Kawerak is writing to express our grave concern with the status of salmon stocks throughout Western Alaska, and to strongly encourage the council to take a series of actions designed to avert a continuation of this crisis and to put us on a strong footing for future management.Kawerak is the Alaska Native nonprofit tribal consortium for the 20 federally recognized tribes of the Bering Strait region. Our organization and region have longstanding concerns about the management of salmon in relation to federal fisheries and the failure to prevent this long-running and now acutely felt crisis in salmon stocks.In 2021, the Bering Strait and Norton Sound region experienced a salmon disaster. Multiple rivers saw well-below-normal escapement returns for all five salmon species, run timing was late, and subsistence salmon fishers reported very low harvests. Our region is heavily dependent on subsistence-caught salmon, including a dependence on salmon for our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Residents of the southern Seward Peninsula have been experiencing what is now a 30-year chum salmon crash, and are still the only region in the state to have ever fallen under Tier II regulations.
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