KRITFC has released our summary report of the 2020 salmon fishery season on the Kuskokwim River. 

In this summary, we highlight how we co-managed the 2020 Chinook salmon run with a precautionary approach, as detailed in our 2020 Chinook Salmon Management Strategy. Our pre-season and in-season management saved the Chinook salmon run – whereas strategies from ADFG and USFWS, based on overly optimistic pre-season forecasts, would have severely depleted the run – while still allowing for four 12-hour harvest opportunities for Kuskokwim River subsistence fishers.

Key points from this report include: 

• It was risky and unwise for ADFG and federal managers to make significant pre-season and in-season management decisions using a highly uncertain forecast, solely informed by a single year’s run size.

• In the face of uncertainty, climate change and poor runs, KRITFC must take a precautionary approach and use their own knowledge and observations to manage our declined Chinook salmon run to ensure conservation and subsistence uses of these salmon will continue.

• No one is coming to save us: the 2020 salmon run was a reminder that KRITFC, representing subsistence communities on the Kuskokwim, cannot assume that a state or federal agency will take action to ensure salmon conservation. We cannot depend on federal agencies to uphold the provisions of ANILCA. 

• Kuskokwim residents must advocate for ourselves and apply appropriate conservation actions to sustain and rebuild the run even when actively opposed by federal managers.

• The 2020 salmon run was a reminder that subsistence harvesters and our in-season managers can identify a poor run based on their own observations combined with in-season information. It is critical to continue bringing the best available salmon science and traditional knowledge forward to inform management decisions.

• Without the precautionary approach taken by KRITFC in 2020 – with harvesters sacrificing subsistence harvests for conservation – the Chinook salmon spawner escapement goal (88,000) would not have been achieved.

• In response to the poor Chinook and chum salmon runs, the USFWS manager and his fisheries biologist told subsistence harvesters they should not worry and more fish are coming, despite the lack of any evidence.

• The Chinook and chum salmon runs were very poor. If the trends of both low Chinook and chum salmon runs continue, subsistence harvesters will not be able to meet minimum food security needs.

• Although a healthy sockeye run was observed in 2020, it was difficult to harvest them without negatively impacting the Chinook and chum salmon runs.