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.
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40 comments:
I wonder when natives will be considered normal citizens with equal rights and not need special priveleges to survive. Racism and superiority complexes run amok. Here's an idea, if you enjoy the freedoms and opportunities of the USA, live within the borders of its' protection, reap the benefits of its' economy, start acting like a US citizen and not some special seperate nation. I'm tired of this ongoing blatant anti-patriotic racism being waged upon the "non-native" people of the United States. Assimilate like everyone else has to, or find someplace better to live.
WTF - what does the above rant have to do with whether or not a state commercial salmon fishery is negatively impacting a Federal subsistence salmon fishery?
There are many CFEC permit holders who are Alaska Natives, and there are quite a few non-Alaska Natives who are federally qualified rural subsistence users.
The Federal Subsistence Board has been extremely hesitant to claim extraterritorial jurisdiction on salmon issues. The Yukon River is a good example, where the same plea was put forth to close or reduce salmon bycatch in federal fisheries in the Bering Sea, and to force a change in the mesh size in the lower river commercial king fishery.
In both instances the isue was taken up in the appropriate fishery management venue, the NPFMC and the BOF.
The tribe should be instructed to work through the public petition process established by the BOF - they just wrapped up there annual three year cycle in the SE finfish meeting where this issue more appropriately should have been discussed and deliberated.
Folks should probabaly read the Petition from Kootszoowoo and The Federal Staff Analysis before spouting off here. You will read in the petition that Kootsznoowoo went to the Board of fish in 2006 and 2009 with proposals to address their concerns. Both times they had the door slammed in their face. Their proposal only requested that the ADFG and the BOF implement the law as in AS 16.05.285. The BOF refused to do even this. The existing Amounts Necessary for Subsistence, for the area work out to less than 7 salmon per person for a year, this is outrageous for subsistence users....
Subsistence In Alaska is for native and nonnative so don't make it into more then that.
Too funny when white people get into it. White people have been the disease of this planet. White man moved away from old england cuz they messed it up over there and decided to move to a land that wasn't there's in the first place, and they have the right to tax a land and rape it of everything just for a dollar??? It's funny cuz some of you whom will read this will be white. And think I'm wrong...think of the history timeline for one moment and you'll soon realize I'm right.
Unfortunately the Feds will never exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction to protect the subsistence priority...Sitka's been asking for years in regard to subsistence herring.
Don't be a racist...I'm not from England. I'm from America (born and raised) and I subsist. Subsistence does not identify your ethnic background. It is for rural people. Read the regulations!
To Anon @ 12:04pm...stop with the racist bs. Thank you.
Albert needs more pheesh.
Run to the BOF, or the NPFMC, or better yet let Anchorage decide the issue?
Mirror Mirror on the wall, how many flunkies shall we call for the BOF or NMFS?
Is this like any old Endangered Species Case, shown best in the English & Federal Courts for Alaska's Endangered Species Act...
Get anointed to the BOF or NMFS, and you too were best explained by;
Lord Chatham, Pitt I, and Pitt II, after the King had his head chopped off!
Beluga Hunting? Go NMFS, and BOF, CLUELESS FOPREVER!
"Then, sir, with regard to the extraordinary grants made to the civil list, the very reason given by the honorable gentleman for justifying those grants is a strong reason for an immediate inquiry. If considerable charges have arisen upon that revenue, let us see what they are; let us examine whether they were necessary. We have the more reason to do this, because the revenue settled upon his late Majesty's civil list was at least as great as that which was settled upon King William or Queen Anne. Besides, there is a general rumor without doors, that the civil list is now greatly in arrear, which, if true, renders an inquiry absolutely necessary. For it is inconsistent with the honor and dignity of the Crown of these kingdoms to be in arrear to its tradesmen and servants; and it is the duty of this House to take care that the revenue which we have settled for supporting the honor and dignity of the Crown, shall not be squandered or misapplied. If former Parliaments have failed in this respect, they must be censured, though they can not be punished; but we ought now to atone for their neglect...."
The proper venue, when you thought England invented a Court, for a planet with a mental disease!
