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A salmon is entangled in a commercial set gillnet in the Northern District of Cook Inlet near Point MacKenzie on Thursday, July 25, 2024. (Bill Roth \/ ADN) <\/p>\nA salmon is entangled in a commercial set gillnet in the Northern District of Cook Inlet near Point MacKenzie on Thursday, July 25, 2024. (Bill Roth \/ ADN) <\/p>\n
A federal judge has upheld the National Marine Fisheries Service\u2019s new system to manage commercial harvests in federal waters of Cook Inlet, concluding that the agency has no obligation to extend that management to state waters.<\/p>\n
The July 1 ruling<\/a> by U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason lets stand a split federal-state management regime<\/a> for commercial salmon harvests in Cook Inlet, the marine waters by Alaska\u2019s most heavily populated region.<\/p>\n The ruling is a win for the NMFS, an agency of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and a loss for fishermen who sought federal management of all Cook Inlet commercial salmon harvests because they were dissatisfied with state management.<\/p>\n NMFS had previously deferred all Cook Inlet commercial salmon harvest management to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.<\/p>\n The new split management system<\/a>, with the state in charge of harvests in nearshore waters and NMFS in charge of harvests in waters beyond 3 nautical miles offshore, is the result of a series of lawsuits filed since 2009 by United Cook Inlet Drift Association<\/a>. The association represents about 500 fishermen who harvest salmon with drift gillnets<\/a>, a type of net gear that is pulled by vessels.<\/p>\n In 2016, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in UCIDA\u2019s favor, triggering the NMFS management takeover in Cook Inlet\u2019s federal waters. Gleason\u2019s ruling came in the most recent lawsuit in the matter, which UCIDA filed last year. That lawsuit accused NMFS of shirking its management duties by not extending its control to all Cook Inlet commercial salmon harvesting and instead, continuing to defer too much to the state.<\/p>\n UCIDA has argued for years that the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has mismanaged Cook Inlet salmon harvests, resulting in what the organization has described in legal documents as \u201csignificant under-harvest.\u201d Starting in about 2000, UCIDA said in a brief<\/a> filed on Nov. 6, state management \u201ctook a turn for the worse, and salmon harvest in Cook Inlet began a precipitous and lasting decline that has now persisted for almost 25 years, to the detriment of fishing communities throughout Cook Inlet.\u201d<\/p>\n But NMFS has long disputed the claim that state mismanagement has resulted in under-harvest of salmon. \u201cThere has never been credible scientific support for the idea that the drift gill net fleet could meaningfully increase its harvest without harming the more vulnerable stocks in Cook Inlet,\u201d said a Dec. 20 brief<\/a> filed by the agency.<\/p>\n The state intervened in the case on behalf of NMFS, and Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor welcomed Gleason\u2019s ruling. It was \u201ca victory for Alaska and our salmon fishery,\u201d Taylor said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cIt upheld the state\u2019s rights and responsibilities to managing our waters.\u201d<\/p>\n NMFS last month set this year\u2019s harvest limits<\/a> for Cook Inlet\u2019s federal waters. Under those limits, there is an allowable catch of 800,126 sockeye salmon and about 147,000 salmon of other species.<\/p>\n The total Cook Inlet commercial salmon harvest in 2024<\/a> was about 2.3 million fish, the vast majority of which was sockeye, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.<\/p>\n