By ALEX GIMARC

Governor Dunleavy rolled out a pair of bills, HB 111 and SB 108, advocating a change in state law currently prohibiting fish farming for fin fish in Alaska. The legislation is a decent first step toward building a fish farming industry here in Alaska.  

As currently written, the legislation prohibits fish farming for salmon, allows farming of private stocks for personal use, and requires secure containment, meaning onshore only in bodies of water not connected to any flowing water. The first farmed fish appears to be trout.  

The usual commfish suspects instantly came out in loud and vociferous opposition, including commenters on Must Read Alaska, viewing it as a threat to their livelihoods. In this, they are correct that there is a threat. They are incorrect that this legislation is the threat. Rather this legislation is the first step to a solution.

If the legislation is a solution, what is the problem? The problem is a stark economic reality as international fish farming today controls a growing 75%+ of the worldwide salmon market.  When Alaska prohibited fish farming in the state in 1990, fish farming was responsible for around 10% of all salmon sold worldwide. Alaska was the dominant player and took this step to protect Alaska commercial fishermen (commfish) from this sort of competition.  

The problem with protectionism is the only thing it protects is success of the industry demanding it.  

Not only has the ban protected commfish from succeeding in the new marketplace, it has guaranteed they cannot even learn how to be competitive.  As such they are being ground into economic dust.  Their reaction over the last couple decades has been to engage in an increasingly bitter series of fights with other user groups for salmon to keep their failing business model afloat.

Today, we are faced with a statewide failure of king runs, shrinking weights of fish caught, and disappearance of wild stocks of coho, chum and reds in Prince William Sound. Most of this is blamed on the yearly dump of a couple billion pink salmon fry from Prince William Sound commercial hatcheries.  It appears that the pinks outcompete wild fish for available food in the North Pacific.  In recent years, we have seen a couple mass die-offs of sea birds that eat what the salmon do.  

Craig Medred is the best writer in the state on this mess. He would be a good follow on the subject.

What additional threats other than shrinking fish, disappearing kings and other wild salmon species do we have?  What does the future hold?  

Somewhere along the line, the greens are going to claim a king salmon run into a particular drainage is an endangered species and the feds are going to agree with them. This will be done by playing the subspecies game they have played so well with Cook Inlet beluga and polar bears. 

When that happens, US Fish and Wildlife Service will list kings in that drainage as endangered and shut down fishing in and into that drainage for everyone.  This probably won’t happen under this president, but it is coming. When it does, commfish operating there will go the way of the MatSu and Kenai River king guides, into economic oblivion.   

Recent taste tests between farmed and wild salmon have found no difference in consumer appreciation. If the farmed product tastes just as good, is more abundant and cheaper, it will it continue to improve in sales, ramping up the economic pressure on Alaska commercial fishermen.

Fish farming offers a way out of this, as Alaska is a big place with lots of shoreline to place onshore and offshore fish farming systems. An incremental move from the current state of affairs to a growing salmon farming industry ought to be on the table.  Additionally, we need to take a look at in-river fish traps as a solution to sorting fish in mixed species fisheries while that transition is made.  

Failure to do this, or to even look at it will doom salmon runs in Alaska to the same destruction already visited on king runs statewide.  Once those runs dwindle to the point where commfish no longer has the political clout they currently enjoy, that clout and their businesses will disappear, and nobody else will care, as everyone else will have lost the ability to dip a hook or a dipnet chasing salmon.  

This is important. We need to do it. At a very minimum, we need to have the discussion, something we are not seeing out of Senator Stevens commfish working group which seems poised to continue doing what we are currently doing expecting different results.  

My final point would be Gov. Dunleavy’s rollout of this. This rollout, not unlike his rollout of a reasonable and exciting proposal for casino gambling several years ago, could have been done better. Remember, we have undergone a decades long blizzard of commfish good, farmed fish bad propaganda and brainwashing. 

Sadly, that brainwashing has worked very well for everything other than the fish, which are being destroyed.  Somewhere along the line, early on, you need to address the brainwashing.  

That wasn’t done this time around and may be enough to kill this proposal. Next time, though we might have an actual discussion.Progress. 

Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.