Statewide Finfish and Supplemental Issues (3/19/2026)

All right, good morning everybody. The time is 8:49. The day is Thursday, I think, uh, March 19th. Continuing on with public testimony for Statewide finfish and supplemental issues. We are on test.

We're going to do first and second calls this morning. And second calls for this morning are Julian Manos, Ilya Kuzmin, Dorfus— I can't read my own writing— Dorofay Mardashev, Peter Angerson, Kim Landine, and Alex Kuzmin. So I'll begin this morning with Julian Manos. Welcome, Julian. Good to see you again.

Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the board. My name is Julian Manaus, and I'm representing myself and my boats. I'm here to speak about the Western Gulf trawl fleet and the deleterious effects some of these proposals would have on us. I started cod trawling in 2014. In the following year, I began pollock trawling, but my trawl career was short-lived.

I stopped in 2017, turning the boat over to one of my crew members to operate. Currently, I'm a partner in 3 58-foot boats based out of King Cove, Alaska, 2 of which still trawl. With the collapse of Peter Pan and the market fluctuations, trawling on our boats has been tempestuous, to say the least. We haven't had markets to sell to, or the cost of catching and tendering pollock has been too low for us to even make it affordable. Last year, none of our boats fished any winter fisheries.

The 2026 winter season is the first glimmer of hope in years. These proposals seem like a step backwards. At the meeting last month, I heard numerous times of how much other opportunity is available to us in the Alaska Peninsula. Well, these proposals only further restrict that opportunity for the fleet that makes up our communities. As our seas have shown, the predominant fish harvested by non-pelagic trawl in the state water is by 58-foot boats.

In the next few weeks, as the state water cod fishery closes, the fleet will transition to pollock trawling. And the reality is, the winter— in the winter, the majority of that fish is caught north of Sandpoint in state waters. That's just where the best pollock seems to be at this time of year. It's good volumes and they have good roe. I'm not sure what some of these proposals' intentions even aim to accomplish.

Minimize bottom contact. The reality is most fisheries I've participated in have bottom contact, or all of them, from pot fishing to longlining to seining, you name it. During my— during my pollock trawling tenure, the reality is for me, I was afraid of even putting my net on the bottom. It's like the old game we played as kids, you know, the ground is lava. Yeah.

If you've ever seen the pollock net, you know why. Meshes at the opening can be like over 100 feet. And they slowly taper down as you go back and as the fish funnel into the cod end. It's actually almost comical looking. It looks like a bunch of loose spaghetti going onto a reel.

But the consequences of breaking these meshes or snagging up typically means a trip to town to lay your net out on the dock and try to understand what or how to fix things. That's not to say there aren't places that are softer bottoms or more forgiving. It just means you better be real careful. I'd hoped that one of my partners who's part of the GII and a much better trawler than me was here to speak of more of the nuances of the fishery and how it's executed. But he's currently fishing, as is the majority of the fleet.

When this meeting was set 2 or more years ago, it was impossible for us to predict that these proposals would arise at a statewide finfish meeting. We only learned of this in the last year. And the reality is the cost of coming to these meetings ends up being consequential for a lot of the stakeholders that have to come from the Alaska Peninsula. I urge you to consider the consequences of taking actions on proposals that don't have clear outlines of what they're trying to achieve, a lack of technology to even do so, and a lack of a clear plan for how to enforce it. Thank you.

Thank you, Jillian. Any questions? Mr. Godfrey.

I grew up commercial, uh, seining, so, you know, I certainly understand the lost fishing time when you severely damage your net, you get caught on a pinnacle, etc. But I don't have any perspective when it comes to trawling. So when you say you You know, if you get caught up on the bottom on some pinnacles or reef and cost you time, you got to go to town, lay out your net and, you know, mend it. Give me an idea how often that happens in a season or in 5 years. How often has that happened to you?

Well, it never happened to me because I was so afraid of it happening. You know, these are 3-dimensional nets and these big meshes in the back, when they get caught or broken, you can't see it when it's coming onto the boat and it gets all tangled up. So the reality is you just have to stretch it out on a dock and then hopefully have someone that knows a lot more about trawls than me. Usually my partner try to help figure out, you know, it's 100, 120-foot piece of line that you got to unwrap so that's not twisted between the mesh. But I know he had a whale go through part of his net and it took him 2.5 days to fix it.

It was happened to me right when the Silver Salmon Derby was going and it was bad weather and I think we had all stood down, but he was out in the weather just working on his net for 2.5 days trying to fix it. So I mean, it's considerable. The other thing is some people have other nets. So when that happens, they just switch nets. But, you know, Pollock nets, I don't know how much now.

But yeah, I mean, it can be days or it can be like, well, switch nets and we'll send it south. Thank you. Yeah. Sorry, that was through the chair. Pardon me.

Mr. Irwin. Thank you. Thank you, Julian. That sparked a question for me. So you mentioned, you know, you haven't had a lot of these interactions issues with your net because you've been wanting to avoid the bottom.

When you— do you do that by checking your depth finder very specifically, or going into areas that you know exactly the depth, or avoiding areas where you know there's shelf edges? Or how do you kind of— how do you— how do you as a fisherman avoid bottom contact to the degree possible? Uh, through the chair, thank you. Um, so we have what's called like a head rope sensor, which is on the top side of our trawl, and that You can have ones that look up and down. Ours just look down, and that would show our foot rope in relation to the bottom and then sort of in relation to where the fish are.

So sometimes you are trying to put your foot rope, you know, 6 feet off the bottom, but there's just places like this would be in federal waters off of Mountain Point where, you know, if you touch the bottom, it's a no-go zone. Just you can tell from your depth sounder how hard the bottom is and the hardness. And then there's other spots that are a lot more muddy where you can, you You know, if you do end up with bottom contact, you might be fine, or you might get stuck and then you start going 0 knots, and that's always uncomfortable. Thanks, Julian. Thanks for providing that context.

All right, thank you for your testimony. Thank you. Glad you could make it. Next up is Ilya Kuzman.

Second call for Ilya. Okay, moving on to Dorofei Mardashev.

Second call.

Next up is Peter Angerson.

Good morning, Peter. Good to see you. It's a beautiful morning. I'm here.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the council. I am Peter Angason from King Salmon, and I represent myself. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on Proposition 11. The way I see this proposition, this is an attempt fishermen participating in the state's most lucrative crab fisheries is to eliminate others from the area where he or she fishes because he or she is unwilling to work with them. I am a fisherman in Bruce Bay, and I understand so much how fishermen think.

Nobody wants competition.

But it is unrealistic, and, and you are being asked to give one or fishermen exclusive access to grounds at the cost of other fishermen.

This is not bycatch or habitat. Passing this proposal quantifies costs and impacts on Alaska harvesters and and processors. Well, the only benefit I see is, is that we're all going to get put in one big sandbox and it could be a real bad mess.

The proposal has stated that there is no urgency for immediate need. If you can oppose at this time this proposal, at least send it to a joint protocol meeting so we get better scientific information and impact can be understood before taking action. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Peter. Any questions?

Appreciate your testimony this morning. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Next up is Kim Landeen. Morning, Kim.

Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the board. I appreciate the second call and how that's structured. For the record, my name is Kim Lundeen. I am the co-director of Southeast Alaska Guides Organization, an organization that represents the sport fishing operations and local businesses of Southeast Alaska. In our region, guided sport fishing supports roughly 1,750 jobs and drives over $271 million in economic activity annually.

About 90% of that spending stays locally, sustaining our economics here, our communities year-round. SeaGo approaches every proposal through our CAST values: collaboration, access, sustainability, and tradition. With that in mind, I'll briefly address 3 proposals. For more details, please refer to SeaGo's public comment PC440. The first one I'll speak on is Proposal 176.

This proposal reduces regulatory discards or seeks to reduce regulatory discards while maintaining clear vessel limits. It provides a practical framework that reflects how anglers fish in real conditions, and we anticipate it will reduce avoidable release mortality without increasing overall harvest. I'll speak more to that in committee of the whole. In alignment with this proposal, SEGO respectfully withdraws Proposal 177 in support of Proposal 176. SEGO, as written, opposes 181.

As drafted, it introduces uncertainty around the lawful use of downriggers and electric reels. Both longstanding, well-established tools in Alaska's sport fisheries, specifically in deepwater. We are respectfully, respectfully asking the board to ensure the final language clearly preserves their use. We've spoken with department members and are willing to help draft some language to incorporate both of those mechanisms. Finally, SeaGo openly opposes— proposes— opposes Proposal 170.

This proposal applies a broad reduction to hatchery egg take with out Alaska-specific findings demonstrating the need for this action. In Southeast, chum production plays an important role in supporting Chinook production, with direct implications for food security for our locals and opportunity for sport anglers. Changes at this scale reduces or creates risk unintended consequences for both conservation and outcome for our communities. In closing, SEGO remains committed to working collaboratively with the Board of Fish in conservation, ensure sustainable fisheries, and and protect the communities and traditions that depend on them. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Kim. Mr. Carpenter. Thank you. Thanks, Kim, for being here. In regards to your withdrawal support of 177, have you submitted an RC stating that?

We can submit an RC. It is in our public comments, but if the board desires through the chair, we can submit that. That'd be great. Thank you. Absolutely.

Okay, I don't see any other questions. Thank you for your testimony today. Last second call is for Alex Kuzman.

Is Alex with us today?

Okay. Let's get back to our public testimony list of first calls beginning with Ms. Emma Williamson followed by Christopher Williamson, Paul McCabe, and Robert Harrington. Good morning.

Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the council. I'm Emma Williamson, a 5th generation fisherwoman and a daughter, a sister, a wife, and friend of many fishermen. But most importantly, I'm a mom to 6 amazing children who are 6th generation fishermen and fisherwomen. I grew up surrounded by trawling, longlining, sport fishing, and setnetting. My family, like many coastal families, had devoted their entire lives to the fishing industry, including long-term sustainability.

Many memories of my dad include him troubleshooting and finding solutions to improving trawl gear for state regulations and sustainability. We're proud of the work we do, and my children are proud of it too. We're proud to be a part of an industry that feeds people, supports families and communities, and is committed to doing things the right way. Our family wants the same thing everyone here wants: healthy oceans and a sustainable future. Because without that, there is no fishing, no jobs, no communities, no tradition to pass on.

The idea that we would knowingly harm the very resource that sustains us simply isn't who we are. I oppose Proposals 11, 163, 164, and 165. Proposal 11 would close state waters that are imperative to coastal communities and families who depend on these resources, as well as push them into more dangerous waters to continue. To support their families and communities. Proposals 163 and 164 are largely based on assumptions.

We are often criticized and attacked for not doing enough, but those claims are frequently based on incomplete or misleading information. Additionally, the cost of trawl gear is high and bottom contact destroys nets. No fisherman wants to deal with that. For Proposal 165, many or most of the trawlers already use salmon excluders that are designed and developed uniquely for their vessels and gear. This isn't about short-term gain.

It's about protecting the future. We follow the rules. We adapt when changes are made. We support science-based management because we want these fisheries to be here not just for us, but for our children and their children in the communities who depend on this economy and way of life. Two of our children already plan to build their future in this industry, and I wouldn't be surprised if more of them do.

We're not asking to be above the rules. We are asking to be understood, and we're trying to make sure that our children still have the chance to live this life too. So I encourage you to reject proposals 11, 163, 164, and 165. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony today.

Any questions? Thanks for being here. Thanks. I'm nervous. Sorry, you did great.

So I know—. Oh, Mr. Wood. Thank you. In all the years that you've done the trawling, do you have certain areas that you've spent most of your time fishing? I'm not very good at answering this question because I'm new to like the specifics of this.

My husband is going to be going after me and he can answer that well. I've fished with my dad and with our skipper who's run our family boat for the last 30 years. He went yesterday though, but my husband can answer that better tomorrow. He's more familiar with the areas. Copy.

Thanks. Yeah, I'll ask. I'm really good at doing what I'm told, not so much anything else. I'm really not good at that. That's shocking, isn't it?

Thank you. Thank you. Let's hear from your husband, Christopher Williamson.

Morning, sir. Welcome.

Morning.

Good morning. I oppose. My name is Christopher Williamson. I've been in Kodiak since 2001, and I've been trawling since 2000, probably 1999, from Oregon, actually. But I oppose Proposal 11, Proposal 163, 164, 165.

First of all, a lot of the information that I've been hearing the last 2 days is— doesn't— doesn't like I don't think it has to do with within state waters, a lot of it, because just like everybody else says, if we touch bottom, you're looking, you know, it could be you could fix it in a day, but most likely, like, you're looking at a lot of, like, maybe 4 or 5 days if you really screw it, mess your net up. And so, and also, you know, we go in, we go into state waters a lot of times to stay out of weather and.

It's—. That's just what it is. That's what I got. Okay. Um, Mr. Wood, did you want to direct your question to him?

And then Mr. Godfrey. Thank you. I'll ask the same question, but, um, now you'll inspire too. Uh, one was to— have you, over the years of fishing, fished often in the same areas? We pretty much always fish in the same areas.

So you're aware of like what the bottom contours are and, and the contact, your speed? And, and with that, do you know how the how the net is shaped or how, you know, when it does touch and when it's off the bottom? Yeah, we have a head rope unit. I could— I mean, honestly, I got pictures on my phone that I could show you. We can see where our nets are, how close we are to the bottom, everything.

Thank you. Mr. Godfrey, could you clarify what you mean when you said you didn't— I'm not following you when you said you don't think this applies to state waters. There's certain proposals you're speaking in opposition to. I think what I mean is I don't think it I don't like in Kodiak most of the time in state waters is all close to, you know, close to the land. So a lot of times it's terrible bottom.

Like I heard somebody yesterday saying like Sand Point is 100% on the bottom. Well, anytime I fish outside Sand Point, I stay away from the bottom because if you get within even close, you're looking at just destroying your net basically. It's all coral bottom. So thank you.

All right, thanks for your testimony today. Paul McCabe, followed by Robert Harrington, Jackie Foss, and Shyler Mace. Welcome. Hi, I gotta push the button. No.

Hi, my name is Paul McCabe. I operate the fishing vessel Nicole. I have fished the Gulf of Alaska for 17 years. I live in Kodiak with my wife and 3 kids, where we contribute immensely to the local economy through taxes, programs, and more. To attend this meeting, it's worth noting that not only myself but our entire fleet has chosen to tie up the vessels and pause our current fishery to voice our concerns today.

Closing the state water fishery will negatively impact our options as well as safety, while potentially leaving no place to safely fish. The weather conditions— these waters normally produce clean fishing and low bycatch. To further the stability and accountability, I voluntarily have electronic monitoring on my boat as well as salmon excluders. Our boat actively participates in the salmon industry through tendering Summer tendering and supports the salmon fishery, provides income, but also gives me personally the opportunity to involve my family in the Alaska fishing industry. My sons have been working and learning and participating since the age of 4.

I am against proposals 11, 163, 164, and 165. And 170, 171, 172. Thank you. Thanks, Paul. Any questions?

Thank you for your testimony today. Appreciate you. Robert Harrington.

Good morning. Morning.

Morning, Madam Chair, members of the board. My name is Robert Harrington. I operate a 92-foot trawler out of Kodiak. I participated in the Gulf trawl fishery for the last 17 years, moved up there in 2013, and have established a family and life locally since. We started the season usually in Prince William Sound, where the weather is usually nicer and it gives a crew a little paycheck before we start out a season.

We will also fish in the bays around Kodiak, away from the weather for this time of year. This year alone, we have 6 trips in state waters as the weather has prevented us from fishing in federal fishery. These trips in the bays have also had a lower salmon count per trip.

We also run electronic monitoring and run salmon excluders. Losing those state waters would have a negative impact on me and my family and also the town of Kodiak. Each trip we offload is at least a full shift for the processing plant. The city gets landing tax and the town and our residents benefit. Without State Waters, it would be hard to be able to afford to live in Kodiak.

We have sea lion rookeries, crab rookeries, and now potentially the closure of the State Waters driving the trawl fleet out of Kodiak one closed area at a time. It's also worth noting that we, Samotenda and Prince William Sound, Proposal 170, 172, through 172 will negatively affect this industry as well. I oppose proposals 11, 163, 164, 165, 170, 171, and 172. Thank you. Thank you, Robert.

Any questions? Thank you for your testimony today. Thank you. Jackie Foss.

Good morning, Jackie. Nice to see you.

Get nervous every time.

Oh well, pros get nervous, ma'am. Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the board. My name is Jackie Foss. My public comments can be found in PC174. I'm here representing myself.

My family and I run a commercial hook and line salmon fishing boat in Sitka, Alaska, where we live year round. And as this joke never gets old for some of us, we are trollers with an O, very different from trawlers. I'm here to speak against Proposal 170, and there are other hatchery proposals that don't impact Southeast Alaska, but I think it's important to listen to the local voices of the people most impacted by any proposal. So in solidarity with commercial fishermen in other regions, I'm also speaking against Proposals 171 and 172. I'm an answer board member as well as a member of the Northern RPT.

I'm also a former board member of the Sitka Sound Science Center, which runs a small educational hatchery. They're in addition to the hatchery research, they're working on the impacts of stream temperature on Yukon King Salmon. You can read their comments and more about their work under PC 112. My business relies on healthy wild and enhanced fish. Maintaining healthy stocks and essential habitat just makes good business sense.

I need fish this year, next year, and 10 years from now. And I just want to raise the voice of other commercial fishermen. We're asking for enough, not more. And last February, commercial trawlers lost king salmon and faced another threat to hatchery reduction, and here we face it again. My fishery is not a volume fishery.

Hooks and careful handling of each salmon are all about quality and maximizing the price for each fish that we land. We primarily target kings and cohos, but we also fish for chum. But the king salmon, especially the enhanced king salmon caught during the spring hatchery openings, represent an increasingly important component of my annual income. With ongoing treaty reductions and the loss of summer king salmon allocation to trollers, I cannot emphasize enough how important this opportunity is to us. And I also want to speak that salmon treaty mitigation money built these facilities that produce these king salmon and coho, but they don't provide the operating funds to provide these king salmon to both commercial and sport fisheries.

It is our Southeast hatcheries, largely thanks to CHUM, that subsidize these costs. This Board of Fish is a stakeholder-based process with a series of intensive reviews from the department and intense scrutiny from the public and hopefully informed by affected user groups. Oh my gosh, I got a new computer and it's connected to my phone. My kids didn't fix it for me yet. So I feel it's critically important that any proposed regulation as well as any substitute language pass through these checkpoints because the impacts to fisheries and communities are real.

Neither hatcheries nor commercial fishermen nor members of the communities most impacted by these hatchery proposals were involved in the creation of any language. I have learned through the Board of Fish process how important it is to meaningfully engage with those who disagree with me. It's based on the lopsided nature of these proposals, as well as their impacts to those who don't rely on chum for their bottom line, that I ask the board to oppose proposals 170, 171, 172. And as far as some of the—. Oh, I will stop.

Finish your sentence. I was just going to say, as far as the pelagic proposals, I support good enforcement and fishermen adhering to the rules and regulations that govern their fishery, like all of us have to. That's all. Thank you very much. Thanks, Jackie.

Any questions? Appreciate you being here. Thanks. Thank you. Shiloh Mace, followed by Steven Minor, John Moeller, Ed Day, and Julie Decker.

Welcome, Schuyler.

Good morning, Madam Chair and board members. My name is Schuyler Mace. I'm a trawler and NCRB board member and full-time resident of Sitka. I expected to be in Sitka for a year, and if it wasn't for these amazing commercial fisheries, my life would look vastly different and I probably wouldn't be testifying here today. It is now close to 10 years and I'm still loving it.

I'm a young commercial fisherman and the enhancement tax of 3% I pay to create opportunity has been a huge return on my investment in Southeast Alaska as a whole. A 25% cut in egg take capacity of chum salmon would affect myself and EnSRA's bottom line. In addition, it would also lead to reduced production of King and Coho salmon for commercial opportunity. This is a double whammy, especially during the spring troll fishing.

Treaty, where every Alaska hatchery king salmon caught does not count against the Pacific Salmon Treaty, and our loss of allocation at the most recent Southeast Board of Fish. Based on CFEC permit renewal in 2024, there are 953 power troll permits and 852 hand troll permits. Although gross earnings may be lower than other fisheries, trolling allows for an undescribable freedom I would consider a lifestyle. This hook and line fishery of boats comes in all shapes and sizes, and although mine may be on the smaller side, I— and I would not consider myself a highliner by any means— I'm still just as passionate for its longevity. In order for me to continue this lifestyle I've built for myself, I strongly urge you to oppose proposals 170 and 172.

I would also like to add I am not speaking on proposal 171 because as a legendary winter troll fishermen told me you do not comment on proposals outside your area. Thank you. Thanks, Tyler. Any questions? Appreciate your testimony today.

Stephen Minor.

Good morning.

Thank you and good morning, Madam Chair and board members. For the record, I'm Steve Minor. I'm vice president of the ADAC Community Development Corporation. We are testifying testify in opposition to Proposal 11. I am also a golden king crab quota holder, and I manage additional golden king crab for the other— for 3 other stakeholders in this area.

So we disagree with the author of the proposal. The ADAC Community Development Corporation is a nonprofit economic development entity for ADAC. Senator Ted Stevens, under the crab program, allocated 10% of the Western Aleutian Islands golden king crab to ACDC has also since then made significant investments in Pacific halibut and black cod fisheries to support the local community, and we're deeply involved in the Pacific cod fisheries because they are the economic foundation. The proponents of Proposal 11 say it is not a crab bycatch issue, but here's what they don't say: the Pacific halibut bycatch rate by Pacific cod trawlers in the Aleutian Islands is only 12% of the, uh, bycatch rate in the Bering Sea. So any action you take to push that fleet out of the Aleutian Islands and into the Bering Sea, which Proposal 11 does, will severely impact the bycatch rates in the Bering Sea.

Uh, ADAC is 1,200 miles west of Anchorage. Uh, to emphasize how remote it is, that's west of Hawaii.

It's a difficult, expensive, and very unique place to operate. Our area is already subject to significant restrictions because of Steller sea lion protection measures, bycatch limits, gear-specific harvest caps, and trip limits. Proposal 11 doesn't clearly address any conservation issue that would suggest you need additional restrictions out there. More to the point, Proposal 11 directly puts at risk ACDC's current negotiations to re-establish processing on ADAC. ACDC is in advanced due diligence in permitting work with two prospective plant operators.

Proposal 11 simply takes too much fish off the table and creates too much risk in the middle of these negotiations. A single data point is not a valid basis for determining trends, patterns, or policy. There are approximately 40 stakeholders in the golden king crab fishery, and yet Proposal 11 has been submitted with the support of a single Oregon-based stakeholder. As a golden king crab quota holder myself, as well as a quota manager for 3 other stakeholders, we are not in support of this proposal. It carries too much bycatch and economic risk for ADAC.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Godfrey.

Regarding the negotiations with 2 different plant operators, What variable inputs are different now that didn't exist when the last plant shut down in ADAC? Thank you for the question, and I don't know how much time you have, but you have to start with the basic belief that ADAC in the past, no fault of anybody, tried to be a mini Dutch Harbor, tried to work at an industrial scale producing commodities, put— get the fish in a box and get it off the island. It doesn't work. It doesn't work in this remote area. What works is lower volume, higher value production.

I originally got involved in ADAC because before the tariff wars, we were flying live crab out of ADAC because of the military runway there. You could lift sufficient volumes to make that work. The tariffs killed that market. But that is the model that'll work in these remote areas. Forget trying to do 30 million pounds of fish.

Do 10 million pounds of fish really, really well. And that's a fundamental change, but it also changes how you harvest, when you harvest, how you get premium value from the fish, which then becomes a question of timing. It's been an interesting 18 months, but you basically had to start over. Compounding this is the current plant out there, which was originally built in a Navy warehouse in the early 2000s, hasn't been maintained and the technology is out of date. It takes 200-plus people to run.

All of that has to be replaced. That building is quickly coming apart due to the Aleutian Islands weather systems. The equipment's outdated. So the operators we're talking to and negotiating with for the last year and a half understand they have to recapitalize the entire process. Proposal 11 just creates a level of risk right now and potentially takes a lot of fish off the table, and it jeopardizes what we're trying to accomplish.

Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony today. Thank you very much. John Mueller.

Ed Day.

Good morning. Following Mr. Day will be Julie Decker, Max Warhatch, John Jensen, and Jason Lee. Welcome, sir.

Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the Alaska Board of Fisheries.

My name is Ed Day, and I'm a 63-year-old resident from Valdez in the heart of Prince William Sound. I'm here to state my opposition to proposals 170, 171, and 172. I'm a 4th generation commercial and subsistence fisherman. The summer of 2025 marked my 54th year of harvesting salmon in Alaska. The bulk of these years are spent in Prince William Sound, which puts my timeline pre-hatcheries in Prince William Sound.

My father assisted in catching the original brood for the first hatcheries. I remember the early years of my fishing career. The salmon runs were nothing like they are now. They were a way of life, not a living. It has been a wonderful life catching salmon and being part of the lifestyle created by the Salmon Enhancement Program.

I really hope that it will continue on. The Salmon Enhancement Program has benefited all user groups. A prime example is Solomon Gulch Hatchery's Coho Enhancement Program. It supports one of the largest sports fisheries in the state. In addition to an annual release of 20,000 hatchery smolt, coho smolt, in Boulder Bay at no cost in a partnership with the village of Tutitlik.

There's also a similar program near the village of Cheney in the city of Whittier. These programs are paid, paid for entirely by pink salmon produced by hatcheries in Prince William Sound. I'm also the owner of a marine sales and repair facility in Valdez. This facility repairs and supports all local sport, charter, and commercial fishers. A lot of time and effort has gone into this venture.

As a concerned user and a current board member of Solomon Gulls Hatchery in Prince William Sound, I read many of the papers and reports concerning possible pink salmon strain ocean carrying capacity and genetic concerns to wild stock. My personal take on all this is there's still much research to be done. We should all work together to keep a much-needed industry viable. In closing, I feel 170, 171, and 172 have passed will have a very negative effect on all of this. Thank you for your time and consideration of my comments.

Thank you, Mr. Carpenter. Yeah, thanks, Ed. Thanks for being here. Um, so you've lived in Valdez a long time, and I remember years ago before the coho program that VFD produces. Can you just like maybe talk about how much the sport fishery pinks and cohos that VFD releases, how much of an impact they really have on the city of Valdez throughout the summer?

Through the chair, good question, Tom. Yes, I can.

So as a lifelong resident of there, the coho in particular, we basically had a couple of small systems that had attended the fish that come back as they do now. So, you know, I could count the charter boats we had back then on my hand, and a few people would come from Fairbanks and Anchorage and come down and fish, but nothing like it is now. So the economic benefit of that to our city is, probably measured in the millions of dollars. It's quite a sight now, and it has an admirable track record. Along with the pinks, I mean, there's a lot more people down there catching fish from the banks, and a lot of them keep both species.

So it's, as far as two businesses around town in our local community, it's been a huge uplift. You know, we used to just fish the coho in front of a couple streams up in the Port when we were kids. But, you know, now there's enough you can fish them all over the Sound as the run comes in and it spreads the boats out. And I've counted 200, 300 sport boats out there benefiting from it at a time. Thank you.

Thanks for your testimony this morning. Thank you. Julie Decker.

She with us this morning? Max Warhatch. Hi, Max.

Hi.

Good morning, Madam Chair and board members. My name is Max Warhatch. I'm a commercial fisherman from Petersburg. I gillnet salmon and partake in the Dungeness crab fishery as well as longline for halibut. I'm also the Executive Director of the United Southeast Alaska Gillnetters, a Northern Southeast Region Aquaculture Association board member, and a transboundary panelist at the Pacific Salmon Commission.

Today I'm speaking on behalf of myself. My on-time public comments are PC 503. I'm testifying in opposition to proposals 171 171 and 172. Permitting for enhanced releases is currently at the discretion of the Department of Fish and Game, as recommended by the appropriate regional planning team. The proposers of these three seem to imply that the department has been inept or negligent in permitting, despite the fact that they are most expert, expert on the subject in the state.

My experience with the department at the RPT process has shown them to be cognizant of risks to wild stocks and unafraid and able to address issues that may arise post-permitting. In my estimation, the department has been responsible in their duties of protecting wild salmon stocks in the course of permitting enhanced salmon. Proposal 170 would reduce chum and pink production by 25%. Commercial opportunity would be diminished. Over 80% of the Southeast gillnet fleet lives in the state.

We represent money that stays here, that circulates throughout the state. Our kids help fill the schools. We represent the extraction of a state resource that benefits the local economies of coastal communities. The proposed reduction would lead to reduction in workforce, both seasonal and year-round, at the Hatchery Association. Again, residents, residents keeping resource extractions in the state.

A 25% cut in production would lead to revenue declines. This could and would likely cause hatchery cut hatchery associations to reduce or cut costly Coho and Chinook programs. This would have deleterious effect for the sport and personal use sectors, as those programs are in many cases targeted due to their benefit. The same can be said for Proposal 171. This proposal and 172 would be better suited as discussion items at appropriate regional planning team than a proposal at the Board of Fish.

The proposers could attend and speak to them for consideration by regional experts familiar with the subject matter for specific projects. There is a process in place, and the best way to address perceived issues is through that actual permitting process. I appreciate the opportunity to testify, testify today, and your service to the state. I'll be here all week. Thanks, Max.

Any questions? Appreciate your being here. John Jensen, followed by Jason Lee, Sandra Hakama, Ron Kavanaugh, and Florence Cargray. Hi, John. Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the board, esteemed staff.

My name's John Jensen. I'm from Petersburg. I refer you to RC 34. My statement is based on an opinion piece that was produced in the Anchorage Daily News. As public debate takes place surrounding Alaska's private nonprofit salmon hatcheries, it is worth grounding the conversation in what Alaska uniquely built: a science-driven, state-regulated enhancement program designed to support wild salmon fisheries in the short and long term.

The speculation flowing through this debate should at least be corrected. Facts are facts. And the fact is that more than 50 years, Alaska's private nonprofit hatcheries have operated under one most one of the most stringent fisheries management frameworks in the world. That structure is not by accident. It's the reason Alaska continues to lead in sustainable salmon stewardship today.

First, Alaska's hatcheries are not fish farms, which do not exist in Alaska. Hatcheries follow a model known as ocean ranching. Hatcheries collect eggs only from local wild salmon population. Fish are reared for a short period as juveniles or fry, then released to live the rest of their lives in the wild. They migrate naturally, face wild predators, and return on their own if they survive the predators.

