August 19, 2022 — Alaska’s highest court said fisheries managers did not have to manage the Cook Inlet set-net fishery to national standards and that they didn’t violate any regulations when they closed the fishery early.
That opinion from the Alaska Supreme Court, published last Friday, is the latest legal blow to the 440 or so east-side permit holders, who have seen their fishery close early for the last four summers due to paired restrictions with the king salmon sport fishery. When fewer than 15,000 large kings pass through the sonar on the Kenai River, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game closes both fisheries entirely. Late-run escapement hasn’t passed 15,000 kings since 2018.
And after the closure in 2019, set-netters represented by the Cook Inlet Fishermen’s Fund sued the state in hopes the court would order managers to rework that management plan and others. It alleged restrictions the state had placed on the commercial fishermen were unscientific and arbitrary and flew in the face of the Magnuson-Stevens Act.
The Kenai court said because there was no federal management plan for Cook Inlet fisheries at that time, the state was not bound by those standards. And it said the state’s Board of Fisheries and Department of Fish and Game had the discretion to write and enforce their own rules.