1999 



OUR LIVING OCEANS 



Sockeye salmon in purse 

 seine, off Chignik, on the 

 south side of the Alaska Pen- 

 insula. 



the 1 ,800,000 salmon caught by recreation.il fisli- 

 ermen in 199S (Howe et al., 1996). Sockeye 

 (22.5%) were the second most popular sport- 

 caught salmon that year, followed by pink salmon 

 (21.3%), chinook salmon (17.7%), and chum 

 salmon (8.2"n). 



Bycatch and Multispecies Interactions 



Bycatch ot salmon by U.S. groundfish fisher- 

 ies in the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska re- 

 mains a problem in fisheries management. Al- 

 though the groundfish fisheries are prohibited 

 from retaining any salmon they catch, about 

 60,000 chinook salmon were taken iiicidcntally 

 each year between 19')2 and I9')4 in these trawl 

 fisheries. In that same period, about 173,000 other 

 salmon (mostly chum salmon) per year were esti- 

 mated as trawl bvcatch. The problem is cunentK 

 being addressed by the North Pacific Fishery Man- 

 agement Council through time-area closures and 

 bycatch limits set for the groundfish fisheries. 



Protecting Salmon Habitats 



Responsible conservation of Alaska's salmon 

 resource is a Federal responsibility shared with the 

 state. Maintaining this renewable resource requires 

 considered and planned use for the thousands of 

 miles of riparian habitat in Alaska that support 

 salmon production. Competing uses for this habi- 

 tat include logging, mining, oil and gas develop- 

 ineiii, and industrial and urb.iii development. Al- 

 though progress has been made in setting Federal 

 and state land use guidelines, conflicts still occur. 

 While working to change land use l.ivvs, nalinal 

 resource managers continually face increasing de- 

 mands from extractive industries to log, drill, or 

 fill riparian habitats. An example is the continu- 

 ing debate over the required size of clearcuts and 

 buffer zones along anadromous fish streams. In 

 its recent review of timber harvest in the Tongass 

 National Forest, the U.S. Forest Service concluded 

 that long-term application of current timber har- 

 vest procedures could lead to, or continue, declines 

 in habitat productivity and eventual loss of salm- 

 on id stocks. The recent buy-back of Federal gas 

 and oil leases in Bristol Bay is another example of 

 long-term protection granted to the salmon re- 

 source. 



In P)')(i, the Sustainable Fisheries Act 

 amended the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery C^onser- 

 vation and Management Act to require the descrip- 

 tion, identification, conservation, and enhance- 

 ment of essential fish habitat (EFH) in all fishery 

 management plans throughout the United States. 

 As a result of this legislation the F"FH requirements 

 for the Alaska salmon fisherv management plan 

 are now under development bv North Pacific Fish- 

 ery Management Council and the National Ma- 

 rine Fisheries Service (NMFS). 



State resource managers deal with increasing 

 demands of industrial developments while work- 

 ing to ni.iintain productive natural habitats that 

 support Alaskas wild salmon, lo .issist in meeting 

 the need h)r a better understanding of the status 

 of wild stocks, a cooperative study is underway 

 between ADF&G, the Alaska Chapter of the 

 American Fisheries Society, and various other agen- 

 cies (including the NMFS) to provide a popula- 

 tion status inventory of Alaska's salmon resources. 

 The first phase of this program was recently com- 



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