Online registration is now open for the Sept. 19 webinar meeting of the Alaska Salmon Research Task Force, which is mandated to review and report on research about Pacific salmon in Alaska.
Attendees will be in listen-only mode for the 10 a.m. to noon session, but may submit questions or comments via a chat box during the meeting. Questions are to be compiled and addressed at the end of the session. Minutes and a recording of the meeting are to be posted on the NOAA fisheries task force webpage.
The task force has also scheduled a hybrid meeting in Anchorage from Nov. 14-15, which will be open to the public. On Nov. 14 the task force will hear a report on existing knowledge and caps and hear public testimony. On Nov. 15, the task force will address research needs and hear more public testimony.
The task force has a year to identify research needed to better understand salmon decline on the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers.
The task force is mandated to review and report on research about Pacific salmon in Alaska, identify applied research needed to understand also declining salmon returns in some regions, and to support sustainable management of salmon. After one year, the task force is to produce a report describing the science review and recommendations on filling knowledge gaps that warrant further scientific inquiry. It will be up to state and federal agencies to decide which projects to pursue and get funding for.
The task force formed in the wake of congressional passage of the Alaska Salmon Research Task Force Act, introduced by the Alaska delegation, and signed into law in 2022.
Appointments to the research team were announced earlier this summer.
More recently the task force announced 29 people named to a working group to specifically focus on salmon returns to the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, where depleted returns have had a devastating impact including a ban on subsistence fishing.
