With more than 230 regulatory proposals, several pages worth of suggested changes to the Cook Inlet finfish fisheries, nearly 500 written comments and several hundred pages of Alaska Department of Fish and Game, or ADFG, opinion and reports, the seven members of the Alaska Board of Fisheries will have their work cut out for them in the coming two weeks.

The board is scheduled to take up Cook Inlet issues from Jan. 31 to Feb. 13 at the Egan Center in Anchorage and several local organizations are gearing up for the triennial meeting which brings many of the area’s ongoing management issues to the forefront of statewide discussions on how to manage fish resources.

The first few days of the meeting are scheduled primarily for public and advisory committee testimony. Representatives from Fish and Game advisory committees, whose bodies spent the weeks leading up to the meeting finalizing comments on each proposal, will present their support and opposition to the proposed regulatory changes, while individuals can also voice their concerns to the board.

While attendees cannot sign up to comment publicly until the meeting starts, during the Board of Fisheries meeting on Lower Cook Inlet issues in December board members said they expected the public comment portion of this meeting to be substantive.

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