Fishing families address barriers to entry for next generation

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

Fishermen talked about the current state of the fishing industry and the outlook for the next generation at a workshop last night.

The event was part of research to look at how evolving regulations and environmental factors among others things have affected family fishing businesses over the years.

KMXT’s Kayla Desroches was there at the Kodiak Harbor convention center to listen in.

Attendees shared concern about barriers to entry like the cost of fishing permits. They also touched on fisheries politics and its effects. Some shared stories about the role fishing plays in their families.

Denise May from Port Lions said she remembers one day when her son brought an assignment home from school.

“And he was looking at that piece of paper and he’s five, and he says, mom, I don’t get it, ‘cause it said write down what season it is, and I said you know what the seasons are, and he said you mean crab, halibut, salmon, and herring?”

May said her father and his father before him fished, and now her children fish. But she says along the way, it changed from a way of life to a business.

Marysia Szymkowiak is a social scientist who’s trying to learn more about the shifts fishermen are seeing within their own families.

She works with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Juneau and led the workshop, which is part of research to better inform fisheries managers about community dynamics.

Szymkowiak says they want to know if fishermen need to leave industries or even communities behind and why.

She says, so far, she’s heard some of the same things across the state.

“A lot of these themes are really recurring in terms of increasing costs being driven up both by regulatory changes, but also kind of increasing insurance costs and increasing fuel prices and so on, and those kinds of things impacting people’s access into fisheries and the capacity of new generations to enter.”

Szymkowiak says they started the project last year in Juneau and have held workshops in Homer, Sitka, Anchorage, and now Kodiak, with a growing list as more people show interest.