Integrating Local and Traditional Ecological Knowledge into Anadromous Waters Cataloging and Fish Inventories of Select Drainages of the Tanana and Yukon Rivers: 2021 - 2022

During 2021 and 2022, staff from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Sport Fish, Alaska Freshwater Fish Inventory program and the Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association will collaborate to integrate local and traditional ecological knowledge (LTK) ethnographic interviews into a rapid systematic inventory of fish communities and associated habitats in select drainages of the lower Tanana River and Upper Yukon River in the area of Tanana and Fairbanks. First, in 2021, LTK surveys in the communities of Tanana, Manley Hot Springs, and Nenana will locate important subsistence areas that will be overlain on GIS-selected target streams to assist in filling gaps in coverage of the State of Alaskas Catalog of Waters Important for the Spawning, Rearing or Migration of Anadromous Fishes (AWC) in freshwater habitats expected to support salmon populations likely to be impacted by human activities. Then, in 2022, this project will seasonally sample target streams and nominate water bodies to the AWC when anadromous fish are observed.

Only anadromous fish habitat listed in the AWC receives protection under the Anadromous Fish Act and various other policies that provide additional protections to specified anadromous fish habitat. This project will likely add at least 300 previously unlisted kilometers of salmon habitat to the AWC.