Subsistence Fishing

Highlights

• ADF&G Announces 2019 SE Alaska Chinook Salmon All Gear Harvest Limit
• Yentna River Drainage Emergency Subsistence Regulations Effective Immediately (PDF 191 kB)
• ADF&G Asks Fishermen to Report Harvest of Atlantic Salmon
  • How to Report an Invasive Species
• Chinook Salmon Research Initiative
• Nonsubsistence Use Areas
• Alaska Subsistence Salmon Fisheries 2012 Annual Report (PDF 4,415 kB)

Subsistence uses of wild resources are defined as 'noncommercial, customary and traditional uses' for a variety of purposes. These include:

Direct personal or family consumption as food, shelter, fuel, clothing, tools, or transportation, for the making and selling of handicraft articles out of nonedible by-products of fish and wildlife resources taken for personal or family consumption, and for the customary trade, barter, or sharing for personal or family consumption (AS 16.05.940[32]).

Under Alaska’s subsistence statute, the Alaska Board of Fisheries must identify fish stocks that support subsistence fisheries and, if there is a harvestable surplus of these stocks, adopt regulations that provide reasonable opportunities for these subsistence uses to take place. Whenever it is necessary to restrict harvests, subsistence fisheries have a preference over other uses of the stock (AS 16.05.258).