ANCHORAGE — Trials set to begin Tuesday have been postponed for Alaska Native fishermen charged with illegal fishing during a poor summer salmon run, their attorney said Monday.
Attorney James J. Davis Jr. said he sought the delay for 11 subsistence fishermen to be tried in Bethel. Ten others are scheduled for January trials in Bethel, as well.
A status conference has been scheduled for Nov. 30 before Bethel Magistrate Bruce Ward to discuss how and when to proceed.
Davis wants to consolidate the 21 cases to allow a specialist on Yup’ik Eskimo culture to act as a pro bono expert for all the fishermen. The expert, Chase Hensel, would be available until mid-December or in March, Davis said.
Davis said he spoke with some of the fishermen Monday and they were glad to have Hensel’s support.
“I think they feel hopeful,” Davis said. “They’re feeling positive about it.”
Last month, three other fishermen tried separately in Bethel were found guilty of violating strict fishing restrictions last summer. Harry David and Adolph Lupie, both of Tuntutuliak, and Emil Williams, of Bethel, each were fined $250.
In the trials, Davis argued no one notified the fishermen about restrictions and they didn’t know what the rules were.
But Ward said the fishermen were negligent for not finding out about the restrictions.
Showing their support for the fishermen, several tribes have raised more than $10,000, according to Davis.
“This money is to help the fishermen pay for any fines that the court imposes and any travel expenses they incur from flying in from their villages,” he said.
In all, 60 fishermen from western Alaska originally faced misdemeanor charges of using restricted gear or fishing in closed sections of the Kuskokwim River in western Alaska during the summer king run.
Most charges were later reduced to minor violations, and a little more than half pleaded guilty to the reduced counts and were ordered to pay $250 fines.
State and federal officials have said ensuring sustainability for future runs is always the overriding priority, and this year’s king numbers were severely low. The poor runs led to federal disaster declarations for the Yukon-Kuskokwim area as well as Cook Inlet.
Comments (24)
Add commentAre these guys...
...paying the price for someone else's misdeeds?
Why are the runs so low? Trawler habitat destruction and bycatch? Climate change? Ocean acidification? Something else?
I wonder how we could donate
I wonder how we could donate to their legal fund?
Need to obey the rules
Regardless of heritage, rules need to be followed. Having bands of rogue fishermen will help nothing. Fined $250? That's it? I got the same fine for digging clams with a fishing license that had expired by 5 days. All my live clams were set free. This isn't much of a deterrent.
"ensuring sustainability for future runs." Didn't work so well
the past several years did it? Sounds like the managers need to be fined.
So, when the fish in the seas are too scarce for the King's table the indigenous locals must do without. Bring in the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Bandit, so are you and your
Bandit, so are you and your family going without food now, due to your inability to subsist? Theirs are...
Not right!
All these charges should be dropped; these people are not criminals. They are subsistance harvesters putting up food for winter. Offer a course on salmon lifecycles and what's being done to enhance the run(if anything); then ask for cooperation!
snagger: The managers should be consulting with the Yup'ik.
***
Low returns?
Every fisherman I've talked to here in southeast and a few that fish Bristol all say the same thing. There were record numbers of fish. The only excuse given for the closures on the Chilkat and elsewhere is the poor king returns.
How many sport fishermen were arrested and find?
worth pointing out......
That many people in the region stack up piles of fish for their dogs.
Also, if so many were illegally fishing this year, Ken, might overfishing have something to do with it as well?
Time to get rid of the draggers
If folks want fish sticks and fake "Krab", pollock should be fished with pots, not with trawlers. The draggers and their unrecorded/under-recorded bycatch should be stopped NOW, before there absolutely NO Yukon or Kuskokwim kings left.
We also need to step up North Pacific enforcement again, with increased patrols against North Korean and rogue Chinese & Taiwanese boats with their illegal 5 Km driftnets. Begich was right --- every time we catch one of them, we should imprison the crew and sink the boat.
swimmergirl, get up to date
Folks in the region have not been feeding dogs with fish for years. They use snowmobiles to get around in the winter. Any fish they catch these days is to feed their families, but it's all being stolen by the Bering Sea trawl fishery.
Gee, thanks Curmudgeon. I'll
Gee, thanks Curmudgeon. I'll have to pass that on to my friends living up there getting around with dogsleds and feeding their dogs fish. I guess no one bothered to tell them that they dont do that anymore...I'm sure they will be relieved!
So many locals were illegally fishing because the King made
it illegal. Think 60 fisherman brought down the salmon runs?
Maybe 60 trawlers.
Yes, dogs eat fish. It's not like they can jog to the nearest Walmart.
