Original Article Source: Alaska Journal of Commerce by Bruce Knowles
In 2012 Gov. Sean Parnell stepped out for the first time ever and declared a statewide king salmon fishing disaster; enormous portions of King salmon water were closed to fishing. He established a task force to determine the cause of our king salmon returns failure.
The Matanuska-Susitna Borough has made salmon issues one of the top five legislative issues for the year. The 2007 Sports Fishing Economic Survey showed for the first time ever the economic importance of sports fishing to Alaskans. In the Cook Inlet area, sportfishing produced approximately $750 million of business and in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough it produces between $80 million and $150 million in revenues to the Valley economy, making it one of the largest sources of income for the Valley.
In the past, more than 300,000 angler days were spent filing freezers of Alaskans. Because of declining salmon returns coupled with heavily restricted fishing regulations those numbers have dropped below 200,000 angler days.
This was not the first time that a salmon disaster has occurred in the Northern District salmon fisheries. The Board of Fisheries has declared six of our king stocks and the entire Susitna River sockeye stock as stocks of concerns. There are 11 separate stocks of concerns statewide and the Northern District of Cook Inlet has seven of them with at least three other stocks that will be qualified for the 2014 Board of Fisheries evaluation for a stock of concern status.
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