Upcoming Court Hearing may Mean Life or Death for 100 Yr Old Kenai Setnet Fishery
SEAFOODNEWS.COM [ADN] by Suzanna Caldwell Aug 3, 2015
KENAI -- This summer, just as they have done for generations, setnetters are working the shores of the western Kenai Peninsula, stringing out nets and hauling in hundreds of thousands of fish from the abundant sockeye salmon runs of Southcentral Alaska.
But along with those sockeyes, the setnetters also pull thousands of king salmon from the waters of Cook Inlet. And it’s those kings -- Alaska’s best-known, most-marketable fish and one that has seen increasingly troublesome declines in recent years -- that have made setnetters the target of a statewide ballot initiative that could eliminate the longtime fishery.
Last month, the Alaska Fisheries Conservation Alliance submitted 43,000 signatures to the Alaska Division of Elections to certify an initiative that would ban setnets in Alaska’s urban areas. If approved by voters, the initiative would outlaw setnets in the five designated urban areas of Alaska, including Valdez, Ketchikan, Fairbanks -- and the Kenai Peninsula.
At its heart, the ballot initiative is about the same thing that most fishery disputes are about in Alaska: the merits of sport-versus-commercial fishing..
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