"There is a well-known passage in Exodus, /1/ which we shall have to remember later: "If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shah not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit." When we turn from the Jews to the Greeks, we find the principle of the passage just quoted erected into a system. Plutarch, in his Solon, tells us that a dog that had bitten a man was to be delivered up bound to a log four cubits long. Plato made elaborate provisions in his Laws for many such cases. If a slave killed a man, he was to be given up to the relatives of the deceased. /2/ If he wounded a man, he was to be given up to the injured party to use him as he pleased. /3/ So if he did damage to which the injured party did not contribute as a joint cause. In either case, if the owner [8] failed to surrender the slave, he was bound to make good the loss. /1/ If a beast killed a man, it was to be slain and cast beyond the borders. If an inanimate thing caused death, it was to be cast beyond the borders in like manner, and expiation was to be made. /2/ Nor was all this an ideal creation of merely imagined law, for it was said in one of the speeches of Aeschines, that "we banish beyond our borders stocks and stones and steel, voiceless and mindless things, if they chance to kill a man; and if a man commits suicide, bury the hand that struck the blow afar from its body." This is mentioned quite as an every-day matter, evidently without thinking it at all extraordinary, only to point an antithesis to the honors heaped upon Demosthenes. /3/ As late as the second century after Christ the traveller Pausanias observed with some surprise that they still sat in judgment on inanimate things in the Prytaneum. /4/ Plutarch attributes the institution to Draco. /5/
In the Roman law we find the similar principles of the noxoe deditio gradually leading to further results. The Twelve Tables (451 B.C.) provided that, if an animal had done damage, either the animal was to be surrendered or the damage paid for. /6/ We learn from Gains that the same rule was applied to the torts of children or slaves, /7/ and there is some trace of it with regard to inanimate things...."
The English, were quite late to that party, just in case you attended school, in Petersburg.
Way to go Angoon! The state constitution is mandated to protect Alaskans subsistence rights. Good luck.
Ah yes, Asiatic descendants that immigrated across the north and decided to stay many moons ago have never abused each other, right? WRONG.
When you're burning fuel like crazy, going to grocery stores, flying around in planes, living modern lifestyles, your whole "subsistence" lifestyle arguments kind of start looking like a pile of moose turds.
"Anonymous said...
Albert needs more pheesh."
March 5, 2012 7:16 PM
Get off of it! we have the right to fight to protect our subsistence rights!! Don't make it anymore than that!
maybe if they had left there fish alone when they spawn instead of overfishing the rivers they wouldn't need to crawl on there knees begging scraps from the feds.
Subsistence = bidarkas, grass nets, bone and ivory hooks, harvesting what you NEED at a MEAGER level to eat because without it you could not continue to exist.
Harvesting to trade is an act of commerce. Commercial fishing requires a permit. Buy some, you can catch all the fish you want.
Next...!
Everyone in rural communities use Subsistence Natives and nonnatives I heard my father talk about commercial fishing when nets were pulled by hand and power skiffs used oars so bidarkas,grass nets,bone and ivory hooks, Really?? !! I am glad your not the one that has anything to do with seting policy when it comes to anything . . .some people make things what they really aren't.
Its sad that there are some of you who try to make this into something it is not. Fishing is a way of life for some people, its how they feed their family. Native/non native, it is our right to protect it!
I wish we could all just see it for what it is.
I hope that none of you ever feel alone and find yourself having to fight for something so important to you. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
It is our right. It is what it is.
I get that subsistence is a way of life, and I love that about Alaska. But nobody is entitled to catching all the fish they 'need', in one small stream, which clearly cannot support the needs of the whole town. Perhaps Angoon should diversify as the elders did and spread the fishing effort over a greater area, and take a few more cohos instead of expecting 100% sockeye.
Trying to shut down an entire fishery in Chatham Straight Just to have a monopoly on one small sockeye run is not a good solution to this issue. That would be very costly and wasteful, and benefit a select few who have opportunities to fish elsewhere, just like the rest of us who do not fish Kanalku.
Shutting down the north end to get a higher limit in an already weak run just doesnt make sense.
