Fleet Consolidation primer

Guys

For most of you this is old news but since we've had so much technical discussion about the SRA and fleet consolidation we need to have a ten point -give or take- clarification here

1.  This is not a conservation buy back.

The SE purse seine fishery is as robust as at any ten year period in history.  There have been only 340 million pinks harvested in the past decade, due to a couple of droughts and tough winters.  The average harvest on odd cycles exceeds 40 million, while even cycles are around 20 million. This brings us rapidly to point number 2.

2. The cycles necessitate a tighter fleet on the off( even)years.

The even cycles have been particularly slow in north end recruitment and rebuilding.  In 2008,2010 and 2012 the seine fleet didn't fish central or northern Chatham at all, save for the Hidden Falls THA and the postage stamp at Augusta.  This jammed the entire fleet in the southend, a few assorted bays and the hatchery areas.  And we all know what kind of congestion we already have in the hatchery THA's.

3.  Fuel coats, insurance, shipyard bills, boat purchase costs and overall operational expenses are going through the roof.  

Although SEAS ED is trying to punch through with a 20th century vessel, I still run my 1949 wood Sagstadt built vessel.  My operations cost just to outfit and run the boat are well over $100,000.  And that's a vessel that has no mortgage or bank payments.  In the years of plenty there is enough to go around but let's face facts:  there simply is not enough gravy in this fishery to pay the bills year in and year out with an expanded fleet.

4.  The next phase of the buyback is chipping away at permits likely to be deployed in the next year or so.

The 3% is already being collected.  We are down 100 permits since we began and this phase is likely to only retire a dozen or a couple dozen permits.  But this would knock the total permits down by 4%-8% more.  And these are permits that have a high likelihood of being fished in the next couple of years.


5.  The fishery can go one of two ways.  More boats and less fishing time or vice-versa.

The managers of the SE purse seine fishery have a number they consider when making announcement decisions.  The fewer the boats, the more likely we will get expanded fishing time and area.

6.  The seine fleet is a mobile fleet.

Unlike many other salmon operators in the state, i.e.,set net, Bristol bay, copper river...the seiner in false pass, PWS and Kodak, not to mention the sardine and squid seiners of Cali and OR, are extremely mobile.  There's at least 2 dozen guys who fished PWS in 2012 who will be in your lineup in 2013.  Maintaining a tighter number of permits in SE keeps us within predictable expectations for future years.

7.  Boats are bigger. Gear is more effective. Equipment is more efficient.

While the SE fleet is still catching up to modern efficiencies practiced in most Alaska salmon fisheries due to the low economic condition we experienced with pink salmon a half decade ago, the fleet is constantly increasing in boat size, net efficiency and skiff power.  This leads us to either a reduced fleet or reduced fishing time in order to make the correct management calls for the resource.

More to follow.......

Hope you all have a Happy and prosperous 2013.



Bobbyt

New Fleet Consolidation Phase Begins

Bid packets were sent out today from the SRA! Soliciting bids from eligible permit holders.

Look for them in the mail early next week.

Thanks to those of you who have supported our fleet consolidation program and thanks to those of you who continue supporting it into the future.

For those of you who want to sell a permit at this time for any reason, this would be a good way to do so.


Again, thanks for your support.  Bidders have until late January to return the packets.  At that time there will be awarded bid ranges and the NMFS will conduct a vote, as they did last spring, when the permits in SO1A were narrowed down to 315 outstanding permits.

Deckboss Article on Angoon

We posted this on March 18, taken verbatum from the Deckboss blog.  There have been 110 hits on this article from folks scrolling  back to March to read it on our website so we thought we'd haul it out to the front page.
Just so you don't have a Orson Wellesian World at War breakdown, this is about a meeting that happened LAST March, not this coming March.  Naturally SEAS has had alot to say  about the USFS's ability to manage Alaska's state marine waters salmon fisheries, but you'll have to go elsewhere to find those opinions as this is just a direct haul off the Deckboss website.


Deckboss on Angoon and Comments 

Southeast seiners face a subsistence fight

The Federal Subsistence Board, at a meeting set for March 21-23 in Juneau, will consider a petition seeking to close or curtail commercial salmon fishing in Southeast Alaska.

Kootznoowoo Inc., the Native corporation for the village of Angoon, submitted the petition to the federal government.

