Group aims to ban commercial setnetting in Cook Inlet, urban Alaska

A new organization backed by a powerful Kenai River sportfishing advocate is trying to ban commercial setnet fishing from all urban areas in Alaska, including Cook Inlet.

The group, Alaska Fisheries Conservation Alliance, counts Bob Penney, a politically-connected Anchorage real estate developer who has long been vocal about sportfishing issues, as a director.

The group says prized Kenai River king salmon are threatened by overfishing and bycatch and blames commercial set-nets for worsening the problem.

“There is no debating that king salmon stocks in Cook Inlet are at historic lows,” the group wrote in a statement to reporters. “Setnets are indiscriminate killing machines and it is time they are banned in urban areas in Alaska.”

The ballot initiative is the latest salvo in a decades-old fish war between commercial fishermen and sportfishermen. Each side wants an increasingly scarce and enormously lucrative resource: king salmon.

You can read the rest of this article at the Anchorage Daily news website.

Reach Michelle Theriault Boots at mtheriault@adn.com or 257-4344.

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