Nothing about this system resembles fish farming, in which farmed salmon never leave captivity. Second, Alaska's program is potentially built on scientific accountability from the very start. The state of Alaska requires— regulates hatcheries under clear statutory authority established in 1974, requiring that hatchery production must supplement wild stocks, not replace them. Every hatchery operates under a state-issued permit reviewed by Alaska Department of Fish and Game scientists. No hatchery can change its egg take, release numbers, or species production without a rigorous multi-year scientific study including genetic analysis and smolt studies, wild stock interactions, and considerations of ocean carrying capacity and public input.

This oversight is continuous and required. Hatcheries submit annual reports. The ADFG conducts on-site inspections, evaluates returns, and monitors interactions with wild stocks at the river and ocean levels. Alaska Hatchery Research Program is one of the largest studies of wild salmon enhancement in the world, has spent more than a decade analyzing hatchery and wild interactions through peer-reviewed genetic and ecological research. Few fisheries programs globally undergo this level of scrutiny.

Finally, the hatchery system exists because Alaska demands a sustainable fish future by the— Late '60s and early '70s, most salmon runs were collapsing statewide. The state responded by pairing tight conservation oversight with enhancement by hatcheries, protecting habitat, limiting harvest, and supplementing natural systems during years of low abundance. For 50 years, hatcheries have operated alongside wild stocks through some of the strongest wild salmon returns recorded in recent years. What does that data tell us? That coexistence is not an accident.

It's a result of design, science, and accountability. It also tells us that wild returns have bounced back and broken records many times over since salaries were implemented. And I also will go on record in opposition to proposals 11, 163, 164, and 165. Madam Chair, thank you. Thanks, John.

Any questions? All right, appreciate you being here as always. Jason Lee.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Madam Chair and members of the board, my name is Jason Lee. I'd reference my PC comments as 268. My wife says 267, and my son's, who's 11 years old, is 269. I'd like to also reference RC46, which was submitted by the author of Proposal 187, which formally withdraws his support from that proposal. I'd also briefly mention that we met as stakeholders, immediate and prospective stakeholders from the, the, the two neighboring communities, and, and we met with the department, um, And we identified that a path forward that we can all live with exists in EO authority within the department.

Any action on 187 from the board would— I would testify that would be severely damaging to the future relations to the user groups involved here today, or here at this meeting.

I'm going to end there. You guys have heard a lot. Thank you. Thanks, Jason. Any questions?

Thank you for your comments today. Sandra Hakama.

Good morning. Welcome. Good morning. Hello. My name is Sandra Hakama, and my family and I own and operate the fish— and operate the Pacific Storm, a midwater trawl vessel out of Kodiak.

Which also participate in salmon tendering around Kodiak. I have been involved with the Pacific Storm for about 8 years. Commercial fishing is deeply rooted in my family. Both my father and my brother were Alaska fishermen. In 2005, my father tragically lost his life on board the fishing vessel the Big Valley, a day that continues to shape how I view this industry and the importance of safety, sustainability, and supporting fishing communities and families.

As a bookkeeper for the Pacific Storm, I have seen a steady decline in profitability. Stagnant fish prices, rising fuel costs, increased insurance and maintenance expenses have made it increasingly difficult to stay viable. Like many in our industry, we rely on the consistent fishing opportunities to support the Kodiak community, not only our families but also the family of our crews. We take pride in operating responsible and investing in the right equipment. Last year we made a significant financial commitment to purchase a new midwater trawl net and a salmon excluder.

Our previous net was over 10 years old, something that would not have been possible if we were fishing on the ocean bottom. Our net is more efficient— our new net is more efficient and allows for shorter tow times, which helps reduce the bycatch. Our salmon excluder is specifically designed for our net that allows the salmon to escape. In addition, we have invested in some electronics to better avoid bycatch areas. We also volunteer in the 100% pelagic— federal pelagic pollock trips.

We are doing everything we can to meet and exceed expectations in this highly regulated and closely monitored fishery. Given the efforts and these challenges, I strongly oppose proposals 11, 163, 164, and 165.

Thank you, Sandra. Any questions? Thank you for being here. Ron Kavanaugh, followed by Florence Cargill, Taylor Scott, Ben Adams, and Josh Hayes. Hi, Ron.

Hello, Madam Chair, members. My name is Ron Cavanaugh. Our family owns and operates 3 vessels out of Kodiak, Alaska. Lived there since 1965. Was involved with APS when we pulled out the shrimp peelers and put in the first surimi line.

So I know all too well how important Pollock is to Kodiak. And nobody— well, I won't say nobody there, I've been a few people— but nobody that I know of personally wants to put the trawlers out of business. We all realize how important they are to our industry as a whole and the viability and vitality of what's left of coastal Alaska and the processors that make that up, which is consolidating yearly. Um, that being said, um, I align my comments mostly with the Kodiak AC, with a few caveats. Proposal number 11, uh, no trawling in the Bering Sea Aleutian Islands.

If You look at that at face value, that looks like holy cow, 95% of this area is closed to fishing anyway because of corals, rookeries, on and on. Leaving whatever, 5%, those numbers are not correct. But anyway, what is left is soft bottom, which is where you get your sea whips. I knew I'd never talk about sea whips on the record, but here I am. And other vital bottom Whatever.

Stuff that's very vital for the reproduction of cod, crab, and other small species as they're growing. When you look at the numbers, I hear that the trawl fleet's gonna be put out of business, and I shouldn't be talking about it. We fish in ADAC. We hope to go back someday, but that's another story. 1.8 Million pounds of product is taken out of state waters out of a total of 400,000, are 243 million pounds.

That's not even 1%. Nobody's gonna go broke. If there's misreporting, I'm sorry, that's not my fault. You should have reported where you were catching your fish. I've heard that those numbers are grossly undervalued.

I can't help you there. As far as Kodiak being on the bottom, 99% of the guys are not on the bottom. I understand that. My heartache is when you go into some of these bays, Dead Man's Bay, for instance, you have Tanner crab, king crab, Dungeness crab that are in there. It's like a hiding hole where they're breeding.

When the trawl fleet goes up in there and you have mud 3/4 of the way out of the bay, that's a problem to me. When you're out on Aleutak Flats where it's smooth and soft and they can drag a midwater net on the bottom, that's a problem to me. That's a breeding ground of tanner crab. I hear about all these tanner crab and how great the tanner crab fishing is. Thank you.

Thanks, Ron. Questions? Are you going to be around for committee? Hopefully. I hope so too.

Thank you. Thanks. Florence Cargill.

Welcome. Morning.

Good morning, Chair Carlson-Vandort and members of the board. My name is Florence Kargi. I work for the Yukon Delta Fisheries Development Association, YDFDA, and we are here— proposal one— uh, we are here in opposition to proposal 175. Please reference RC-071 for more detailed information. The changes proposed would in practice make it physically infeasible to use a dip net as a viable means for subsistence harvest.

While dip netting may remain technically legal under, under the proposal, the combined changes of a smaller mesh size and the elimination of the rope would result in an enormous amount of increased resistance, which would then put more strain on the individual fishing. And as a result, the proposal functions as a de facto prohibition on dipnetting rather than a reasonable regulatory adjustment. And we oppose this proposal because When you're dipnetting on the Lower Yukon there, the method has several advantages.

Very little gasoline is used because the current moves with the skiff and the net. A person can fish by themselves without additional crew. And then fishermen can kind of move up and down the river in— on the river channel in search of salmon when there's none present. Because down there there's very few eddies when people are subsistence fishing and people want to go to those eddies and it causes overcrowding and not everybody can get a chance to do that. So thank you for your time.

If you want to read a little bit more about that, the information, it's RC-071. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your comments, Mr. Carpenter. Thanks. Thanks for being here.

I guess my question is, we've heard a few people comment on this proposal. Is the big issue really a function of what it would cost people to convert their gear that they're currently using into a new size? Is that generally the hangup? Through the chair, thank you for the question, Mr. Jensen. I'm sorry, Carpenter.

Thank you very much. Sorry, the hair kind of got me. [Speaker] So it's really expensive for gear and to change the gear, flying things out and finding things from vendors, which are often like in the Cook Inlet area. You know, we have to, what we'll have to do is wait for them to kind of modify their gear. So it's really expensive.

And then we'll have to eventually wait for maybe, I don't know how long the turnaround time is, but when you buy stuff from the village, it takes a little bit longer time to get there. So it's expensive and it would be— it would take some time. All right, appreciate the answer. Thanks. Mr. Owen.

Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Flo, for being here. My question is, I think you mentioned smaller mesh size would increase resistance. On the fish. Could you expand a little bit on what you mean and what your concern with the smaller mesh size is, if there's any concern outside of cost?

So thanks to the chair for the question, Olivia. So if you change the mesh size from 4.5 to 3.5, from my understanding, is it would be harder in that current, and then it'll be— it's like when you're dip netting, it's a lot harder out there, and If you're trying to dip net and subsistence fish out there with the, with the handle, it's going to be more. I don't think you can— a 70-year-old man from the village can take that. It's— it creates safety risks. And that's one of the things we're trying to avoid.

Okay. Thanks so much.

Thanks for your testimony today. Taylor Scott, followed by Ben Adams, Josh Hayes, and Chris Guggenbichler. Hi, Taylor. Welcome. Morning, Madam Chair and the board.

My name is Taylor Scott. I'm a hatchery research biologist for NSRA, Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association, based in Sitka. My written comments are PC344, and I ask the board to take no action on proposals 170 to 172. For over the last 30 years, NCRW has conducted extensive research on— in Southeast Alaska to essentially better understand how our fish interact with the environment. These studies provide us with information on how to make operational changes through fisheries management strategies and refined husbandry practices to improve the separation between hatchery and wild fish.

And this research would not be possible without the support of Chum cost recovery fisheries. A pervasive body of misinformation and out-of-context exaggerated rhetoric surrounds hatchery fish strain, and it continues to circulate as we await the results of the hatchery scientific— or the hatchery— Alaska Hatchery Review Project, a study that will undoubtedly shape future permitting decisions and Regional Comprehensive Salmon Enhancement Management Plan as they are updated. And let me be clear, this is not to suggest that strain concerns are unwarranted or insignificant, but the existing regulatory framework is thoughtful, it's robust, and it's already in place. These statutes are supported by foundational working relationships between hatchery operators and the department to ensure that our practices remain quick to adapt and are fully aligned with sustainable fisheries management principles. This commitment to research, transparency, and responsive management is reflected in the recent work conducted in Crawfish Inlet.

Since 2023, NCRWA has worked cooperatively with the department to systematically sample chum spawners in this— to estimate what is the stray rate into this system. Statistical analyses completed in 2025 found that the wild summer-run chum returns for the West Crawfish Inlet Index were not significantly different than the other 8 index populations within the management unit, suggesting that hatchery strays are not measurably impacting wild production. Nonetheless, the commissioner's precautionary decision to reduce the permitted release numbers by 25% demonstrates that the department's continued commitment to prioritizing wild stocks through adaptive management with hatchery operators. What we are doing now is working. And so is also leading a 5-year pilot study in collaboration with the University of Alaska, the Sitka Sound Science Center, and salmon olfactory experts at NOAA to develop a new strain mitigation tool to improve salmon homing through enhanced imprinting.

This project has generated widespread interest across the state and may offer a new tool to reduce strain. We find collateral damage to wild stocks to be ethically unacceptable, and NSR's values are rooted in a conservation mindset. I, I echo the sentiment of our sister organizations. Any action on Proposals 170 to 172 would introduce significant uncertainty in our ability to continue this research aimed at understanding and mitigating any potential impacts of our operations. Thank you.

Thanks, Taylor. I have a question for you. So I understand that, you know, some of the newer programs that you guys are working on might not be quite ready for primetime yet, and I'm— I get that. But the research that you stated that has been done, how is that being disseminated to the public? How are you communicating?

How is NSARA working to communicate that information outwards to, you know, just respond, I guess, to some of the science that you say or the the attacks or comments that you think are inaccurate? Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Great question. And, you know, for a long time, us as hatchery operators, we kind of lived quiet lives producing fish for the fleets, you know, in the woods. But it's clear that we, you know, in the last handful of years, we have become more engaged in in science communication, in discussing outside of just regulatory reports that we conducted this work.

You know, it's important that we share what we do because what we do is valuable. And it happens time and time again that I interact with people, whether it's the public or other, you know, researchers, and they're like, wow, you guys are doing so much, I didn't even realize. And so you're right, we have been pretty quiet. You know, we don't engage in slanderous propaganda. We have kind of just been chugging along doing our thing.

But yes, we have begun in the last couple of years engaging more with the public to share what we do. Thank you. Appreciate your testimony today. Thank you. Ben Adams.

Good morning. Good morning, Madam Chair, Board, and staff. Thanks for the opportunity to be here. My name is Ben Adams, for the record. I'm the research and evaluation manager at the Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association.

And I'm here to speak today, of course, in opposition to proposals 170 through 172. My goal is to highlight how a 25% reduction in the hatchery production for pinks and chums would actually translate to a greater than 25% reduction in the user group access and impact all of our hatchery programs, not just pinks and chums, including the research that you just heard presented a moment ago. It is important to note two things. First, our budgets are not going to scale perfectly with a production reduction. We have infrastructure and administrative costs that remain largely fixed, and the facilities that we need to run are still going to be there if we get cut by 25%.

Second, we manage our hatchery returns based on the hierarchy of needs, where broodstock and cost recovery have to be secured before fishermen have access. So any resulting loss in volume is going to be absorbed almost entirely by the fishermen. The actual outcomes of this proposal are nearly impossible to predict, but would ultimately land somewhere between a best-case scenario where the fishermen lose only 25% of their access, and a worst-case scenario where the volume of broodstock and cost recovery remain effectively the same. And in this scenario, when we look at actual average returns for chum salmon to Enseraw in the last 5 years, The 25% reduction of these returns would manifest itself as a 38% loss to insérat chum salmon harvest opportunity. Now, I've monitored these returns for nearly 10 years, and in my opinion, and my intuition is saying that we're going to be looking at closer to this worst-case scenario.

Either way it shakes out, this is still a big deal because hatcheries are now critical more than ever to the salmon fishing industry. Last year, 46%, nearly half of the Southeast Alaska commercial salmon value was hatchery origin at $40 million, and this fraction just has been climbing for decades. The value in hatchery production also extends to the sports sector, where Southeast Alaska accounts for roughly half of the statewide hatchery sport value for Chinook and Coho at $40 million annually. Coho are the largest revenue-generating species to non-residents in Southeast, On most occasions, the majority of this harvest is hatchery origin. And please see RC 80 for details.

Hatchery programs were created for the public good. NCRW and others have lent a hand in many Chinook, Coho, and Sockeye rehabilitation programs throughout the years, in addition to maintaining longstanding Chinook and Coho production. None of these programs pay for themselves, including the research that you just heard presented. They are all subsidized by Chum and Salmon production. In conclusion, production cuts do not scale evenly.

They hit hardest where the value is generated. And since I have a moment, I'll just add two things: that I'm a lifelong Alaskan, born and raised in Sitka. I've been involved in sport and commercial fisheries my whole life. And that expanding on Taylor's comments, she presented at America Culture Conference just prior to coming here. Her and I are flying up to Fairbanks for the AFS conference as soon as this meeting concludes to present on this material.

Thanks. Mr. Chamberlain.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Ben. You made a comment on how hatcheries make up a significant amount of the state's commercial fishing take.

And just to preface the question, this is a lead-in. Can you name any rivers where all the salmon species are doing well in the state of Alaska? I study hatchery returns to NCRW. I don't study statewide returns. I think the state does a great job at explaining that.

And to clarify my comments, we're at Southeast Alaska commercial value, where nearly half the production— sorry, half the value is hatchery production. And so the question I want to get at is, is it possible that the abundance of hatchery returns and that the abundance of value in those masks the fact that some of the marine system is also harvesting out of the river systems that may not be able to replenish or recuperate as quickly as the hatchery stocks. I believe the science is presented in RC— sorry, PC 13 by Mr. Reifenstuhl for that. Thank you. I'm gonna get a I'm just throwing a question out there, Ben, you happen to be sitting in front of me and maybe it would have been better directed to Ms. Scott or somebody else that we can talk about in committee or elsewhere.

But kind of to dovetail off of Mr. Chamberlain's question that, you know, the economics is that 40% of the value is coming from hatchery. How are the hatcheries and the state— maybe this is something we can talk about deliberations too—.

Assessing where that tipping point is, where that balance is between the economic value and making sure that there aren't negative impacts. And I think that that's part of what's lost in this discussion a little bit. And I think maybe that's where some of the, the consternation from folks that are submitting these proposals— and I don't know, I wouldn't characterize it necessarily as mistrust necessarily, but How is that being assessed? And I guess that gets back to my question earlier from yesterday about what the permit review process is, how frequently that occurs, and how the public can engage in that. Because if those permits aren't being reviewed on 20 to 30-year-plus time cycles, the public may not necessarily have an opportunity to engage in what those permits are, how they're being, you know, updated, assessed.

And rather, the RPT process is focused on more administrative tasks that aren't exactly scratching the itch or getting the information for the public to be able to comment on. That is a lot, and I know that. Like I said, I was just kind of mulling it when you threw out that 40% figure, which I am very appreciative of. But I want to kind of throw that out there for people to think about for committee, and if you have thoughts on that, I would really appreciate it. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER ARKOOSH] Thank you, Madam Chair.

I apologize for not speaking through the Chair. For Mr. Chamberlain. But yeah, that figure tends to grab a lot of people's attention. It is a large figure.

Um, you know, it's influenced by the reduction in the value of the wild fishery in Southeast Alaska. You know, again, we are intensely focusing on what is going on in our little world in terms of the economic impacts. Of course, we have our research, which, you know, we're broadening to try and include all the things that we've been talking about here. But it's not a question I can answer as to the tipping point. You know, we have to— you know, this is a business model.

We have to look at our economics. We have to look at our return on investment. That's a huge ongoing thing. The research has been there for years, but it's becoming more of a focal point, more emergent. And, you know, I would just point to probably the PNP sector at the state to be the ones to talk about this tipping point that you refer to.

And I I think it is good insight that, you know, we have to talk about them both together. It is not just one or the other. Well, thank you for that. And again, I would just welcome thoughts in committee. And certainly we will get into it with the department in deliberations too.

Thank you. Appreciate your comments. Any other questions? Thank you for being here. Thank you for the opportunity.

Josh Hayes.

Hi, Josh. Welcome. Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the board, staff. I'm going to talk about the Cooper Landing AC here today, and that can be referenced in AC6. I'm not going to go through all of them.

You guys can read that, but there's two of them that I wanted to kind of clarify on. One of them is proposal 162. We oppose that 1 to 12. The group felt there should not be regulations eliminating opportunity for any user to participate in a fishery or subsistence harvest of any kind, including non-boat owners. When you start to deal with things like that, we've seen it in Homer where some regulations were proposed last year or in the previous cycle that would eliminate some opportunities for some of our local users based on the fact that they do not own vessels.

And so as a group, we oppose that one. The other one that we opposed was Proposal 186. A major concern being the committee felt that anytime a management plan is opened up, especially out of cycle, it often has resulted in a be careful what you wish for situation. And we felt that it would have been better addressed in an Upper Cook Inlet meeting when we had all the user groups given more time to discuss.

The area in Cooper Landing covers traditionally referred to as the Upper Kenai River, Middle Kenai River, depending on local nomenclature. Our committee members are very concerned about the Kenai River coho numbers. Though not enumerated as a whole within the Kenai River drainage, local anglers, guides, and subsistence users all agree that coho returns in our area of the Kenai River are considerably lower than those of recent and long-term memory. The one area with a semblance of enumeration is the Russian River via a weir.

According to the department in the sport fishing series produced in 2020, the weir may count 9,000 fish or 2,000 fish on any given year with no consistency. In actuality, according to the Russian River coho counts produced by the department, total enumeration of coho over 2,000 fish occurred only 4 times in the past 25 years: 2000, 2001, 2002, and then again in 2014. In the same 25-year timeframe, Russian River Coho counts exceeded 9,000 fish in only one year, 2001. When comparing the same years of Kenai River Chinook data to these Russian River Coho enumeration, it shows similarities of robust runs through the late '90s and early 2000s, followed by periods of irregularities, inconsistencies, and then now currently settling into a depression of decline. The Cooper AC has serious concerns regarding the current status and future status of Kenai River Coho.

As a community, we do not want to see the Coho follow the same path of the Kenai River Chinook. It is the opinion of the Cooper Landing AC that any additional pressure on Kenai River Coho, whether in-river or inlet-based, is ill-advised at this time. I'll end it there. Thanks, Josh. Questions?

Miss Irwin. Hey, Josh, I don't know if you have the answer to this question. I might need to ask the department, but do you have any idea of the most recent, like, escapement numbers for that Kenai River Coho or how that stock's doing? We do not enumerate Kenai River Coho, so that Russian River weir is the only accurate count that we actually have that we can have any sort of semblance of idea for that first run of fish. So, okay, okay, thank you.

All right, thanks for your AC report. Chris Guggenbichler, followed by Dyer Vanderveer and Riker Durski.

Hi, Chris. Good morning. Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the Board of Fisheries. I'm Chris Guggenbichler, currently president of the Southern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association and gillnet representative The Southern Southeast RPT. I'd like to discuss my opposition to Proposal 170.

I testified a year ago about the economy of scale of Sarah's programs and the opportunities they provide. From kids' derbies to large numbers of kings and cohos being harvested for sport and food security at many of our hatcheries. These programs are made possible by chum production in our region. We raise as many kings and cohos as we sustainably can to benefit troll, sport, and subsistence users. Many of the costs we are facing are rising, and we consistently evaluate the cost-benefit of these programs and their benefit to users.

This year we looked at Crystal Lake, a state-owned hatchery we operate. With king salmon production going to 3 different release sites, we learned the cost for 1 king salmon caught or returning to the release site has a cost of $14 to create. We simply won't be able to pay for everything if a reduction were to pass. Sarah and other hatcheries have borrowed money from the state's revolving loan fund based on approval of permits that, if reduced by 25%, would significantly hinder our ability to repay these loans to the state. Also, many fishermen as well have invested in both commercial and charter operations, largely based on increased opportunity created by hatchery production.

As a member of the Southern JRPT, I support our regional process and the understanding those on the team have of the intricacies of our fisheries and region. I submitted RC 33 on our behalf. I would say the majority of the time, a lot of our hatchery permit alteration requests are denied, or we have to conduct extensive test fishing and pass our plan through the genetics department, which is no easy task. One additional safeguard we are currently working on in the RPT process is broodstock sanctuaries. These areas are large.

These are large areas we are setting aside from enhancement that have significant wild salmon runs of all species.

I heard a spokesman from a large AC Tuesday make the statement that king runs aren't doing well here, so they supported the hatchery reduction. I'd hate to see a decision as consequential as 170 based on that kind of logic. In Southeast, we have low— we had low king salmon returns as well. However, 2 life cycles after the blob, our king salmon runs are rebounding. The Skeens made escapement first time in 6 years.

The Chilkat was delisted as a stock of concern, and the Taku was 7,000 kings over the upper escapement goal last year, right in the midst of some of our largest chum hatchery returns. Thank you. Thanks, Chris. Any questions? Thanks for your testimony today.

Dyer Vanderveer.

Good morning. Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the board. My name is Dyer Vanderveer. I live in Kasilof. I've been drifting Cook Inlet long enough to be one of the last 20 original limited entry permit holders.

I'm adamantly opposed to the highly allocative Proposal 186. That's what this proposal is.

All about is allocation. It meets none of the 3 criteria to be accepted as the ACR-5. To not vote this down is starting a bad precedent. Is this the future that this board wants? Allocative out-of-cycle proposals?

And I know it can't be answered, but I got to pose the question. This board probably knows about the rain event in 2025. That blew out the Deshka Weir, leading to an incomplete count of the silvers, and the Little Sioux Weir that got overwhelmed by the same rain event with only one person monitoring it with safety protocol. Seeing one person can't monitor the weir in bad rain events. So this also led to an incomplete count.

There is a history of incomplete counts on these silver indicator streams. It's pretty well known that silvers generally don't like to move upstream in low and warm water conditions, allowing greater impacts by sport gear below the counting weirs. These two indicator systems are just two out of around 1,200 silver streams in Cook Inlet. And that's out of the Anadromous Fish Catalogue, I understand. If the drift fleet was the problem, then the other monitored systems, both silver and red streams, would be showing similar lack of escapement.

In 2025, all the other monitored systems were within the escapement goals. And I, I think there is some misunderstanding with some people's perceptions of how the EEZ fishery works. There is a 16,619 TAC on silvers in the EEZ. So there is no great expansion of the catchability in the EEZ waters. Quite the contrary.

This is a very restrict— this is very restrictive. This is an RC-18 with all the TACs for Cook Inlet. Also, not any boat can fish 200 fathoms in the EEZ. Unless you're a D boat, you can't traverse state waters with 200 fathoms on board.

In 2024, the last year sport fish data is available for the Northern Cook Inlet. The sport fishery caught 26,770 silvers. That's on page 79 of RC2, ADFNG staff comments. The drift fleet caught 11,143 silvers. That is on page 63 of RC2, ADFNG staff comments.

In 2025, the drift fleet caught 3.6 million reds. 3.5 Million reds went into the Kenai and Kishkeelaw Rivers above the upper end of the escapement goals. Thank you. Thanks, Dyer. Any questions?

Thank you for your testimony today. Let's go ahead and take about a 20-minute mid-morning break, come back on the record and continue with Riker Derchie, Matt Finley, Sean Gilman at 10:30.

All right, welcome back. Time is 10:39. We're continuing on with public testimony, and I have a gentleman in front of me that I am assuming is Riker D'Urchie. Right. Welcome.

Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the board. My name is Riker D'Urchie. I'm a second-generation seiner in Prince William Sound. I have fished in Prince William Sound my whole life, and I've seen the ups and downs of this fishery over the years. As a young fisherman heavily invested in this industry, I am adamantly opposed to proposals 170 through 172.

There's far too much volatility in our industry for the board to consider proposals like this that would have immediate and long-term devastating effects to all user groups in the Prince William Sound, strictly on the assumption that it might benefit struggling wild stocks in other areas of the state. I strongly believe that those who think hatcheries are to blame for other declining salmon stocks are turning a blind eye to problems in their own backyard. Seeking to reduce hatchery production is shifting the blame and not providing a solution, while failing to acknowledge that salmon enhancement programs in their own areas could be a solution. We have seen time and time again that habitat degradation is the most prolific factor in declining salmon stocks, and that habitat is not the open ocean. It is in the rivers, which is far from where we operate.

Thank you for your time. Thank you. Any questions? Thanks for your testimony. Matt Finley.

Is Matt— you must be Matt.

Welcome. Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair and board members. I'm Matt Finley. I'm a partner at the law firm of Ashburn and Mason in Anchorage, Alaska.

I've been representing Prince William Sound Aquaculture Corporation since 2007, and I'm also working working with several of the other PMP hatcheries that you've heard from at these proceedings. I'm here speaking on against proposals 170, 171, and 172. As many of you are aware, I filed written comments that are PC-29 that lay out the careful regulatory structure the legislature established for the state hatchery programs and explaining why the board does not have the statutory authority to enact these proposals.

The key takeaways are that the department was granted broad authority over hatchery creation, permitting, and operations, and this includes egg take and production. The board was not given this authority. Its role is purely allocative. And this makes sense. You cannot have two regulators regulating the same thing in competition with one another.

It's not sustainable, and no court would assume that's what the legislature intended. The statutory language the proposal proponents say gives the board this authority only addresses initial wild egg take when hatcheries begin operations. This language is not a Trojan horse to allow the board to veto department permitting decisions. Indeed, the statute closes with very clear language that the Board of Fisheries may not adopt any regulations or rule or take any action regarding the issuance or denial of any permits required in AS 1610-400 to 471. Which are the hatchery permits.

But today it's not really productive to talk about what can't be done because there is work to do. And the proponents here of these proposals are acting in good faith to try and address what are real and devastating declines in certain fisheries in the state. And for PSWAC and the PNP, they have sympathy. Their boards are made up of commercial, sport, and subsistence users and representatives of coastal communities whose lifeblood is healthy fisheries. Now, the hatcheries respectfully disagree their operations are the cause of any of the problems the proponents seek to solve.

But there should be an ongoing and robust discussion on these issues, and more research and data are necessary and they're welcome. And all of this should take place in the department's regulatory process as the legislature intended. You've got the RPT process. Madam Chair asked several about whether the permits are being reviewed every year. Absolutely they are.

That's the department's annual management the planned work, the annual reports hatcheries have to submit to the department. Every aspect of hatchery operations, including their permitted production, are being reviewed in a robust manner every year. Adding more voices, more seats at the table in this process, is absolutely welcome. What is not sustainable is the ongoing effort to put in these proposals at every single Board of Fisheries meeting where we go through this process every time again and again. There's work to be done, and it should be done through the department's process.

And one final thought. The chair— well, I'll stop there. Thank you. Thank you. So there's— in your opinion, should these be dealt with on a regional level or on a statewide level?

So the statute tells you you start on the regional level, and you start with the regional knowledge. And because, again, you're looking at the regional fishery— that being said, it does not mean any region should put blinders on to statewide effects and put blinders on to the bigger picture. So you start with each one these at the regional level. But each one of those should be taking into account, are there bigger effects statewide? So just because you're starting at the regional level does not mean you put blinders on to the bigger picture.

Well, and you know, my question is because these proposals were being addressed and submitted at the regional in-cycle meeting levels and the request was to bring it to statewide. So you can't have it both ways. Which is it? Well, there's an apples to oranges thing. There's the board's authority, which again, part of the problem is the The board doesn't have the statutory authority.

Yes, that's right. Well, it's also what the legislature set up. But the problem is for the board to— has a very difficult to do a statewide regulation as when you're dealing with individual hatchery permits. And so you were putting a square peg in a round hole. So that's a very different issue than asking, well, can the regional planning process that's there as part of the department's authority, can that look at statewide issues?

Absolutely it can. Okay. When I'm speaking about not the RPT process, I'm talking about the board process. But I heard your answer. Mr. Carpenter.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Finley. My question is specifically focused on Proposal 172, which is the proposal asking for moratorium status. And I guess my question is, and I was listening to what you said and I read your PC, you know, it's very clear that the legislature, when this process was created, it gave the commissioner very broad decision-making power when it came to this entire process, and it gave the board very limited process. I think that's very clear.

I guess my question is, is if the board were to adopt a proposal that created a moratorium status, doesn't that effectively usurp the power from the commissioner to issue or deny or revoke a permit? That is in place or that could be in place.

Place? It's absolutely a preemptive veto on the commissioner's permitting authority, and that's— the legislature said no, um, you know, that this board cannot do that. Okay, thank you. Okay, Mr. Wood. Yeah, thank you.

