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Policy brief proposes changes to Yukon River salmon management

A group of Indigenous leaders, scientists and policy experts have proposed management actions to promote recovery of Yukon River salmon and manage their harvest more equitably.

The proposals include a review of the fisheries management structure by an independent entity, such as the National Academy of Sciences. The group also suggests that Yukon River subsistence fishermen be allowed to harvest a limited number of Chinook salmon as bycatch, comparable to the bycatch allowed for the commercial Bering Sea pollock fleet.

The group published its peer-reviewed in the journal Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research on June 25. They collaborated through the Study of Environmental Arctic Change program, which is funded by the National Science Foundation and led by Brendan Kelly, chief scientist with the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ International Arctic Research Center. A co-author on the paper, Erik Schoen, is a research assistant professor at the center.

Communities along the Yukon River have endured multiple years of salmon fishery closures, undermining subsistence traditions and eliminating an important food source, the group noted.

The policy brief summarizes the possible causes for the loss of salmon and offers 10 actions and management approaches to consider in response.

“This work highlights, among other things, the need for a cultural exemption to the existing moratorium on harvesting Yukon River Chinook salmon by subsistence users,” said co-author Doug DeMaster, a consultant with Marine Analytics Consulting and retired biologist formerly with the National Marine Fisheries Service.

“This approach would provide for equity in harvesting of Chinook salmon by subsistence users and the Bering Sea pollock trawling fleet, where the existing management policy allows trawlers a harvest of roughly 1,000 Yukon River fish per year, while allowing a zero harvest for subsistence users in the U.S. portion of the river," DeMaster said.

Co-author Edward Alexander, with the Gwich’in Council International, said the decline in salmon populations is disproportionately affecting Indigenous people. He highlighted several possible responses from the group’s policy brief.

“The food security crisis posed by salmon management practices, and the current warming environment in Alaska more broadly, disproportionately affect Indigenous peoples and subsistence fishers, as well as river-bound salmon species,” he said. “The current management approach should be amended to include marine protected areas, additional scientific review by the National Academy of Sciences, and include more representation on decision-making bodies by Indigenous representatives, among other important interventions to alleviate this crisis.”

The Study of Environmental Arctic Change program’s podcast, “Out of the Arctic,” explored the Yukon River salmon collapse in. Alexander, DeMaster and others are featured.

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Doug DeMaster, doug.demaster@gmail.com, 907-796-9175; Ed Alexander, 1edward.alexander@gmail.com, 907-328-9325; Erik Schoen, eschoen@alaska.edu, 907-474-7735

SEARCH is funded by the Office of Polar Programs, , [OPP-2040541].

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