The first response--is way off. Its not about special recognition. We've been here for 10,000 years. It took less than 60 years of statehood to demolish and impact the resources we protected forever. Listen, and learn.
10,000 years and 60 years of statehood?
And the White Act of 1924?
Who went to the moon, and invented a digital calculator, 35 years ago?
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~cap/bartlett/49state.html
50 years later, "what's a fish trap?"
2 biggest years on recorded history on kanalku were 2009 when there was a robust seine fishery.
And 2010 when there was no fishery.
Explain. As for the harvest of Kanalku sockeyes, there has not been a single tag or fish sampled to determine that even a single fish was caught in the seine fishery. That fishery is closed for a 9 mile stretch of beach outside of Angoon.
ADFG has managed the Chatham Strait Corridor so well that 2011 was the #1 season EVER. EVER. For pink salmon. And being that a year and 2 years after the largest ever escapement to Kanalku. What seems to be the problem here.
So then why can't ADF&G, manage ADF&G?
Escapement; always a problem...
http://www.alaskajournal.com/Alaska-Journal-of-Commerce/AJOC-March-11-2012/State-grants-travel-waivers-to-fish-board-chairman/
I would be happy to use our traditional Native harvest methods and means if the Europeans were not here. They are here and the original inhabitants must use the best of the new methods to efficiently harvest what we need. I still call deer with a leaf because it is more efficient than a modern deer call. I use a rod and reel because it more efficient than a spear or gaff. As a child I gaffed many fish in areas that are now off limits to any fishing. The amount of take is "what you need". There is no means basis for a subsistence user under either State or Federal law. Native or Non-Native is not a criterion. All Alaska residents are eligible subsistence users under State regulations. All Rurual Alaska residents are eligible subsistence users under Federal regulations. The "ORIGINAL" inhabitants of this land co-existed with their resources for at least 10,000 years. we never destroyed the resource to make a buck. To do so would mean you might starve.
By the way you might look at the US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8. "The Congress shall have Power...To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." No other so called "MINORITY" was recognized in the original constitution. US Code 25 deals with interactions with "Indians and Indian tribes". The Indian Tribes do have special recognition. The Petition does not restrict the benefits to Natives only. By the way, if you want see a fish trap, go to Metlakatla, fish traps are legal harvest methods used by the residents of Metlakatla prior to the landing on the moon and continue today.
^^^"if the "Europeans" were not here"...sigh...no wonder these discussions never go anywhere.
must have been you, you are still in orbit!
Clearly our resources cannot survive all Alaskans taking what they need....which is why Kanalku has reasonable limits in place to keep the fishery from crashing again. What s so wrong with a limit based on what that fishery can support?
If you limit out, then you go fish a different creek. I can catch enough fish for my family for a year (and we eat it nearly 5 days a week) in 4-5 days of hard work per year. why then, do some Angoon residents (no names here) feel they are entitled to take far more than the biologists say the fishery can support all from the run, that's historically collapsed from overfishing before?
And they want to protect this "right" by closing fisheries that have never caught a single fish from that run, in all thousands of scale samples that they take?
The problem with Kanalku is a big waterfall, and overfishing on the spawners in the creek. Seiners targeting pinks are clearly not the issue here.
1968
First fed study and partial removal of kanalku blockage
2002
Removal of large tree blockage in kanalku
2004
Removal of large tree from usfs 1950s logging blocking kook lake
Wonder why the sockeye are 100% now and weren't doing well in 2002 or 2004?
Duh!!!!!
2009-2010
Largest kanalku runs on record
Think kootznawoo or the fed can do better
Think again
There is no confidence in the limited tagging studies done on the Admirality shoreline. This would be a very good place to start since there is other streams in northern southeast that are wavering on becoming a stock of concern. The Seine fleet seems to have no concern other than what benefits them.
7:15
Didn't William H Seward, (U.S) buy it from Russia 1867 (European?) Like Lousiana?
Just think what Lenin and Stalin would have done to the socioeconomic concerns of a Asian, who immigrated to North America, and now calls himself Alaskan Native?