I'm curious, I, I'm always interested in intent, and was the intent of this process when it was created to be public? In your mind and have the input of the regions, the state, and potentially even federal to address issues of like hatchery and potentially hatchery overproduction within not only the region, the state, but Pacific Rim wide? Please. Yes, thank you. Good question to the chair.

Absolutely. The process was intended to be public and was intended to have robust public input. And not only that, the hatcheries themselves are meant to have a wide array of public input and board members. The chair had been asking many of the hatchery operators who were sitting here about whether they had unused permitting capacity. Another good question to ask each one of the hatchery operators is, do you have open seats on your board for those who want to participate and have a voice and understand more about what's happening?

So does this just dead end at the board process, or should this continue further in the state legislature and even potentially into the federal government process to deal, you know, Pacific Rim-wide? Thank you. Through the chair, it doesn't dead end because the department has a process in place for robust public participation. If there are concerns or ways to make that better, that should be— that's welcomed. It should be brought to the department.

So there's no dead end. This isn't a sense of saying nobody can do anything. It's a question of making sure we do it in the right place where the legislature intended. Thank you very much. One last question for you.

Speaking to legislative intent, in your opinion, was it the intent, the development and inception of the hatchery programs, to recover stocks, or is it— was it the intent to create an economic dependency? Thank you, Madam Chair. It's not, not meant to recreate an economic dependency. It was meant to recover the stocks. It was meant to partially enhance the stocks.

It was meant to create a self-sustaining economic engine for the communities. [Speaker] And in your opinion, is there a part of that process that you have described to us today that establishes what recovery looks like and how do people assess that? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] [Speaker] All of that set through the department was given authority to promulgate regulations on what the annual reviews would look like, what the annual management plans will be, what the annual reports need to provide. All of that is baked into that process. The recovery assessment is baked into that process.

Yes, you're supposed to look again. That's partly so. How many fish are the hatcheries releasing? How is the fishery doing? All of that's a holistic review.

And again, I'm speaking for the department and they'll have plenty of opportunity to speak for themselves. But as counsel who's been advising the hatcheries for years, I certainly helped them put all that information together. And I'm familiar with the scrutiny that my clients are under. Okay. Thank you.

Appreciate that. Thank you all very, very much. Thank you for your testimony today. Shawn Gilman, followed by Corey Cole, Roland Ma, and Dennis Zadra.

Hi, Shawn. Hello.

I shortened this— shorten this up a little bit.

Madam Chair and members of the board, thank you for your time put forth in service of the state, for its people and resources, and for my opportunity to be heard here today. My name is Shawn Gilman. I've participated in subsistence, commercial, sport, and personal use throughout my 55 years living in Alaska. Please reference my on-time comments, PC 183. There have been many questions from the board to the people giving testimony about how they consider the protection of the resource, especially when they voice opposition to the hatchery proposals before you.

I will now explain how I have been able to do so. I direct you to PC 13 and encourage you to read it if you have not had time. This paragraph from PC 13 directly answers one of the main questions posed by members of the board to the public when testifying opposing proposals 170 through 172. Paragraph as follows: The department's comments closely align with our argument and rationale laid out above in this public comment. Tying Chinook declines to pink salmon is not based on empirical science, but rather speculative correlation.

Nevertheless, nevertheless, the author of the proposal continues to rely on that speculation without any other supporting evidence. Therefore, we have attached an addendum that addresses their supposition with empirical studies and over 100 references to delineate excuse me, what is known about Chinook declines, pink salmon interactions, and climate-driven environmental changes. See RC 57 for a picture of historic human habitat degradation on the Kenai River as a further example of change. I also have not heard much testimony on pinnipeds and their preference for king salmon and the links in studies to disease transfer from pinniped to salmon. I believe the science of addressing these populations and their interactions with humans and salmon need to be integrated into this conversation.

Thank you. Thanks, Sean. Any questions? Thanks for your testimony today. Thank you.

Corey Cole.

Morning. Welcome. Morning. I'm here on Proposal 11 in support of it, and my PC is 110. My name is Cory Kohler.

I've been in commercial fishing since I can remember. I started in 1979 doing my first salmon trip with my dad. He had 3 salmon trawlers when I was growing up, and he also ran Big Draggers JV Fishing in the '80s, joint venture fishing in the Bering Sea.

I started crab fishing full-time in the western Aleutians around 1992, and I've been involved in that till today. So I've been out in the Aleutians for basically about 3 decades now. The reason I'm here is because of interactions that have changed over the years with the factory trawlers out there. So I was going to go on about the bottom, but it's about protecting the bottom of the resource. But I'm just going to jump in and give you guys some numbers.

So in 2014, I caught 1.4 million pounds of golden king crab and pulled 29,442 pots in the Aleutians. I spent 303 days west of Dutch Harbor. And I did that— those numbers were pretty much the same. I did that for about 16 years. Now, in 2012 and 2013, there were some rookeries that were opened up.

These are sea lion rookeries. They call them haulouts. And so these— and cover about 10 miles, so 3 miles of state water, 6 miles of federal water, basically. So this opened up about 70% of our grounds to the factory trawlers. That was— they were never there before.

We never had to deal with them. So since that point, our quota in 2014 was 2.6 million pounds. That quota was the same for 28 years, never changed. Strong fishery. Last year I caught 300,000 pounds.

The only thing that has changed in the last 10 years is us having to deal with factory trailers coming in there. Now, to tell me they're not making contact on the bottom and causing harm is crazy to me.

That's about all I got to say about it. Thank you. Any— Mr. Carpenter? Yeah, thanks. Thanks for being here.

That's interesting what you said about the 3 miles of state water, and I think you said 6 miles of federal. Yes, yes, sir. Yep.

Is the GHL that's established for the golden king crab fishery only set within those 9 miles? No, I mean, you could go— I mean, there's so much area out there. It's, it's, it's You can go other, other places, but traditionally you'll fish that crab in the same locations. I mean, we've been doing it for since 1982, for forever, you know, and the quota was the same for 3 decades. I guess my question really is, is I would assume the department— I can ask the department later when they, when they do their surveys to set the GHL for the crab, Golden King crab fishery.

Their services, they're utilizing a very large area to come up with that GHL. So when you talk about 9 miles where the trawlers have access to now that they didn't, I'm trying to equate how that—. I see what you're saying. —Has completely impacted what the overall GHL is. I see what you're saying.

So it wasn't just one rickery, it was a bunch more rickeries. So even though there's a lot more area out there,.

We're all usually— when you're involved in that fishery, you're usually fishing within 9 miles of the land. I mean, not all spots. There's a few spots, but you're in close to shore. It's really steep edge out there, you know.

Mr. Irwin, thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Cole. My question for you is, from 2014 to 2025, could you tell me a little bit about your observations of the quality of those golden in king crab? You mentioned the amount, but size, quality, what are you seeing from these last 10 years? Size is pretty much the same.

Definitely lower female counts and small crab in certain areas where the factory trawlers are in there dragging. Now, they're, they're just doing their job. You know, the captains of these boats are great guys. They work good with us. We had a few, a little bit of gear conflict.

When it first— this first opened up. And— but I stay out of their way. Like, I don't want them running over my stuff. It destroys it. So I stay completely out of the way.

And my best 3 sets for 30 years, I have not made those sets in 5 years. I can't make those sets. My gear get destroyed. Where I'd get a 50 average.

Mr. Wood. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for your observations on this. So when you're talking about the factory trawlers, will you just give us an idea of the number of them you're seeing and the size? Because, you know, we're dealing everything from 58-foot boats to 100-foot boats to these boats.

Will you give us an impression on what you're seeing? Well, I grew up in the dragging industry, so I mean, to me, the factory trawlers and the Kodiak guys, They're not the same. They're two different groups. You know, they're, they're not even remotely close to the same kind of draggers. These guys got huge horsepower, huge nets.

I mean, they're not even remotely close to the same. And how many are you seeing in this area since, since they've been—. I mean, I think there's, there's 20-something of them, but usually there's 10 or so out there all the time. You know, they're constantly going. And they're—.

I've had a few of them tell me, well, our stuff's getting harder to catch. We got to get in there. I'm like, thank you. Thanks for your testimony today. Appreciate it.

Roland Ma.

Welcome. Yes, I'll be referring to RC 20, and then RC 19, which is the map.

Morning, board. My name is Roland Maugh from Cook Inlet, involved in the fishery and in the industry since— if my gray hair doesn't— what's left of it doesn't give me away— since 1970. I'd like to turn to attention to RC20. And that's Figure 186-3, and that's from the staff comments. Some observations about— this is a graph of the harvests.

The solid line is the sockeye, the dotted line is the coho. That first observation is that there's about a week difference between the peaks of the sockeye versus the coho peak harvest. The peak harvest on the sockeye around the 15th, coho occurs around the 22nd, 23rd. The other comment that I would make is that the closer you bring those peaks together, the greater the likelihood is that we're going to be impacting coho.

So our suggestion would be take some of the harvest that occurs when coho are up high on the graph and shift that harvest on sockeye, shift it to earlier in the year. And specifically to the week of the 9th to the 15th. That's when these sockeye are building. You can see from the graph, The Coho harvests are very limited at that point. You can see the scale over on the right-hand side to get an idea of the magnitude of those harvests.

But if you could shift that to the 9th to the 15th, that has two positive effects. One is It allows us to catch sockeye as they're building in the Cook Inlet central district. But it also avoids coho. But the way the management plans are now— and by the way, it's not what— this is not what we prefer. It's not what we've testified to in the past.

This is what has been put into regulation. It's not our preference. Our preference again would be to try to separate these two harvests based on the run timing. Thank you, Mr. Muller. Mr. Carpenter, thank you.

Educate me a little bit. We have an EEZ fishery now that we never used to have, that this board never had to take into account. Could you just educate me on when that season opens in the EEZ? What, what is the federal management document dictate there? Okay, that opening is the same wording that's used in the state waters.

It's the third Monday in June or the 20th, whichever is later. And so this coming year, both the federal fishery and the state fishery will open on the— I believe it's the 23rd, is a Monday. So what you're asking here is for the board to consider moving sockeye harvest earlier to avoid, you know, more cohos. But effectively, aren't you also going to move the federal season also earlier by the board's action?

Mm, I don't believe so. But you just said that the seasons are all opening on the same date, and I would assume that the federal government, when they set that date, based it off when the state season opened. So if the board were to change that to be much different than it's in regulation right now, wouldn't the federal government also adjust that season to open the EEZ earlier? Mm-hmm. There's, there's two things going on at the federal level.

One is the Federal Fishery Management Plan, and that has specifications in there as to when the season opens and under, and when restrictions apply and when it closes. That's in the FMP. Then on a yearly basis, there is an annual catch limit.

That is on an annual basis. But to change the opening date, that means that the FMP is going to have to be amended, and that's a 2 or 3 year process. And that is— and requires Secretary of Commerce approval, and it's Those of us that have dealt with this with the council, it's a very, very slow, slow process. Well, thank you for clarifying that. I appreciate it.

And I, I guess this is just another hurdle that the board is going to have to face in the future because, at least in my opinion, and this is kind of a statement, so I'll make it brief. This has put decision-making very difficult. At this table in regards to Cook Inlet.

Thank you for your testimony today. Thank you. Dennis Zadra, followed by Matt Giambrone, Glenn Merrill, and Abby Frederick.

Is Dennis here? I don't see him. Matt.

Yep, yep, come on up then. I don't see— I don't think Dennis is with us unless— if he's here, wave your arm, do a jumping jack. Nope, you're up, Matt. Your turn. Okay.

Thank you.

Sorry for the delay here.

Madam Chair, members of the board, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. My name is Matt Giambrone. I started my fishing career in a cannery in Petersburg while I was a college student. Now, 32 years later, I'm a member of the ANSRA board.

I own and operate a seiner in Southeast. Both my sons have fished with me, and my youngest son plans to pursue a career as a fisherman. I'm here today to oppose Proposal 170. In the last 5 years, hatchery chum salmon have represented 57% of my seine revenue. Obviously, reducing hatchery capacity by 25% will have a negative impact on my business, but it won't just be me.

It'll be The 4 people who work for me, the communities I deliver fish to, and every business that I buy products, services from. Because chum salmon cost recovery, as you've heard, funds hatchery operations in Southeast, a 25% reduction in capacity will mean significant cuts to all the hatchery programs. The most expensive programs, kings and cohos, will likely be the first ones to suffer.

Those fish are valuable to sport, commercial, and subsistence users. In fact, RC 80 shows that the recent 5-year average of value for sport caught hatchery fish in Southeast was $20 million.

Reduced chum releases will also mean significantly less hatchery opportunity for commercial users, most likely closer to a 35% reduction in hatchery fish available for commercial harvest. If we cannot fish on hatchery fish, we will increase the pressure on wild stock pinks. And in Southeast, hatcheries produce very few pink salmon. All of our directed pink salmon fisheries are on wild stockfish. I also like to point out that overall, Alaska salmon resource is healthy.

It's well managed. You know, in 2013, Alaska had its largest salmon harvest ever. Since then, we've had near record harvests in 2015, 2021, and 2023. Just this past summer in Kodiak, they had a record-setting pink return. Clearly, the ocean is capable of supporting salmon.

And while I'm sympathetic to subsistence users in western Alaska, I think it's important to remember that the chums that we release in southeast tend to stay in the eastern Gulf. They do not compete with fish in western Alaska, and there's no established causal link between hatchery production and wild runs. And this is especially true for systems that are so widely separated. I believe that adopting Proposal 170 would be a step away from the science-based management that has made Alaska's fisheries the envy of the world. Thank you.

Thanks, Matt. Any questions? Thank you for being here. Thank you for your time. Glenn Merrill.

Morning, Glenn. Welcome.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. My name is Glenn Merrill. I am a 28-year resident of Juneau, Alaska. I work for Glacier Fish Company, and I'm speaking in opposition to Proposal 11, and I'll be referring to PC-99 and RC-83. Our company is majority owned by Western Alaskans, by a Western Alaskan CDQ group, and we fish in the Aleutians using trawl gear.

We fish for CDQ Pacific cod, Pacific Ocean Perch, and Akimakrel on behalf of our owners and two other CDQ groups. The value from this harvest supports dozens of communities throughout western Alaska. 20 Years ago, fishery participants met and collectively decided to close nearly 95% of all of the habitat in the Aleutian Islands to trawl gear. Those closures have not changed. More areas have not been open to trawl gear since that time.

The areas that were left open were determined by full engagement and support from all fishery participants. These were precautionary measures that were intended to preclude damage to sensitive crab and groundfish habitat. The state of Alaska collaborated in that process and adopted regulations that closed the identified areas within state waters, and RC 83 provides additional detail on that process and the state regulations. Is a closure in state waters in the Aleutians going to result in less impact on crab habitat? Not if it shifts effort to more sensitive areas that remain open.

Is a closure going to increase or decrease gear conflicts? Not if the fleets are squeezed into the same areas. Right now, we do not have the information to know if Proposal 11 will end up having a measurable and positive impact on crab habitat. What we do know is that under current management, the effects of trawl gear on crab habitat in the Aleutians is minimal and temporary. So what is a good path forward?

Our preferred path is that the board take no further action. We have vast habitat protections in place and those would remain. Another path would be to discuss this proposal with the North Pacific Council through your Joint Protocol Committee. Crab and groundfish habitat occurs both in state and federal waters. Actions in one jurisdiction could have adverse and unintended consequences on management under the other jurisdiction.

But I wish to remind the board that 20 years ago, closures were developed with collaboration and consensus. That was a successful model for addressing habitat concerns, and the board may wish to encourage that process moving forward. Thank you for your time and happy to take any questions. Thanks, Glenn. Questions?

Mr. Carpenter. Yeah, thanks for your testimony. I'm not sure if you were involved 20 years ago when, you know, the closure discussion was going on, but the 5% that we keep hearing about that's currently open and that was left open during that process, can you give us a general idea of why that particular area or areas or percentage was left open? And was it to— was it because the habitat was more suitable than others to conduct fishing operations in, or was it based around, uh, trying to provide opportunity to certain communities on the Aleutian chain. Could you just maybe touch on that?

Through the chair, Mr. Carpenter, it was all of those things. There was a— I was around during that time, and at that time I was working for the National Marine Fisheries Service and was involved in the process. There were, I believe, 15 or 16 different specific meetings that were held over a long period of time to try and identify which areas are particularly important for crab, which areas are particularly important for groundfish in terms of habitat. Where do those fisheries occur? Where have they historically occurred?

What do we think in terms of the catch per unit effort or the viability of maintaining those areas that were open? And at that time, there had been increased effort and interest in trying to provide opportunity for the community of Adak, as well as numerous other communities along the of the chain that were reliant on those fisheries. At that time as well, I think that there was an expansion and effort by the Community Development Quota program to try and provide more value for those fisheries in the Aleutians as well on behalf of their communities. Thank you for that perspective. Wood.

Yeah, thanks for that. I agree. And, and so when the, the boats that are fishing the CDQ quotas, are we talking— what, give me a level— are they the factory trawlers?

Through the chair, it depends on the particular CDQ group. So for us, we are using a vessel, the Northern Glacier, and that vessel is a 201-foot— it is a catcher processor. The net that we use is roughly about the same size as some of the catcher vessels that also participate in that fishery. But I think for many of these fisheries, for akimakrel and Pacific ocean perch in particular, these are very remote areas. And the only viable gear for effectively harvesting those, those fish are using trawl gear.

Thank you, Mr. Swenson.

Thanks, Glenn. That was interesting to learn about that. I didn't know that you caught mackerel and so what do you— what is the market for those? How are— what do they use them for? They— anyway.

Through the Chair, it's a variety of different markets. Akamackrel in particular tends to be mostly an Asian product, although I think there are efforts to try and improve that domestically as well. Pacific Ocean Perch is also— it can be an Asian market and there is also domestic. And then Pacific cod is a very global market. Well, thank you.

That's real interesting. Mr. Godfrey. Early in your testimony you had mentioned dozens of communities benefiting, you know, participating in the CDQ program and trawling in particular. How many specifically, or in your CDQ, how many communities is that? Through the Chair, so our majority owners are the Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation, 15 communities.

Thank you. Are you going to be around for a little bit? I will be. Great. Thank you very much for your testimony today.

Thank you. Abby Fredrick?

How about Ilya Mardashev?

Vladimir Sidorov?

Welcome.

Good morning. Sorry, uh, yeah, morning, uh, Chair and members.

My name is Vladimir Sanarov. Um, I've been fishing in Cook Inlet for 25 years. I'm here in opposition to Proposition 186.

Based on the information available, there is no clear evidence that the issue proposal is trying to address being driven to commercial fishing alone.

Coho harvest data shows that freshwater catch numbers have remained relatively consistent year to year, which points to a more complex situation than what this proposal reflects. Policies like this— sorry— policies like this risk placing disproportionate burden burden on commercial fishermen, people who rely on this resource for their livelihoods, without ensuring meaningful conservation outcomes. Fishing supports more than just individual operators. It supports crews, processors, and entire coastal communities. Decisions like this carry real economic consequences.

Effective fisheries management requires balance and should be grounded in complete, accurate data, not measures that target one group while overlooking this broader system. I urge you to reconsider Proposition 186 and pursue a more comprehensive data-driven approach. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony today. Are there any questions?

Appreciate you. Landry Price.

Welcome. Good morning. Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the board. For the record, my name is Landry Price. I'm from Anchorage, and I'm speaking on behalf of Yukon Delta Fisheries Development Association.

Otherwise known as YDFDA. YDFDA is one of the 6 CDQ groups that serves 6 of the 65 western Alaska communities on the lower Yukon River.

Briefly, the CDQ program is a non-governmental collection of Alaskan communities that receives an allocation of rationalized fisheries in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands. These communities utilize the fishing rights granted to them to provide direct economic benefits back to their member villages.

Simply stated, the CDQ program Alaskanizes the federal fisheries. And since inception, YDFDA has become a major owner in the Western Aleutian Island golden king crab fishery, owning nearly 12% of the individual fishing quota shares. With that being said, I would like to express YDFDA's opposition to Proposal 11 to close trawling in the remaining open state waters west of 170. There are several reasons why, why the FDA opposes Proposal 11. The first, over 95% of the Aleutian Islands state and federal waters are already closed to trawling, leaving just a small portion remaining open to high CPE fishing with low bycatch.

This provides flexibility to the trawl fleet that helps our CDQ group extract our federal allocations of groundfish out of the water and provides the returns back to our region. Second, there's both limited trawling and associated golden king crab bycatch occurring within these state waters west of 170. As it was stated earlier, On average, about 66 Golden King crab are taken as bycatch between the years 2020 and 2025, which is just 1% of the Golden King crab bycatch. We need to consider that these are minimal impacts within these remaining open areas that provide the trawl fleet much-needed flexibility to move in and out as needed, especially given the current environmental changes we are seeing.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] And third, by banning trawling west of 170, this would create additional roadblocks to reopening a shoreside processing plant in ADAC. Reopening a shoreside plant in ADAC would be beneficial not only to that region but also to our CDQ group, as we would have more viable harvesting operations for our specific Aleutian Island allocations such as sablefish, Pacific cod, and our Area 4B halibut. For these reasons, YDFGA encourages the board not to support Proposal 11. And with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions. Thanks, Landry.

I have a question for you, and it's about that shoreside plant. So, I mean, I recall codfish proposals that were taken up out of cycle to try and, I think, maintain or keep that plant open. I could be conflating proposals, but what is the status of that and what would it take to get that reopened? Thank you for the question. I am not the expert on the ADAC plant.

I think you have heard from those communities, specifically Steve Miner earlier today. And— but from our perspective as a CDQ group and why Proposal 11 would if Proposal 11 went through, it would, from my talks with Steve Miner, it would curtail any work in getting that plant reopened, and that would have an effect on us because we have a hard time getting some of those allocations harvested out west for multiple reasons. Okay, fair enough. Thank you. Mr. Carpenter.

Thank you. So you said your organization owns about 12% of the golden king crab in the AI section. Does your company fish those fish, that quota themselves through boats that you own, or do you lease that quota? Thank you for the question. Through the chair, Mr. Carpenter, we do not fish it ourselves.

We do not have a harvesting platform. That's a leasing arrangement. And you've, I think there's public comment, a joint letter from those harvesting partners out west. And yes, you're correct, we own almost 12% of the individual fishing quota shares. So you heard from Steve Miner earlier, that's, they take 10% off the top, but that's just speaking to the IFQ shares.

[Speaker] Right, and then in regards to other federal IFQ fisheries that you own, you talked about black cod, halibut, and I guess Pacific cod. But does your organization— are they involved with any sort of trawling activity that would be affected other than those species in this AI potential closure? Thank you for the question through the chair, Mr. Carpenter. Again, we don't operate our own vessels on these allocations that we get harvested by harvesting partners. But yes, it would have an effect on us.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Mr. Godfrey. So if the ADAC plant comes back, this would be a benefit to you, I assume, for deliveries to utilize that plant in lieu of or in addition to where you currently— where you guys currently deliver. Is that— is that my— am I understanding that correct?

Again, thank you for— thank you for the question through the chair, Mr. Godfrey. Yes, uh, in essence, it provides more harvesting options for us, uh, to be able to— to be able to lease out quota to help out others to— to finish their fishing plan. Um, and— and right now we only have a few options, and they've been very limited. Thank you. Mr. Wood?

Yeah, thanks. I just— to clarify for me, so you own quota both in crab and groundfish? Again, that was—. Which is what we're dealing with here in this area. Thank you again, through the chair, Mr. Wood.

Yes, that's correct. Uh, but I'll, I'll just mention the, the Pacific cod, the sablefish, uh, are both CDQ allocations, so those aren't necessarily owned. Those, those were granted to us. Copy. Thank you.

Thanks for your testimony today. Thank you very much. Bill Craig followed by Leanna Harrington and Nancy Hillstrand.

Welcome. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. If you will excuse me here for a second, I didn't realize it was my turn and I messed it up.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] So my name is Bill Craig. I live in Anchorage and I've been a professional scientist for 35 years. I'm testifying in opposition to Proposals 170, 171, and 172. I lead teams of scientists and engineers to assess the probable impacts to the environment, including the marine environment, from proposed megaprojects and other major federal actions. For 25 years, I've also commercial fished for salmon.

In Prince William Sound for a few weeks each summer. I also like to sport fish. As a professional scientist, I often see junk or advocacy science. The proponents of Proposal 170 describe a global literature review that they conducted. This global literature review is not real science.

It is cherry-picked data taken out of context to misrepresent and advocate for their position that hatchery production negatively impacts wild Chinook and other salmon. The studies at best show correlation but not causation. Using correlation logic, it could be argued that king salmon declines were caused by the invention of smartphones, or even by Obama or the orange man.

It appears the root cause to the root argument of hatchery opponents is based on a concern that the number of chum and pink salmon released is large and therefore bad. That is like saying that 878 million acres of farmland in the U.S. is destructive and bad, and yet those acres feed our nation and also feed many wild animals. Well, pink salmon stray. It is a natural thing that allows salmon to colonize or recolonize new or restored streams. The hatchery stock was collected from local wild salmon, has not been genetically modified, and there's no scientific proof that straying is harming wild stocks.

In recent years, there have been very wild— very large wild returns. For example, Coghill River in Prince William Sound had a very large sockeye return in 2012. Cook Inlet had a banner year last year. Bristol Bay keeps having massive runs. And Prince William Sound wild pink salmon have experienced a couple of very large seasons in the last 10 years or so.

All while hatcheries were producing the current amount of fry. Hatcheries feed people and contribute to the overall biological productivity of the North Pacific. Chum and pink salmon fry are forage for larger salmon such as kings, chum, and coho. Hatchery-produced chum and pink fry are also prey for other species such as whales, other marine mammals, fish, birds, etc. When those predators are feeding on hatchery salmon, it reduces predation on wild salmon.

NOAA Fishery estimates that 40 years after passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, marine mammal predation of Chinook salmon increased sixfold from 5 million to 31.5 million individual Chinook salmon. Federal scientists also estimate that resident killer whales have nearly tripled in abundance in the Northeast Pacific Ocean since the early 1970s. Killer whales are estimated to currently consume over 2.5 million adult chinook salmon each year. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game studied salmon sharks and theorized that the moratorium on large-scale pelagic drift net fisheries eliminated an important source of mortality for juvenile salmon sharks, causing a large increase in the shark population, which then increased predation on chinook and other salmon. Their study showed 40% of the chinook salmon they tagged were likely consumed by salmon sharks.

I believe hatcheries contribute positively to wild salmon populations by providing additional feed for chinook, chums, and co-hosts. Thank you, Bill. Any questions? Thanks for your testimony today. Thank you.

Leanna Harrington?

How about Nancy Hillstrand? Hi, Nancy.

Oops, I guess this is on. Thanks so much for you guys being here. It's great. My PC is 209 and RC 109 and RC 84. My name is Nancy Hillstrand and I'm the owner-operator of a 60-year-old Alaskan corporation called Pioneer Alaskan Fisheries.

We've seen plenty of ups and downs. Presently we are down 50%. Welcome to the fishing industry. We are not served our livelihood on a platter. Our golden goose is the protection of wild fish.

Alaska's Commissioner Carl Rozier stated, "When there's conflict, the laws shall prevail." The myriad of laws in Alaska prioritizes and clearly differentiates wild populations from hatchery stock. The Alaska Constitution holds three clear tenets: development, utilization, and conservation. And conservation is not the stepchild of these triplets. She has equal standing. I support Proposal 171 as a vehicle to address the massive, unreasonable, international, inter-regional straying of Prince William Sound hatchery monoculture into Lower Cook Inlet.

This is a designated critical habitat area, and I've been coming in since— since 2014. I've been working on this when we started to see massive strain coming into this other region. This is a shellfish nursery, and this is a known designated shellfish nursery for shrimp and crab and clams, and we need to look at this serious breach.

I ask you to look at RC-102 because I propose that we begin to address this breach and cease turning the blind eye by creating as a first step a reasonable segregation policy that was mandated 50 years ago as the condition of acquiring a hatchery permit in the PNP Hatchery Act. How do we get this policy of reasonable segregation? Well, the Sustainable Salmon Policy gives us a clue. A.3 states, to effectively assure sustained yield and habitat protection for wild stocks, fishery management plans and programs require specific guiding principles and criteria and the framework for their application. This is a scaffold to hang science on and start learning instead of playing spitball with this, with this thing years and for years, you know.

This goes on, says effects and interactions of introduced or enhanced salmon stocks should be assessed. Wild salmon stocks and fisheries on these stocks should be protected from adverse effects from artificial propagation and enhancement efforts. What is the point of otolith marking hatchery fish without rigorous monitoring standards and structure and a follow-through to correct problems? Like the trawling industry, hatchery operators— because I worked in a hatchery for 21 years, so I know— they have tools to implement to ensure this responsibility to the PNP Hatchery Act. Hatchery programs shall be operated without adversely affecting natural stocks of fish in the state and under a policy of management which allows reasonable segregation of returning hatchery salmon from naturally occurring stock, definitely differentiating the two as completely separate.

This reasonable segregation policy can then be tied into the performance review of ADF&G so that we can have some sort of a structure so we can manage this in a way that ensures that we are protecting the wild fish. Thanks, Nancy. Mr. Irwin. Yeah, thank you, Ms. Hillstrand. So my question is Without having a definition of a reasonable segregation as required in the Hatchery Act right now, do you see that the department is in compliance with the law?

No, I think we need to— because that was 50 years ago, it's, it's set a policy of management for reasonable segregation. So that needs to be defined. And that's why a policy, a separate policy that would actually define it. What's the largest strain? What's the smallest?

It'll take scientists, it'll take all the geneticists. I mean, we need to get together on this and start to create a policy so we know what we're doing. Right now we don't know what we're doing. We're just throwing spitballs in each other. And I think we really need to get down to the basics of finding out what the best available science is, which is what the Sustainable Salmon Policy tells us to do.

Okay, and thank you. And with that, what kind of forum do you think that's most appropriate to take place? And is that something that you believe the department should solely be charged with? Do you think that's something that public input needs to be a part of? Is that the regional planning teams?

What kind of forum is necessary necessary to create that definition and then comply with the law. I'd say the, the genetics policy— I gave a presentation to the genetics— they had a conference last spring, and they are the people— I mean, that's the whole West Coast of geneticists. I mean, let's see what is the best science, where are those lines to be drawn. And then also Fish and Game and the hatchery operators, so that what can you guys do, what do you see that you can do to help this, because it's their responsibility. Also to do this.

And the regional planning teams have become too much of an industry type of thing. I wouldn't say they would be the ones to talk to. You need people that are a little more engaged with the biological and genetics and ecosystem points of, of hatchery and wild fish management. Okay, thank you very much. Mr. Carpenter.

