March 15, 2018 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council will continue its discussion of who should manage Cook Inlet salmon fisheries, and how, at its April meeting in Anchorage.
The council is continuing court-ordered work to develop a federal fishery management plan, or FMP, for the salmon fisheries currently managed by the state in Cook Inlet, including creation of a new salmon management committee.
From October 2017 to this February, the council solicited proposals regarding the membership of the new committee and the work it might do. Those are expected to be made public around March 16, and the council will discuss them at its April meeting in Anchorage.
According to information provided by the council, the comment period generated 33 responses, 25 nominations or applications for participation on the new salmon committee. Those nominations won’t be considered right away, however.
The council is also expected to issue the formal call for salmon committee members at the April meeting, and a decision on membership won’t come until after that comment period.
The committee and other work to re-tool Cook Inlet salmon management all stems from a lawsuit brought by the United Cook Inlet Drift Association, or UCIDA, that challenged the council decision in 2011 to formally remove the Cook Inlet, Alaska Peninsula and Prince William Sound salmon fisheries from the federal management plan.
The council is now working to write a Cook Inlet management plan at the directive of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed a U.S. District Court of Alaska judge’s decision to dismiss UCIDA’s lawsuit in 2016.
Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce