Big Catch, Undecided Risks: Perspectives of Risk, Reward, and Trade‐Offs in Alaska's Salmon Enhancement Program

Abstract

Alaska's salmon enhancement program plays an important and substantial role in commercial fishing harvests situated around the Gulf of Alaska, Prince William Sound, and Southeast Alaska. In recent years, discussions about the ecological impacts of the enhancement program have emerged in the media, the Alaska Board of Fisheries, and other public discourses. These discussions have illuminated tension within Alaskan society about the role and impacts of hatcheries in fisheries and coastal communities. This study uses qualitative methods to identify key themes that underlie those tensions within Alaska Board of Fisheries public comments and private discourses. We found that issues raised in public comment formats were limited to four key themes, whereas interviews revealed those same themes as well as a broader and more nuanced cross section of themes, both critical and complimentary of the enhancement program. We discuss these themes within the context of enhancement policy and ongoing research into wild–hatchery salmon interactions, both of which pose certain constraints about how trade‐offs between social, ecological, and economic valuation of the enhancement program can be made. We suggest a road map of four steps for action to help avoid potential societal conflict in the future: (1) establish a process to incorporate socio‐cultural dimensions of hatcheries and stocking into enhancement program decision making; (2) better define “adverse impacts” within enhancement policy; (3) link current and future research findings to decision‐making processes and policy implications; and (4) plan for the future(s) through scenario development work aimed at identifying the ecological and societal impacts of different enhancement policy changes, such as drawing down, scaling up, or otherwise altering existing stocking practices.

Alaska fishers attest to climate change impacts in discourse on resource management under marine heatwaves

“…Furthermore, the authors found those who oppose hatcheries express concerns about hatchery water use and the contribution of hatchery fish towards exacerbating other climate stressors, including dissolved oxygen depletion (ibid). Whereas in previous research scientific complexity over climate phenomena was dismissed by fishers in favor of existing mental schemas for attribution, in comments to the Board and other fisheries discourse in Alaska (Harrison and Gould, 2022), divergent science on interactions of wild and hatchery salmon seems to feed entrenched viewpoints largely defined by those who do and do not directly benefit from hatchery production.…”

“…More recently, Harrison and Gould (2022) examined public comments to a 2019 Board meeting on hatcheries coupled with semi-structured interviews with fisheries stakeholders to identify the themes that underlie tensions over hatcheries in Alaska -the results of which illuminate hatchery discourse in our analysis and are discussed further below. Our analysis contributes to this growing body of literature on public participation processes in Alaska fisheries through the use of big qualitative data methods to examine the full corpus of publicly available, digitized comments to the Board.…”

A commentary on the role of hatcheries and stocking programs in salmon conservation and adapting ourselves to less‐than‐wild futures

“…Where conservation work is undertaken by communities, hatcheries facilitate social and psychological benefits to those participating in stocking (i.e. habitat improvement work from hatchery volunteers) (Harrison, Kochalski, et al., 2018), act as locations where scientific and local knowledge may be used and hybridized together for conservation purposes (Harrison, Rybraten, & Aas, 2018), and can provide local employment opportunities (Amberson et al., 2016; Harrison & Gould, 2022).…”

PubCasts: Putting Voice in Scholarly Work and Science Communication

“…As such, scholars can offer a PubCast option to the publisher upon receiving proofs or submitting final drafts of work. Ideally, the publisher will embed the recording link directly into the manuscript (see example Harrison & Gould, 2022).…”