The petitioner asks the feds to exercise "extraterritorial jurisdiction" to protect the subsistence priority for Angoon residents. It contends the state-managed commercial fisheries have interfered with subsistence fishing for sockeye.

Kootznoowoo wants commercial fisheries in the waters around Angoon closed or restricted. This includes fishing districts in Chatham, Icy and Peril straits.

The Native corporation also recommends reducing the harvest area adjacent to Hidden Falls Hatchery, located across Chatham Strait from Angoon.

In advance of the meeting, the Federal Subsistence Board has posted a staff report that looks at the petition, area salmon runs, Angoon subsistence practices and fishery management.

The report concludes by saying "not enough information" is available to know if a total closure of commercial purse seine fisheries would meet all of Kootznoowoo's stated needs.

The report adds, however, that it "appears more likely than not that the commercial purse seine fishery is reducing the number of sockeye salmon returning" to federally managed waters.

To see Kootznoowoo's petition and supplement, go to the Federal Subsistence Board website.

JKT by 32 in recount--It's officially over now

Fishing in the wake of the great Angoon seine boat captains

My first impression of Angoon was a good one but one that brought to light the post 1970's salmon deficit. Wally Swanson, Bob Thorstenson Sr., and myself flew in to look at a net for Wally's son Rob, who was beginning to seine then, in the spring of 1982. There had been a decade of no fish for seiners, over a decade, and the only boats and seine skippers who survived were lucky or good enough to diversify: geographically, like Ketchikan, Sitka or Craig districts; other fisheries, like longline or crab fishing, or early or late season herring or dive tendering or shrimping; or diversification that takes the place of your better half having a better job that you do.  A real job. Up until very recently Angoon had a few boats to take in some of the seine harvest.

In any event, the fleet took the huge hit from the impacts of the 1970's, not the least of which was the closure of the Chatham Cannery, where over half the population of Angoon worked in the summer. In those older days, those who weren't out seining with the Angoon seine fleet worked over at the Chatham Cannery at Sitkoh Bay. Dad left me movies and slides we've watched over the years when Linne and Dot Bardarson ran the Chatham Cannery in the 1960's. It was a very positive experience for the social as well as economic benefits and I've spoken with many Angoon residents or descendants who were there who recounted the experience as a very positive one.

Once the rest of the Chatham Straits canneries mostly shut down, the opportunity to work would have split the family up. After Kake closed for good in 1978, the only canneries that the wives, younger kids and older daughters could travel to work would be XIP at Excursion Inlet, or Sitka Sound Seafoods or Petersburg Fisheries.

This became uneconomical as well as impractical to split up families. For a time in the 1970's through the early 1990's Icicle Seafoods kept a buying station with ice and provisions for local trollers. But the connection to the Chatham Cannery hurt the industry connection, as well as limited the sockeye that were harvested for subsistence out of Sitkoh Creek. When the cannery working famies lived over there all summer it was an easier harvest. Unless there are low water conditions present, Sitkoh sockeye are not always available, making a trip from Angoon meaningless if it's a day the sockeyes are scattered or not schooled up.

So while the local canneries lost the local connection- as the Hood Bay Cannery had in earlier times- a handful of the local fishermen did not. These fishermen, with just a 5-6 man crew, would be a huge economic unit for Angoon. Besides the jobs these boats brought home cook fish from the large catches. In 1985, I fished for the same company as Peter Jack and we caught almost exactly the same amount of fish.  He was a little ahead of me with 562,000 lbs. And that year Dennis caught about the same and he was also fishing for Icicle. Now that's a little stake to take a few fish home from even though they were mostly pinks and chums. The 58 footers were also great for helping with subsistence if the weather was rotten, and of course, to get in a good deer hunt or two over in Peril Strait, Kelp, Hook or Chaik Bays.

