State Sen. Albert Kookesh, D-Angoon, this week said dismissal of a citation against him for overharvesting susbsistence fish near Angoon was a victory for people in his village.
“I don’t feel vindicated. I just want people to get enough fish to survive off of. The unemployment rate in Angoon is really high and people rely on that,” Kookesh said in a phone interview.
Kookesh and three other Angoon men were charged July 12, 2009 with violating bag limits on a beach seine sockeye fishery at Kanalku Bay. The men had 148 fish and between three and eight valid subsistence permits among them. The bag limit there is 15 fish annually per household.
Superior Court Judge David George of Sitka last week ruled that the 15-fish bag limit, set by emergency order, sidestepped the state’s Administrative Procedures Act, which requires a public process for new regulations, including a public hearing.
“They weren’t following the process set up by the legislature. You can’t set bag limits by emergency order,” Kookesh said. An attorney, Kookesh said the ruling may have implications for other subsistence regulations in the region.
Kookesh reiterated statements he’d made earlier in the case, including that he wasn’t fishing with the men, but was there to watch and became involved in the matter on principle.
“I didn’t touch a fish that day. I just thought this was too big an issue to let it just happen this way. It needed some kind of attention,” he said. “We had to take it to some kind of resolution.”
Kookesh said the 15-fish limit was never explained to villagers. “No one ever showed the scientific justification for that bag limit.”
The limit was “inherently unfair,” he said. “How can a family survive on 15 fish a year, when a couple miles away, commercial seine boats are taking thousands of fish at once?”
The bag limit also didn’t recognize that it’s common in the village for fishermen to share their catch with residents who can’t fish. “This is not an individual society, it’s a collective society… The reality is if I don’t help some of these people get their fish, they’re not going to get fish.”
The district attorney’s office is reviewing the decision.
Kookesh earlier this year said he expected the state would rule against him, and that he would have to pay a fine.
George ruled against a Kookesh argument that the state lacked jurisdiction at Kanalku.