In-Season Management
During the salmon fishing season – roughly early May through August – KRITFC In-Season Managers and staff meet regularly with the management team at Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge to discuss the state of the salmon run and decide whether or not to open the river to subsistence fishing. Several sources of data factor into this decision, including:
Traditional Knowledge and local observations from KRITFC In-Season Managers and other rural subsistence users, which help inform assessment of run strength and run timing.
Bethel Test Fish Project, a long-term index of run strength and run timing which serves as the main formal management tool. While it provides general categorical (high, medium, and low) measures of abundance, it is a very imprecise in-season indicator of the total run size (only available post-season).
Bethel Sonar Project, a relatively new in-season indicator of run strength and run timing. While it has served as an increasingly helpful and informative source of run strength and run timing information in recent years, it remains experimental.
Community-Based Harvest Data from harvest opportunities of a subset of lower river communities provides critical information about harvests during openings, including species ratios and catch per unit effort. Immediately after a harvest opportunity, CBHM program data provides information about the salmon abundance during that harvest opportunity. This community-based information is particularly valuable because it is provided directly by harvesters and therefore is seen as highly credible.
Our In-Season Managers know the gravity of these weekly in-season meetings. Like all of our Fish Commissioners, each of them comes from a subsistence fishing community on the Kuskokwim, and each of them depends on subsistence harvest opportunities to catch enough fish to feed their families. When the fish are in the river, they want to fish as they were taught by their parents and Elders. However, our In-Season Managers also recognize the urgent need for conservation closures while the king salmon runs are declined in order to help the kings reach their spawning grounds to rebuild our fish populations. Finding the balance between providing a subsistence harvest opportunity and protecting king salmon is highly challenging and emotional; we cannot understate our gratitude for the wisdom, emotional labor, and perseverance our In-Season Managers bring to the federal management table all season long.
“Every decision we make as In-Season Managers means caring for the whole river, and its drainage, its tributaries, its people, the people’s survival and food security, and the whole Yup’ik [and Athabaskan] culture. ”
Weekly KRITFC-USFWS meetings are not open to the public. However, subsistence fishers who want to get involved in management or speak with managers can:
Call into KRITFC’s weekly river-wide teleconferences, held every Monday of king salmon season (May 17 to July 12) from 10:00am – 12:00pm AKST. These toll-free teleconferences are a time to ask questions about regulations and fishing opportunities, share updates from your fish camp, and voice your comments or concerns to KRITFC managers.
If you live in the lower river communities of Akiak, Kwethluk, Bethel, Napaskiak, Napakiak, Nunapitchuk, Tuntutuliak, or Eek, you can speak with Harvest Monitors if you are selected for an interview through the CBHM program. Harvest Monitors will collect your comments about fishing and relay them to fisheries managers. They can also answer questions about regulations and fishing opportunities. This is a way to become more engaged in the fisheries management and monitoring process on the Kuskokwim.
Attend Kuskokwim River Salmon Management Working Group (KRSMWG) meetings, which occur weekly through the majority of the king salmon season and are open to the public.