There were yet fishermen like former SEAS members Ronald Johns- FV St Peter, Peter Jack-FV Jerilyn and Dennis Eames-FV Talia who highlined out of Angoon throughout the 1980's and 1990's and were many seasons the top -per capita- purse seine fleet in all of Southeast Alaska. In 1993 Dennis Eames was top boat in all of Southeast Alaska with 1.3 million pounds and was typically top boat in the northern districts all of his last 2 decades of seining through his last season in 2006. That is, typically top boat if he managed to beat the great Johnny Hinchman on any particular year. One of my favorite fishing spots, near Hoonah, was Johnny's and then Dennis's spot. But I found it in 1999 while Dennis and Johnny were out in Lisianski on a wild goose chase. So I get up the next morning and the Talia was anchored there. Because guys had been complaining to me that this spot was too close to their spot, I asked Dennis about it.   He told me that was his spot. Unless Johnny or Wayne got there, but usually Johnny went behind, at Beacon Pt.

I also recall one trip to Dall Island in 1986. Dennis was down there with the first Talia - the old Dean- and he and I weren't catching too well due to our smaller northend 3 1/4 strip nets. I was getting gillers in my chafing gear. I remember just like it was yesterday. He said " well,kid, we'll get back up to the northend one of these years and then we'll show 'em". We went into Cordova Bay with our little nets and did just fine. I fished Mellon Rock and then Eek Pt., where Dennis came over from where he'd been fishing in Hetta Inlet. Dennis was a longtime SEAS member and onetime board member as well.

I fished with Peter Jack many times at the hatchery, at Peril Strait, Neva Strait and Pt. Caution. One of our last years fishing nearby was in Neva Strait in 2001. He could hardly see with his eyes going bad due to his elderly age-- he must have been nearly 80-- but we were patient and waited turns with him all day. Peter Jack also was a SEAS member when he was younger and active as well as Mayor of Angoon when the Admiralty Island National Monument was created.  Peter Jack was also CEO and President of Kootznoowoo Corporation.

I met Ronald Johns the first time in 1989 in Craig at the fuel dock. The St Peter was getting a bit worse for wear. I almost stepped through the main deck. Must've had good pumps as they were fishing seagull bluff and little roller the next 2 days. Ronald was an incredibly wise man and he would tell me about his biggest sets in Lake Anna and Sisters Lake. He had a knowledge that should have been collected either in writings, interviews, tapes or some other medium.

All the old timers knew so many things that they accomplished or failed at long ago that could help us today.  They also knew of the cycles.

There have always been salmon cycles, up and down, since time immemorial. Of the 100% of salmon fry that emerge, we catch a minor single digit percentage of them. The other 95% get killed by predators: whales, seals, sea-lions, dolly varden, larger salmon, stream blockages like that at Kanalku ( Kanalku has had stream passage problems for sockeye as early as 1968, when the USFS began blasting out rock-- and as recently as 2011 when the state of Alaska funded a quarter million dollar USFS study as to how best proceed with a fish ladder or to enlarge the jumping pool below the falls)as well as Hasselborg Lake( which, blockage free, probably has more potential to produce sockeye than Kanalku), bad winters, deep freezes, drought conditions with low water levels, floods. There are more factors that contribute but this isn't meant to be a salmon essay.

Back to Angoon.

I spent some time in 1984, trying to buy shotgun shells in October. The community was nice to us and I really felt a kinship with the place. ( Remember my kindergarten birthday party was a hunting trip to a cabin closer to Kake than Petersburg) We were back in 1989, bootlegging on a late August 4 day opener. I'll never forget getting corked by Dennis Eames at Peninsular Point- across and north of Angoon- because I couldn't figure out which way the tide was going so I stalled a bit. So he corked me. I'd have done the same had I been in his shoes.

So I was in Angoon with Magnus, in 2009, the year my father died, listening to the dock stories(which insisted that he caught at least 500 unreported sockeye, which we won't repeat here) of the Senator Kookesh issue, but my son and I didn't go uptown because there'd been alot of Brown Bears in town that summer.

The best news about Senator Kookesh's issue was that we now knew that Kanalku was ready for fishing. Subsistence fishing. 2009 and 2010 have been the biggest known or counted Kanalku years ever. We would have likely had higher sub. limits in 2009 had we understood that the run was going to be a record.

Same thing happens seining. We have such a big year, unsuspecting to the ADFG, that we aren't allowed to fish accordingly. We miss a few days or a few weeks even.

An inseason adjustment to subsistence harvest from 15-20-25 would be alogical outcome of such a program. It may take a while to get used to and subsistence fishers would have to be connecting with the management authority

So are we saying Senator Al should have been able to fish. YES, in a more up to the moment management, we'd have seen that he had to catch more sockeye in order to not overescape Kanalku Lake.