Or should they eat dog?
curmudgeon - when...
was the last time you were in the bush in central, northern, or sw Alaska? I'm in villages several times a year. Kpawsuh and Ken are right - many people keep dogs in rural Alaska - for sport and for working. It's too expensive to fly/barge in dog food. Stockpiling frozen salmon, and chopping them up/mixing with hot water - is how many people feed their dogs through the winter.
Ken - I don't know....
how many people overfish. If 60 were caught, it's a good bet there were a lot more. Maybe not enough to make a difference - but it's at least worth considering as part of the picture.
swimmergirl: Lets say my family was surviving off the land,
for the most part, along with neighbors, nestled in a quiet little valley divided by a river. We've been doing this, and doing it well, for as long as anyone can remember.
Lets say there was another valley sharing the same river some distance away and the new owners found a way to do much better, with a lot less effort, by diverting much of the river to meet their own goals but it greatly diminishes the resources which the river had previously delivered to my family. We continue fishing for what remains because we must.
Then a representative of the other valley visits us and explains that his valley's actions may have caused the resource to be depleted hence new laws must be followed to ensure both valleys have ample resources available but of course his valley is much bigger so my family must wait until enough resources have passed to feed all.
This is the law we all must follow regardless of heritage?
I'm thinking human rights.
Ken - all I'm saying....
is that all factors in the entire river should be taken into account.
I also think it's a little disingenuous to play the 'traditional' card - in just a few generations village folks have gone from fishing with simple traps to motorized boats, nets, and large fishwheels.
I'm not saying folks upriver should not be taken into account, and I'm not saying that fall in stocks are their fault. I'm simply saying just because somoene is fishing for their dinner directly, as opposed to fishing for the money to buy their dinner - doesn't make them exempt from potentially adding to the problem.
Swimmergirl agreed
Regardless of ANY aspect. They broke the law. Period.
Now with that said, yes, these people living off the land are gettin hosed BIG time. Our fisheries have been fished hard and fish and game has done a very good job. If you dispute that, answer this, can you go catch a king salmon? If they were not doing a good job you wouldn't have fish to catch because the commercial fleet would have long ago destroyed our fisheries. While yes fish haven't been low, a record year last I heard actually, there are too many things changing and shifting unlike we have seen before. Go out to NOAA and ask someone there about the current state of fisheries and what's happening.
'survival' fisherman
Those fisherman and all of us who rely on our land and waters for food in rural areas only represent three percent of the annual catch. This statistic is WELL KNOWN by the Fish and Game. Our Alaskan neighbors who NEED this food to survive DO NOT represent enough of the catch to have such limits placed on them. They do not catch enough to affect 'balancing' our fisheries.
Whether they are feeding their families, elders, widows, or their mode of transportation (the dogs) IT IS NOT enough to affect balancing our fisheries.
With that, we ALL KNOW who does need to be monitored.
While the government and law call it 'subsistence fishing'.... THAT IS NOT WHAT IT IS; subsistence means 'biological'... a great misrepresentation of what this is. IT'S SURVIVAL FISHING. We need to emplore our AK government, and Feds to rename it to a name that fits what this fisheries is instead of 'biological fishing'. That word is used against the very people that are trying to survive, SURVIVAL FISHING.
This has nothing to do with the color of anyones skin. All Alaskans who live in rural areas are granted fishing for survival. This is about Alaskan's as a whole.
Also, there was a low king fisheries about fifty years ago. After studying it, it was linked to a large change in the direction tides were moving. No doubt Fish and Game knows this, and in their time AFTER FINING THE SURVIVAL FISHERMAN, will disclose this king salmon statistic.
Donations to the legal fund
The Northern Justice Project is defending these people. Their address is 310 K St. Ste. 200, Anchorage, AK 99501
The Northern Justice Project has not asked for donations but can forward donations or comments on to the entities that are raising the funds for travel and fines... if anyone is interested.
Poor Lattie
So many questions, so few answers!
Some of the worlds greatest
Some of the worlds greatest salmon systems are/were in SW Alaska, but not so much anymore. What gives? Do we really need more science to figure this out?
Since the early 1980's we have seen a correlation in run declines and the advent of industrial draggers/trawlers affecting our fellow Alaskans over there. Annual bycatch reports show them catching thousands of King Salmon "incidently" every year!
Even the Sealions have left the area in favor of Southeast Alaska; here to eat our salmon!
Big money has buffaloed so many educated people.
Selective hearing
People hear only what they want to hear.
According to some of these posts the only people in the wrong are the fishermen trying to make a living and those trying to feed their families.
I say the ones in the wrong are the ones that get a warm fuzzy feeling by putting decent hard working people out of work.
Your new motto should be "working is bad for the economy"