A measure aimed at banning salmon setnetting is being held afloat by backers. The ban includes the Anchorage area, much of the Kenai Peninsula, Valdez and Juneau. It would completely eliminate Cook Inlet setnetters and affect roughly 500 fishing families in all.

Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell decided two weeks ago (Jan. 6) to not allow the question to go before Alaska voters as a ballot initiative in 2016. The newly formed Kenai-based Alaska Fisheries Conservation Alliance followed up with an appeal filed in Alaska Superior Court.

“In a measure based on conservation and Alaska law, our organization will challenge the decision to disallow our proposed statewide commercial set net ban in the urban, non-subsistence regions of Alaska from going to the state voters,” AFCA Director Clark Penney said at a press conference.

Alliance legal counsel Matt Singer called the legal opinion “incorrect.”

“The decision by the Lt. Governor and the opinion by the Attorney General upon which it was based is wrong. They are wrong on the law,” Singer said. “The decision, should it stand, will set a dangerous precedent for Alaska.”

The setnet ban is being driven primarily by the dwindling number of king salmon returning to Cook Inlet, which has curtailed salmon fishing across the board for several years. Removing setnetters would likely shift more fish to sport anglers and the drift fleet targeting sockeyes.

Treadwell ruled it amounts to fish allocation decisions, which cannot be made through a voter initiative. The Alliance insists, however, that it is a conservation measure. Treadwell urged all users to find solutions, and to let decisions be made by the State Board of Fisheries. But Matt Singer countered that AFCA has no confidence in the board.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal>>