Back to the Great Angoon Seiners.

I learned alot from these guys. Probably Dennis more than anyone else. But I remember one day I was down in Cholmondeley in 1987 and I sat around waiting for the dogs to come up. Well, Ronald Johns on the St Peter, he went out on the corner by Hump Island - but on the mainland west of Hump- and scratches up 1500 dogs in a day. Worth about $15,000. Back to school for bobbyt. I had enough for dinner and a six pack.

Anyways. I hope the next generation of seiners will show up in Angoon. There's lots of fish swimming by on odd cycles now. The state is doing a fantastic job of managing the fishery and Angoon should participate.  The Hydaburg fleet is growing with Sid Edenshaw having great seasons with Peter Jack's boat the Jerilyn.  Frank Wright of Hoonah had one of his better years of alltime in 2011. Some of the younger Kake guys are doing great-- Clarence Jackson's son Jeff is doing just fine and Henrich Jr. is spending more time running the Donna Jean as well.  A few years ago Delbert Kadake bought George Hamilton's boat the Janice and is doing well with that first class vessel.  And Nik Nelson is out in Chatham running Joe Demmert's old boat the Lovey Joann.

bobbyt

SEAS letter on ETJ

This was posted 8 months ago and we post it again as we are coming into the time of the year where we will be discussing Kanalku sockeye and Chatham sockcye in general



Issue of the Week- Chatham Strait Sockeye

March 21, 2012

Tim Towarak, Chair

Federal Subsistence Board

1011 E. Tudor Road, Mail Stop 121

Anchorage, Alaska 99503

Dear Chairman Towarak and Board Members,

The Southeast Alaska Seiners Association (SEAS) would like to take this opportunity to humbly ask that you reject the request by Kootzoowoo, Inc. for Extraterritorial Jurisdiction(ETJ) We represent the salmon purse seine fleet in Southeast Alaska. We were once proud to say that we represented the Angoon seiners as well for several decades, when there were yet seiners in Angoon. Our fleet includes 1500 fishermen, including the skippers and crews and we are the backbone of the Southeast commercial salmon fishing industry that is the largest employer in Southeast Alaska. Approximately 20% of our fleet is Tlingit-Haida and approximately one-third of our membership are Federally Qualified Subsistence users. We also represent through paying membership 68 support businesses throughout Southeast Alaska. Approximately 30% of the owners of these support businesses are Federally Qualified Subsistence users.

As we begin here, let's just say that even the very idea of Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction is insulting to most Alaskans.After statehood we have bestowed upon the most responsible, intelligent and determined individuals we could find to manage in trust our entire social and economic foundation and lifeblood- the Salmon. These men and women of ADFG blue take their responsibility seriously and between God and these managers, we consider both to be the creators and keepers of our salmon resource.

There are some small ironies here in that it was the Federal Government in 1968, 44 years ago, which first recognized and began changing the complexion of the Kanalku Falls and pools. One can look up the black and white pictures of the Kanalku problem on the internet today, just as it were 1968 again. That's 44 years. That's 11 sockeye life cycles.

It was also the Federal Government, throughout the 50's and 60's, which permitted the streambank at Kook Lake’s outlet creek to be logged all the way to the stream, causing erosion that likely caused significant sockeye spawn die-offs as recently as a decade ago. (When a large log and woody debris clogged up the sockeye caves- where the stream goes underground) So how fair would it be for the same Federal Government to return here today after knowing that these Federal Government issues with the local streams indeed either likely caused or exacerbated the underlying issues with these two systems. (Which, coincidentally are the two very systems that have received the most discussion of the Chatham Strait sockeye stocks)

Did the US Government not have knowledge 44 years ago that there was an issue with Kanalku sockeye safe passage to the lake? As recently as last year, the state of Alaska sponsored a USFS feasibility study to do just that- to build a fish ladder. And so for 44 years, and 11 life cycles of Kanalku sockeyes we have Federally studied and understood spawning barriers at Kanalku Falls. One would have to ask what the motive a group would have to seek to reach out up into Chatham Strait into the best managed fishery in the world without first attempting to solve these underlying, non-fishing related issues?

