Cook Inlet Archives - Page 2 of 7

Groups prod feds to act on plan to save Cook Inlet beluga whales

January 24, 2022 — As Cook Inlet beluga whales continue to slide closer to extinction, a coalition of conservation groups petitioned the federal government this week to do more to save them.

The National Marine Fisheries Service has not made much progress in carrying out the recovery plan it created in 2016 to reverse the decline, the groups say.

“It’s been a little bit over five years now. And the population is is not recovering. In fact, it’s worse,” said CT Harry, with the Environmental Investigation Agency, a group behind the petition.

EIA has produced a report on the government’s efforts to help the whales. It’s titled “Five Years of Failure.”

Harry noted that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration continues to grant permits for activities in the inlet that emit noise or otherwise disturb the whales.

“The goal in our petition is to basically tell NOAA to follow their own advice by reevaluating how these harassment authorizations are permitted,” Harry said. “And to not look at each one on an individual basis, but to look at them on a cumulative basis to determine the cumulative stress impact of a multitude of threats.”

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Dunleavy administration enters court fight alongside feds to keep Cook Inlet fishing grounds closed

January 13, 2022 — Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration will be fighting in court to keep much of Cook Inlet closed to commercial salmon fishing after a federal judge approved the state’s request to intervene in a lawsuit over the fishery.

U.S. District Court of Alaska Judge Josh Kindred granted the state’s motion Jan. 6 to join the National Marine Fisheries Service as a defendant in suits filed last fall by the United Cook Inlet Drift Association and individual fishermen in an attempt to force the agency to reopen the federal waters of central Cook Inlet to salmon fishing this coming season.

Often referred to as the EEZ — an abbreviation for its formal name, the exclusive, economic zone — the area currently closed by federal regulations this year covers all of the waters beyond 3 miles offshore in central Cook Inlet. Fishing would still be allowed in state waters up to the 3-mile line.

Intervening in the consolidated lawsuits also puts the state in the odd legal circumstance of arguing alongside the federal government in court to prevent what Dunleavy administration officials insist would be a gross example of federal overreach.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Beluga Whale Sounds Aid Scientific Understanding of When Whales are Hunting Prey

December 1, 2021 — When listening to beluga whales, the sound of a crunch or a clapped jaw may be a reliable indication that a beluga whale just successfully captured or missed a fish. In a new published paper on beluga whales in Alaska, scientists analyzed sound data, collected over several years, to monitor beluga whale calls and other data. With these data they are gaining new insights into belugas’ diet, feeding behavior, and feeding habitats.

“Our goal is to collect data to help understand and recover Cook Inlet beluga whales, an endangered species and NOAA Fisheries,” said Manuel Castellote, NOAA Affiliate and lead author for the study from the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Ocean and Ecosystem Studies, University of Washington. “There is a paucity of basic ecological knowledge, such as prey preference, about this population of whales. This impedes our efforts to help recover the population. The population is estimated to be only 279 animals, and was in decline during the 10-year period from 2008-2018, the most recent time period for which we have data.”

Given the endangered status of the Cook Inlet belugas, there are limited studies that are permitted on this population. So scientists conducted research using tagging technology and other methods on a comparable surrogate—an abundant population of beluga whales in Bristol Bay, Alaska. The Bristol Bay beluga population is estimated to be between 2,000 and 3,000 animals.

Read the full story at NOAA Fisheries

Alaskan Fishermen Sue NMFS, Department of Commerce Over Cook Inlet Salmon Fishery Closure

November 15, 2021 — A trio of Alaskan fishermen has sued the National Marine Fisheries Service (NFMS)’s Assistant Administrator Janet Coit and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo for a recently announced rule change that will close commercial salmon fishing in the federal waters of Cook Inlet, as SeafoodNews covered on November 4.

The fishermen, Wes Humbyrd, Robert Wolfe and Dan Anderson, argue that the rule, which implemented Amendment 14 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Salmon Fisheries in the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska (Salmon FMP), was unconstitutional.

“This casually destructive rule must be vacated, however, because it violates the Constitution’s Appointments Clause and Take Care Clause. These “essential” structural provisions of the Constitution are accountability-preserving mechanisms,” the complaint from the fishermen wrote. “Their basic function is to ensure presidential control over the agents who exercise executive power on his behalf.

Read the full story at Seafood News

NOAA closes federal Cook Inlet waters to commercial salmon fishing for 2022

November 4, 2021 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries this week amended one of its fishery management plans to now bar commercial salmon fishermen from operating in the federal waters of Cook Inlet, the main body of water located just west of the Kenai Peninsula in the Southcentral part of the state.

The amendment, Amendment 14, does not close any salmon fishing in state waters, but instead prohibits commercial salmon fishing in the federal waters of Cook Inlet, the area spanning from 3 nautical miles to 200 nautical miles off the coast of Alaska and referred to as the Cook Inlet Exclusive Economic Zone, or EEZ.