Yeah, thank you, Nancy. To your last point that the RPTs have become too industry-focused, Could you please explain that a little bit? Because 50% of the makeup of the RPTs are department staff. Yeah, it's just from—. How is it mostly made up of industry?

Well, I know that from experience because I've been going into the different ones around the state. And what happens is I've gone in and they say, oh yes, you'll be first in the queue about straying, you know. And I'm thinking, wow, they're going to talk to me about this. We're going to get something done. And in Prince William Sound, for instance, They gave me 3, you know, my 3 minutes, and they never even brought it up.

They never said anything about it. They were talking, you know, about industry and markets and everything else. And then afterwards, someone from the Chamber of Commerce said, "Oh, I hear there was somebody making trouble at the regional planning team meeting." And I said, "Oh, that'd be me." You know, because instead of just welcoming the, you know, someone that's coming in that's concerned, I was pretty much shunned by that entire process. And I've noticed the same thing in Cook Inlet. And, you know, it's just we need to get more science in there.

And it's just because they've been there a long time. I mean, a lot of the folks have been in there. They're great folks. There's nothing— you know, I'm not saying anything against anyone. I don't want to be controversial.

But I really feel that the RPT process is broken. Well, that's interesting that you say that because I happened to be sitting at the table that day and a member of the RPT and I don't remember it quite the same way, but thank you for your point. Okay, thank you. Great, thanks for your testimony today. Thanks so much.

Justin Peeler, followed by Karen Linnell and John Vail. Hi, Justin.

Hello, Madam Chair, members of the board. Thank you for your time and your service to the state of Alaska. My name is Justin Peeler. I'm a second-generation fisherman from Southeast Alaska. I persist.

Participate in multiple fisheries: salmon, herring, crab, black cod, halibut. I fish from as far south as Southern California to as far northwest as Kodiak. I am— I have the privilege today to represent Southeast Alaska fishermen as the president of the board of directors for Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association, an association full of amazing people that care deeply about salmon, wild and hatchery. NCRAS board is made up of 25 individuals with, with a wide background. Fishermen gear group seats and make up the board at 15—trollers, gillnetters, seiners.

Other seats include native organization, municipality, conservation, sport fish processor, and interested persons. We currently have 2 retired Fish and Game salmon biologists on our board that serve as a conservation seat and also as an interested person seat. We currently have 2 board members involved with the Pacific Salmon Treaty. You heard from one of them today.

These people volunteer their time to care deeply about salmon.

I had more written, but I thought maybe in my position as the president of NCRW, I would sit here and I would listen to things brought up and try to answer some questions that are brought up. I've been the president of the board of directors for 8 years. I've been involved with NSARA for over 13. I've been an RPT member that whole time. The RPT process, in my opinion, is a great place for the public to be involved and state their opinions.

What you don't hear about the RPT process is the process of when we say no. When we decide that somebody is not going to be a good steward of our resource and we deny the permit, no matter what they paint, no matter what picture of solving all the problems they give us, we say no because we don't believe that they are going to be a good steward of our resources.

Two rivers with five salmon species in them in Southeast Alaska, that are performing magnificently are the mighty Taku and Sikkim River. They are right in the middle of Southeast Alaska's mainland. Those fish from those rivers, all 5 species, have to travel through the waterways of Southeast Alaska past every hatchery that we have in order to make it to the ocean. They're strong and doing well. NCSRA, in my years there, has developed a research program that is robust and scientifically driven.

We're ready to work out any problems that pop up and do it in a manner that's scientific and does not hurt the resources of the state of Alaska.

Thanks. It goes fast, doesn't it? Well, I miss the lights. I know. And the pressure.

You know, like, I want a yellow light to turn up the heat because 400 eyes behind me are not enough. And then the red light at the end. And then maybe a countdown. I mean, some more pressure would be good. We were just talking about that.

I was just talking about that with Director Nelson here. And I think we miss the light system and a dual-sided timer. So unfortunately, the commissioner is not here. That's the guy we really need to rail on. But appreciate it.

Any questions? Ms. Erwin. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much, Justin. So my question is, you mentioned the denial of permit.

So could you give me an idea of maybe like like, in your experience, how often are those, you know, do you deny permits? I, I don't know if you could give me an exact number in the last, like, 5, 10 years, but give me a rough idea of how often those permits are denied versus approved. Um, through the chair, good question. Um, it's hard to say. We talk about a lot at the RPT.

Um, I can think of 2 that were denied, and I can talk and also I can talk about one that was changed in recent history. One that was denied, the individual wanted to build a massive hatchery in Chatham Straits in an area called Warm Springs Bay. He was going to make everything. And the RPT, in doing their job, let it move as far as a public— let it move through the public testimony. So what I mean by that is we advanced it far enough that the guy could have his time to hold a public process in which he could talk about his program and whatnot.

We let it go that far. We came back to the RPT after that, and we voted it down unanimously because we didn't think the guy was going to be a good steward of our resources. An example of a, of a hatchery that put in for a larger coho release. The department brought up concerns about this hatchery organization being slightly behind on their paperwork. We downgraded their ask to the minimum that they needed to advance their program, but not what they wanted, and told them Basically, you guys need to clean up your act.

Come back again with— get all your paperwork in order and clean up your act. There's been other, uh, hatcheries associations put in for, um, release sites and things like that where, you know, genetics or, or the department brings up issues and problems and those get denied. And then we, you know, of course that hatchery organization, you know, reloads in a sense and it's like, okay, we still wanna do something. Let's solve these problems. Let's bring up a different place.

And we see it again until we find a place that won't endanger our wild resources. So it's a lot of work. The Southeast RPT is a lot different than a lot of the other RPTs. We actually have 3 RPTs. We have a northern, a southern, and a joint.

We meet together. What that does that's different than some of the other places is that it creates a lot of conversation in the room. We're very open to the public. Our meetings are ran very— I believe they're ran the right way for a public process. We don't cut anybody off or give them a certain amount of time.

We allow them to raise their hand as we are discussing stuff and call on them as Has seen our chair does.

Well, great. Thank you so much. It sounds like you've created a good public process. I guess my follow-up would just be in that time frame that you said you've seen maybe like 2 permits denied. How many permits have you seen accepted?

Um, well, I've seen more than 2 denied. Those are just ones that stick out in my head. I mean, 14 years, I can't— I also run a commercial fishing business too, so I got a lot of things floating around, but They have been denied and have been approved. I mean, just like you said yesterday, there was, I think you, or there was 7 or something that were approved. I'd probably say that in the years before that, there was probably, oh, I don't know, concepts of twice as many.

Okay, thank you so much.

Thanks, Justin. Appreciate your testimony today. Karen Linnell.

Hi, Karen.

Good morning. Do you intend to give your AITRC testimony first or your AC report? I think I'll do the AC report first. Okay, very well. Thank you.

[Speaker:MICHELLE] The Copper Basin AC is AC number 7.

Our— the original person to come had a loss in the family, and so she was not able to attend. We met on February 27th and took up proposals that you'll see in AC proposal 162 to prohibit commercial transport services in subsistence fisheries.

A motion— this passed by a vote of 6 to 1.

There's a lot of discussion around this and trying to understand the use of commercial services in subsistence. And we had discussions around whether this includes a commercial flight from from here to a hub and then a smaller flight home to your village, that does not— those are commercial flights that get you to your home. This— we're talking about using services such as transporters to drop you off at a hunting or fishing site, or a fishing site, and And we've seen changes in, in the Copper River, but it's, it's elsewhere. And I believe there's already this in the Kodiak area.

Number 165, to establish salmon excluder requirements for Pilat.

For all pelagic trawl gear inside state waters.

This passed with a vote of 7 to 0. I felt this could lead to wanton waste. There's better ways to run the fishery without decimating the ground where the younger, smaller fish are and in the habitats. There needs to be more regulation. They catch too much and there's no repercussions to the limit.

Proposal 170, reduce the permitted egg take for hatchery fish by 25%. That passed by a vote of 7 to 0.

We did have a lot of discussion on, on this as well, but we need to protect the wild stocks and Many of the, many of the hatcheries are things that eat the Copper River reds and sockeye. So those are things that we talked about. Proposal 173, providing emergency order authority to define fishing boundaries when regulatory markers are lost. That would just allow the department to replace those markers.

And that passed with a 7-0. Modify dip net mesh size and configuration as follows.

This was— there was— this was modified and to include not to exceed the width of the ring where the depth of the mesh or the depth of the net should not exceed the width of the ring. And at least have at least one hand holding the dip net rod handle. And then there was also a recommendation to remove having the rope attached to the boat. One of our, one of our members went dip netting and his net caught a snag and it started to pull his boat under when So they thought that that could be dangerous and that passed with a vote of 7 to 0.

And then Proposal 181 aligned the regulatory statutory languages for sport fishing gear.

We thought that this might be better done in prohibited gear or, or because there was concerns that this might affect ice fishing. A lot of us do ice fishing, and so we were concerned. And so this failed with a 0-7 vote.

And yeah, that's, that's it. We didn't cover a whole lot on, on the others. So. Very long but short report. Okay, long meeting, short report.

Thanks, Karen. Any questions on the AC report? Miss Irwin. Thank you so much, Miss Linnell, for being here. My question for you is, you mentioned during your conversation on the hatchery proposals, you expressed concern for the Copper River sockeye and what they're eating.

Could you expand for me a little bit more about the concerns of in-river users as they relate to hatcheries? Sure. We have a couple pink hatcheries out on the— in the Prince William Sound. And we talked about when our salmon are going out to the ocean, that they're getting— they're affected by the predation. And then we're having less return.

So thanks. Okay, thank you. Mr. Wood. Yeah, thanks, Karen. I'm not totally familiar with it, but could you tell me what the impacts of the sockeye, uh, in the gravel up on the Gulkana would be if, if this reduction happened?

So the— they haven't been able to meet their take For a while, from my understanding, with Prince William Sound Aquaculture Corporation, they haven't really been able to meet their take. They used to be able to meet it in the month of July, early August, and now they're taking eggs all the way into September, end of September, trying to meet their take. I don't think it's gonna affect them at all because they haven't been able to take those eggs. And those fish don't return until July and August, The commercial fishing fleet, which Prince William Sound Aquaculture Corporation is supposed to be enhancing, is, is not being fished commercially because they're, they're starting earlier in May. So, you know, by the time they, they're getting around to the Gulkana fish, it's, it's, it's not what they're primarily hitting— they're hitting the wild stocks.

Thanks, Mr. Carpenter. Thank you. Thank you, Karen. Nice to see you again. Hi.

Um, speaking to that particular subject, um, in the Gulkana Hatchery, you're right, it's been difficult the last several years for them to get a complete contingent of their brood stock. But having said that, the fish that are raised at Gulkana and released that, you know, are a contribution that is paid for by the other hatcheries in Prince William Sound for that to operate at a very high cost. Do the people that participate in the personal use fishery at Chitina and the subsistence fisheries above the Chitina Bridge, both federal and state, Do they have access to those fish as they transit the Copper River into the Gulkana? So we do, for our— most people do, but not me, because I'm north of the Gulkana. I'm upstream from the Gulkana River, so I don't have those.

And, and neither does anybody at Bensoniti, Gakona. And in between. Sloughna, they have no access to that. And those early runs are the ones that go to those, those headwaters. So, okay, thank you.

Thanks, Karen. Do you want to give your other testimony at this time? Yes, ma'am. All right, go for it. So I'm Karen Lynell.

I'm the executive director for On Intertribal Food Resource Commission. We submitted Proposal 162 to restrict or clarify that commercial uses, non-commercial uses for subsistence, and we I support it. This is a newly established pattern that we're seeing. We've seen folks in the Copper River using— switch from— and under the state, anybody in Alaska can get a subsistence permit for the Copper River, and we've seen an increase in that folks from when other rivers are closed. But we've also seen a switch from our sport guides when they're restricted for Chinook on the Clutina and Gulkana Rivers, switch to transporting folks for dipnetting.

And so that's, that's why we put this proposal in. We see it farther down near Chitina as well.

We strongly support proposals 163, 164, and 165. The impact of trawl fisheries are detrimental to the longevity of populations which rely on healthy ocean habitats. It is clear we have seen examples around the country where trawling has been outlawed and negatively impact other populations, but there's also been clear evidence that when these trawling has been stopped, we've seen rebounds in populations. We support 170.

With the Board of Fish Hatchery Committee has been tasked with oversight and hatchery production based on science, and there's new scientific evidence that demonstrates competition with wild stocks is detrimental. And we've, with a Rand Ruggerone report from 2024, and we've submitted that as an RC.

Proposal 175, we've offered a clarifying amendment to say without the addition of a rope attached to the.

Handle and boat specifically for the purpose of extending the reach of the dip net into the water beyond the length of the rigid handle. And we've submitted an RC, I think it's 118, which is a YouTube video showing somebody throwing a dip net attached to a rope and dragging it back in to catch, catch salmon, which is trawling.

Any questions? Mr. Wood? Yeah, thanks, Karen. I'm—. Would you tell me what your thought is on not allowing to pay to be transported for fish for subsistence?

I just think consider the cost to the person to have to, you know, buy a motor and a boat and all that to go do it on their own. If that was the case, that to me seems more prohibitive than a Then I'm just asking if— would that prevent people from accessing? No, there's other ways to access. You can, you can access by walking out. You can access by rafting, canoeing.

You don't have to have a boat. My dad used to— when we had to move our fish wheel, from the road access, we moved it downstream. I would drop my dad off, he would go in a canoe. My dad doesn't know how to swim, but he would go in a canoe, go downriver, unload the fish wheel, pull in at the creek, and I would pick him up at the entrance of the creek with our— and pull that and unload the canoe into our pickup. I was 14, 13 years old and driving a truck to drop him off.

It's able to be done.

But I think, I'm just trying to think beyond your area, like statewide. Yes. The effects that that might have. There's other folks as well that we go home, you have family.

You can go to the gas pump and buy them gas. You know, we talked about that before, but not paying for service. And oftentimes it can turn into a guide service because they don't know where they're going if they're visiting an area. And you got to remember that we're talking about folks from all over Alaska. It's not just people going home to to harvest.

It's turned into a transport. There's no regulations on transporters, right? And those transporters can move from area to area. They overharvest in an area, they move to the next one. Unlike guide services, the specific, you know, they have areas that they stay in, and 'cause that's their, where they're doing their, their work, right?

And they have the same concern about sustainability. But transporting— they'll move from one fishery to the next, they'll move to one hunting area to the next without concern for long-term sustainability.

Thank you. And my last question is regarding the line attached to the dip net. Would you see that only being intended for— attached to a boat, or what about about if you're in an eddy and you're dealing with a rock or a log or something to anchor that net off, does that somehow prohibit you from doing that? What, what we had in our friendly amendment, we were talking about extending the reach of the net. So as in Copper Basin, they were like keeping one hand on it.

We talked about the safety of trying, you know, it you losing it so that you don't lose the dip net. But if you look at the RC that was submitted, I believe it's RC 118, it shows— it's a YouTube video of somebody throwing a dip net out about 30 feet. The handle's only this long. And then they're pulling it back in.

And that's not dipnetting. I showed it to a friend who dipnets quite frequently on the Kenai River. I said, "Look at this dipnetting." And the first thing she said is, "That's not dipnetting." You know? And so if you look at the video, you'll understand. I tried to share it with some folks here when I came a couple days ago to, They were asking about that proposal and wanting to understand it.

And it's that explanation. If you see the video, it will explain it to you. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you for your testimony. One thing. I just listened to the folks talk about the CDQs and representing 10 folks on the Yukon, 10 communities on the Yukon River. There are over 40 more that are not represented by those CDQs upriver, not getting fish.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Appreciate your testimony today. I think we'll take our lunch break and then complete public testimony at the end of public testimony.

First calls. I will take second calls and that will conclude and we'll roll into Committee of the Whole Group 1 work this afternoon. So let's all reconvene here at 1:30 after lunch. Thank you.

Okay, everybody, welcome back. The time is 1:36. We are going to wrap up first calls for public testimony, and then I'll give second calls for my list thus far, which is John Mohler, Julie Decker, Dennis Adra, Abby Frederick, Ilya Mardashev, and Leanna Harrington, after we complete this list. And so next on the list is Mr. John Vale.

Hi, John. Welcome.

There we go. Hi. Thanks for having me.

I'm the Akitat Fish and Game Advisory Chair. And I'm here for my advisory committee report. I was sent here by my AC in the community primarily to.

Work against Proposal 187, and that proposal really stirred up a hornet's nest in Yakutat. You've heard some of that.

A lot of concern with taking this in an out-of-cycle proposal, feel it didn't qualify, but we're here now.

We've got other proposals we acted on, and I'm going to go through those quickly and then come back to 187.

On proposal 162, we opposed it.

Felt it eliminated innovation and gear that fishermen could improve upon. On proposal— oh no, that's 169. We opposed it. 162.

We opposed that primarily because we have a large district at some 250 miles long with many river systems in between and a lot of fish camps spread out across our district. And people use airplanes to transport back and forth between their camps. They were concerned that this might limit opportunities for subsistence. Because we're using commercial aircraft. So that's why we voted that one down.

Proposal 180— 176, we opposed. We thought fishers should maintain their own bag limits and not a boat limit. Proposals 179 and 80, that would limit the annual limit for sports caught. King Salmon, we opposed that one largely because we have sports fishermen in our community who don't participate in commercial fisheries or subsistence fisheries, and it's the only way they get their fish. And there was real concern that by the time we get to the winter months, they wouldn't have an opportunity to catch one of the only sources of fresh fish.

So We don't think that's necessary for our area, and we voted that down. Back to 187, the, uh, Siu Kelliat area, really important to the community of Yakutat. It has been for a long time, the, uh, particularly for the commercial fisheries, which represents when the, uh, Fishery is operating normally, about 50— 40% of the commercial catch for the entire Yakutat District. The fishing zone is less than a mile long. A quarter-mile closure would represent 25% of the fishing area.

We're [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Also very concerned about the impacts to subsistence and sport fishing. All are important to us, and the proposal is simply unworkable. That closure— the river moves around regularly, and it would require a burden on Fish and Game to maintain it. And it would create a lot of animosity with other users if it was accepted. And we know that other sports fishers in the area don't support this.

I haven't talked to them, but they've been real friendly. They're past participants in the commercial fishery, and their customers are always friendly and respectful and enjoy fishing alongside us in the river system.

Uh, with only 3 minutes, I guess that's about all I got, so I'll take some questions now. Thank you for your testimony and for your AC report, John. Any questions from the board? Seeing none, thank you so much for being here. Appreciate you.

Okay, Patrick Baum.

Hi, Patrick.

Chinan to the Dena'ina people, the original stewards of this land for time immemorial. And thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board, for this opportunity. My name is Patrick Baum, and I'm speaking on behalf of the Elfin Cove Advisory Committee. Our comments can be referenced in the on-time comments, AC-12. I'd like to briefly expand on those.

Proposal 11, we supported unanimously. This proposal, we thought, is narrow and targeted. Coming from Southeast Alaska, where trawl fisheries have largely already been removed, we can sympathize with others in fixed gear fisheries dealing with gear conflicts, habitat impacts, and bycatch. Proposal 163, we supported unanimously. If a fishery wants the benefit of being treated as pelagic, It should be able to demonstrate that in a credible way.

It is a reasonable standard, building accountability into the system instead of relying on assumption. Proposal 164, we supported unanimously. Monitoring is not just about collecting more information for the sake of it. It's how the state verifies whether protections are actually working and whether bottom contact is happening in a fishery that says it's operating off bottom. Especially when federal estimates show that even so-called pelagic trawl gear can still make substantial seafloor contact.

Proposal 165, we supported unanimously. Salmon excluders are already in use and under active development in Alaska federal pollock trawl fisheries. This proposal is not asking the state to invent something from scratch. It is asking the state to use a bycatch reduction tool that federal fisheries have already been developing and using. Proposal 170, we opposed unanimously.

This proposes a broad statewide change with potential serious consequences for fisheries and communities that depend on hatchery production. Those impacts would be felt across both commercial and recreational fishing. Proposal 172, we opposed unanimously. A broad moratorium could have long-term effects on existing fisheries and future opportunities And those consequences should not be taken lightly. Proposal 176, we opposed with 1 in support and 8 against.

Catch your own fish was the sentiment. Sport fishing should remain an individual limit fishery. Once you move toward pooled harvest, you create room for abuse and confusion. Proposal 177, we opposed unanimously. Bag and possession limits are supposed to attach— supposed to be attached to the individual angler.

Once those limits start being pooled across a vessel, the rules become less clear, less fair, and harder to enforce. Proposal 178, we opposed unanimously. This would blur a basic question in sport fishing enforcement of whose fish is it. If you already have your limit, Your gear should be out of the water. Photo op fishing is not a direction sport fishing should be heading.

Proposal 179, we opposed unanimously. This lacks an important distinction between residents and nonresidents and is not a practical fit for statewide implementation. Proposal 180, we opposed unanimously. The same concern here as Proposal 179. Proposal 181, we supported unanimously.

A straightforward Fish and Game housekeeping. Proposal 183, supported unanimously. This is a practical enforcement issue. Rules about species size and possession only work if fish remain in a condition that allows them to be checked. Proposal 184, supported unanimously.

Clear— clearer and more consistent definitions improve management. When closing, our committee supported the trawl-related proposals because they advance habitat protection, bycatch reduction, and accountability. We opposed the hatchery proposals because of the concern about the consequences for fisheries and communities. We opposed the pooled harvest and statewide limit sport proposals because sport fishing should remain an individual limit fishery with rules that reflect real differences between users and regions. Not drift towards a system focused on filling the boat as quickly as possible.

And we supported the housekeeping items because clear and enforceable regulations matter. Thank you. Thank you, Patrick. Questions? Appreciate your AC report.

It was well done.

Next up is Nick Crump. I don't see any. Could I do my—. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see you on the list with personal testimony, but here you are.

Go ahead. Thank you for keeping me accountable. Madam Chair, members of the board, for the record, my name is Patrick Baum, and I'm speaking today for myself as a lifelong Alaskan, a sport fisherman, and a commercial salmon troller with an O.

Please reference PC 34 and RC 14— 114. In Southeast Alaska, the king salmon troll fishery is already heavily restricted because of stocks of concern. International agreements that limit our harvest opportunities. King salmon bycatch in the Gulf of Alaska.

Because a concern of mine, Alaska Department of Fish and Game published information in 2022 showing that the Gulf of Alaska king salmon bycatch was made up of roughly 15% of Southeast Alaska origin fish and about 75% from British Columbia and Washington combined. So it's hard to listen to trawlers say that mandating salmon excluders would shut them down, because from where I sit, If salmon excluders are not mandated, trawlers may not even be allowed to have a fishery.

I've heard trawlers say that bottom contact monitoring devices are practically nonexistent for the trawl industry, then in the next breath explain how simple and effective bottom contact sensors were used in studies to show that trawl nets are not contacting the bottom Nearly as much as people thought. I've also heard trawlers complain about the bad name they've received. The problem is that bad press does not stay contained to one fishery. It affects all of Alaska fisheries in the marketplace. When buyers and consumers hear about habitat damage and bycatch measured in metric tons, many of them are not making the fine distinctions between fisheries.

They simply hear Alaska seafood and look elsewhere. Our fisheries depend on a reputation for pristine habitat and sustainable, sustainable practices. If one fishery is damaging the reputation and value of the rest, it should be taken seriously. I have the pleasure of living and fishing in Southeast Alaska, an area where trawling has already been largely restricted for good reason through prior board action. So my request to the board is this.

Request them— reject broad proposals that would reduce hatchery opportunity without regard for regional consequences and adopt proposals that ensure the trawl fishery is held to the standards Alaskans demand. Thank you. Thank you, Patrick. Questions? Thank you for your testimony.

Nick Crump. Followed by Emily Scott and Skyler Mace, followed by Ed Soto, followed by Patty O'Donnell and Julie Cavanaugh. Hi, Nick. Welcome. Thank you.

Yep. Um, thank you, Madam Chair, ladies and gentlemen of the board. My name is Nicholas Crump. I am the chairman of the Valdez AC, and I am here on their behalf to give our public testimony. We have submitted our written comments on all the issues, but since I have a limited amount of time, I would like to use it to emphasize our strong opposition to Proposals 170, 171, and 172.

I'll start with Proposal 170, which we voted to oppose 10-0. We're all aware that the rivers in the AYK region are struggling, and we sincerely sympathize and share your concerns. However, reducing hatchery production in Prince William Sound is not going to have any positive impacts on that problem. It's only going to guarantee that our region suffers as well. The vast amount of salmon in the North Pacific are wild.

In fact, Alaska hatchery pink salmon only make up around 2% of the total adult and immature salmon biomass in the North Pacific. All salmon account for around 1.6% of the total nektonic biomass in the North Pacific, and Alaskan hatchery pink salmon only make up 0.04%. In fact, there are more pollock in the eastern Bering Sea than all the salmon in Alaska combined, and they also eat zooplankton and juvenile salmon. Although it's true that wild fish and hatchery fish interact together in the wild, it would be misleading to say they're definitively causing any significant negative impacts. For example, the International Year of the Salmon study, which was conducted between 2018 and 2022, noted that Yukon River chums tend to migrate further west along the Bering Sea, whereas Prince William Sound pink salmon typically migrate further south into the Gulf of Alaska.

Therefore, if they're not migrating into the same areas, how can they be competing with each other? The same study identified climate-driven habitat changes rather than food availability as the primary limiting factor for survival. Unfortunately, it appears the AYK rivers are the canary in the coal mine for the effects of climate change. Recent marine heat waves in the Bering Sea that have melted the ice shelf, along with the extreme heat and cold spells in the river systems themselves, have created an unstable environment. Fish are dying upriver before they can spawn, and fry are small and weak when they outmigrate into the saltwater.

By comparison, Bristol Bay has been having terrific returns consistently. Their fish also migrate out into the Bering Sea, but they are probably more successful because they spend more time in a giant lake, which is a much more stable environment than a river system when it comes to dynamic temperature changes. The effects of extreme temperatures due to climate change could be considered a direct causal link as opposed to any hatchery links, which would be correlative at best. With all that in mind, it's very unlikely that reducing hatchery permits by 25% in Prince William Sound will achieve anything beneficial for anyone. The same can be said for Proposal 171, which our AC also voted to oppose 10-0.

On years when the Kenai isn't doing too well, the old faithful scapegoat has been to blame hatchery competition. However, during discussions with Cook Inlet fishermen and biologists, it appears that sockeye populations in the Cook Inlet are currently robust, strong, and healthy, so there must be plenty of food out there. A more prudent question might be, how can commercial fishing prevent over-escapement issues in the Kenai River system and the finite carrying capacity of Kenai Lake? The other aspect of this proposal are the concerns regarding hatchery strays. Pink salmon along the entire West Coast are very genetically similar with neutral genes that control things like eye color.

But there's also a smaller percentage of genes known as adaptive genes that control things like run timing or threshold to temperature. Over thousands of years of natural selection, the salmon have adapted to each stream or river's unique conditions and have developed an optimal run timing for those streams. But with all that in mind, remember that hatchery stocks are native wild stocks that have originally came from a wild stream within a 50-mile radius of the hatchery location. These wild stocks have been straying with each other for thousands of years, and it seems like common sense that if a hatchery stray and a wild fish are able to successfully spawn with each other, then their run timing must be pretty darn close.

ADF&G, the local processors, and the hatcheries themselves have in good faith been funding and supporting a research project known as the Hatchery-Wild Interaction Study, which was conducted by the Prince William Sound Science Center. They found that when— they found that when a hatchery stray spawns with a wild salmon, they were 50% less likely to have returning adults in the next or F1 generation. However, the researchers on this project noticed that the hatchery salmon would swim much further upstream than the native wild stocks, who would mostly spawn in the lower intertidal zone of the stream. It's very likely that the conditions upstream are just less productive and hospitable from floods, freezes, and other variables. It could also be that the offspring were just harvested, eaten by predators, or strayed to another nearby stream.

The grandchildren, or F2 generation, improved to around 73 to 85%, which indicates they are adapting to the river conditions over time and that the issue appears to be self-regulating. Which probably explains why after 50 years of hatcheries in Prince William Sound, each stream still has its own unique identifiable strain of genetics. I've also been told that the— a new study is going to begin this summer to test out the upstream versus lower stream survival conditions and will hopefully provide more insight into those variables. As for Proposal 172, RAC voted to oppose it 9 to 1. Uh, one person voted to support the idea, but only because he felt it's a good idea to discuss and research these topics, which is fine since it seems the more research is done, the more the hatcheries are vindicated.

Overall, RAC believes the commissioner has the sole authority to permit hatchery operations and that the board's authority is strictly with the allocation of common property resources. However, or having two agencies with the same authority can add to conflict or confusion. We don't believe there is sufficient or conclusive scientific evidence supporting the notion that hatchery salmon are having negative impacts on wild stocks. Therefore, we do not support the reduction of hatchery permits issued by the Commissioner, nor do we support restricting the Commissioner's ability with a moratorium. We ask that you oppose all three of these proposals.

Thank you very much for your time and your thoughtful consideration. Thanks, Nick. Any questions? Thank you for your AC report. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Emily Scott and Skylar Mace.

Welcome back to the mics.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members.

To the board. My name is Emily Scott. I serve as the secretary on the Sitka Advisory Committee. The Sitka AC represents a vast diversity of interest groups with designated seats, including hand troll, seine, resident sport fish, subsistence, power troll, hunting, longline, trapping, processor, charter, guide, conservation, along with 2 alternates and 2 at large. You can see our voting summary and corresponding meeting minutes in AC6.

Proposal 162, the AC took no action. Discussion focused on whether this practice is already effectively prohibited under current law and what qualifies as commercial transport. Concerns were raised about the definition of commercial transportation and whether it could unintentionally include situations such as reimbursing a friend for gas or fuel. After being transported to a subsistence harvest area. With limited clarity, we ultimately voted to take no action.

Proposal 11, we unanimously supported 13 to 0. Although the proposal falls outside the immediate area, members engaged in a broader discussion about trawl impacts on Southeast fish stocks and economy. Members expressed strong concerns about bottom trawling, habitat damage, and effects on halibut stocks. Members noted that pelagic trawl gear is frequently on the bottom, echoing concerns raised in Proposals 163 through 165. Members emphasized that the Bering Sea serves as nursery grounds for species that migrate through the Gulf and down to Canada, meaning impacts extend well beyond the region.

They see— supported the proposal as a way to slow habitat damage affecting the entire coastline, citing reports of significant halibut mortality associated with trawling and research showing migration along the West Coast. Proposal 163, the AC supported unanimously. Building off the discussion on Proposal 11, members discussed the reality that some, quote, pelagic gear can contact the bottom and that gear could be built to operate on the seafloor even if labeled pelagic. AC members noted that current gear definitions allow flexibility, but the proposals create a clear verification pathway. Members noted concerns raised by the industry, including claims that Proposal 163 could presume guilt, monitoring costs for Proposal 164, and operators' claims that they do not fish on the bottom.