We believe that in order to get to the issues at hand these the Southeast Regional Advisory Council and the Federal Subsistence Board need to dispense with the frivolous petition to exercise ETJ and wrestle with the issues we’ve laid out.

And now we’d like to lay out our major points that we believe will help explain the Chatham Strait issue.

1. State management authority. The State has managed the Chatham Strait Corridor with as much conservation and precision as humanly possible. In 2011, there were 178 pink salmon for 1 sockeye harvested. This is simply not a target specie. Since 2006, new information came from USFS Biologist Ben Van Allen that there was up to 70% mortality for jumping Kanalku Falls. . How could we even begin to talk about closing fishing time and area when there is not safe fish passage to the lake on many seasons? And furthermore, how could we consider fishing restrictions when there has been absolutely no stock identification in our fishery.

Here is the most important thing about the ADFG Chatham Strait Management: The vast majority of Chatham Strait has been closed in the first 3 weeks of July for well over 2 decades in order to pass sockeye stocks into their creeks and streams of origin. Kootznawoo has asserted that there was no changes in the state of Alaska’s positions or management strategies regarding Chatham Strait sockeye stocks. And they are correct. But that's why there were no sudden changes in recent years with the ADFG's management system. It is what we do and have been doing in our day to day management.......and that's why recently, Kanalku sockeye numbers are the highest numbers we have on record.

2. In the past 2 decades the state of Alaska has drawn up corridors and boundary areas around Basket Bay as well as Kootznahoo Inlet. This, accompanied by a start time in mid to late July to avoid the earlier timed stocks of local Chatham Strait sockeye salmon, allows the seine fleet to begin the pink salmon season once the sockeye season is almost completely over. We'd like to use science and not speculation when there is ever any discussion of fishery time and area closures or removals. That's what introduces us to our next topic, Genetic Stock ID.

3. We need Genetic Stock Identification. Will we know vastly more than we know today? No. And why would we assert that. We will have far more precision and have more answers. But in the aggregate, since well over 80% of the sockeye caught in Chatham Strait are from the Snettisham Hatchery, Taku , Chilkat and Chilkoot Rivers, there will be some interesting identification that is closer than what we have now. But we intuitively have a pretty good idea that if a sockeye is caught off Danger Point or Basket Bay that it's got an exceptional chance of being a local Kanalku sockeye. So we close those places for good and we don't even fish nearby until the sockeye runs are 90% over.

We believe it will prove what we have known all along about our fishing during the pink salmon run timing, thereby avoiding the majority of the sockeye run timing. WE need the GSI to determine if the Kootznoowoo Corporations' allegations of unfair sharing is really occurring here. It's really where we need to start. We have a basic question of unfair sharing of the salmon resource but we have no actual harvest numbers nor baseline to determine that.

4. The best example of the rebuilding of Kanalku is the 2009-2010 back to back run cycle. 2009 was one of the most fishing boat days along the Angoon shoreline we can recall. We had a typical season with high pink salmon abundance. We sat on the beach for the first 3 weeks of July for the most part and then began fishing along the Angoon shoreline. That year the total return to Kanalku (subsistence of 600, escapement of 2650) was 3250.

In 2010 there was no Chatham fishery. None. The return to Kanalku (subsistence of 600 and escapement of 2950) was around 3500 sockeyes.

These were the 2 biggest returns ever recorded to Kanalku, which is remarkable considering the fish passage issues that we’ve had in so many of the other seasons.

One when there was lots of fishing. One when there was no fishing.

Gets you to wondering if this closure of the first few weeks in July is doing something. Yes. It's allowing 90% of the sockeyes to get into their streams and lakes before the seine fleet begins fishing in the vast majority of Chatham Strait.

There will be some discussion here about how 2011 fell short but salmon biologists or fisheries manager would not compare year to year, but cycle to cycle. Just because 2009 and 2010 were off the charts means nothing for 2011. 2011 returning adults would have been halfway across the ocean in 2009 and out by the chain or 600 miles off Kodiak in 2010.

2011 was a product of 2007, which was a product of 2003, which was a very weak cycle. Cycle upon cycle, The 2007 cycle increased by around 80% over the weak 2003 cycle and the 2011 cycle improved by around 50% over the 2007 cycle. Besides the weak cycle, one wonders what the cause of the weak 2003 cycle really was. Was that the year of the treefall that filled up the jumping pool or was that a cycle where a fish ladder would have provided triple the escapement. We do know about 2007 because Ben Van Allen was there and at least a sockeye died for nothing before reaching the lake for every sockeye that made it to spawn.

