Commission hears Cook Inlet season review, raises coordination and data gaps for federal EEZ fishery

The Matanuska-Susitna Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission on Wednesday heard a review of the 2024 Cook Inlet salmon season from Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries), with commissioners pressing both agencies for better in‑season coordination and more funding for monitoring tools such as an offshore test fishery, weirs and sonar.

Commissioners and agency staff framed the meeting around sharply reduced king (Chinook) and coho returns, a largely concentrated sockeye run and the first full season of the federal Cook Inlet EEZ (federal offshore) drift gillnet fishery. ADF&G and NOAA officials reported run and harvest numbers, management steps taken in 2024, and shortfalls in monitoring capacity that officials said limited their ability to detect and respond to some declines sooner.

"6,600,000 fish was slightly greater than the forecasted amount of 5,700,000 fish," said Colton Lipka, Upper Cook Inlet area manager biologist for commercial fisheries, summarizing the department's sockeye run and harvest figures for 2024. He said the upper Cook Inlet total run estimate was about 6.6 million sockeye with an overall harvest near 2 million fish and an ex‑vessel value of about $19.2 million (a 20‑year average is about $23 million).

State managers described a season in which large concentrations of sockeye…