Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe Harvest Management and Hatchery Planning

This project will support the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe’s (PGST) harvest management program. The natural resource director and finfish manager collaborate with other co-managers of fisheries in Hood Canal to provide sustainable harvest opportunities for PGST tribal members while protecting listed populations of Puget Sound Chinook, Hood Canal summer chum, and Puget Sound steelhead. The finfish manager will participate in pre-season fisheries planning forums (i.e., North of Falcon, and Pacific Fisheries Management Council meetings) to exercise the Tribe’s co-management mandate. The finfish manager will also participate in pre-season and in-season management of Fraser River sockeye and pink salmon fisheries. The harvest management project scope also includes the development of annual fisheries agreements, updating recovery plans, and issuing both annual and in-season regulations. This will include annual fishery planning with WDFW, NOAA, NWIFC, Hood Canal Coordinating Council (HCCC), and associated technical and policy committees and groups.

. The tribal harvest management program is critical to protect, sustain, and recover salmon and steelhead fisheries. Without this program in place, harvest rates may be exploited to a rate where recovery may be unattainable.