November 6, 2013 — A former New York-state commercial fishermen turned Kenai River fishing guide is leading a drive to ban set-net fishing in Cook Inlet south of Anchorage and near other urban centers.
Joe Connors and the Alaska Fisheries Conservation Alliance (ACFA) say the use of indiscriminate setnets threatens king salmon in the Kenai River and other fish elsewhere. The group Wednesday presented Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell with the paperwork necessary to gain approval for a ballot initiative, which would allow voters next year to vote on whether to ban "setnet fishing in the five, urban, non-subsistence areas of Alaska."
"This ballot measure would not affect set nets in the 90 percent of the state that is designated a subsistence or rural area," a press release from the Alliance said. "Set nets are less intrusive and a reasonable means of fishing in low population areas. However, ACFA believes it is time that set nets are banned in the urban, highly populated centers of Alaska."
The Kenai Peninsula is ground zero for the battle.
Connors, a former University of Alaska Anchorage professor, and others contend that setnets off the river's mouth are doing to Kenai kings what setnets in New York’s Hudson River did to shad — wiping them out.
Read the full story at Alaska Dispatch