AC members emphasized that these proposals establish measurable compliance and accountability rather than punitive rules. Members highlighted the high volume of product and discards in state waters, supporting stronger regulation. Members framed the proposals as a first step toward broader state and federal alignment in defining and managing pelagic trawl gear, which is operating on the seafloor. Accordingly, the AC supported proposals 163, 164, and 165 unanimously. Proposal 166, the AC supported unanimously.

ADF&G staff in the meeting noted concerns coming from the Kodiak jig fishery. Although directed at Kodiak, the change would apply statewide, including Southeast fisheries targeting black rockfish, lingcod, and Pacific cod. The discussion reflected concern about creating statewide restrictions for a regional issue and potentially forcing Southeast fishermen to modify equipment unnecessarily. Others noted possible loopholes involving multiple baited hooks deployed in a longline-style configuration while labeled as jigging. Ultimately, despite reservations, the motion to support 166 passed unanimously.

Proposal 167, the AC opposed unanimously. The AC raised concerns about practicality and enforcement. Members noted that many vessels carry multiple gear types for efficiency and flexibility, including combining longline, pot, trawl, and subsistence gear. Concerns were raised that the proposal would create unnecessary inconvenience, particularly for combo operations, or those setting subsistence gear while engaged in another fishery. Members felt Proposal 166 already addressed the core concern and that additional restrictions were unnecessary.

Proposal 168, the ACA unanimously opposed. Uh, discussion centered on enforcement versus regulation. Members expressed concern that the proposal would create complications across multiple fisheries and set a problematic precedent. Many Southeast vessels routinely carry and use multiple gear types, like pots and hooks for halibut and black cod, longline, slinky pots, troll gear with other equipment, and the proposal could significantly disrupt common fishing practices. ADF&G had noted that the proposal would impact several southeast-directed fisheries, including rockfish, lingcod, peacod, and black cod.

Members concluded that if improper activity is occurring, enforcement should address it and not add additional regulation. Proposal 169, we unanimously supported. Viewed as a housekeeping proposal. And I will turn it over to Skyler. For the record, my name is Skyler Mace.

I hold the hand troll seat on the SICA Advisory Committee. Um, I'll probably be a little quicker than Emily. Um, Proposal 170, uh, the AC viewed this as an externally driven measure, and it was unanimously opposed as all user groups viewed this as a major threat to our community. Proposal 171, We took no action as it's outside our area. Proposal 172, it was brought to us and we had some discussion that there's a process in place with communication between the user groups and the commissioner, and we unanimously opposed it as we thought it would affect all our groups in our community.

Proposal 173, we, uh, we supported unanimously as we viewed it as a housekeeping proposal. Proposal 174, after hearing from our same rep— representative, he concluded that he posed no issue for it, so we supported it unanimously. Surprisingly, Proposal 175, I might have the most to say out of all these things. As written, we view this as not a statewide issue, and there was no conservation concern in our area. We opposed it 0 to 13.

There's a lot of discussion over this. And one of our big things as well, we haven't been able to buy a new dip net in Sitka in over 2 years. The local stores that carry them have been calling the manufacturer that makes them and they haven't been able to get a hold of them, haven't been able to buy anything. So if this were to go through, everybody in Sitka would be buying a new dip net. And we thought that was detrimental as readout is a 20 or 30-minute boat ride, and it's the largest contribution to subsistence sockeye in Southeast.

Proposal 176, we opposed 1 to 14. The proposal we thought could increase harvest, weaken residency distinctions, complicate enforcement strain allocations during low quota seasons, and affect effectively legitimize practices that may already be occurring but are not legal. Several members characterized this proposal as a slippery slope away from individual accountability in sport fishing.

Proposal 177, we took no action based on our comments in 176. Proposal 178, there was 3 in support and 12 against. I would also like to mention this was an AC member-generated proposal. And although it was an AC member put, put it forward, we viewed the language as overly broad and potentially creating the same enforcement and allocation concerns raised under proposals 176 and 177. Several members expressed concern that the wording could effectively allow fish to be transferred to someone who's still needed that species, thereby functioning as a de facto boat limit.

And 179. Proposal 179, we opposed unanimously. We thought this is— should not be a statewide mandate, especially for our area where the language would read a 20-inch minimum, as in Southeast that's a 28-inch minimum, and it could unintentionally override or conflict with existing regional frameworks. Proposal 180, we opposed 0 to 15 for similar concerns as Proposal 179, minus the 1 or the 20-inch minimum provision. Proposal 181, we supported unanimously as we viewed it as a housekeeping proposal.

Proposal 182, we took no action as we considered it out of our area. Um, and then Proposal 180, the 183, based on the proposal as written, we opposed 1 to 14. However, based on Member Carpenter's RC129, our discussion that we had in the room that day, I thought more closely aligned with his RC. So I guess I would say if that was in front of us at the time, we probably would have supported it. And then proposal 184, we supported unanimously as we considered it as a housekeeping proposal.

And then proposals 186 and 187, we took no action because we considered it outside our area. And that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Well done.

The CITCA AC continues to consistently bring forward very informative AC reports. I want to thank you for that. Any questions? All right. Thanks.

Appreciate you.

Next up is Ed Soto.

Welcome.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the board. My name is Ed Soto. I am a current Matanuska Valley Committee member, and I'll be testifying today on behalf of the AC. I'd like to draw your attention to AC 18, which is our meeting minutes, and RC85, which is simply my testimony submitted forward. So thank you.

Starting with Proposal 186, the Matsu AC unanimously supported this proposal. This proposal is about reaching escapement goals for Coho salmon in the Matsu streams. The AC is very concerned over the lack of Coho escapement for spawning in Matsu streams and rivers and the restrictions placed on local harvest opportunities for the last few years. In department staff comments for Prop 186, Table 186-15, the Deschka and the Little Susitna River alone have not met sustainable escapement goals since 2019 and 2021, respectively. The Central District Drift Gillnet Management Plan uses sockeye escapement numbers on the Kenai and the Kasilof Rivers to drive management of Upper Cook Inlet drift fisheries.

However, it is likely that Matsu-bound coho are being intercepted by additional drift fishing allowed when Kenai and Kansilof sockeye reach threshold escapements. This proposal would require the department to restrict additional drift opportunities by limiting additional fishing time to the expanded Kenai, Kansilof, and Anchor Point areas when sockeye escapement goals exceed published escapement thresholds to protect northbound coho. The proposal was further amended to include adding the department's ability to further restrict Central District drift gillnetting when Cook Inlet indices fall below midpoint of the sustainable escapement goal. Next, I would like to comment on Proposals 11, 163, 164, and 165 on trawl fisheries in state waters. The AC supported Proposal 11 and opposed 163, 164, and 165.

The AC is overall opposed to any trawl fishery in state waters. Our reason for opposition is due to the bycatch of king salmon along with other non-targeted pelagic and ground fish, while other users continue to remain under restrictions or closures. Additionally, we are concerned with environmental impacts resulting from bottom contact during pelagic fisheries. Reference hatchery proposals 170, 171, and 172 addressing the amount of pinks and chums released. We overwhelmingly supported with only one opposed and two abstaining from the three proposals in aggregate.

The AC recognizes the economic value of hatcheries. However, we are concerned over the potential impacts of wild fish stocks, which should have a priority, particularly in light of dwindling king stocks. Much of our discussion centered around the lack of information available to make informed decisions, and therefore this fishery should be managed conservatively until it can be shown that there are no impacts to our wild stocks. For Proposal 162, prohibiting commercial transport in subsistence fisheries, the AC unanimously opposed it. To be clear, we understand this to be transport services with no fishing occurring from the transporter's boat.

Similar to a water-bound Uber, if you will. Given sustainable populations, Alaskans should have the ability to subsistence harvest utilizing a transporter, as many locations can't be reached with those— by those without a boat. Being able to subsistence fish should not depend on one's exclusive ability to purchase a boat to get to the fish. The Matanuska Valley AC supported both Proposals 176 and 177, pooling and possession bag limits on vessels by a 7-6 split vote with the following pros and cons. This was a very difficult proposal for us.

We deliberated quite a bit on this. Lots of pros and cons. On the pro side, we looked at people who had little time and opportunity to fish, went out there as a family, had perhaps elderly, disabled individuals that maybe couldn't necessarily pull the weight fishing. And this was the family's opportunity to put fish in the freezer. By sport fishing that particular day.

Additionally, on the con side, we thought this might be difficult to administer with charter operators and possibly create some regulatory ambiguity. And finally, for Proposals 179 and 180, which proposes an annual limit to king salmon harvest, the Matanuska AC strongly supported both proposals, with the majority of members recognizing that harvesting king salmon in saltwater areas of Alaska has impacts on king salmon stocks. Since most of which are those are in decline, we support the annual limit. Thank you, and pending your questions. Thank you, Ed.

Questions? Mr. Svenson.

I would like to address the— you know, the compiling the fish, and I'd like to address this to our legal— not our legal, but No, it isn't. Okay, well, I guess I'll wait.

Thanks, Ed. Thank you, ma'am. Appreciate it.

Next up is Patty O'Donnell and Julie Kavanaugh. Followed by Crystal Lapp and Virgil Umpenhower, and then Umpenhower and Lapp combined for the AC. Welcome.

Excuse me. Good morning, members of the board, chairman. My name is Julie Cavanaugh, and I am the vice chair of the Kodiak Advisory Committee. You can find our minutes recorded on AC 16. Our members, our members are designated seats that consist of representatives from the big game guide and outfitter sector, the setnet sector, crab, herring, salmon processor sector, subsistence, trawl, Large Boat Crab, and various communities across our island village communities, as well as several concerned citizen seats and alternate seats.

I believe that our members represent a number of industry and community perspectives that provides this board with a diverse discourse on board proposals.

With that, I'll turn it over to Patti to begin going over our—. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the Board. For the record, Patti O'Donnell. I sit on the AC in the trawl seat.

Proposal 11, this was supported by the AC 11 to 2. There's a bit of discussion about it, and the ASC appreciates the intent of the proposal to protect seafloor habitat and feels protecting seafloor habitat within the state waters is important, particularly in the AI areas with vulnerable corals. There's a lot of other areas in the ASC where trawling can occur outside of the state waters. Trawler grounds near ADEC, which will help support ADEC's efforts to restart A processing plant in the community. Smaller Western Gulf of Alaska trawl vessels that go to AI to fish can use pot gear instead of trawl gear and will not be negatively impacted.

Trawling is destructive, as evidenced by Ocean's film David Attenborough. In the opposition to it, footage from Ocean's features outdated European trawls found in the 1980s, while Alaska trawl gear has innovated considerably. Since the 1980s, modern bottom trawl gear used in Alaska has evolved to reduce the impact, the footprint from 90% down to 10% with modified sweeps and any of the— Ipekat aggregate mainly on a narrow shelf. And if you look at a chart out there, you'll see, and I did look at a chart, ADAC still continues efforts to re-open a fish processing plant out there, which trawl deliveries are very important, and limiting trawls counterproductive. Proposal 162, this was supported 14 to 0.

Transportation services are supposed to be— in what are supposed to be subsistence fisheries have become a significant problem around Kodiak, particularly for king crab prohibiting. The use of transportation services would make enforcement of the king crab subsistence fishery easier since there is no sport fishery around Kodiak. 163, 164, We took in combination, and, and, and that was, uh, 12 to 1 opposed. Pelagic trawl gear, non-pelagic trawl gear are very different from each other, and combining them together.

As proposed, it's like apples and oranges. This proposal is unworkable and would shut down trawl fisheries. Changing the definition of trawl gear as proposed would create greater inconsistency with federal regulations, which make it harder on trawl fishermen who fish in state fisheries, federal parallel— federal fisheries and parallel fisheries. Nobody on the AC is familiar with the proposers, the Alaska Healthy Habitat Alliance. 165, This was opposed 13 to 0 also.

Implementing this proposal as written would be very difficult and expensive because each trawl net is essentially custom-built and have— and an excluder must be built into a specific net. Salmon excluders have already been widely adopted by the trawl fleet. The proposal indicates the proposer did not talk to trawl operators or any ACs, and it would have been very beneficial if Alaska Healthy Habitat Alliance reached out to trawlers and ACs to develop a more workable proposal. Uh, 166, to define mechanical jigging machines more specifically. This— there was support for this, 14 to 0 support.

This proposal works in conjunction with 167, to better prohibit cheating in the jig gear fishery. In this case, cheating means vessels are supposed to be fishing in the jig fishery with jig gear but are instead using longline gear or pot gear. Which are more efficient gear types that catch a lot more fish much faster. This proposal would help enforcement by clearly defining jig gear, make it easier to discern if illegal gear type is being employed on a vessel. And, uh, that pretty much covered, uh, 167 is just prohibiting vessels from having other groundfish gear or equipment aboard while, uh, participating in a groundfish fishery using mechanical jigging machines or hand-troll gear.

This, uh, as amended, the proposal would read: In the statewide jig fishery, vessels registered to jig Pacific cod in Prince William Sound, Cook Inlet, Kodiak, and South Peninsula regions may only carry mechanical jigging machines and hand-troll gear. Longline gear, reels, drums, and slinky pots are prohibited on board while prosecuting the fishery, traveling to and from the grounds, or offloading jig cod harvest.

The support— the amendment just clarifies that the prohibition only applies while fishing for Pacific cod and that the prohibition does not apply to Southeast Alaska. It was acknowledged that different fisheries in different areas of the state operate differently, but that the issue of using pots in the jig fishery around Kodiak has become a real and significant problem in recent years and needs to be addressed. The jig season has been shortened considerably in recent years, going from unusually— from usually closing in May or even later by regulation to closing at the beginning of April. Observations of suspicious behavior by the problematic vessels, including only fishing at night, lights off, and in heavy weather, 40,000-pound loads and piles of longline snaps on deck, which is highly unusual for jig. J-Boats.

Just add that in there. 169, Create a definition of groundfish coil spring or, or slinky pots. This proposal creates a clear definition for a slinky pot and is supported by enforcement, and I believe at this time there is no definition. And I'll hand it over to Julie. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to pick up where Patty left off on Proposal 170, 171, and 172.

We opposed all three of these proposals, 0 to 13. For 170, for all of these, there was one abstention because they felt like they didn't understand the biological and scientific issues and they lacked the information to be able to vote. The opposition to these proposals shared, shared a common theme, but on Proposal 170, they received some information from the Kodiak Regional Aquaculture Association, and the cutting hatchery production being reduced by 25% was expected to have economic consequences, which would lead to unexpected consequences and ripple effects. Pink salmon hatchery production helps fund other hatchery projects and would, would be jeopardized by this proposal. The hatchery plans in our area are subject to public review and oversight through the regional planning team process.

And the— and it was noted that the Alaska hatchery production is just a very small portion of releases across the Pacific Rim and have not increased in the '70s. We have some of the biggest wild pink salmon runs around Kodiak and Prince William Sound in the last decade, and those did occur alongside hatchery production. 171 Require the changes— require changes in Prince William Sound hatchery production sufficient to reducing strain. Obviously, it was opposed to 0 to 13. The opposition said that the chances of Prince William Sound pink salmon strain and negatively impacting Cook Inlet runs would be unlikely.

And the issue is within the purview of ADF&G Commissioner and the RPTs. The issue should continue to be managed at that level, and we felt that this proposal was vague and did not clarify how, for example, changes would be required and what level of reduction in strain is desired. Proposal 172, we were opposed to the moratorium basically because it felt like there was no, there was no clear pathway on how the moratorium could be lifted or how communities could start new hatcheries, and that it was, it was potentially beyond the board's purview in regard to hatchery management.

173, We supported 14 to 0. We felt like that was a housekeeping proposal and makes sense. 174, Allow the engine of a purse seine vessel or skiff to be shut off when the purse seine is deployed. This failed 2 to 12. Opposition: The status quo works and changes requested in the proposal are unnecessary.

In addition, this proposal effectively creates the ability to utilize a seine as a trap, which is prohibited in regulation. For example, these nets could be left deployed in shallow water as the tide recedes. Support was— the reasoning was that just lots of people do it and it does not seem to be causing a problem.

If anybody is interested in 176 through 180, we have some comments on there. Several of them, I believe, are important. Are they in your AC 16 minutes? They are. Okay.

Any questions?

All right. Thank you for your— Report, as always, very detailed and excellent.

Moving on to Crystal Lapp.

And are you doing the AC testimony or your personal testimony first? This will be personal testimony first. You got it.

Sorry, I had to clear my throat. Chair and members of the board, thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Crystal Lapp, and I'm speaking today as the board president of the Northern Alaska Environmental Center, specifically regarding the Yukon Stock of Concern action plans for the Yukon River King and Yukon River Fall Chum. First, I want to acknowledge— I acknowledge the seriousness of the declines affecting Yukon River salmon. These stocks are critically important to ecosystems and to the communities that rely on them for food security and cultural continuity.

The department's action plans recognize that declining salmon productivity may be influenced by multiple factors beyond direct harvest, including habitat impacts, environmental variability, and broader ecosystem conditions affecting marine and freshwater survival. However, many of these drivers identified in the plans fall outside the authority of the Board of Alaska Fisheries.

The board's primary tools for fishery regulations, as you know, is seasons, gear types, and harvest limits. But the board does not regulate habitat development, water quality, land management decisions, or ocean ecosystem conditions that may be influencing salmon survival. Because of this, it raises an important question. If the ecosystem and habitat issues are major drivers of these declines, how will the measures proposed in these plans meaningfully address those drivers? It's also important to recognize that the Yukon River communities have already experienced significant restrictions.

Commercial fisheries have been closed and subsistence, subsistence harvest opportunities have been dramatically reduced, if not completely restricted. Moving forward, I encourage the board to support stronger collaboration with agencies responsible for habitat and environmental management. I especially encourage the agency to work with interdepartment agencies such as the Department of Environmental Conservation, ADFW,.

Gee's own habitat division in collaboration with tribal governments and especially with the Yukon River Intertribal Fish Commission.

Hang on, my computer's being weird. I also encourage collaboration with the watershed councils to strengthen the research, monitoring, and stewardship within the Yukon Water River Shed. This is just more so an act of encouragement. And not really offering any solutions at this point. This is just based off of our opinion.

So thank you. Thank you, Crystal. Any questions? Ms. Irwin. Yeah, thank you so much, Crystal, for your, your report from the Northern Environmental.

My question, I guess I heard you at the end say that, you know, you're not exactly providing specific solutions. I guess my question would just be, of what's been offered and on the table for the current action plans, which is status quo or fish-friendly fish wheel definitions, is there any opinions from the Environmental Center on those two options for this action plan?

Through the chair, thank you, Miss Irwin, for that question. Um, our board has not completely deliberated on the specific options that are available right now. However, we do want to caution against imposing gear regulations that could create increased cost for rural communities and rural users. If that option were to be taken, we would encourage the department to seek funding to help those rural users update any, any gear that they would need to do. Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you, Crystal. And Mr. Umpenhower, would you like to do your personal testimony right now? I was going to give half of the AC testimony first. Okay, well, if you guys want to do your AC testimony, that's fine. I just need to know which one you're going to do.

Okay, what I want to address is the—. Which one are you doing? Are you doing your personal or are you guys going to do the AC? My name is Virgil Umpenhower. I'm on the Fairbanks AC.

Okay, you're gonna do the AC. Got it. Okay, in fact, I'm the senior member on the AC, or been on it the longest. Anyway, I want to address the hatchery proposals 170, 171, 172. In 1996, the Elfin Cove Advisory Committee put in a proposal to the Board of Fish to restrict the hatcheries to the original intent of rebuilding depleted natural stocks.

As a result of that, the board met in— look at RC 12— the board met in Ketchikan in 1997. I'm going to just read the first little bit. The Hatchery Committee was formed in response to a proposal which was first considered in Ketchikan in 1997. This proposal suggested that the board limit hatchery production to conform to the original intent of the Hatchery Program, which was to rebuild wild stocks. In February '97, this proposal was tabled and the committee formed.

And so this report here, RC-12, was dated October 27, 1999. After that, look at RC-11. RC-11 is from If you go down to the bottom, it's the middle. It says Dan wrote Rob. Okay, Dan was chair of the Board of Fish.

Rob was deputy commissioner for Fish and Game. I want you to know clearly and unequivocally that unless something comes out of the department or governor's office by mid-January, there will be board action on the hatchery proposal. We're not going to postpone it anymore. While I don't know the results, what the results will be, they may not be to everyone's liking, particularly since hatchery production has had some consequences for wild stocks because of strain and because of economic issues. So do what you can about this because the issue problem is not going away.

On the issue of a rogue future board which loves hatchery production, I'll take my chances. After all, in the eyes of some, the current board is a rogue board. I mean really, sustainable fisheries, inquiring to BEGs, etc., etc. Remember the issues which need to be addressed. Production, legislation clarifying lines of authority, board/commissioner, increased sockeye production, how we treat fish, Chinook.

Also in the mix is division of investments and loans.

Could you please convey this message to the governor's office one more time? We absolutely want to work out a solution which is acceptable to all of the parties, but in the absence of a solution, the board has before it a— in January/February, an issue which is 4 years old, which the board will take action on at this upcoming meeting one way or another. The opportunity exists to deal with the issue, and I hope this opportunity is not ignored. I won't read the rest of it. What happened is the hatchery folks got together with the governor, promised to reduce their production by 25% if the board did not I mean, if the— if the board would not take up that proposal that had been deferred for 4 years.

Now I want to just read a little dab of RC 13, and that is the— maybe I got mixed up. No, I didn't. Anyways, from Aaron Peterson, the attorney for the board. What Aaron said— I think my papers got mixed up— anyway, totally opposite of what the person testified to, the other attorney. Basically what he said is the board has authority to regulate the harvest, whether the fish are from our hatchery-produced fish or they're fish that are natural wild stock.

Now if you look at RC 56, What happened at that mega meeting, because we had to do AYK, Bristol Bay, and area, all in one meeting, because we did what Proposal 186 wants done now. We did that back in '99. And when we did it, we made the guy that was chair of Senate Finance mad, so he reduced our budget because he was chair of— he was a Kenai River— I mean, he was a Cook Inlet drifter, and we restricted them. And so he restricted our budget or took 35% of it away. So we had to do all 3 meetings in 1 meeting anyway.

But what ended up happening is the book is RC 56, which is a joint protocol on salmon enhancement between the Alaska Board of Fisheries and Alaska Department of Fish and Game, which has been totally ignored since then. I'll just read the first little bit. In actions taken in January 2001, June In 2002, the Alaska Board of Fisheries stated its intent to institutionalize a public forum to bring a statewide perspective to issues associated with hatchery production of salmon. Accordingly, the department and board agreed to enter into this joint protocol to coordinate department and board interaction on certain aspects of salmon hatchery policy and regulation.

And then if you read RC 113, just a little first part of it, it's written by Ray Hilborn and Doug Eggers. Ray Hilborn was the co-chair of the— and this hat of mine, Art's the only one in the room that has one like it— is people that were on the Hatchery Committee or people that were on the committee that wrote the sustainable Fisheries Policy. Ray Hilborn was from the University of Washington, and Doug Eggers, the other author of this study, was the chief fishery scientist for the Department of Fish and Game. But it's just a review of hatchery production for pink salmon in Prince William Sound and Kodiak, Alaska, where they basically said what's happened in Prince William Sound is there's no more wild pink salmon left. They're all hatchery salmon.

They've been totally replaced by pink. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Crystal. Do you have an addition to the AC report? Madam Chair, yes, I do.

Thank you, Virgil. So the committee's recommendations, full recommendations, can be found on AC 13 in your meeting materials. At our February meeting, the Fairbanks Advisory Committee strongly supported hatchery proposals 170, 171, and 172, which address hatchery egg take levels and hatchery production capacity. Capacity. The committee also supported proposals 11, 163, 164, 165, 173, 180, 181, 182, and 184.

We also opposed, opposed proposals 162, 175, and 183. The Fairbanks Advisory Committee had raised concerns about hatchery impacts for many years. During the discussion this year, members referenced the growing body of research showing that large-scale hatchery production can, can affect wild salmon through competition for marine food resources and straying into wild spawning streams. These concerns are supported by research conducted through the Alaska Hatchery Research Project, a collaboration between ADF&G, NOAA NPS, and the University of Alaska. Research beginning in 2012 documented that hatchery pink salmon straying into wild streams in Prince William Sound exceeded established thresholds, including the 2%.

Target identified by the Prince William Sound Comprehensive Salmon Plan. Members also discussed how hatchery strays can inflate wild escapement estimates, making it more difficult to determine whether sustainable— whoops, my computer today, guys.

Sorry, guys, it updated and it's being weird.

Additional studies from the Alaska Hatchery Research Project found that hatchery-origin salmon spawning in natural streams can produce substantially fewer returning adult offspring than wild fish. In some cases, less than half as many. This reduced reproductive success can lower the overall productivity of wild populations when hatchery fish interbreed with natural stocks. Despite these findings, hatchery production levels in the Prince William Sound remain extremely high. Alaska's hatchery program was authorized under the principle that hatcheries must operate without harming natural stocks and while maintaining effective segregation between hatchery and wild fish.

When state-supported research shows persistent hatchery straying above established biological thresholds, the committee believed it was appropriate for the board to carefully evaluate whether current production levels are consistent with that mandate. For that reason, the Fairbanks Advisory Committee unanimously, unanimously supported proposals 170, 171, and 172. Wild salmon remain the foundation of Alaska's fisheries, ecosystems, and communities. When credible scientific evidence suggests a potential impact to wild stocks, precautionary management is warranted. And that is our report.

Thank you. Thank you. 30 Seconds left. Well done. Any questions?

Thank you for the AC report. And Virgil, would you like to provide your personal testimony? Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Virgil. I've been Involved in fisheries for a long time.

I want to first just clarify what I couldn't find a while ago, and that is Aaron Peterson was being questioned by John Wood in 2020 about the authority of the board over hatcheries production. John Wood says, do you see any ambiguity in the wording of that subsection? And that this is all part of RC 13. And, uh, so Aaron Peters said, no, and again, I'll point out the consistent advice from the Department of Law has been that the statute means what it says. And so that has been the consistent advice from the department for the better part of 3 decades.

So John Wood says, thank you very much, I have no other questions. Then Israel Payton, who was a board member at the time, Says thanks. I'm going to ask you the same question in a different way, I guess. In your opinion, does the statement the number of salmon eggs apply to both wild broodstock and returning hatchery broodstock? Aaron Peterson.

Through the chair, Member Payton. Advice from the department has been yes, that it does, and that's, as I said before, been consistent through the memo And if you were— would look at the House Journal talking about 440(b), it specifically states the role extends to regulating those fish that result— which are returning as a result of natural systems and also from hatchery releases. So that's from the House Journal from 1978— no, I'm sorry, 1979— talking about the purpose of that bill. Chair Marisky, further question— board questions for Mr. Peterson? Having none, thank you, Mr. Peterson.

But I wanted to just clarify that, that, that has been the Attorney General's Office opinion for almost 3 decades. And so what I want to say now is really personal to me, and that is that Most people that have testified are worried about not making money. That's what almost all of them are worried about. They're opposed to the hatchery situation, hatchery proposals. There's all kinds of evidence out there, all kinds of it, and it's just plain common sense.

My, a lot of my family were farmers, and I grew up in Arizona where it's all ranchers, or lots of ranchers. All farmers and all ranchers know how much livestock their land that they farm or ranch on will support under varying conditions of weather, what the habitats will support. And if there's a drought so that the conditions are not good—. If you'd like to conclude—. Wrap it up— done—.

Go ahead—. Then they cut back on their production because they know that their land will not support that. What we have here is hatcheries. When the because the ocean basically is in a low regime of productivity, so similar to a drought on land, they keep dumping all these fish in the ocean. And Alaska for the last several years has averaged 1.9 billion a year, mostly pinks and chums.

Thank you. Thank you, Virgil. Ms. Erwin has a question. Thank you, Virgil. As an original author of the Sustainable Salmon Policy, do you believe that the current management is upholding subsection C1D, which requires wild salmon stocks to be protected from adverse impacts of artificial propagation and enhancement?

Specifically, do you think that Alaska's hatchery program is adequately protecting and rebuilding the depressed stocks? No, in a lot of ways sustainable salmon policy is being totally ignored. The other part is a precautionary principle that has really been ignored lately. And so, and the people that participated in this thing. We had our own scientists when we did it.

We had Mr. Hilborn from the University of Washington as one of the co-chairs, and then we had— I'll think of his name in a minute— but he later became the head of the Alaska Science Center, and he had been previously the chief fishery scientist for the state. And then another person that's still here in the state, lives in Homer, was also one of our scientists. And we spent— we started on this basically in 1995. We finally finished it and signed it, the board signed it in the year 2000. And so the year when we had to do all AYK, Area M, and Bristol Bay all in one meeting, then that was the first time we had used the sustainable salmon policy.

We spent a lot of time on on the stocks of concern portion of it. And it's all mostly definitions is what it is, because what caused us to do that to begin with is we had no definition of what sustained yield was. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you, Virgil.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you. That concludes first calls. I'm going to go back and go ahead and do second calls from this afternoon Beginning with John Moeller.

Julie Decker.

Dennis Zadra.

Abby Frederick.

Welcome. Would you like to give your testimony? You can go ahead and sit down at any of the mics. Turn the— press the button and it'll turn on. There you go.

Hi, Board of Fisheries members. My name is Ilya Mardashev. I'm a third-generation fisherman. I was born and raised in Homer, Alaska. Excuse me, could you pull the microphone down a little bit?

There you go, thank you. All right. Hi, Board of Fishery members. My name is Ilya Mardashev. I was born and raised in Homer, Alaska, where I still live with my family.

I got a 3-year-old boy son. I'm a third-generation fisherman. This is my third Board of Fishery testimony. I strongly care about commercial fishing. I small-run drift boat here in Cook Inlet, and I'm testifying to oppose Proposition 186.

Proposition 186 is a bogus outcry from the hook and line fishery with no real data but from two heavily, heavily fished rivers. Which there's 1,200 coho streams and watersheds for more data which was presented. Please consider our loss and suffering as well. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Any questions? Thank you for your testimony today.

And last on my list today is Leanna Harrington.

Leanna here?

Okay. That concludes public testimony. Well done, everybody. Let's go ahead and take about 30 minutes to set up for for Committee of the Whole Group 1, and we will begin Committee of the Whole Group 1 with— which is Commercial Fisheries.

And Mr. Wood will chair that, and we will get started at about 3:15. Thank you.

