difference was there's an 18 month lag time. But we were seeing all the way through the 70s and early '80 was a very predictable annual rate of growth. You just about had a straight line. It was going up 3 or 4,000 fish a year. We felt really comfortable and then, in the early '90s, we had some streams we felt weren't producing quite so well on the west side of Cook Inlet, but they were minor. Basically, we made minor changes in the fishery. When we got the statewide Harvest Survey back, we found that we just entered a new era rather than a very predictable rate of growth." TAPE 95-11, SIDE A Number 000 MR. DELANEY continued, "We didn't see huge increases in the number of people from the late '80s. It was a huge fishery in the late '80s already, but what really happened, at least in my mind is, we saw a real jump in efficiency." He gave examples of efficiencies and said, "Next year we're back in the water with creel surveys and a weir in the Deshka. We'll have to be more careful. It wasn't that we weren't careful we just really believed from long time series of data that we could project and we were wrong." REPRESENTATIVE ELTON said, "I guess I would have expected that the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill would have depressed nonresident fisheries." MR. DELANEY said, "In fact we saw an increase in Prince William Sound and you could speculate that it increased there while it decreased in the region as a whole." Number 068 REPRESENTATIVE OGAN asked if the flood could have effected the Deshka River king salmon decline. MR. DELANEY said, "The king salmon in the Susitna River Drainage are primarily a five year old fish. The 8 to 12 pounders are four. The 30 pounders are six. So we really looked for that, beginning in 1990, 1991 and 1992, and, in fact we didn't see a direct effect there. There's some thought that the harm that was done more to the actual habitat then to the fish that were present at the time of the flood." Number 100 CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked if the Northern Pike could have an effect as a predator? MS. DELANEY said, "We have an assessment program in the water right now, we've radio tagged pike throughout the Susitna Drainage and we're doing a food habit study on those pike. We're finding for the most part, that they're inhabiting areas that aren't heavily utilized by rearing salmon and that they're eating insects, which is not their preferred food. However, they are (also) finding them with salmon and whitefish and trout and other species. In the river systems it's different than in the lakes. In the lakes they will take over." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked, "Is there any kind of study that shows pre-'86 on some of the rivers systems that had pike in them compared to the salmon in those river systems?" MR. DELANEY said, "We're tying that together. What we've done there is we've tracked as best we could. We've got say a visual that shows pike distribution of 1950s, pike distribution of the '60s, pike distribution of the '70s. Then you've got to go into 2 and 3 years increments because people are telling us they're here, they're there and so you can watch how it expands and you can take a look at salmon production over that same time." Number 156 REPRESENTATIVE OGAN pointed out that the Nushigak River has pike and a healthy king run. MR. DELANEY agreed and said those pike are indigenous. ADJOURNMENT CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN thanked his guests and adjourned the meeting at 6:47 p.m.