The change is to go into effect to be in place for the 2022 Cook Inlet EEZ commercial salmon fishery. It’s the result of a decision made in December 2020 by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which had been weighing four alternatives for dealing with the fishery management plan for salmon in the EEZ.

The first alternative would have taken no action, and the second option was to have federal oversight of the waters with some management delegated to the state. The third alternative was complete federal oversight and management of the Cook Inlet EEZ, and the fourth was to have federal oversight of the EEZ waters and to close them to commercial salmon fishing.

Read the full story at Alaska’s News Source

ALASKA: As local streams warm, cold water inputs could be crucial for salmon

August 26, 2021 — This particular pocket of Beaver Creek is not far from the road, just a short and muddy tromp away from a gravel parking lot between Kenai and Soldotna. But it’s home to several cold water inputs that could be crucially important for young salmon as they swim from the Kenai River to Cook Inlet.

Cook Inletkeeper Executive Director Sue Mauger said the inputs are like cold water faucets.

“They’re a little place where there’s a constant pump of colder water,” she said. “And that really can help buffer when we have those really warm, sunny days to actually have some cold water coming into the creek.”

Inletkeeper is working with the Kenai Watershed Forum and the Kachemak Heritage Land Trust to diagram those cold water spots in four peninsula creeks. The goal is to keep those creeks, and the salmon that use them, protected.

Here’s the catch — the inputs fall over a mosaic of private and city land. The nonprofits are reaching out to landowners to let them know they have something special in their backyards.

“Everyone who owns riverfront property knows they have really special habitat,” Mauger said. “Like, they know that that’s important; that’s why they bought the property, probably, is to be on the river. But to then be told, ‘You have extra special property. You have something really unique on your property’ is very exciting for someone.”

Read the full story at KDLL

ALASKA: Net migration: Young commercial fishermen ship out of Cook Inlet

August 19, 2021 — The Cook Inlet salmon fishery was once an economic engine for Kenai.

But the fishing there is no longer lucrative. Many fishermen with deep ties to the inlet are retiring — or moving elsewhere.

The F/V Nedra E is smaller than the other boats bobbing at the dock in Naknek.

Thor Evenson didn’t have Bristol Bay in mind when he designed the boat for his parents, Nikiski homesteaders Jim and Nedra Evenson. Until last year, she’s been a Cook Inlet boat, captained by Jim, then his nephew, and now his grandson, 32-year-old Taylor Evenson.

Taylor grew up hearing about the heyday of Cook Inlet fishing from his dad and his friends.

“And just getting up in the morning every day and hearing their voices on the radio, voices I grew up with from the first time I was on the boat, I was 3 months old,” he said. “And particularly hearing my dad’s voice, going out and fishing with my dad … that’s why I never left the inlet, even though I always knew what was coming.”

Read the full story at KDLL

NOAA Fisheries Seeks Public Input on Proposal to Close Commercial Salmon Fishing in the Cook Inlet EEZ

June 4, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Council recommended measure responds to court ruling requiring Federal management of EEZ waters in Cook Inlet

NOAA Fisheries is seeking public comments on a proposal to amend the Fishery Management Plan for the Salmon Fisheries in the Exclusive Economic Zone off Alaska (Salmon FMP) to prohibit commercial salmon fishing in federal waters, also called the exclusive economic zone or EEZ, in Cook Inlet. The proposed action would not close any salmon fishing in State of Alaska waters.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council first developed the Salmon FMP under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act more than 40 years ago. The current Salmon FMP excludes designated federal waters in Cook Inlet. That has allowed the State of Alaska to manage commercial salmon fishing in the area.

ALASKA: ADF&G Commissioner Addresses Disaster Relief, Cook Inlet Closure, Large Salmon Forecast for 2021

April 1, 2021 — Alaska’s Governor Mike Dunleavy has received 11 requests for fisheries disaster declarations, said Doug Vincent-Lange, Alaska’s Commissioner of Fish and Game, in an update at the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce’s ComFish Expo.

Noting the good news of over half of Alaska’s population now vaccinated, and shots now available for anyone over 16, Vincent-Lange said, “I don’t see why you wouldn’t all be able to fish this year.”

Read the full story at Seafood News

CATHERINE CASSIDY: Is Alaska open for business? Not from where I stand.

December 18, 2020 — A freak storm descended on Cook Inlet this month. The fallout threatens my family business and hundreds of thousands of dollars in capital investment. Over a thousand other similar businesses around Cook Inlet face the same peril. The disaster? Earlier this month, Gov. Mike Dunleavy made the bizarre decision to effectively shut down the commercial salmon fishing industry here.

At the very end of a four-year process intended to bring the Cook Inlet salmon fishery into compliance with the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the state announced that it would refuse to cooperate with the program and basically forced the closure of federal waters in Cook Inlet to commercial fishing.

Before you conclude that this action was some kind of noble defiance to federal overreach, you should know that the state of Alaska already has multiple collaborative agreements with the federal government on managing numerous other fisheries in Alaska, including crab, cod, rockfish and salmon.

Read the full opinion piece at the Anchorage Daily News