10,000 years my ass, how many Korean's does it take to fill a village on the Alaska Pennesula
“I am the punishment of God…If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.”
Genghis Khan
We love our minorities, where even the shaman at
Metlakatla was intellegent enough to move a little north.
On January 31, 1770, Lord North ascended to the Prime Ministership of Great Britain...
Why did the African sell a few African's in a Colony ruled by Britan, France, and Spain, but of course the only minority in the US Constitution is Native?
http://abolition.nypl.org/print/us_constitution/
We all smoke marauyuana in our village...
We all take our trips on LSD...
The "extraterritorial jurisdiction" question, for Kootznoowoo?
http://www.1421.tv/extract.htm
There must be limits to this continual "Special Rights" saga.
Exactly how long do you require an added advantage so that you can get a solid foothold, start pulling your own weight, and acting like normal participants of the best, albeit not perfect, "free" society on the planet? I mean really. 10,000 years and the best claim is that you didn't kill each other off completely while warring with adjoing tribes. What kind of a "nation" is that? Do you like indoor plumbing? Trucks? Boats w/motors? Hospitals? Grocery stores? Comfortable knit clothing? THE LIST IS ENDLESS!!! If you hiked, swam, paddled, or flew here, you are an immigrant, period. 10,000 years ago, or a year ago, a resident one way or another. How you act after that is who you really are. Always looking for a special handout, or pulling your own weight and contributing to our common effort. What is YOUR personal worth. Get off the public teat and start doing something. Improve yourself, improve our conditions. That's the way of a healthy society.
Maybe if Senator Kookesh and his buddies wouldn't overfish the runs and harvest more than the bag limit, the numbers of Sockeye would not be a problem. We have bag limits for a reason.
And bag limits aren't a native/non-native thing. The Tlingits had people who "took care of" the salmon runs and defined the bag limits. Even then, way back in the day, there were still people who overfished the runs. Those folks were then ostracized... put on the canoe and told to paddle someplace else...
Senator Kookesh should have been given that treatment. instead, Sealaska stepped in with lawyers and funds for legal fees and the state allowed him to break the law.
I am a native of south east alaska, I am also a commercial fisherman! I find this post rather disturbing because the commerical seine fishery is being targeted!
I come from a small village, and we here also have a small dwindling sockeye run do to OVER FISHING by SUBSISTENCE USERS! yet the commerical fleet gets the blame! Im sure you will not say you have ever over fished it though, you dont want to admit that, its easier to do the blame game! Just saying, I know how it is too!
In 2010 the Tlingit & Haida Central Council Subsistence Director was Floyd Kookesh:
http://juneauempire.com/stories/011010/nei_544924131.shtml
Guess who he also was paid to lobby for in 2010? None other than F/V Pamela Rae, Inc. - otherwise known as Bobby T:
http://doa.alaska.gov/apoc/pdf/2010LobbyistYearEndSummary.pdf
So, it appears that bobbyt is pulling a fast one over the SE seiners, but can we expect them to just roll over like they will on the buyback?
No honor among thieves.
subsistence has been undermined since they changed from native only to rural and non rural, without putting an income level on the non natives who really need the resource to feed there familys.if they make say 30000 dollars or less a year? then most people would have no problem with these people getting food to feed there familys.as it is now millioneers are moving to the villages running around with there 100000 dollar pac man boats makeing a mockery of the whole idea of subsistence.also if it stays as it is now we will see overfishing on all of our resources halibut, crab,lincod and rockfish to name a few.so lets get the fish and game to the people who really need it not only for there spiritual and cultural values but also to people who need the food to supplement there food supply due to there economic condition.
Tragedy of the commons...
Commercial fisherman see all the positive benefits of each additional fish they catch,
While the subsistence user see's all the negative. Highly productive traditional fisheries, that continually get degraded year after year,leaving little opportunity to subsist.
I hope they win, the writing is on the wall.
Don't worry seiners, plenty of fish in the sea.
This is definitely a clash between the rich and the poor and it doesn't have anything to do with race. Those who can afford to subsist do so because their lifestyle includes a job, those who can't sit on the beach and are left begging for a piece of the pie.
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