5. Subsistence is the priority. SEAS supports the Subsistence priority. Always has. Always will. But this does not mean that seiners, trollers and gillnetters are going to be waiting on the beach for subsistence users to complete their fishery. It just doesn't work this way. We have to make in season forecasts and harvest and escapement predictions. SEAS supports vastly increased State and Federal funding for ensuring safe passage to the Kanalku Lake and other Chatham Strait Lakes in order to attempt to ensure that no further Kanalku sockeyes die while attempting to jump the 16 foot long jump required to get over the falls when water levels are high.

We believe that looking at Kanalku and the recent rebuilding going on, it's obviously the state's plan that's been working. The state has stayed with its early season run timing model. The timing of this fishery and keeping the seine nets out of the water for the early portion of July, is an important contribution for our shared success in quickly rebuilding Kanalku. Again, we urge you to reject the Extra Territorial Jurisdiction petition and move on to the local solution of actually identifying Chatham Strait sockeye stocks through Genetic Stock Identification program and building the Kanalku Falls fish ladder.

Sincerely

Dan Castle

President, Southeast Alaska Seiners Association

What do Kootznoowoo, Inc, the Angoon Community Association and Angoon and SEAS have in common

What do SEAS and the 3 Angoon governmental and corporate entities have in common?
The following captures most, but not all of our common interests, beginning with the most recent news piece about Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, the Alaska State Legislative representative for Angoon, replacing Bill Thomas.

1.  We strongly supported JKT in his win over Bill Thomas.
Angoon turned out 2-1 for JKT.  SEAS members in Hydaburg, Hoonah, Kake, Sitka and Klawock came out to vote for JKT and SEAS members from other SE communities strongly supported JKT's campaign, along with the commercial fishing PACs and the trollers- to the tune of 20-25% of his financial support.

2.  Longtime SEAS members Peter Jack, Ronald Johns and Dennis Eames used to count as major leaders in the Angoon community.  Several of their ex-crew members still reside in Angoon.
It is from leaders in the seine fleet like these men as well as Hoonah SEAS greats like Joe White and Johnny Hinchman that us younger guys learned how to catch salmon in Chatham Strait.  If we still had Peter, Ronald and Dennis in the seine fleet, or someone to replace them, SEAS believes that we'd have never had this issue run so far up the Federal flagpole.

3.  Both SEAS and Angoon are striving to ensure that sockeye systems in Chatham Strait are robust.  In fact, the recent half decade has produced the largest recorded returns to Kanalku on record, with 2009,2010 and 2012 returning total numbers averaging 3000 sockeye through the Chatham Strait to the Kanalku system.  In fact, under normal ADFG protocol, Kanalku would be considered a fully recovered sockeye system.

4.  SEALASKA shareholders harvest 20% of the pink salmon returning to the Chatham Strait corridor in the passing stock fishery that passes the waters outside Kanalku. And while the seine fleet from Angoon has shrunk from 3 seiners with 18 good paying jobs down to zero in recent years, it is a goal of both Angoon and SEAS to work together on a program in the future to get permits and boats working out of Angoon.

Hydaburg was down to one seiner as recently as 1990.  Now there are 4 seiners who caught 4.5 million pounds in 2011 worth $2.5 million ex-vessel, $6 million wholesale----up from ex-vessel value of $100,000, $250,000 wholesale in 1990.  In 2012 the ex-vessel in Hydaburg was $1.6 million and the wholesale was $4 million.  Not a bad business model for a sustainable industry for a community with both high economic and subsistence values.

5.  SEAS supports an ADFG management program that adapted in the 1980's and 1990's to harvest a very modest effort in Chatham in late June and early to mid-July.  In fact, in the even cycle years of 2008-2010-2012 there was not a single seine-caught salmon within 30 miles of Angoon and nearly all of Chatham Strait was closed due to poor winter conditions leading to low pink salmon abundance.

