The Alaska Board of Fisheries voted 4-3 Tuesday to reduce commercial fishing time during the June salmon season in Area M, replacing industry-led conservation triggers with department-controlled openings designed to protect chum and king salmon bound for Western Alaska rivers.

The decision marks a reversal from 2023, when the board voted down Proposal 136, a similar measure to reduce fishing time during the June Area M fishery. The new approach cuts fishing periods for drift gillnet vessels by 136 hours and purse seine vessels by 94 hours. That amounts to reductions of roughly 39 percent and 30 percent from the 2023-2025 management plan. The schedule also removes chum salmon harvest caps that previously allowed the commercial fleet to manage its own closures when catch thresholds were met.

Board Chair Märit Carlson-Van Dort, who introduced the substitute language, said the changes respond to years of testimony from Western Alaska communities facing subsistence closures. "We heard individuals ask from everything from a full closure to status quo of the adaptive management plan," she said. "I believe that this is a compromise on both ends."

Genetic studies show that 25 to 57 percent of Area M's June harvest consists of salmon bound for the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers during peak migration periods. Those rivers have seen no commercial openings since 2020. Subsistence fishing has been severely restricted to protect collapsing chum and king salmon runs.

The substitute language maintains emergency order authority for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to determine fishing periods, rather than locking in a fixed schedule. "Fishermen are still welcome and encouraged to participate in voluntary stand-downs when they see fit, communicate with each other and gather data, and engage in transparency with the public," Carlson-Van Dort said.

But department staff warned the new structure may increase chum harvest by removing fleet incentives for voluntary conservation. Area Management Biologist Matt Keys said the adaptive management plan adopted in 2023, which included chum caps, had been "effective in reducing Southeast chum salmon harvest in the June fishery" when combined with industry-led efforts.

"Prolonged or extensive closures that significantly reduce available fishing time can discourage the fleet from adopting proactive industry-led measures such as test fishing to assess chum salmon abundance or implementing voluntary closures in high abundance chum salmon areas," Keys said in staff comments.

Board Member Israel Payton said the caps gave the fleet a target to manage toward. "Without triggers, I think it's kind of ignorant to think that with the harvest capacity that exists out there could go and kill a lot of fish, even in a 2-hour opener," he said. "And if there's nothing saying you just caught too many chum, what keeps them from just catching chum?"