Okay. Welcome back, everyone. We are on the record. The time is 3:18. And in terms of the agenda, I kind of wanted to just kind of talk through this for a second.

I want to make sure that we have enough time to have a full, good discussion about Committee of the Whole Group 1. And our chairman is racing to the front here.

[Speaker] So there's a couple of scenarios. If we can, if we move through Group 1 relatively quickly and we have time to do Group 2, we'll do that this afternoon. What I suspect will happen though, and I wanna make sure that we have opportunity for folks to develop some substitute language or have any ongoing conversations around compromises or perhaps consensus on some of these things, is what's most likely to happen I think is that we'll move through Committee of the Whole Group 1, pause for the day, come back tomorrow morning and deliberate Committee of the Whole Group 1. And then tomorrow afternoon, take up Committee of the Whole Group 2 and 3, and then deliberate Groups 2 and 3 on Saturday morning. But again, that's— those are a couple of the different scenarios.

It's going to be really predicated on how much of a conversation we have on these 12 proposals this afternoon. But I just kind of wanted to throw that out there. So people can be prepared. Either way, we will be deliberating Group 1 tomorrow morning. So I just wanted to let folks know that, that if you are here for Committee Group 2 or 3, it might be, it might be tomorrow afternoon that we do those.

So slight adjustment to the agenda, but I'll keep you informed definitively as we wrap up with Committee of the Whole Group 1. For those who are unfamiliar, for our committee work, we typically follow parliamentary procedures, the New England town hall meeting style. So it's a lot more informal than public testimony. Committee meetings are intended to provide opportunities for additional information gathering and at times hopefully for dispute resolutions. Committees are not a forum for debate.

So the back and forth tit for tat stuff, if that starts to develop, the committee chairman will move on. Or for repeating information that has already been received through public testimony. We have received a lot of public testimony, a lot of information. Public comments, I think 500-some-odd on-time public comments. So we really want to pull out information and nuanced information that we haven't dug into yet.

Or had presented to us. Also, during the committee meetings, the advisory committee representatives may express both the official positions of their committee as well as their own personal views. But it's really important that you just identify which of the two positions you're stating. So just be very clear about which hat you're wearing. Um, the board recognizes that the AC reps are knowledgeable fisheries leaders and must be able to function freely during these committee meetings.

Also, during the committee meeting, if you haven't been to one in a while, we have moved from the roving mic to a standing mic. So we ask folks that are interested to please come forward and use the microphone over here at the corner of the room or the corner of the table. We would appreciate it if a line formed behind the speaker at the podium in order to sort of minimize that waiting time in between the comments. Also, when you speak, please start by stating your name for the record, even if you have already spoken earlier. It is really important that we have a clear record.

So every time you speak, please make sure that we know who is speaking. Please don't refer to anybody by name or in a derogatory manner. Again, we're looking for new information only. We ask that you don't repeat what's already been said in public testimony. And if people start repeating the same points, the committee chair is going to move on into the next— to the next proposal.

And if substitute language is being developed or you feel it should be developed, please to what the substitute language says or what you think it should say. And also sort of deviating from our normal procedure here a little bit, we're going to start out with a couple of department slides just to orient us to some of the topics under discussion. Not all of them. I think we've got a few troll-related. The department's going to walk us through their maps that were on the, on the website under their reports.

And, and then we'll go ahead and turn it over to Chair Wood for this I will also note that for this committee, the action plans are part of this committee. So we're going to go through, we're going to follow the roadmap and go through each of the proposals and then conclude this committee by taking up the action plans that we have under consideration at this meeting. OK, with that, I'll go ahead and turn it over to the department and then Mr. Wood, you can take it away from here. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. My name is Nat Nichols.

I'm the area manager for commercial shellfish and groundfish fisheries in the Kodiak Chignik, and South Alaska Peninsula areas. As you just heard before us today, there are 4 proposals that address the use of trawl gear in state waters. One is specific to the Aleutian Islands, and 3 have statewide implications. So the Aleutian Island one is Proposal 11, and the statewide proposals are 163 through 165. Staff comments for these proposals can be found in RC2, and this presentation can be found in RC123.

These proposals address fisheries that are not— that do not frequently come before the board. So I have a few slides to walk through some definitions and a few maps to help visualize the closure areas. Before I begin, I will say that these are some of the most complex fisheries in the state, both from a regulatory and operational standpoint. I have personally worked adjacent to these fisheries for over 10 years, and I still struggle somewhat to articulate some of the fine details, but I will try my best to guide us through these proposals as we move forward. First, here on the screen, this— there's been a lot of discussion here about, about what the state regs for trawl gear say.

This is, this is the definition of trawl gear for Alaska in its entirety. A trawl is a bag-shaped net that's towed through the water to capture fish or shellfish. That's the definition of trawl gear. Underneath that, we have 3 types. We have a beam trawl.

This is typically, this is used in shrimp fisheries and not, not really what's being discussed here, although depending on the action taken, it could affect beam trawl fisheries. What we are really talking about here is, is this Part B, otter trawls. So these, these are the nets that we think of when we think of groundfish trawls. These are spread by doors, so sometimes these are called door trawls. And then we get to Part C, and I will read it: a pelagic trawl is a trawl where the net or the trawl doors or other trawl spreading device do not operate in contact with the seabed, and which does not have attached to it any protective device such as chafing gear, rollers, or bobbins that would make it suitable for fishing in contact with the seabed.

Trawl gear is regulated by how the gear is operated and not by how it is configured. Non-pelagic trawl gear is configured in such a way that would make it suitable for fishing in contact with the seabed. I'm going to take a step back here. I will note that there is no definition for non-pelagic trawl gear. The definitions we're looking at here on the screen, this is it.

So I will be clear when I say this: non-pelagic trawl gear is configured in such a way that would make it suitable for fishing in contact with the seabed while pelagic trawl gear may not include reinforcements to protect the net from seabed contact. If, if a trawl net does not include these reinforcements, it is considered pelagic trawl gear regardless of whether it is operated in contact with the seabed or only within the water column. This is the operational definition that is used in practice.

Next, we're going to move on to the different types of trawl fisheries that occur in Alaska. At the top here, we, we're going to start with the federal fisheries. So this is, this is the vast majority of trawl fishing that happens in Alaska. The federal trawl fisheries are managed exclusively by the National Marine Fisheries Service, NMFS, and prosecuted in federal waters 3 to 200 miles offshore. Harvest from federal fisheries are deducted from federal total allowable catches, or TACs, established for each species and management area.

So that's the federal fishery. Next, moving to state waters. There are separate state waters trawl fisheries that occur from 0 to 3 nautical miles that are managed exclusively by the State of Alaska according to board regulation. Harvest from statewater fisheries are deducted from fishery-specific statewater guideline harvest levels, or GHLs. There are two of these.

There are two statewater trawl fisheries. There's the Prince William Sound Pelagic Pollock Fishery, and then in the Aleutian Islands Subdistrict Pacific Cod Management Plan, there are four gear types allowed in that fishery. Bottom trawl is one of those gear types. So the Prince.

Prince William Sound fishery is a standalone exclusively pelagic trawl fishery. The Aleutian Islands state-managed peacock fishery has 4 different gear types: pot, jig, longline, and trawl, and bottom trawl. So that's an important distinction when we're talking about these 2 state waters fisheries. Prince William Sound pollock is a pelagic fishery. The Aleutian Islands state-managed peacock fishery does allow bottom trawl gear.

The third category here is the one that sometimes gets the most confusing. So this is what we call the parallel fishery. So concurrent to federal trawl gear fisheries, the state opens parallel trawl gear fisheries inside state waters under state jurisdiction. In areas where parallel fisheries occur, the state adopts most federal rules and management actions inside state waters by emergency order. However, the Board of Fisheries maintains authority to establish management provisions independent of federal regulation for all parallel fisheries.

Harvest from parallel fisheries accrues against federal tax. So parallel fisheries are authorized annually based on regulatory direction provided by the board. Each year the department issues emergency orders that act as the formal handshake that allow federal fisheries to come into state waters. So the parallel fishery is essentially an extension of the federal fishery that we have allowed to happen in state waters. And I will take a second here just to point out that By and large, the utility of the parallel fishery is a seamless transition across the 3-mile line for fishery participants.

That is generally how it is most useful. We let the same fishery happen on both sides of the line.

Next here, we're going to move into a selection of maps that I put together just to give a real high elevation overview of state waters trawl fishing. We'll start in the east and we'll move west through the state. As we do, the regulatory landscape will get progressively more complex. So it's not this figure, but I'll start with Southeast Alaska. It is closed to groundfish fishing with trawl gear.

Limited exploratory permit authority exists, but my understanding is that those permits are rarely requested or issued. So Southeast Alaska functionally does not have any groundfish trawling. Prince William Sound. So this is what's on the screen right now. Statewater pelagic trawl pollock fishery occurs in Prince William Sound.

This is the only entirely state-managed pollock fishery in the state. The guideline harvest level is based on 2.5% of the federal Gulf of Alaska pollock ABC. Which for 2026 equated to 7.3 million pounds. Bycatch limits are established by the department for rockfish, salmon, and a shark squid other category.

And that is that one. I'm going to skip past Cook Inlet. I will note that Cook Inlet is closed to groundfish fishing with trawl gear. There's no state-managed trawl fishery or parallel trawl fishery in Cook Inlet. So that brings us to the Kodiak area.

And I'll— so the Kodiak area and the Chignik area are entirely closed to bottom trawling, but mostly open to pelagic trawling. Over the last 5 years, 7%, or roughly 13.9 million pounds, of the federal Central Gulf of Alaska pollock ABC has been harvested in the state waters of the Kodiak and Chignik areas, mostly in the Kodiak area. Closures exist to protect steller sea lion forage, and those are mostly in the Chignik area. I apologize for the discrepancy of the Chignik areas in this figure. South Peninsula, most waters are closed to bottom trawling with the exception of two discrete areas, which I apologize are not highlighted, but they are near Sanak and Kupreanof.

State waters are mostly open to pelagic trawl gear, but closures do exist to protect, uh, Steller sea lion forage. Over the last 5 years, 25%, or 12.1 million pounds, of the federal Western Gulf of Alaska pollock ABC has been harvested in state waters of South Peninsula area. So this area has the highest proportion of parallel pollock harvest of any area in the state. As I said, Kodiak and Chignik take about 7% of the Central Gulf. The South Alaska Peninsula fleet takes about 25% of the Western Gulf pollock in the parallel fishery.

Next, we're going to move— this is the Bering Sea District. Most state waters are closed to bottom trawl with the exception of an area around the north side of Unimak Island, which I apologize is difficult to see but is in blue down at the very, very bottom of this figure. State waters are mostly open to pelagic trawl, but again, closures do exist for the protection of steller sea lion forage. Less than 1% of the federal Bering Sea— less than 1% of the federal Bering Sea groundfish ABCs are harvested in the state waters of the Bering Sea. Next, we'll go to the Aleutian Islands.

The Aleutian Islands is a vast area, so we've broken this up into a couple different figures. This is the portion of the Aleutian Islands District that is just north of Dutch Harbor. And you can see in this figure, almost all the state waters are closed to trawl gear. These figures— these next two figures are different than the figures that we have seen before. The Aleutian Islands, again, is a vast area with multiple fisheries targeting groundfish species using both pelagic and non-pelagic trawl gear within state waters amid a complex framework of gear and gear and species-specific closure areas.

What we've done here in these figures, because the area is so vast, if we— when we tried to map this by showing the closures, it was really difficult to see what was open. So these figures are the opposite of what we've been looking at. These are just showing the open areas. So this figure is showing the area of the Aleutian Islands open to pelagic trawl gear. So that's mid-water gear, pelagic trawl gear.

And this next figure is the same, but it's for non-pelagic or bottom gear. The Aleutian Islands, as I mentioned before, the Aleutian Islands Statewater Pacific Cod Management Plan allows bottom trawl gear to be used in state waters along with pot, longline, and jig gear.

This is the only entirely managed— the only entirely state-managed groundfish fishery. That exists in Alaska that allows the use of bottom trawl gear. Again, similar to the Bering Sea, less than 1% of the federal Aleutian Islands sub-area groundfish ABCs are harvested in the state waters of the Aleutian Islands.

Madam Chair, that concludes my presentation. Thank you for that orientation. And before we get into the full committee work, are there any questions from members?

Okay, thank you for that. Thank you for that. That's super helpful. And I will go ahead and turn it over to Mr. Wood. Mr. Wood.

Okay, thank you, Madam Chair. Um, no need to repeat, um, everybody thinks I'm nice, but I'm going to put on my member carpenter face. Um, so when you come up here Sorry, it's not working. Um, we'll start with the proposal. The department will read it off.

Then I'd really like the author of the proposal to come up and speak to it first. And anybody wants to comment on it, please get up and stand behind the author and, uh, and make your comment. And please give us new information. We've had 3 days of testimony, so the new information is critical. And also, if you could just contain yourself to come up once to the mic instead of repeated times.

That would really help. So we'll begin with Proposal 1.

Mr. Chair, Proposal—. Yes, there's two of those ones. 11, Please.

Mr. Chair, Proposal 11, 5 AAC 28.650, closed waters in Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands.

The author would like to speak to Proposal 11.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. For the record, my name is Linda Kozak, and I submitted Proposal 11 and also RC-115, which I submitted last evening. Just a very quick something that I hadn't really shared with the board. In 2022, I was a member of the Alaska Viachich Review Task Force, and when we were— I was on the crab subcommittee, and when we were discussing trawl closures around the state, I was frankly shocked after being in the council process for 30 years that much of the Aleutian Islands was open to bottom trawling, whereas being around Kodiak and in the Gulf of Alaska, I fully expected that all of state waters was closed to bottom trawling.

When I found out it wasn't, I began to think about that quite a bit. And I wanted to make it very clear that while I collaborated with a golden king crab harvester, this is my proposal. This is something that I feel strongly about. In fact, I was chair of the Bycatch Advisory Council and I resigned from that position prior to my retirement so that I could submit this proposal. I didn't want to have any kind of a conflict.

And so I wanted to make that point clear. I also wanted to reference the staff comments And the Pacific Ocean Perch— I mean, we're talking about the amount of state waters that are open to bottom trawling right now. It's over 2,200 square miles of state waters. That's not counting federal waters that's open to POP. That's state waters that are open in the Aleutian Islands.

I submitted RC-115 last night to modify the proposal for bottom trawl gear over 100 feet, and I have some good reasons for doing that. And part of that has to be responsive to the small boat fleet out of Kodiak and Sandpoint. And I feel that this also addresses the concerns that ADAC had. We heard in public testimony that they're looking for slower amounts, lower volumes, and being able to come in and have a high-quality product. And I think vessels over 100 feet would help accomplish that along with the potboat efforts there.

In 2005— and it was mentioned that 20 years ago there was an industry discussion— in 2005, I was involved in those discussions. I was working with a different golden king crab harvester at the time. I've been doing golden crab since the early '90s. And we were involved in the discussions with the National Marine Fisheries Service on the areas to close. And I might The reason I'm telling you this is because the Amendment 80 fleet, which is the fleet that we are concerned about, was not in existence at the time.

They became a functioning cooperative and allowed to fish as a cooperative in September of 2007, with the Secretary of Commerce signing those regs that the council had passed in 2006. So in 2005, yes, we had industry discussions. Mostly it was industry talking to the National Marine Fisheries Service and the North Pacific Council, and it wasn't necessarily industry-to-industry negotiations. So I wanted to make that pretty clear that the fleet that I'm referencing was not in existence at that time. I would like to bring your attention also to RC 83.

There's a great summary in RC 83, and it is Basically, straight out of the North Pacific Council website, and it speaks to the closure of Bowers Ridge, which is a little over 5,000 square miles, and it says that the action that was taken was taken as a precautionary measure. And this is with limited submersible— there was a limited submersible where they found the coral gardens, but it was limited information. And so as a precautionary measure, they prohibited bottom contact gear, mobile fishing gear that contacts the bottom in this area, about 5,200 square nautical miles. So I looked up last night, I thought, what does precautionary mean? Precautionary describes actions taken in advance to prevent danger, harm, or unpleasant outcomes, essentially meaning preventive or protective.

And so what we're asking you to do today is to consider taking precautionary precautionary measures in the Aleutian Islands, to review our modified proposal and to pass that so that we can protect the habitat in the Aleutians. Thank you. Thank you, Linda. Any— go ahead. To that point, Linda, in your opinion, um, are the under 100 feet, you know, um, non-pelagic The ground trawl not doing as much damage as you were initially concerned about, or is it damage is damage?

Thank you, through the chair. I— the— what I attempted to do is respond to primarily the concerns of the Sandpoint fleet, which is under 60, but I didn't want to create a situation where the state would have to rewrite a whole bunch of regs, and the state allows after at March 15th, I believe they can move from 60 to 100 feet if they deem it appropriate to do. And that's why I put in the 100 feet. I believe firmly, based on conversations that I've had with the industry, conversations that I've had with scientists, conversations that I've had with factory trawlers, that the small boat fleet— you heard testimony about someone who said their net got tangled up and almost the boat— the back of the boat almost went down. Well, in the Aleutian Islands, and you have a 188-foot boat with 4,000 horsepower, that's not going to happen.

And so no, I, I completely don't think that this is inconsistent at all. And these limited cod fisheries— only two vessels have really prosecuted the state waters cod fishery. And I think that it's really inappropriate to put those guys out of business if they choose to do that. They are fishing pots. This year, but I did— I do agree that they're having minimal and temporal, probably, impact to the bottom.

And I think you heard public testimony that the small boats are trying not to fish cod on the bottom because of the very thing that you heard about with the entanglements. And so they're completely different from the rock hopper gear that we're talking about with these large highly and very powerful vessels. Thank you. Member Chamberlain, and then Member Irwin. Thank you very much, Linda.

My question for you is, there was a comment earlier made today from a testifier about seeking potential action outside of this process, of doing a different meeting to take up some of these issues. And I guess my question to you is just, is your thoughts and feelings about this proposal coming up at this meeting or future meetings? Thank you. Through the chair, I, I have seen public comments that have requested that the groundfish proposals be referred to the Joint Protocol Committee, which is consisting of 3 board members and 3 North Pacific Council members. So I went back and I reviewed the 2009 revised protocol agreement.

It was very interesting to me because in the protocol agreement At the October work session, the board is to look at any proposal that they have that might have some kind of inner— something that, that the North Pacific Council might be interested in, and then they are to notify the council and request a joint protocol meeting or have reports or whatever. It's a line of communication between the two entities that was developed, and it was developed years ago and then revised during some of the very contentious PECOD discussions when the State Waters PECOD came into existence. And, and further in that protocol agreement, the North Pacific Council is supposed to reach out to the board if there are proposals that they would like to also have addressed. And as a matter of fact, at the October North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting of last year, of 2025, the State of Alaska provided a detailed summary to the North Pacific Council in regard to all of the actions currently going on in state waters that had anything remotely to do with federal, and that was peacod, golden crab, et cetera, et cetera. At the tail end of the report, and you can read it at the North Pacific Council meeting minutes, the State of Alaska provided a report on all the Board of Fish proposals coming before you that were involving groundfish, including my proposal.

And it is interesting to me that at the October work session or the PCOD meeting, neither the department or the board identified my proposal as something that needed to be looked at by the Joint Protocol Committee. The North Pacific Council, when they received the report about these, did not identify, neither their staff or the council themselves, that this was something that was appropriate for the information exchange that was developed in the memorandum of understanding between the two bodies. That being said, I understand I understand where the board might be coming from, and I understand the public comments that are coming forward, and I have seen people use the Joint Protocol Committee process from the industry side, not from the regulatory side, as a delay tactic. I'll just say that. And so that's kind of what I believe is going on.

I believe you do have enough information to to make a good decision. And I believe that you've had plenty of time to review this and hear from staff there. The crab plan team, ADFG, has scientists that are very familiar with the habitat and the golden king crab fishery, and they sit in Kodiak and would love to have conversations. So I, I think you can take action. That's basically what I got to say about joint protocol.

Thank you, Linda. Member Carpenter. Yeah, thank you, Linda. Thanks for, you know, giving us your feedback on that part of it. I guess I have one question.

You said earlier that you've been involved in the golden king crab part of this for 30 years, I think is what you said. And you also talked about in 2005 when, you know, areas were looked at by industry and the federal government and the state, and quite a bit of area was closed at that time. And we've referenced the 5% that's currently open. And I guess what I'm trying to figure out is, is if the Amendment 80 boats came into play, I think you said 2007. Well, it's 2026.

And if habitat was such a big issue, how come 20 years later is the first time I've heard this brought up? Through the chair, that's an excellent question. And I think I answered that in my opening comment, and that was in 2022 when I served on the Bycatch Review Task Force. Force, and we received presentations from the department regarding closed areas.

I was not aware that the state waters in the Aleutian Islands were open to the extent they are. And when we talk about 5%, we're talking about a 1,200-mile range. So we're not talking about a mile here or a mile there. There's significant amount— and in fact, in the POP, as I indicated, it's about a little over 2,200 square nautical miles. That's just POP.

And other species that are non-steller sea lion forage fish. So yes, maybe this is something I should have thought of and brought forward, but during my career working in the North Pacific Council arena, I rarely came to the Board of Fish until the last couple of years. And I was predominantly working on regulatory language that involved the fixed gear fleet that I represented, the hook and line, the peacod boats, halibut longline pot boats. And the golden king crab harvesters in the North Pacific Council arena. And yeah, my bad.

I should probably have taken a look at these, but serving on the Bycatch Task Force opened my eyes. I'll just have to say that. It really gave me an eye awakening about, oh my gosh, these areas are open. Why are they open? And that's kind of the genesis of how I began to think about developing a proposal.

And this was the board meeting when you're taking up statewide finfish to propose the action.

Thank you. I got a question. I'd like to clarify. Member Carpenter said these have been in place since 2007, and you said you started noticing in 2022. So 15 years had passed.

Had you noticed any declines prior to that, or impact on habitat or declines in crab? Oh, thank you. Since there's been 15 years. Thank you, through the chair. This is, it gets really kind of technical when you're dealing with the development of the GHL, OFL, ABC, the TAC, and then moving into the model that we have now with golden king crab and how that, the CPUE that is experienced in that fishery determines the fishery, has never been able to have a survey, a bottom trawl survey, like the Bering Sea crab fisheries do.

And the reason for that is because of the distance. It's the, the entire Aleutian chain is golden king crab habitat. And the also, because of the configuration of the bottom, it's an un— they can't do it. They can't do a bottom trawl survey. So we've been working with the department to try to develop some, um, added research that will help them to figure out where we are in developing the catch limits, if you will.

And I believe you heard testimony that starting— there were a lot of closures that were put in place, and then some of those closures were eased up because of the status of steller sea lions. And because of that, my understanding is trollers began moving into areas where they traditionally had not been for years. And so since the '90s, and so we began to notice some declines, but to be honest with you, my attention when I was working in the council process was representing my clients on their issues. Okay, thank you. Knees are starting to buckle behind you, so we're gonna Unless there's no more questions, we're going to move on.

Thank you, Linda.

Virgil Lempfenhauer from the Fairbanks AAC. AAC voted unanimously to support this proposal. And I want to say this: when I got on the Board of Fish in 1994, the board did not— there was no state waters groundfish fishery. We started that when I was on the board. And when we closed all the waters around Kodiak Island, I'm the board member that fought like crazy to get them closed to hard-on-bottom trawling.

But anyway, a lot of people, when we decided to take over the management of the groundfishes inside the 3-mile limit, a lot of people thought that was a bold move, but That's what the board did at that time. Thank you. Thank you, Virgil. We got one question from member Irwin. Virgil, why did you guys close the state waters around Kodiak Island?

For the same reason— destruction of habitat. And also, I knew a guy that worked for Tyson as a skipper on a factory trawler, and he told me there's no way in hell that crab can rebuild theirself as long as factory trawling is taking place. Where they get on the bottom. And they— it has to be a whole crab back then, and I guess it still does, to even count as a crab being caught. Thank you, Virgil.

No more questions. Next.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name's John Hillsinger, and some of what I was gonna say has been covered by Linda Kozak, so I'll keep it as short as I can. Um, the Stellar Sea Lion restrictions were in place for many years, and the fleet didn't notice any problems with trawlers. And it wasn't until around 2014 that those restrictions were relaxed. And soon after that, we began to hear issues raised by the crab fleet about, uh, trawling on crab grounds.

And so we went to the crab plan team in the fall of 2016 and presented the issue. And at that time we documented that there was extensive trawling going on in the same areas where about 88% of the golden king crab catch occurred. And we also took the issue to the to the Scientific and Statistical Committee of the Council. So we kind of focused in that federal realm. And— but we have brought that up multiple times over the last 10 years.

And I guess we just didn't think to put in a proposal to the Board of Fisheries. The second issue came up in public testimony today. About the, uh, how the harvest level is set. And Linda mentioned this a little, uh, the OFL and the ABC are set in the federal process using a computer model. And whatever number comes out of the computer model, that's the number.

And the biggest input into that model is the fleet's catch per unit effort. And the model basically assumes that the population size is proportional to the catch per unit effort. So if the catch per unit effort goes down, the model will indicate that the population has gone down, and when they calculate the overfishing limit and the allowable biological catch, that will go down. There's no survey. There's a survey in the eastern area, but it's not included in the model for the eastern area.

And there's no survey in the western area. So, again, the main, the main input that determines the outcome is the catch per unit effort. And so, if you have damage to habitat or other things that impact that catch per unit effort, you will see the, the overfishing limit and the allowable biological catch go down. Thank you. Thank you.

We got a question from Member Carpenter. Yeah, thank you. A couple things.

Are there other things that tend to make CPUE go down as well? Well, one thing that would happen if If the prime crab grounds are preempted by other gear types or other fishermen, you may then— they're fishing in less productive grounds. You'll see the CPUE go down. And so in that case, even though the population may not have declined, the model will indicate that it has because the CPUE is down. Okay, and then my other question is in regards to, you know, the modeling and the CPU input into that model to kind of come up with the GHL.

Is there a reason that they do it that way versus doing surveys?

It's very extremely difficult to survey out there. They started with the survey in the eastern area and They've done that now for approximately 10 years. They've begun to look at incorporating the survey data into the model, and it hasn't worked out real well, so it remains to be seen whether that survey data can be incorporated into the model. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER] So is that— so is the main reason that they're struggling to, you know, do on-water, you know, surveys, I guess is what we call them, is because.

The effectiveness of a trawl survey with the topography and the bottom in that particular area doesn't allow the— doesn't allow for the ability to do a very exclusive survey? I think it would be hard to do it with a trawl, but the other thing would be the cost. And so the way that that survey in the eastern area works, the fishermen actually do the survey. They go out there and at the beginning of the season they fish random stations selected by Fish and Game and set their pots in those areas. And then they could be areas that they typically do fish, but they also are often areas they don't ever fish.

And so it's attempted to be a stratified random sample. And And so that's been the way that's been feasible to do it. And it's just been really, really difficult to do it in the western area because of the size of the area, the fact that there's only 2 boats that fish there. And in order to do enough samples in order to get a good survey number, it would be prohibitive for those 2 boats to do that. But specific to the reason that they can't use a trawl to do the survey, there's an obvious reason why they can't use a trawl to do the survey, which is the most effective way to cover this— a lot of area to come up with a model for a GHL.

And what I think I'm hearing you say, and I think what I heard Ms. Kozak say, was it's because it's really difficult to set a trawl in this area because of the topography. Is that not what I'm hearing?

Through the chair, Mr. Carpenter, when we first came up with the idea of doing a survey, we met with Department of Fish and Game, Chris Sidden, who's the chief fishery scientist for marine, and this was the method that he recommended for the Aleutians. And so I don't recall that there ever was too much discussion of doing a trawl survey. NIFS does a trawl survey out there that I think has a little bit different purpose, but they've had a very difficult time making that trawl survey work. And it has never— we've looked at the results from that survey to see how it compares with the models that they use, and it hasn't compared real well. So I think it's kind of both ways.

One, we didn't have the money to charter a boat to do a trawl survey, and two, based on Nymph's experience, we weren't sure that it would really work. Okay, I appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you. We'll go to the next person.

Mr. Chair, members of the board, Kevin Delaney, Kenai River Sport Fishing Association. May seem odd that Kenai River Sport Fishing Association would be here testifying on trawl issues, but at the request of our board of directors, I accepted an appointment to the Governor's Bycatch Review Task Force, and I'm now vice chairman of the Commissioner's Bycatch Advisory Council. Be real brief here. We continue to support Proposal 11 if it is amended to only affect vessels over 100 feet.

We are also still in firm support. And to save some time later on, proposed the next 3 proposals that deal with trawl. In spite of our best efforts, they're still somewhat confusing to us. But listening to the presentations during the board meeting, We've moved from no position to supporting them on concept, and that's the best we can do. But thank you very much.

Thank you, Kevin. Next.

Thank you again. For the record, Steve Minor with the ADAC Community Development Corporation. Side note, I've been involved in the golden king crab fishery myself since 1999. I'm an initial issue of quota in 2005 when the program was created. I manage not just my golden king crab quota in the Aleutians, but the golden king crab quota for 3 other entities.

So I of all people certainly pay attention to bycatch and trawl issues in the Aleutian Islands because it affects my pocketbook pretty directly. However, I also have a responsibility to the community of ADAC, which is itself a recipient of Golden King crab quota. And I want to talk a little bit real world stuff here. I can sit here like anybody and talk about crab plan team models and, you know, CPUE rates and ground preemption fights between crab boats, which are a real thing. But let's talk about my charge.

My charge is, is this: right now in the Aleutian Islands, Black cod, halibut, and statewater Pacific cod have all been stranded in the water since the closure of the ADAC plant. There is no mechanism for those fisheries quotas to roll over to other sectors or other regions, so tens of millions of pounds of fish have been staying in the water since, what, 5 years now? We're working pretty hard and pretty diligently to put together a deal to restart processing in ADAC. To get that fish out of the water. And I just want to, for the record, tell you what that looks like.

It doesn't just benefit ADAC or the fishermen. It represents over a 10-year period $7 million in state fisheries business taxes, $1.1 million in ASMI seafood assessments, $767,000 in fuel taxes. Thank you. Didn't you have an RC? Is this in an RC?

This is in the RC. Thank you. So we can look at that RC if you want to refer to it. Okay, thank you. So new information, please.

Yes.

