March 13, 2024 — A proposal to lower hatchery production to its 2000 level went down in defeat at the Alaska Board of Fisheries meeting on Monday, March 4 in a 1-6 vote, after the majority of the board concluded that hatchery raised salmon were not causing undue harm to wild stocks.
The decision came after extensive testimony, mostly from fishing industry activists opposed to Proposal 43, which was offered by the Fairbanks Advisory Committee to the Board of Fisheries.
The board also took testimony at its Lower Cook Inlet meeting in Homer Nov. 26 through Dec. 1, but postponed any action until its Upper Cook Inlet meeting, from Feb. 23 through March 5 in Anchorage.
Stan Zuray, of Tanana, the only board member to vote for the proposal, said the effects of the state producing commercial opportunity for hatchery fisheries has made for great opportunity for commercial fisheries, while at the same time destroying significant subsistence and commercial economy and opportunities for village communities and processors in places like the Yukon River drainage. What is needed, said Zuray, is an open, continuing, independent review of research into the impact of hatchery salmon on wild stocks.
“Since my first hatchery meeting here in Anchorage in 2000, there has been a systematic unwillingness to do that,” he said.
Zuray has served for many years as chair of his local ADF&G advisory committee and as secretary of the Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association.