Amazingly, the incidental harvest of sockeye salmon bound for Kanalku was obviously very low even in 2009 and 2011 when the seine fishery operated extensively in Chatham.  Albeit 2011 was the weak cycle for Kanalku historically, it was a 50% increase from e parent year of 2007 and nearly triple that of the grandparent year of 2003.

ADFG closed Danger Pt and has a 9 mile bubble around Angoon that is temporarily closed to seining.  Both SEAS and Angoon want to make this a permanent closure.

6.   SEAS and Angoon support ongoing and further mark recapture studies to determine the impact of Kanalku falls on returning sockeye.  While years of low water flows, such as 2009-2011 indicate robust passage, it is apparent from the preliminary 2012 numbers, along with the USFS counts from the mid 2000's, that years of strong water flows and heavy July rains impede sockeye passage as much as 50-70%.  Obviously that is a rate far exceeding the highest harvest rate the seine fleet could ever impact the Kanalku system with the current management regime.  To this end both Angoon and SEAS support improvement of sockeye passage with blasting to make a deeper holding pool or providing a fish ladder for use on years of high water flow.  Ironically, Bill Thomas helped procur a $250,000 budget increment to study such goals.  We'll need further support from JKT on this as most of that funding was used up in the report and study.

7. Speaking of the current management regime, and touching on common point number 5, consider the sockeye bubbles and restrictions that ADFG has placed on the seine fleet the vast majority of the sockeye pass through the Chatham corridor prior to opening the seine season.  This is an easy characterization when one considers the Bristol Bay model.  Once the 15-20 of July arrives, there could be any fishery imaginable without impacting sockeye escapement, as 80-95% of sockey have passed to the local Chatham streams y this time.  And certainly by July 25, it's just a pink salmon fishery.  Indeed, the last day that a member of the famous Kookesh family has ever subsistence fished for Kanalku sockeye is July 21.

===============

FYI, here are the strategic goals of Kootznoowoo, Inc. from their website.

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Strategic Goals

1. Steward our Lands – we will continually identify profitable ways to both manage and protect our lands.

2. Seek Financial Stability and Profitability – we will manage our asset profitably seeking stability of earnings.

3. Maintain Excellent Board Governance and Effectiveness – management to assist Board in regular and routine review of policies and procedures to maintain accountability, productivity and effectiveness.

4. Maintain Efficient Organization – management to constantly develop and implement processes and procedures necessary to reduce operating costs and improve productivity.

5. Manage Investments – management to review annually the Board’s investment policy and implement and monitor external management with a focus on risk return trade off and costs of implementation.

6. Produce Shareholder Dividend – management to review annually the Board’s dividend policy and recommend changes as appropriate with the goal of creating sustainable dividend.

7. Evaluate Opportunities – management to promptly and effectively evaluate new business opportunities to assist in the growth of the company and its dividend.

8. Effective Communications – management to assist Board in communicating effectively with each other, employees, shareholders and all interested parties.

9. Foster Cultural Identity – promote and protect the history and culture of the Corporation and its Shareholders.

Nowhere in Kootznwoowoo's website, mission statement or strategic goals does SEAS find any inference or direction to close, curtail or usurp the state of Alaska's Chatham Strait management that benefits SEALASKA members to the tune of tens of millions of dollars and hundreds, if not thousands of jobs for the communities of Hydaburg, Kake, Hoonah, Sitka, Metlakatla, Klawock, Craig or even the SEALASKA members of Juneau, Petersburg or Ketchikan.

It is SEAS goal to work together with ADFG to retain state management of the Chatham corridor to the benefit of ALL communities, including Angoon.  We believe that the lack of understanding of the Board of Fish process by Kootznoowoo leadership and the complexities of the Board of Fish process has led to misunderstandings of long-standing conservation that ADFG has implemented in recent decades.  These conservation closures, along with time and area precision management, has led to such success at Kanalku that the last half decade has seen Kanalku returns at all time high abundance levels.


See you at the Task Force meeting December 6th, Centennial Hall, Juneau, 8AM if you are interested in the future of Chatham Strait salmon purse seine management.


Sincerely

Robert M. Thorstenson, Jr.
Executive Director, SEAS

Turn out the lights party's over- JKT by 32 votes

Oops

Make that 34 votes.....

