By LOUIS GARCIA
Mirror Writer
The Buskin River may have a low sockeye salmon return this year.
“Based on low escapements of prior years, it’s not looking like we’re going to have a strong run in 2010,” said Donn Tracy, Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) area management biologist in Kodiak.
The escapement goal for the Buskin is 8,000 to 13,000 fish. In 2008 the sockeye salmon escapement was 15,000, which is the historical average, and a number that Tracy doesn’t expect to reach.
“I don’t think we’ll see that number of fish here,” he said. “Might make the goal, but probably won’t make the historical average.”
There are no concrete numbers yet for the count, but Tracy is hopeful the count will be enough that it doesn’t affect fishing.
“I don’t know if it will be closed, and there is no reason to speculate that we’ll be closing sport or subsistence fishing,” Tracy said. “I hope not, and I hope I’m even wrong about the below-average return. As long as we reach that escapement goal we’ll have the sport and subsistence fisheries proceed.”
The lower escapement number has to do with too many sockeye in the Buskin. The years of 2008 and 2009 had some of the highest escapements recorded for the Buskin and were well above the target number of spawning fish ADF&G likes to see in that drainage on an annual basis.
“It’s very likely that the spawning success of those high years of escapement exceeded the carrying capacity in the Buskin drainage,” Tracy said. “Overescapement is basically like having cattle in a fenced-in field or pasture grazing on the available grass. If you have too many they will overgraze what food would be available and subsequently starve and end up with fewer cattle than if you had less in the first place.”
The Buskin was closed for both subsistence and sport fisheries in 2008 and 2009.
Another issue facing sockeye salmon stocks is the lack of a weir at Pasagshak.
The river has a sockeye run that is important for subsistence and commercial fishing.
Unlike the Buskin however, there is no weir to monitor escapements to help aim for a target of fish to keep the numbers healthy. Instead, aerial surveys are conducted periodically over Pasagshak by the commercial fisheries staff.
“It’s a means of counting and estimating fish abundance when you don’t have a weir, but it’s less than optimal because you’re trying to look down from an airplane,” Tracy said. “Also, the biggest drawback with air survey is fish already have to be in a lake. So you’re kind of in a reactive situation than a proactive. By the time you count, the harvest has already taken place.”
This is a big issue when trying to accurately manage fish.
“We don’t have an ability to in-season manage the various user groups,” Tracy said. “It’s a big disadvantage. With a weir we could monitor the fish in-season, and if we had too few fish we could take in-season measure on sport, subsistence and possibly commercial users to limit harvests to meet the escapement objective.”
Currently, ADF&G does not have funding to install a weir at Pasagshak.
Mirror writer Louis Garcia can be reached at lgarcia@kodiakdailymirror.com.
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