I think the point I'm trying to make is you are listening to one or two members of a sector that I'm a part of and not the other 38 members, and the biggest beneficiary Oddly enough, of reopening the ADAC plant is the crab fishery, because these guys right now are having to backhaul— and I'm one of them— all the way to Dutch Harbor, losing time on the grounds, incurring additional dead loss on our boats, additional time and fuel to feed the crew and power the engines. And we need to reopen that plant, and we need the Pacific cod. And unfortunately, because of the way that the fishery occurs out there, where all the fish aggregates over a 4 or 5 week period, we rely on 58-footers as much as we can, but we need additional trawl capacity for those 4 or 5 weeks. And that's just the hard reality of the Western Aleutian Islands. Thanks.

We got—. Thank you for you. Thank you. Yeah, I've got a question for you. Yeah.

So what's the city of Adak's leverage You're in discussions with the processors. Is it tax breaks? Is it a lease break? Is it the city's property? Because I'm trying to understand the negotiating process and understand that the lack of certainty could be a problem for a processor to come in.

But what is the city's leverage in that negotiation process? ACDC as a community quota entity is— No, it's the fishery. —Leading up the— negotiations, and I'm on part of that. I'm a member of that team. Got it.

And it's our role to bring it in. The city is, you know, nice folks, but we're the seafood entity. Thank you. Thank you. Next testifier.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Todd Loomis, 25-plus-year resident, split my time between Anchorage and Cooper Landing. It's been a number of years since I spoke to the board. Former federal fishery observer. I worked for National Marine Fisheries Service for about a decade, supervised Anchorage, Anchorage office, Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor.

And then I worked for the Amendment 80 sector for about 20 years. So it's important, I think, for the board to understand that even though Amendment 80 passed, you know, 2006 or '07, whenever it was implemented, that fleet didn't just materialize after they created Amendment 80. Those boats had been fishing since the '90s, some of them sooner. They've been fishing in the Aleutians since that time. There was a foreign fishery out there for many years.

So there's— Memen-80 originally consisted of 28 boats. I think there's 14 boats that are still active. A number have been retired, some of them have sunk. And I believe there's about 9 that are actively fishing in the Aleutian Islands. So there's a long history out there.

It's not like there's new entrants that have come in. If anything, it has shrunk. Also, I was on the Stellar Sea Lion Mitigation Committee for a number of years, going through both the 2010 and 2014 biological opinions. Some people have spoken about— that aren't in the fishery— spoken about new effort coming into new areas in 2014. That did not happen.

What happened was in 2010, they closed a bunch of areas. So for a period of 4 years, there was no atka mackerel fishing, no cod fishing, and no pollock fishing in the western Aleutian Islands. Zero. Half of 542, the central Aleutians, was closed. They got sued.

National Marine Fisheries Service lost, and in 2015 Some of those areas opened back up. So it's not that new areas became, you know, were pioneered. It's they went back to old areas that had been fished for decades and decades prior. And I think that's all I have to share. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next. Madam Chair and the board, my name is David Capri. I have fished in Alaska waters for 28 years. Beginning in 1977, right out of high school. Since 1981, I used to deliver to floaters out there.

And for the last— well, then in 1997 when the base was closed and then over the last— over the 5-year attempt to put an operator in the ADAC plant, you know, out there. Anyway, this has been a difficult situation due to the remoteness of the site. Until this week, I didn't know anything about them trying to reopen it. And ADAC plant would be actually a good idea because it's more convenient for all the vessels in the WAG to deliver there since it saves us 2 to 3 days run to Dutch. We actually, when it was open, and we, we really loved having it open.

It was great. So, you know, for our amendment of Proposal 11 is to protect the habitat. That's what it's about. And for the future of this, all the fisheries, I urge you to consider passing amended Proposal 11. That's all I've got.

Thank you.

Chair, Ron Kavanaugh. We participated out in ADAC prior to the last plant that ran there. We participated out there with the floater, and there's a lot of information from when we were there that doesn't correspond with what's going to happen. First off, habitat was brought up. I've been before this board at least 3, maybe 4 times when we were trying to amend the ADAC state water fishery.

And we brought forward a proposal to remove the trawlers from that fishery to slow down that fishery so we could have a better quality of fish. There's a lot of hate and discontent from people that I made angry. So that was brought before this board, and it was directed at habitat, and it was directed at quality of fish being brought into the cannery. There's— when you're— there's talk about bycatch out there and the lack of it. And when you're— you need educate you yourself on the roller gear that's used out there.

When you're running over this ground with bobbins that are 14 to 24 inches tall, you're probably not going to get a lot of crab in the cod end. So there's, you know, your question about why there's a state water trawl fishery out there. It's the only one in the state of Alaska. That was a relic of when they developed that state water fishery. That mobile gear type could get out there during that time when those fish aggregated and catch those fish and get out of there.

It wasn't spread it out, you know, support the community for 6 months. It was get those fish out of the water, bring the processor and those boats out of there. So the argument that you need this state waters to support the community of ADAC with a new plant is not— yeah, it's, it's not reality. When we— one of the proposals we brought forward was to separate that trawl time. What happened when trawl started?

Ended up with a race for fish. Our quality went from number 1, number 2 quality, to number 3 with a handful of number 2s. Number 3 is fit for dried fish. A lot of that goes to Africa. Um, so in order to get quality fish in ADAC, you need a slow-paced fishery.

The problem is when the price of cod goes up, everybody wants that cod. So that's your new information. Thank you. We're going to move on to Proposal 163. Mr.

Chair, Proposal 163, 5AAC 39.105, types of legal gear. Would the proposer like to get up and speak to this? And anybody else who wants to speak to it, start lining up.

Thank you, Chair, for inviting us to speak and introduce these proposals. My name is Emily Scott. I have Linda Banken and Jamie O'Connor on behalf of the Alaska Healthy Habitat Alliance, which submitted Proposal 163 as well as 164. Um, these two proposals intend to verify that pelagic trawl operations are consistent with existing definition and regulation, um, in response to concerns raised from the department and enforcement, including cost and lack of regulatory clarification. There is alternate language provided in RC 145 submitted by Member Irwin This language simplifies and combines Proposals 163 and 164.

The updated language incorporates the mechanism for verification provided in 164 into a clear enforcement guideline, um, originating from Proposal 163. The intent remains the same: verification of regulatory compliance with the existing gear definition of pelagic trawl. Proposal 164 provides the mechanism The intent of these proposals is compliance, not monitoring. Um, for Proposal 164, we've submitted RC144 with more information about available bottom contact sensors. In response to information supplied in RC40, we wanted to clarify that the intent of the proposal does not include a requirement for real-time data transmission to the department and that the existing sensor technology would accomplish the goal of verifying compliance with the current gear definition.

Using one bottom contact sensor attached to the foot rope. In addition, RCs 135, 136, 137, 138, 142, and 143 provide additional information on habitat impacts, trawl vessel size, home port, and fishing activity in state waters. Examples of the types of penalties other state fisheries live and work under in state waters. Further information on the fishing effects model and other helpful information. We would also like to draw your attention to RC-134, which includes an additional 197 signatures and 4 additional businesses to add to the 944 signatures and 12 businesses who are supporting these proposals submitted in PC-9.

Thank you, Emily. Mr. Carpenter. Yeah, thank you, Emily, and I appreciate you putting all that on the record. Could you touch briefly on yours or your organization's support for the idea to bring a lot of these nuanced proposals that I think are new and quite confusing to the public generally to the Joint Protocol Committee?

You want to take that one? Yeah, thank you. Through the chair, we understand—. Could you please state your name? I'm sorry, Linda Benken with Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association, part of this coalition.

I have just a little bit of my voice left, but I'll try to be heard. So we understand that there is a fair bit of information gap between the years of development of a pelagic trawl definition by the Council and what this Board understands about management of pelagic trawl and trawl, and that the time that could be spent in the Joint Protocol Committee would help to— for you to gain more of the information that's available there. I think like Linda Kozak, we read into the record those protocols. We understand it's not a decision-making forum. So we are hopeful that after going through that process, increasing the understanding of the proposals, that this would be something that would come up again before the board.

If you don't take action on that today. Thank you, Linda. I really appreciate you doing that. Thanks, Linda. Is there anything more you wanted to say while you're up there?

I did. Thank you, Linda Bengtson. Still, I wanted to speak a little bit to our 143 that's put in there. I heard in public testimony a fair bit about the fishing effects model that is really the basis for determining the level of impact to habitat. And just to note a couple things about that model: one, it doesn't consider corals that grow in less than 300 meters, which is roughly 160 fathoms.

So most of state waters, and over 68% of the biomass of corals known in Alaska are actually within.

In less than 300 meters or 150 fathoms. So a big part of the biogenic habitat that we've been concerned about is not covered by that fishing effects model. That model also only allows consideration of ages of habitat up to 50 years. We know that corals can live to be up to 1,000, so it's truncating impacts in that way as well. It also is averaging habitat elements within an area as far as estimating impact.

And in doing that averaging, it includes boulders, cobbles, as well as bryozoans and corals. So I would just make sure that in thinking about the impacts to state resources, that you understand the limitations of a theoretical model and that you continue to review the wide body of literature that's out there that we've also provided in our season as footnotes that documents the impacts of trawl gear on habitat. Thank you. Thank you. Next.

Hello. For the record, my name is Jamie O'Connor with the Alaska Marine Community Coalition, which is a member of the Alaska Healthy Habitat Alliance, and we are co-authors of Proposals 163 through 165, represented now through RC 145 and 146. 46, So I'll be speaking to RC145 today right here. I just wanted to share that we worked diligently to help Ms. Erwin incorporate feedback from the department enforcement, the board, and public comment into this amended language. We believe that these edits elegantly reinforce our original intent, which I wanted to, to clarify here, which is to verify off-bottom pelagic operation in state waters.

I would hope that our intent has been made clear to this board and the public that compliance with existing definitions to protect sensitive, already protected habitat is the goal here, not to close fisheries or penalize fishermen fishing legally. So I just wanted to make sure that that was crystal clear. And I also wanted to call attention to, uh, RC-138, which provides some examples of penalty schedules that many of us in this room already live and work on under, which include the CFEC points systems that salmon harvesters in both the commercial and recreational harvest fleets already live and work under, which could be useful examples. So I just wanted to call attention to that. Thank you.

Next.

Thank you. For the record, my name is Chelsea Riddell, Pacific Seafood. I just have a couple quick points for you all. Um, first, Pacific Seafood does, uh, support proposals moving to the Joint Protocol Committee. I know that's been discussed a lot.

And then the other item is I just want to clarify something that was said on the record yesterday and would point everyone to RC-108, which is a screenshot of the 2026 Prince William Sound pollock fishery harvest information. It is publicly available on the ADFNG website. So this year in the 2026 Pollock, Prince William Sound Pollock fishery, for the first time ever we only had 2 buyers instead of 3. Standard confidentiality rules mean that ADF&G can only post data if there's 3 processors. Both processors that did process Prince William Sound Pollock agreed to have our combined data posted, and we had prior to this meeting beginning submitted releases allowing that, and there was just a delay in actually getting it posted.

So everything is still transparent and it's still a well-managed fishery. Great. Thank you. Next.

Good evening, Chair and members of the board. My name is Lauren Hines. I'm a marine scientist with the organization Oceana. Oceana submitted REC-135, 136 143. Linda Banken already kind of covered RC143, which shows a comment letter to the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council with our concerns about the fishing effects model that was spoken about yesterday.

I mean, it also includes an independent review done by experts with the very same concerns that we have had since the early 2000s. So I will not go over exactly what Linda went over, but I will provide percentages. 93% Of those corals that she was speaking of in the Gulf of Alaska are not considered in that model that are shallower than 300 meters. And also 41% of long-lived sponge species are not included in that model either in the Gulf of Alaska. And they are also coral— these corals in this model, model are only considered under limited substrate types.

And we know that they actually do occur across different substrate types than just cold cobble and boulder habitats. And so as a result, a lot of these corals are not included in the model. And also additionally, the last thing I wanted to point out about this is this model was made intentionally by the council to look at a seascape-wide area. So they didn't want to look at localized impacts. When you're looking at state waters, you're looking at a lot less area.

And so this model was created to not consider localized impacts. So when you have an area that has, say, a coral garden in your state waters, you know, in those waters that are shallower than 300 meters where we know these corals and sponges are occurring, you can have extreme impacts. And these impacts are being compared against impacts to sands, to muds, to rocks. And we know that these corals live for thousands of years, so I think that knowing that this conclusion is essentially an artifact of the analysis framework itself, the model evaluates impacts— the model evaluates these impacts at a scale that we're not talking about here today. I mean, so as a result, the impacts that could happen in your state waters, you could still have a result showing minimal and temporary while your state waters, corals and sponges could be facing an extreme decimation of their health.

Thank you. All right, yeah, I got a quick question for you. I've got a draft May 2025 fishing effects model here from—. Is—. Are you saying that what's being presented here is inaccurate or misleading, or could you explain that a little more?

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Wood, through the chair. Um, no, the— I wouldn't say that the model is necessarily inaccurate. Um, the authors of that model are brilliant, um, and I have met with them individually and talked about this model, and they've been very open that Alaska is a place with a lot of water and a lot of different habitat that just has not been explored, and therefore they have to go through all of these different modes of finding this information, and that's currently what they're doing right now. They're digging through publications trying to figure out how long do these actually live, what kind of sediment is actually here, and we don't have that. So it's guessing.

This model is making guesses. And so they're aware of that, and I asked them, you know, if we're looking at a certain species, like if we're looking at, say, Pacific halibut in the Gulf of Alaska, and we know that they're reliant on seafloor habitat like this, like anything to keep them away from, you know, predators or for nursery habitat. If one tow by a net, say even a bottom trawl, plagic trawl, whatever, were to take all of that out and you lose an entire nursery habitat, would your model be able to show that and not a 5 by 5 kilometer grid cell size? And the answer is No, because that's not what we were requested to do. But if you were able to find an issue or the council were to request that, then we could show that.

So I think the issue is, is what the council requested, and that is what we have. But it's doing exactly what was requested. Thank you. Okay, we'll move on to the next person.

Hi, my name is Cole Hakama. I'll be brief because I have a plane to catch very soon. I'd like to speak to RC145, which substitute language for Proposal 164. Pelagic trawl gear is continually getting built lighter and lighter as more innovations and materials are being made and utilized, and foot ropes on these nets are very long. The suggestion that one sensor on the foot rope would give any sort of reliable data is simply untrue and couldn't possibly provide a dependable data stream.

If anyone who's writing these proposals would like to understand our nets, I'd be happy to have a conversation with them, and I think experts in our field, which are the people that use this gear every day should always be consulted on these proposals before they even get presented to the board. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Please remember, this is about new data, not opinion, so if we could just move on, that'd be great. It was about the RC-145, which was okay, submitted afterward.

My apologies. Thank you. Thanks, man.

Hello, I would like the record to show that my name is Nicholas Jacek. I'm the fisheries policy manager for Ocean Conservancy, and I would like to speak To our CEO,.

142, Which Ocean Conservancy, uh, brought forward. Uh, and I just wanted to provide this information as it is, um, essentially a summary of cited literature and data that speaks to impacts on sedimentary or soft mud marine habitats as a result of bottom contact on, uh, from trawl gear. And specifically within that summary, I just wanted to point to the specific aspects that it discusses regarding food web impacts that are focused on reductions of carrying capacity of fish stocks and increased vulnerability of juvenile groundfish, as well as seabed integrity and recovery rate and impacts to significant faunal, faunal biomass impacts of sponges, soft corals, and bivalves, and as well of sedimentary suspension that focus on reduced carbon storage as a result of disruption within soft sedimentary habitats, and as well, the suspension is largely focused on broader area impacts as well. Yeah. Great, thank you.

No questions.

Excuse me. Thank you. For the record, Paddy O'Donnell. So we heard earlier Joint Protocol Committee is a delay tactic, and I think in listening to this Board for the last few days and even in reading the proposals that were put forward by people who don't understand this gear type and how it functions, I think a behaviour to go ahead to the Joint Protocol Committee and get informed in your decision-making process here. I would not want to be in your shoes as a trawl fisherman trying to make a decision on salmon or gillnet that I don't know anything about without first educating myself on it.

Uh, corals, and what was said earlier about corals, I've been fishing a long time, and corals, you get into corals with a bottom trawl, you will destroy your bottom trawl, and that's got 16-inch rollers on it. Never mind a half-inch chain on a mid-water net. So there is no way, and especially in state waters, that you can trawl grounds with coral in it. And I think I spoke to that earlier, but as far as compliance, we, uh, we're not allowed to have bottom gear on in Tier 1 and Tier 2, uh, Red King Crab Savings Area or Crab Savings Area. Around Kodiak.

So in order to fish in them areas, which we do pelagic fishing, we have to remove our bottom trawl, put it on the dock, and, and we can only carry pelagic trawl gear. So we do get boarded by the Office of Law Enforcement, NOAA, constantly, and we also get boarded by the wildlife troopers. So we have to remain in compliance at all times. With everything that we do, and that includes fishing flatfish, where we have to have modified sweeps and keep our sweeps 3 inches off the bottom. I talked in my testimony, we reduced the footprint from 90% down to 10%.

Well, that was a result of the modified sweeps, which removes all the sweeps 3 inches off the sea floor in order to benefit Tanner crab. And I was one of the vessels that took part in that study to do the crab vitality study back in 2014 or something like that. Thanks. Thanks, Paddy. Okay, next.

For the record, Shannon Carroll with Trident Seafoods. I want to address two things. First, I'm glad we're talking about EFH and how it's managed in the fishing effects model, and I'm glad we're talking about a joint protocol committee. I think it would be really helpful if the board considered moving this to Joint Protocol Committee and perhaps getting a presentation from the really esteemed staff at NOAA that can talk about how the fishing effects model works, how EFH is managed, and how the EFH review process is going. I, along with some of the proponents of these proposals, am on the Ecosystem Committee for the council, and we received a presentation last— two weeks ago where we got updates on that, and I think it might be helpful to tie a lot of this together.

One of those updates that we got was from Dr. Brad Harris talking about the Gear Innovation Initiative, and he was pretty clear they are going to a flume tank this, this spring to be testing different bottom contact sensors. But it was very clear that technology doesn't exist at this point, and perhaps he could present on some of the work that the GII is doing.

I also think it may be helpful timing-wise. The council is also considering closures to significant areas around Kodiak to protect Tanner crab. From bycatch, and there likely be some updates on— I believe it's close to final action. So the council's— you would have updates on some additional measures that the council's taking. I want to address RC144 and just talk through— I think it's a good highlight of why it's challenging to— it's easy to go find things online and think that they may be able to work in a fishery, but you really have to talk to people that are trying to use the gear on the water to understand what, what the limitations are.

A couple things to highlight, like the, the first one is a sensor that's used on the summer trawl survey. The summer trawl survey does use bottom contact sensors. They tow for 30 minutes, and it's a bottom trawl net that is only measuring on/off. There's no variability in contact. And of course, with a 30-minute tow, your, your odds of breaking a very fragile device are very low.

The other tilt sensors that are discussed there, we have looked at, and the challenge with a tilt sensor is how you attach attach it to a foot rope for a plagic trawl net versus a bottom trawl net, which is like I mentioned in my public testimony, rolling across the sea floor versus something that has very variable contact and the angle of it changes. It's a challenge. And so the design of the sensor and how it attaches is really critical, and that's one of the areas where there's a real gap. The other ones mentioned are— deal with the same acoustic dead spots that we discussed before. So I think like a good way to think about it is the council spent 5 or 6 years, maybe more, trying to develop cameras for electronic monitoring for the halibut longline fleet and other small boats.

And a big part of that was really trying to figure out how to get the technology right, because when you— you can have these cameras that exist, but when you put them on the deck of a working commercial fishing boat, things have to work. And, and that's the, the challenge I've been trying to speak to. Thanks. Thanks, Shannon. Last testifier, and then we're going to move on to 164.

Yeah, my name is Alexis Squatchka. I think that's important that you guys know I've been trying to protect Tanner crab. What I care about here, I've been trying to protect Tanner crab for over 20 years, both in the state process. I wrote a proposal to shut down midwater trawling in the south end of the island when I— when a friend of mine told me they used to stop and let the net settle so they could get some king crab. Now people can say BS to that or not.

This is the guy who's on deck who has eaten king crab, and I was outraged by that. And so I started writing proposals. I got involved with the AP at the council level. I was on there for 9 consecutive years advocating for Tanner crab protections. We're going to talk about it in June.

It's not a guarantee that's going to happen. Things that I think are relevant for you guys, you know, yes, trawling is very important to the state of Alaska. I'm not against trawling. The public perception is that these nets are not making contact. The rule is that these nets don't make contact.

We don't know if they do or if they don't. We don't know if they do a little bit of damage or a lot of damage. And that's what we're talking about here. The rule says don't touch. The new stuff for me is that when we're talking about businesses that are dependent upon these— this— the trawl fishery, there are hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of businesses that are being put out of work by bycatch.

And the public perception is that there is no bottom contact inside of 3 miles. Now you can do whatever you want to do and we can punt this down the road, but, uh, you know, it's time to make a decision. And this is not going to be the stopping point. This is the beginning point because people are waking up and they're getting involved and they're getting engaged in this process. Now, I've been doing it for 20 years and we're still talking about the same stuff over the last 20 years.

So I understand this is hard. I understand that these are tough decisions. This is a hot potato. But decisions need to be made. And the public needs to know that they can rely on what's going on here.

And at the end of the day, it says no bottom contact. That means no bottom contact. We got you. Thank you. We're going to move on to 164.

And if some of your statements for 164 have already— could be applied, then please let it be. We're only 2 in and we got 15 more to go. So we'll start with 164. Mr. Chair, proposal 164, 5 AAC 39.105, types of legal gear.

Author. Author.

And line up if you want to speak to this. If not, we'll just move on. Yeah, thanks. Linda Benken, Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association, a member of the coalition. I think we've mostly covered 164 in the last comments.

I guess the only thing I would point out, that part of the decision to submit that proposal was to create a collaborative process to be able.

Able to gain input from people who are the experts with this gear. And I think what we found out is because that puts a cost on the department, it's not something that the board's able to do. So I think in developing a substitute language, as Member Urban has, that we have a process for moving forward at this point. And I think I can stop there. Thank you.

I'd also— yeah, RC, uh, number 45 and 46, if you'd like to comment on that regarding this, remember when it'd now is appropriate. Just to say, I think I've already commented on that relative to the last conversation. Awesome, thank you. Patti.

Yeah, thank you again. For the record, Patti O'Donnell. So I had a sensor on my cod end that cost about $8,000. I had to send it down to Seattle there earlier this month. I got a bill for it yesterday, and it's on top of the cod end that If you look at a funnel and you picture the front of the net as the big mouth of the funnel and the cone going back and you stand it on its side, that's where the cod end is, way up off the bottom.

That got damaged and $4,000 to fix. Now my concern with sensors on the foot rope for the smaller guys, and I'm a smaller guy, 85 feet, is if I can't keep a sensor that's 2 years old intact, on the top of a cod end that's nowhere near the bottom, probably 20 to 30 feet off the bottom, when you're about 6 foot off with the net or whatever, fathom off, then what's going to be the cost to, to my business depending on the requirement and how many sensors? So I just wanted to put that out there so you guys understand. Great, thank you. Okay, we'll move on to 165.

Mr. Chair, Proposal 165, 5 AAC 39.105, types of legal gear. Proposer, want to speak to this?

Thank you. Linda Benken, Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association, a member of the coalition. So this proposal is intended to have consistent regulation between federal waters and the state relative to requiring salmon exclusors. Our goal in proposing this was to provide room for innovation and minimize minimize cost, recognizing that salmon excluders need to be able to work across a wide range of vessel sizes if they are required in state waters. We did go back through and look at language that's in the IPAs, so the incentive plans that have been developed by the trawl fisheries, to provide that information to you on what could be used.

There is an RC146 that's in there that draws in some of that language, and again, we'd like to see this requirement in place, but also in place in a way that allows for vessels to modify their— excuse me— their— the device to work relatively well in their net with minimal cost and to continue to innovate. Thank you. Great. Next commenter.

Yeah, Julie and Ron had to take off, and I forgot to tell you guys this. Uh, referring to RC98, uh, what Julie would like to see is that under RC 98, you add a definition of semi-pelagic trawl, not replace the definition that the state has. Thank you. Thank you. Next.

Hi there. For the record, Charlotte Levy, Aleutians East Borough. So I, I'm kind of speaking a little bit on behalf of the small boat fleet that we talked about before, and we've reviewed the substitute language and I've talked to some of the fleet who couldn't be here. And I just wanted to convey that I still don't think as written that this language is very responsive to the small boat fleet who I think wants to have excluders. And I think there— and I'll just, I'll note that we had a fisherman who I talked to who's actually had multiple custom excluders made and has iteratively been trying to make this work.

So as written, I don't think it provides the sort of flexibility without some sort of regulatory compliance concern for us. But to reassure you that we are working towards this and fishermen do want excluders. And I would also just note for the previous two proposals that came up and for this as well, I think we would be in support of also taking this back up at a joint protocol meeting. And as somebody who's implemented a pretty complicated compliance program in the federal fisheries, I think it's really worth going through and doing this right the first time. So that's why we are in support of that.

Thank you. Great, thank you. Next.

Yeah, for the record, Paddy O'Donnell. So, uh, every A season and B season, which the A season starts January 20th, the B season starts September 1st, we have a fleet meeting and we put a fishing plan in place. And this is all voluntary because it's an open access fishery and in Kodiak, and one of the requirements is, one of the top priorities is managing salmon, and that's what we do. And one of the things with managing salmon is requirement for use of our salmon excluders, and every boat in Kodiak has salmon excluders. Having something peer-reviewed and I guess rubber stamped and approved is going to be problematic.

I have 5 nets and 5 different excluders and they're all different configurations, mesh size, mouth opening circumference ways and what have you. So the back ends of every net are different. I couldn't switch any one of them excluders out between nets. They're specific to that particular net. And now, If you get through the GII Gear Initiative program, there's data.

We compiled data on that and collecting, uh, all the different nets that are out there. There's probably somewhere between, I would say, 60 to 80 different pelagic trawls out there. So there's no way you can get one off-the-shelf excluder that's going to fit on every one of these nets. It just won't function. Thanks.

Thanks. We got a question for you, Patty. Yeah, hey, thanks Patty very much for that feedback. My question is, if we keep a def— if we adopt a loose definition that really provides space for innovation, do you feel confident that the, the local fleet and fishermen would be able to establish those type of devices or mechanisms within their net that would be able to be effective in excluding salmon without us having to be so prescriptive on exactly what it looks like? Thanks for the question.

The issue I have with definitions and regulations, and we went through this, I went through this myself on another boat in Kodiak trying to increase mesh size in cod end to allow smaller fish to escape, and it was talked about, it was wanting to put it into regulation. The problem with having regulations, it sort of hamstrings you as far as gear innovation. We have to be able to adapt. And, and the excluder I'm using, the Over and Under, I do the EFP, Experimental Fishery Permit, on it for 2 years. We put in about approximately 2 months of fishing and a lot of camera work and studies.

And, and we've adapted it over time, and we constantly continue to adapt it on an annual basis, if not on a seasonal basis. And, and since then, there's been 3 or more 3 or 4 more different types of excluders developed. And they're very, very different from the over-under. So, something I haven't used, but I've seen them, and they seem to be working quite well. So that's my problem there.

Thanks. And one quick follow-up is, so do you think that the definition within the IPA program that keeps it pretty vague allows for innovation and is still efficient— sufficient enough for that program? I'm not familiar with the definition in the IPA program for the Bering Sea because it's a rationalized fishery and we're in an open access fishery. But I think clearly having the ability to innovate and change things going ahead without having it in regulation or being prescriptive to a particular type of excluder is beneficial because we, we're fishermen, we're conservationists, we're scientists. At the end of the day, that's what we do.

We experiment with gear. Okay, thanks, Patty. Okay, thank you. We'll move on to Ryan and then move on to the next proposal.

Hello, uh, Ryan Astolis for the record. Um, I just wanted to, you know, thank the comment earlier about the Prince William Sound data, thank the department for publicly making this data available, and would support salmon excluders. And the fact of looking at that data, you know, this with over-under percentages being 33 to 54%, you know, that would be somewhere in the ballpark of 120 to 230 Chinook salmon that would not be bycatch by trawlers in Prince William Sound. Thanks, Ryan. We're going to move on to 166.

Mr. Chair, proposal 166, 5AAC 39.105, types of legal gear. Proposer, like to speak to this? Would anyone like to comment on it? If so, line up.

Yes, hello. The proposal author is not here. He had to go back home to Kodiak. He asked me to speak on his behalf. That all right with everyone?

Yep. Okay, I'm Darius Kasperzak, president of Alaska Jig Association. New information is— it's come to my attention that there's already been a proposal submitted for the Kodiak area cycle in 2027. Regarding gear restriction issues, someone along the lines of proposals 167 and 168, although I haven't seen the exact language yet.

We really need, as the JIG fleet, we really need this proposal to go through so we have something to work off of regardless of the fate of 167, which I'll address in the the next go-around here. But I don't think we've heard any testimony in opposition to this, and it's our spring-off step to get meaningful gear restrictions and relief for the Gulf fleet. So thank you. Great. Thank you.

Okay. See nobody else to speak. We'll go on. Proposal 167. Mr.

Chair, Proposal 167, 5A(C)(28.050), lawful gear for groundfish. Would anyone— oh, would you like to speak to that? Yeah, hello again. I'm Darius Kaspersack, President of Alaska Jig Association. I've submitted Proposal 127, not RC 127, which asked— which notifies that we withdraw our support for Proposal 167 and ask the board to take no action.

I've conferred with the Alaska Jig Association board, and we've come to this conclusion. We've heard some concerns that with the amendments, the KAC amendments, that it may no longer be appropriate for a statewide Board of Fish venue such as this. I don't know if that's opinion or protocol. Nevertheless, we're sensitive to those concerns. We're also sensitive to the recommendations of the department, which is, as you can see from staff comments, are neutral on this proposal, but recommend that we keep it to a Kodiak area venue.

The Alaska Jig Association does consider this to be a Gulf issue. We do have members that fish in various areas around the Gulf that support this proposal. That being said, we do acknowledge that Kodiak is by far the area of largest concern. And so we're happy to start there. We will be submitting a proposal to be taken up at the Kodiak area cycle in 2027, somewhat similar language and intent.

Thank you. Great. Thank you. Okay, we'll move on to Proposal 168. Mr.

Chair, Proposal 168, 5A(C)28.050, awful gear for groundfish. Is the proposer here? Anyone like to speak to this? 168. If so, line up.

Hello, my name is Kirian Kuzman. I'm really nervous. Um, I'm a commercial fisherman. I move from ports. I'm not always— actually rarely in my home port.

