FY 2017 Skagit Watershed Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement

Project funds supported a portion of Tribal Fish and Wildlife Enforcement officer’s salaries. This support enabled enforcement staff to monitor a small Skagit Steelhead fishery for gear and area compliance. Tribal Fish and Wildlife Enforcement officers monitored fishing sites for fishery regulatory compliance including gear restrictions, open waters, catch reporting, and emergency closures from early May Chinook fisheries through the end of sockeye fisheries. In addition Enforcement Officers helped limit take of listed species by removing derelict or phantom gear in the Skagit River. The Fishery Enforcement Officers coordinate with other agencies ensuring both state and tribal enforcement and conservation activities are being enforced. The officers routinely check fishing grounds after scheduled fisheries in the Skagit River to unsure no derelict gear is illegally fishing.

The primary benefit is to prevent illegal harvest and to monitor tribal fisheries to ensure fishers are complying with harvest and conservation regulations that were developed in PFMC and North of Falcon arenas and ordinances set forth by Tribal Council. The presence of an officer on the fishing grounds during fisheries facilitates communication with harvest managers on accurate catch accounting and reporting to ensure that tribal fisheries are managed to achieve conservation goals. The officers also conducts surveys for illegal fishing and responds to all derelict reports reducing or eliminating accidental and illegal takes of Chinook.
The Skagit Recovery Plan highlights the impacts of illegal take in Chapter 6, under section 6.3.3 Poaching. In chapter 7 Harvest Management Actions under section 7.8 “Harvest Enforcement Actions” have identified a series of recommendations for monitoring these impacts. The funds used for this project address recommendations identified in the Skagit Recovery Plan, more specifically the plan outline 10 recommendations, two of which are supported by this proposal. Recommendation #2 (page 72 and 73): “Demand on existing enforcement staff is expected to increase, necessitating the need for increased cooperation through the development of effective partnerships.” Recommendation #3: “Future state and tribal compliance priorities will focus on illegal harvest and take for both anadromous and native resident salmonid species as well as habitat protection to provide “gravel to gravel” protection by vigorously enforcing current state, tribal and federal protection regulations.”