Kreiss-Tomkins beats Bill Thomas for good

54-28 today in the absentees for a 26 vote lead

It's all over but the fat lady singing


SEAS would like to congratulate the next gen politician from Sitka

And aside from some missteps in recent years and 'over the line' issues with ADFG personnel , we would like to take this opportunity to thank Bill Thomas for his years of public service.  And while we are at that, we would Also like to thank Albert Kookesh for his years of public service to Alaska and the communities of Southeast Alaska.  While we have had our differences with former Senator Kookesh, we respect his immense responsibility for the economies of many of our seine based commercial fishing communities like Metlakatla, Kake, Klawock, Craig, Hydaburg and Hoonah.  Both Kookesh and Thomas had 34 seiners along with their 140 crewmembers in their district as residents-- 90% of whom were Sealaska shareholders-- and another 30-40 Sealaska shareholder seiners along with their 150 crew members who fished the same waters but who reside outside now.

Had either gentleman won their seats, Thomas would have inherited a district where over 50% of all seine caught salmon are processed and where 65 seine boat owners and 300 crew membe live while Kookesh would have inherited a district where over 75% of seine caught salmon are processed and over 100 seine boat owners and 500 crew members reside.

We recognize their commitment to growing the SE economy and continuing to support the $40 million in wholesale value of seine-caught salmon ($16 million ex-vessel) caught by Sealaska shareholders in 2012 and the $65 million in wholesale value of seine-caught salmon ($26 million ex-vessel) caught by Sealaska shareholders in 2011.

In their role as Sealaska Board members we look forward to aiding with insight and information and following their lead in working towards a balanced economy of salmon resource development alongside responsible native lands development long into the future for our kids and grandchildren as well as the kids and grandchildren of the respectable  gentlemen from Haines and Angoon.

And likewise, in their roles as the state-recognized leaders of these same seine communities we would like to congratulate their winning opponents in the 2012 election, returning Senator Stedman and newly elected Representative Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins.


And, lest we forget, we'd also like to take this opportunity to thank Kyle Johanson for his years of service as Ketchikan's Representative.  Much as Chairman Thomas assisted with our hatchery cost recovery reform legislation, Former Majority Leader Johanson was a huge factor in shepherding our fleet consolidation legislation through the 2010 legislative session.  We at SEAS are profoundly grateful to the job he did, assisting the legislation sponsored by the Representative from Anchorage, Charisse Millette.

Now here's to 4 more years for Senator Egan and Stedman.

And 2 years to JKT, Minority Leader Kerttula, Representative Wilson and Representative Munoz.


Bobbyt

Another freeze up in Northern SEAK

Not to be so gloomy or up to the moment on the Wx predictions but another cold front is moving in, with temps lower than sat one and into the teens.

Wind chill at our office will bring it below 10

The Mt Juneau waterfall has been frozen for a week and a half now


We've just come through a hard edged odd-even sine 06 and it looks like its going to stay that way til 16 at least

Congratulations to Kathy Munoz, Beth Kerttula and Dennis Egan, who had no races.

And congrats as well to Peggy Wilson and Bert Stedman, who won theirs.

Next totals coming from the JKT-Thomas race tomorrow

And final coming Wednesday

then the recount


Bobbyt

It's a tie-- 2 votes come in from PA

Thomas leads by 2 votes

And the lead changes


Guess there'll be absentees coming in until next Monday

Is this the 21 st century yet

Where's the pony express and mailboats

Stay tuned


Bobbyt

jKT leads Bill Thomas by 7 votes

After a robust absentee effort of 1880 odd votes to add to the approximately 6000 ballots already cast in the Sitka Angoon Pelican PA Haines Hoonah POW district, Jonathan Kreiss Tomkins maintains a 7  vote lead.

Apparently there is an error in the absentee count so there is an absentee recount so this may yet change by the end of the day


SEAS wants to thank all of you seas members who voted and contributed to JKT's campaign.

Having said that we'd also like to thank Chairman Thomas for his years of service, his enormous contribution in his earlier years in office to our important hatchery reform legislation as well as hatchery and ADFG and ASMI funding throughout his 8 year tenure.

Thank you for your public service Chairman Thomas.

We won't go into it here but our past articles point out the wrong fork in the road that the Chairman took and we'll leave it at that.

Here's to a purer, fairer Representation from the newly formed district in the 23 year old, soon to be graduate from Yale, JKT


Bobbyt