KMXT 100.1 FM Public Radio in Kodiak, Alaska
Kayla Desroches/KMXT
The Board of Fisheries wrapped up its meeting in Kodiak last week. The board puts out an open call for suggested regulatory changes in any fishery and region. One proposal it received would have allowed fishermen to harvest a certain number of bairdi crab in the Bering Sea despite the low threshold of mature female crab.
Glenn Haight , executive director with the Alaska Board of Fisheries, says it didn’t go through.
“The levels have gotten low enough that Fish & Game did close the fishery. The industry is quite concerned, communities around the Bering Sea are quite concerned about that, and because of that, the board developed a proposal that they heard about here in Kodiak, and their action was to not open the fishery back.”
Board members have many such proposals to consider, the majority of which are not their own.
The board has been meeting since statehood, Haight says, but in the ‘80s, they started fielding even more proposals. It called for some changes in meeting protocol.
“By the time they got to the ‘90s, they separated their meeting cycles to take on subject matters every three years, so for instance for Kodiak, they’re gonna take that on once every three years, so what they’ll do every year is they’ll put out a call for proposals, and it’ll identify which region and which species that they’ll hear proposals on.”
The Kodiak finfish meeting continued here in town from January 10 to 13, and the board will meet again to talk about upper Cook Inlet finfish next month in Anchorage.
