The City of Kenai opposes an effort to list Gulf of Alaska chinook salmon as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
In a letter to the National Marine Fisheries Service, authorized during the Kenai City Council’s regular meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 21, the city both stated their opposition to that proposed listing, as well as the National Marine Fisheries Service’s positive finding on the requesting petition.
The petition, per a release from the service, was submitted in January by the Washington-based Wild Fish Conservancy. According to the service, the petition called for listing of chinook salmon as either threatened or endangered, as well as the designation of critical habitat in need of protection. The service’s positive finding, based only on that petition, means that the service thinks that action may be necessary. It triggers a 90-day “in-depth review” to determine whether that listing is warranted.
“City of Kenai residents, fisheries, and non-fisheries businesses and industries could be significantly affected by such a listing,” Vice Mayor Henry Knackstedt wrote in a memo to the council. “There is no scientific data that we are aware of that warrants a population-level risk to Gulf Chinook.”
The city cautions against possible “profound consequences” if chinook salmon are listed as threatened or endangered. Federal oversight could result, they write, in “unnecessary reductions or complete closures of fisheries.” Habitat protections, too, could result in new regulatory requirements in local areas.
The city’s letter says that the petition has failed to present information warranting listing of the species as threatened or endangered, and cites the service’s own acknowledgment that the petition included “factual errors” and “unsupported assertions.”
The petition, according to the city’s letter, misrepresented facts and omitted information that may contradict its claims. The current evidence, the city says, “does not indicate an imminent risk of extinction.”
The service, in their listing of the finding in the Federal Register, says that the petition failed to present data indicating improvements in some salmon populations and doesn’t provide examples to support described threats of logging, mining, overharvest and competition from hatchery salmon.
The city writes that the Endangered Species Act is an incorrect tool for addressing low productivity of king salmon, instead looking to the State Department of Fish and Game, who are tasked with managing to protect long-term productivity of salmon stocks.
“Failure to meet escapement goals signals a need for corrective management actions but does not indicate an imminent risk of extinction,” the letter reads.
Indeed, they write, the department is actively taking steps to respond to declining chinook productivity. The department and the State Board of Fisheries have reduced chinook harvest, named stocks — like Kenai River late-run king salmon — as “stocks of concern” and implemented action plans.
Those responses have resulted, they write, in closed fisheries, reduced effort and other impacts even for fisheries that don’t target kings.
“Alaskans endure cultural and economic impacts during productivity downturns to ensure the long-term health and productivity of salmon stocks,” the letter reads.
Those changes are “indicators of Alaska’s strong and responsive management approach,” not evidence of stocks in danger of going extinct.
The full letter can be found at kenai.city. It was authorized via the consent agenda without discussion, but a full recording of the meeting can be found at “City of Kenai — Public Meetings” on YouTube.
Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.