Um, having restrictions on having, uh, more than one gear type on board, it's highly restrictive because if I go to, say, from— I'm from Homer. If I go to Yakutat, I'm usually going to fish on the way because that way I'm saving money on fuel and time. And if you restrict this, say—. Sorry. This restriction is going to limit heavily because having more than one gear type on board, usually hooks or slinkies, is necessary to save time and a lot of money and fuel.

And I think it shouldn't be even— sorry, shouldn't be considered. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Linda Benkem with Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association.

I also wanted to raise concerns where we understand there may be a problem specific to Pacific cod that this proposal is intended to address, and we wouldn't object if it is restricted to that focus. But our vessels fishing sablefish and halibut are routinely carrying hook and line and pot gear at the same time, sometimes because when the whales are around, you got to use pots. If the whales aren't around, people are running hook and line because they have a higher size average or because they may be fishing fishing black cod and also fishing halibut, and they're using the hook and line when they come to their halibut in the pots for sablefish. So just want to make sure there aren't sort of unintended consequences here of how this proposal moves forward. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Okay, we'll move on to Proposal 169. Mr. Chair, Proposal 169, 5A(c)(39.105), types of legal gear.

Would anyone like to speak to 169?

I'm not the proposal author. I don't see anybody up here in front of me.

Again, this may be relevant for proposals for the Kodiak cycle. I'll reiterate support from the Alaska Jig Association. Thank you. Thank you.

Next.

Yeah, I'm, I'm Jesse Pavlik. I'm concerned about the wording of 169. It will seriously limit innovation on the slinky pots there if we're stuck with only 2 tunnels. And that's kind of about my only concern there. I understand the department's concern for one, the definition of it, but I worry about it limiting innovation there with the way it's worded.

Great, thank you. Okay, all right, Linda. Linda Benken, Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association. Jesse said most of what I was going to say from our organization, but similar with the salmon excluders and trying to not be prescriptive to make sure there's room for innovation, people are still really innovating with slinky pots, figuring out ways to make them work better, fish better, and are worried that this language might be too prescriptive with specifying those two openings. Thank you.

Great, thank you. We'll move on to 173. Mr. Chair, for the record, Troy Tinas, Area Management Coordinator for Division of Commercial Fisheries in Southeast. Proposal 173, 5AEC 39.291, boundary markers.

Would anyone like to speak to Proposal 173? Seeing no takers, we'll move on to Proposal 174. Mr. Chair, Proposal 174, 5AEC 39.260, same specifications and operations.

Would anyone like to speak to 174? Going once, going twice, it's gone. Okay. I'm going to recuse myself at the table now for Proposal 186.

All right. Thank you, Board Member Wood.

Staff, Proposal 186, please.

For the record, I'm Colton Lipka, the regional management coordinator for commercial fisheries in Cook Inlet. Proposal 186, 5AAC-21-353, Central District Drift Gillnet Fishery Management Plan. Thank you. Would the proposer like to speak on 186? Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair. I'm Andy Couch. I submitted Proposal 186. Um, you've heard quite a bit about the, uh, a problem with escapement, but, uh, I'd like to talk a little bit about a different way of measuring that problem, and that is in the Northern District, uh, setnets, uh, can be restricted when the department projects that we may not make the escapement goal. And that, that can start on July 20th and run through, I believe it's August 6th.

Since that provision has been in place, the department has restricted the Northern District setnet fishery right there at the start every single year. And so what this is showing is that there is a shortage of fish every year. It's an acknowledgment of that. So the issue with the drift gillnet fishery, they're fishing before the 20th, and they're catching those fish that are headed north at a rate that we can't have a fishery in the north without restricting it. And they just keep fishing.

And it's— the issue with that drift gillnet fishery right now, it's managed entirely.

Early on the number of fish going to the Kenai until you start getting some fish up past the counters in the Susitna. And that's late enough that it's not really possible to manage on an emergency basis, as some have suggested. Oh, the department could do this. They need some kind of numbers to do this. Or they have some kind of past history.

Otherwise, they need to do it in a prescriptive manner. And that's, that's what the proposal is about, is managing in such a way on a consistent basis that you should be able to achieve escapement goals. There's quite a bit more. I would mention that the Matsubara Fish and Wildlife Committee has submitted RC-131.

RC 130 and RC 132, talking about different tools that would— 132 is the area. 132, We can reference that, Andy. We all took note of that. Thank you. I will let it go with that.

Thank you. Appreciate it, Andy. Thank you. Someone else want to speak on that, please?

Hello, members of the board. Dyer Vandevere. I have—. There's something in RC-132 that is really not correct that I have to talk about. It says expanded Kenai casino sections on the east side of the inlet have proven very effective for harvesting sockeye.

That's totally not true. Last 2 years, yes, been very good. The fish were oriented to the east side. There's been lots of years, lots of years that those fish are going outside of the corridor in the middle of the inlet. And sometimes they hang at the top end of Calligan Island.

A lot of times they get black, they're hanging there so long. And then all of a sudden they get a sniff of the Kenai River or whatever, and they make a hard right-hand turn, hit Salamanoff Beach, and head into the river and bypass that corridor. The corridor has been known basically for scratch fishing for many years and not this big bunch of fish, like I say, the last 2 years when they were oriented to the east. Thank you. See no questions.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Please indicate whether you're in opposition or support, please, for the proposal. My name is Norm Darch. I'm with the Alaska Salmon Alliance. I'm in opposition of 186. Actually, we put comments in under— I think it's PC 14.

And then I also submitted an RC, and I think it's 121. We've heard a lot of comments about the weirs washing out and flooding. I haven't heard a ton of comments about water temperatures. And so RC-121 has daily water temperatures from through the seasons 2021 through 2025. And just a quick example, in '25, if you look at that table starting at, let's say, the end of June, water temperatures hit about 20 degrees Celsius.

And that pretty much ran constant throughout the month of July. So there's a lot of thermal stress on the fish there. So relative to the current proposal, I'm not sure, you know, allowing all this extra fish up there, it's not addressing the actual problem, which is kind of environmental issues within the river system. One other thing that a couple of people had brought up would be the need for the reinstatement of the Lower Cook Inlet test boat hasn't been widely publicized, but for your information, that did occur in 2025. 2024 Was not funded and did not run.

And for 2025, the Alaska Salmon Alliance entered into a cooperative agreement with ADF&G, reinstituted the test boat. It was due to the size of the sockeye run Dire Vandeverre just kind of pointed out about this strong east side entry pattern. It didn't totally capture like all the, the stuff that it normally would do because of the size of the run. They did do genetic samples on coho and sockeye on board the test boat. Those samples were not run, and I was told that was predominantly due to the extensive genetic testing they did over the drift fleet this summer, both on sockeye and coho.

Anyway, that's my—. Thank you. Appreciate it. Next speaker, please.

Name, opposition or support before you speak. Yeah, Mac Minard with the Matsu Borough. That's M-I-N-A-R-D. Favor the proposal. I want to reference RC-131, use this time to discuss solutions.

We've talked a lot about the problem. It is a complex fishery management problem with a mixed stock problem, and you guys are very aware of that. So now what do we do? What actions are necessary to, to take to address this issue? And it's not all found in the proposal before you.

We evaluated this based upon our time in committee and discussing it among others and, and And basically generated, if you take a look at page 4 on that RC that I just referenced, 131, there are 9 steps that could be incorporated into a proposal that would address the issues before you. At least we think so. There's no silver bullet here. We're going to do the best we can to address it and continue to be able to accumulate catches of surplus sockeye into the Kasilof and Kenai. First one is to eliminate Area 2 from state regulations.

That's a geographic change that would take that water out of the regulation, and we would be fishing exclusively in the extended quarters. A proven method, by the way, for being able to take fish and conserve fish that are bound for the Northern District. The second would be restrict the drift fishery in state waters to the extended Kena and Kasilof quarters. As I just mentioned, it's a proven tactic. We've been at this almost 20 years.

So almost every issue that has come up has been tested, and this is one of them. We can— it's not perfect, but we can in fact accumulate record catches in those corridors when conditions are right and the abundance is there. And Matt, I'm going to go ahead and cut you off. I don't need you to itemize all 9 of them because we've got them here in 131. Okay, there's something that is not included in this language you wanted to offer.

I'll entertain that. Otherwise—. And if I guess I'd bounce back and just simply say if there are any questions about those elements, because I'm not sure— you think we do? Okay, Mr. Spencer.

Mac, thanks. Relative to the area closures, can you tell me why those areas are so important? Yeah, I mean, the, the idea— I wish, I wish we had a map, and maybe I'd just direct your attention to the front page of RC 131, and you can see those, those boundaries there. The concept is that Cook Inlet has largely been a mixed stock fishery for years and years and years, and what we're trying to do is create some terminal stock fisheries management, particularly focusing on the Kenai and Kaseeloff, and that's what those extended quarters do for you. The concept is that as they move up the center of the district, you have a shot at them those desired species, those desired stocks within those corridors, but you allow those northern bound fish a passage.

We've been referring to it as a conservation corridor. When you get down into Area 1, you see that the EEZ takes up almost all of that. Those state waters outside of the EEZ in Area 1 could go. And they are again a mixed stock fishery with the exception of that portion of it that is in the extended, um, Kasilof corridor. Can you explain that 3% rule?

Well, the 3% rule currently in regulation is 1%. It is designed to create an empirical end to the sockeye run. How would a manager— it was designed and intended to take the burden off of the department staff for making what could be considered somewhat of an arbitrary or even allocative, perhaps, decision. And so we settled on 1%. It's been in regulation.

It affects the fishery, you know, I think 6 times out of the last 12 or 14, something like that. It's not enough. If we are serious about addressing the coho conservation issue in the Northern District so that we're not working on, uh,.

Management plans for a stock of concern. We're only one summer away from that. If we're serious about it, we raise it to 3%. It'll set the closure date around the first part of August, as opposed to 1%, which closes it, when it does, around the middle of the month. So it gives you a couple more weeks.

And again, you're talking about 3%— that would be two consecutive periods where the commercial catch in a regular period is 3% or less of the cumulative total commercial harvest for the season.

An empirical trigger. Okay, thank you, man. Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yep, thank you. All right, rolling new information, please.

Thank you. For the record, Roland Maw. I'll be 2 comments. First one is perhaps a miscommunication.

You're in support of this or opposition, Roland? Pardon? Support or opposition? Oh, I'm opposed to 186.

The reference earlier, I may have misspoken. And said June, but I meant July. So moving fishing time forward in the month of July when there's fewer coho, that's what that was referring to.

Something that's not been talked about.

This EEZ fishery has only been in place since 2024. '25. This year will be our third year of it. One of the aspects of that federal fishery management plan is that there's a prohibition on fishing in federal waters and state waters in the same day.

What that means in some occasions The department, through EO authority, which has been provided for in the plan, state plan, says we're going to extend the period. We're going to start earlier in the morning, say 5 o'clock. We're going to extend beyond 7 o'clock to 10 o'clock. If the drift fleet is, say, 200 and 200 boats, because of the federal rule— not, not the Board of Fish, not the state, this is a federal deal— if I decide to go and fish in federal waters, I cannot fish in the the earlier 2 hours, nor can I fish in the later— from 7 till 10 at night.

That has never been reconciled with the state management plans.

That's one of the reasons that I'm opposed to this. There needs to be some figuring out on both parties. As to how this thing's gonna work. 'Cause right now, because of that prohibition, all of those folks that decide to meet the federal regs and fish in the federal water on a particular day, we cannot put our net in the water.

We will get a federal ticket. Even though we're fishing legally under state regs in state waters.

And that's a problem and it needs to be worked out. And that's not been talked about before. I got a question for you from Board Member Carpenter. Yeah. Thank you, Roland.

A very interesting point, but hence the problem with an EEZ fishery in Cook Inlet, quite frankly. And I guess my question is, as a commercial fisherman, because we do have this dual management system in Cook Inlet now, isn't it a fisherman's choice if those are the rules to make that decision for himself about where he sets his net because of the regulations that are in place?

Certainly.

Fishermen make decisions about where we're going to fish on particular days.

However, that decision cannot be made sort of on the spur of the moment because on the federal side there's a requirement for vessel monitoring systems. It has to be on, it has to be registered, it has to be installed. And they have to be able to monitor your actual movements. And quite frankly, the federal folks have been all over the board in terms of how that's to apply.

At first they said, we want it on at the start of the season and you'll turn it off at the end of the season, which means while I'm in the harbor, I'm fishing in state waters. So for some of the FMP requirements, some fishermen have decided, "I'm not gonna bother." And that, quite frankly, some of those have been a disincentive to go fish in that fishery, which means we're locked into the state fishery. Of the 400 boats that fished last year, maybe 250 had the VMS, had met the federal requirements. A third to half the fleet just says no.

Thank you for that. And I guess that just kind of quantifies my statement a little bit. It's really not the prerogative of this board to deal with what happens in the EEZ. That's a very different set of circumstances in another regulatory body. But it also kind of confirms what you— by what you said, that fishermen do have the choice to fish where they want.

And I think you made a very clear example of that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Name, support or opposition, new information only. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Peter Probasko. I currently serve as the chair for the Matsu Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission, and we support in concept portions of the proposal 186.

I want to put my hat on that I used to have when I retired from ADF&G and the complexity of mixed stock fisheries. I served as a regional— retired as a regional sup for the Westward Region. You guys just dealt with Area M, a very challenging, very large mixed stock fishery. Cook Inlet is the same way. And what's important to understand when you develop management plans for mixed stock fisheries, one year to the next to the next year, the runs are very variable.

That's why we are looking very hard at how do we move fish through a very productive and strong fishery. And that's the importance of that corridor. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Yes. Dan Anderson.

I'm sorry. I'm Dan Anderson. I'm speaking my personal testimony on this. I'm very much not in support of 186 for various reasons. Um, so one of them is, uh, and is this going to be new information though?

Oh, new information. Yes. Yeah. Okay. There's a harvest that goes on below the estuaries that's not been quantified.

So if 10,000 fish— for, for our number, just to pick— gets harvested there, don't get a chance to get enumerated, it doesn't mean them 10,000 fish didn't make it there. Now I did, for just for your extra information here, I have filed proposal for next session, next cycle that addresses the escapement issues in them rivers. Pay attention to that. Thank you. Thank you, Dan.

Next speaker.

Yeah, thanks. This is Teague Bannock again. I just have a few points that—. Opposition or support of this? Oh, I am in opposition of 186.

I already said that in my public testimony, so that's not new. I just want to make sure you didn't change your mind. No, no, I didn't. One of the things that I'd like to say is that I'm afraid that just to even have this proposal up here, it just opens the whole management up, you know, with the RCs And whatever you guys do in deliberations tomorrow that add to this, like changing the 1% rule to 3, 5, 10, 50% rule or whatever you end up going to,.

You know, you just taking this up. I'm worried that stuff like that can happen. So, and anyway, I just also want to let you know that the whole idea that moving us out of the middle to the east side, you can't catch those fish later in the east side. It does not work that way.

I had my best day ever in the east side corridor. I've had all of my worst days ever in the Eastside corridor. I also wanted to point out that the restrictions that are already in place, and I can't remember which RC it is, but our opposition put an RC in there touting how the restrictions in place so far, how great it's been for the the sockeye escapements in the Northern District. They've been met every year since, you know, whenever.

Why aren't we meeting them? We've got the same restrictions. Why aren't they helping for the coho? They're going through the same place. It's not, again, it's not our fault.

I know that was what I said before.

We're already restricted. Sockeye are making it, coho are making it in Fish Creek and Jim Creek, and probably almost 1,200 other streams. They're just not making it in the highly targeted sport fish, two rivers that don't even have— well, we've talked about that. Okay, now I want to talk about the EEZ a little bit.

A lot of people think that this EEZ, oh no, there's all this new effort. The EEZ is more restrictive than what we had before. And that's why we have lawsuits going on, because it is not like we're able to go down there and catch more fish than we did before. It's more restrictive. Um, and along with that, I, I just have to say that, that the FMP, the federal FMP, and the EEZ is your fault.

It is nothing that anybody wanted out here. We wanted the state to work with the feds on this. We wanted the state to manage the fishery. All right. There's no point in allocating blame here.

I think I'm not hearing anything new, but I think we'll go ahead and call it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right.

And I'm not going to take any more speakers after this. So there's 4 there and that's it. Virgil, new information only, please. Virgil and Finnauer speaking to this proposal. Fairbanks AC actually supports this proposal.

And I personally support it. When I was on the Board of Fish, we restricted the center drift to put fish up in the upper Susitna. My daughter used to like to go fishing in the creeks that run into the Susitna down the highway, and there's no fish to catch anymore. And so we can't fish anywhere in the Yukon River drainage for salmon, period. We haven't for 6 years.

And this was someplace where people that lived in the Fairbanks area could drive down the road, or people like in Ninana could drive down the road and catch a few fish, fresh fish to eat. Can't do it anymore. This would help that. Thank you. Thank you, Virgil.

Stephen Brown, Northern District Setneters. New information. I did not state our position in my public testimony. I support this proposal in concept, and please find a way to get more fish north. Thank you.

Thank you for your brevity.

Kevin Delaney. I'm a representative of Kenai River Sport Fishing.

We support this proposal. Some new information. I've been involved in the management of Upper Cook Inlet salmon fisheries since 1976. In 1976, and then adopted into policy in 1977 was one of the first and most important management plans the Board of Fisheries ever adopted. It was the Upper Cook Inlet Salmon Management Plan.

In that plan, at that time, there was direction to minimize the commercial harvest of— at that, it said susitna-bound sock coho. It was later amended to be northern-bound coho. The way the department implemented that direction up until the development of the Conservation Corridor in the middle of 19— you know, '15, '14, somewhere in there— was the definition was there would be no extra fishing periods justified by coho salmon. So catch all you can during the regular periods, catch all you can during extra periods justified by sockeye abundance, but minimize was implemented in management by no additional periods on coho. Conservation corridor defined minimize in a much better way.

There is a conservation concern.

I also had a cabin in Talkeetna for 40 years, so I've got a long personal history with this. This. I encourage you to strengthen the conservation corridor, put windows in the extended corridors. It's got to have a pulsing of the fishery to move fish. And I thank you for your service.

I got a question for you from Spencer. Thanks, Kevin. Can you explain the windows management approach? Well, Kenai River Sport Fishing has been an advocate of windows in the commercial fishery in Upper Cook Inlet for a long time now. It was implemented in two different manners for the Setnet fishery, the upper subdistrict Setnet fishery.

We fought long and hard to get two prescriptive windows regardless of run strength. That was a Tuesday window and a Friday window. Tuesday window was 24 hours. The Friday window is 36 hours. That was to provide fish to the river over the course of the run.

It was also to provide fish spawning over the entire course of the, of the run. Now, those expanded corridors, they're not very far offshore, and they were very effective in the last couple of years, as evidenced even by people that are not in support of this proposal. But We would be strongly in favor of having, say, a Tuesday and Friday type of a schedule to provide a prescriptive window in, in the drift gillnet fishery when fishing in that corridor. Thank you.

Thank you, Kevin. Thank you, Kevin.

My name is My name is Kerean Kuzman. I'm a drift gill netter in the Upper Cook Inlet. In opposition of 186, not because— because there is not enough data to make informed and good decisions. It's just a shutdown, which is restrictive and the wrong way to go about this. Get some data and make good decisions that help everyone.

Thank you. Thank you.

That was technically supposed to be my last speaker, but I'm going to let you speak as long as it's new and fast. Yes. Thank you. Ilya Kuzman, a longtime fisherman, Cook Inlet, opposing, strongly opposing 186. The question is, where are we going to stop?

It's been restricted so much because some people can't even survive. And back to last year's escapement, 4 million, over 4 million in the Kenai River. What's going to happen down the river? There will be no fish.

Because our lakes are too small to sustain that much fish. And eventually, there will be no fishery.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Board Member Wood, you can come back up here and I'm not doing your job for you anymore.

All right, I'm back. Okay, we'll move on to Proposal 187, please. Mr. Chair, Proposal 187, 5AC 30.320, fishing periods, 5AC 30.331, gillnet specifications and operations, and 5AC 30.350, closed waters.

Speak to 187.

Yeah. Hi, I'm Jesse Pavlik. I am opposed to 187. There's a couple of things. For one, the wording of it.

You guys probably think I'm a stickler for wording at this point here. It says to close set gillnet fishing on the Siouxsie. That would close down subsistence fishing as well.

It would close down commercial setnetting as well, making this an allocative issue, which there's no allocative problem here. The sport fishery is getting plenty and they would be the only ones left allowed to fish on that river.

And that's pretty much all I got to say there. Thank you. Anyone else?

Hi, I'm John Vale. I'm opposed to 187. Because the proposal mentioned some conservation concerns between the two different rivers because of the staggering of the openings, I felt you should know that the one-day openings on the Siou were developed by the advisory committee proposal. With input from the fish processor and the department managers at Fish and Game, we went to the 1-day openings because we catch so many fish on 1 day, it takes 2 days to fly them out. And if we fish 3 days in a row, we get so many fish on the ground that there's a serious risk of getting them stuck there from bad weather and possibly end up a loss.

So, The buyer can only handle 70 totes at a time. It takes them 2 days to fly out 70 totes. There's 100 to 110 fish per tote. They are roughly 1,000 pounds each. And so the 1-day opening there is just there to get fish out.

It's not there for any conservation reason. So, and also on the Caliette, both river systems are actually really managed by emergency order by the department. And for example, on the Caliette, they really aren't fishing 3-day openings. By EO, they've made it 2 1.5-day openings, giving the, the drift, the bell pickers who fish the system an opportunity to run their fish back to Cordova and get back again for the second opening. Thank you.

And on the Sayu, often we're operating under EO because bad weather will knock out a commercial fishing day and they'll just give us another day to make up for it. Thank you. Appreciate your experience. Thanks. I'm sorry.

Thank you. We'll go to the next person.

Forrest Jenkins, Prince William Sound Setnetters Association. I just want to remind everyone that This— the author withdrew this proposal in RC 46, and I know it's not dead till it's dead, but just putting on the record. Thanks, man. Okay, we'll move on to Proposal 175.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Proposal 175, 5AAC 39.105, types of legal gear. Mr. Chair, would anyone like to speak to Proposal 175?

Okay, I didn't submit it, but proposal 175 would greatly increase the cost of dip netting for all users who currently have a 4.5-inch dip net and would require everyone to change the nets over before the next season, which would be possible but would add hassle and cost to the fishery. Thank you. Anyone else?

Uh, Skyler Mace, representing myself here. On the record, I still don't believe this should be a statewide issue. Just speaking for our fishery at Readout, at the last border fish cycle, you did approve new gear types for drift gillnet outside a certain line. I spent a significant amount of time at Readout, and I'll still say the vast majority of people are still dipnetting. So even though they had the other options, if it changes over, that is going to be a big financial cost for people.

Thank you, Karen.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Karen Linnell speaking for myself. In this, we put this proposal forward at Outlander Tribal Resource Commission to try and reduce the, the incidental deaths of Chinook.

We've watched on other rivers. The board here has changed mesh size for subsistence users on the Yukon River where they all have to buy new nets that cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars versus a $50 net replacement here. I really appreciate the Copper Basin AC's comment, and that was made by a former fisheries biologist, in changing the depth of the bag. I believe there's an RC put forward showing how the bigger bags and the fish get tangled in and brought in. That was put forward by somebody from CDFU.

Got to see that, and I think that it's definitely worth looking at. And then, Aaniiinaanii Tribal also put in an RC with another video in regards to the extension by ROPE that is worth looking at.

At some point, when we still have Chinook on the Copper River, and have experienced closures off and on for the last few years, and folks have made some changes at the Cordova meeting in December. For in regulations by delaying commercial fishery by a week. And then we had changes that in the in-river goals that personal use fisheries were able to address. And if this is for looking at this, if you put it in, you know, possible, another possible amendment would be to the personal use fisheries Dip nets used in personal use fisheries might be another amendment. So that's all I had there.

Thanks, Karen. Next person.

Yeah, Andy. Andy Couch.

I oppose this proposal. Just so you know, I fish both the smaller net that's available with 3 and 3/4 or 3 and a half and I've also used the 4.5, but the issue I have on the Susitna River in particular, when I fish the 3.5, I catch more snags on the bottom than I do with the 4.5. 3.5 Standard stuff, the only stuff I could find with that is thicker mesh, and it gets caught on the bottom in the Susitna. A lot of times it's trees. And you lose them.

And the 4.5 doesn't get caught as much, and it comes off easier too. It's lighter, you can rip it sometimes and still get it out. Now, concerning conservation of fish, I have pulled several dip nets out of the water. Sometimes I've been searching for them when I've got them. They almost always have dead salmon in them regardless of the size of the net.

So net loss— if you lose a net, it could, it could be significant for losing more fish. Nobody's harvesting them, they're just stinking a mess when you pull them up at the end of the season. So I'm just saying that there is a conservation problem whenever a net's lost, and I tend to lose more of the nets with 3.5 Mash. Thanks. Thanks, Andy.

Go ahead, Virgil.

Virgil Imfenauer for the Fairbanks AC. There's lots of dipnetters in the Fairbanks area because that's the only way we can go get salmon now. And we voted unanimously to oppose this proposal. Thank you. Thanks.

Last person.

Hello, I'm Mark. You guys don't know. With Kenai River Sport Fish, Mark Spencer. We oppose this proposal. I've heard a lot about the, you know, dipnetting and conservation issues on kings.

There's no studies that show mortality on the release of a king out of a dipnet. So I can tell you from my personal experience as a Dipnet charter guide, seeing maybe thousands of kings released over, you know, 15 years of watching clients do it. Um, the fish are— you feel them in the net, takes about 5-6 seconds to pull that net frame up to the water surface. Maybe if it's fouled up in whatever size mesh, maybe another 15 to 30, 45 seconds to untangle it and release that fish back into the water. It happens fast.

So I don't see the king conservation issue. When you guys weren't— when the board wants to conserve kings, they switch to 4.5-inch mesh, and that's what we're currently using. The tying off of the nets Um, is I've watched people go over. I participate in almost all of the, um, search and rescue, uh, accidents that happen on the Copper. People get pulled over all the time who aren't tied off.

Those nets tied off.

They add prolonged deceleration when they hook. They feel that net pulling and it doesn't immediately yank them out of the boat. And so I detailed that a little bit more in my personal comments, which is PC 446, 446. So you guys have any questions on dip netting? Thanks, Mark.

All right. Thank you. Okay. Oh, Karen, this is the only exception. Sorry.

Then we're moving on. Keep it quick. There was some radio telemetry information that was done in Mark's— the mortality. And then also, why do we have to have studies for everything? If my fisheries biologist went dipnetting for his fish this year and he He ended up with 6 kings.

He threw— he put 3 back. The other 3 were dead before he could get them out of the net. And a lot of the folks aren't just doing it on the boat or next to the water. They're dragging it all the way across to get it, the net, up to the banks. So thank you.

Thanks, Karen. Okay, we're gonna move into the stock of concern action plans, and if anybody has anything to comment on any of the plans, please step up to the mic and have your piece, say what you'd like, and make sure you're addressing which plan you'd like it to be towards, the Yukon River Chinook, Yukon River Fall, or Kuniak River Chinook.

Mr. Chair, Kevin Delaney, Kenai River Sport Fishing Association. I'll make this real brief. We are very concerned about regulatory consistency as it relates to the action plans. We want to see the recovery criteria clearly in the plan and the plan clearly in regulation.

And here's the new piece. It's been variously addressed around the state. We feel that it's extremely important to put all of the— let me call them primary tools— that the department is going to use to implement the stock of concern plan in the stock of concern plan. So, like, with respect to the Yukon King Salmon plan, The moratorium from the US-Canada treaty probably needs to guide us in terms of articulating the recovery criteria. Remember that the treaty trumps board action.

In the Chum Plan, at the December meeting, we deliberated long and hard on a date beyond which we would not have commercial fishing for summer chum. It was moved from July 16th back to July 13th. Now that date is really the linchpin, probably the most powerful tool we've got to conserve fall chum. That needs to be in the fall chum stock of concern management plan.

That's all I've got to say. Thank you. Thanks, Kevin. Next person, Charlie.

Good afternoon. Charlie Lean, longtime resident of Norton Sound, former area manager, former federal manager, etc. The couple of points I'd like to make. There is a salmon management plan. I mentioned that already.

For the Moses Point area, Quinnic River. The— it's out of date. It does need tweaking a little bit. It would be easy to use the same language that's in that plan about pink salmon and put the word king salmon in its place and have another clause. I'm not contesting the idea that when you don't make a statement, you should close the fisheries.

But I think recent management has been lax on all species and a little, a little more proactive. And one other point I should make is that in those 27 years that there's been a salmon goal, either king, chum on the Quinniack River, roughly half the time the goal hasn't been made. And there's— if the chum goal isn't made, then you have it closed for kings as well, and vice versa. And that's, that's understood in this management plan. So I don't— I'm in favor of the status quo with tweaks.

And that's what I wanted to say. Thanks, Charlie. Move on to Virgil, and then this will be it. Call it a wrap. Thank you, Virgil.

I'm from our— and I'm speaking partially because I'm a member of the Salmon Treaty of the Yukon River Panel. I've been on it since 1988, longer than anyone from either country. And so I agree with the previous speaker that spoke, Mr. Delaney, about the plan for the Chinook salmon, 7-year plan, but that's been done. That was done by the Commissioner and the head— well, the head of Oceans and Fisheries and Oceans Canada for the whole West Coast. He's the guy that we deal with when we have our panel meetings.

But anyway, one thing I want to point out is that we— in 2012 is when the board passed a petition to allow fishing for chum salmon in the Yukon with dip nets and with special fish wheels, fish-friendly fish wheels that had to be manned for chum salmon and then release all the king salmon unharmed. However, now we don't fish for chum salmon either. And so if we ever do get to again, that's in the— already there. And on the Fall Run chum salmon, what Mr. Delaney said about moving the date up to the 13th is a good idea, I think. And no one knows when there will ever be enough fish to have a subsistence fishery anymore.

It's been 7 years, so it's kind of a moot point, but the action plans look good. Thank you. Thank you, Virgil. Okay, with that, I'll hand the gavel back to Madam Chair. Thank you, Mike.

Thanks for bringing us through that. Thanks for everybody to hang— hanging in through Committee of the Whole Group 1. We will go ahead and begin deliberations on Group 1 tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM. If you have substitute language or any RCs that you want the board to see prior to those deliberations, please get them into staff by 8:00 AM. And we will also, after we complete deliberations of Group 1, we will do Committee of the Whole Groups 2 and Group 3.

And then we will deliberate Group 2 and Group 3 likely on Saturday. So that is the agenda. That is how we are going to take it up. And again, just please, please try and get your RCs in by 8:00 a.m. if you want us to be able to have eyes on them before we begin deliberations at 9:00 a.m. Thank you all.

See you all tomorrow at 9:00 AM.