It's looking like another poor year for the return of Yukon River chinook salmon, though the jury is still out on the fall run of chum salmon.

Forecasts provided Wednesday at the Whitehorse meeting of the joint U.S.-Canada Yukon River Panel indicate a third consecutive summer of below-average to poor returns.

It's likely there won't be enough fish to support either a commercial chinook or recreational sport fishery in the Yukon, the 14 panel members heard from government scientists on both sides of the Yukon-Alaska border.

The panel heard it's probably going to be another year of asking Yukon first nations to cut back on their food fishery by 50 per cent.

There was even a suggestion of another year of conservation measures to reduce the harvest by Alaska's defensive subsistence fishery, and likelihood of no commercial fishery on the Alaskan side.

Dorothy Bradley's family roots go back 54 years at the Pelly Farms, on the bank of the Pelly River, just up from the confluence with the Yukon.

As one of about 30 members of the general public attending the meeting, Bradley told the panel how she recently heard from a friend about a woman in Austria who was thrilled she could buy canned Yukon River salmon in Austria.

"But here I am living in the Yukon and I can't even fish," she told the panel.

Her family traditionally fishes for subsistence food, but hasn't been able to set their nets in three years.

Bradley expressed concern about the low harvest levels being discussed, if the fishery comes back as poor as it might.

How can fish managers, she wondered, maintain a harvest level of just 3,700 fish on the Yukon side of the border, or 12,000 Canadian chinook on the Alaskan side?

Bradley suggested when she sets nets looking for a dozen chinook, there's not much she can do it she pulls 24.

With so many fishermen on both sides of the border, she wondered, how is it possible to manage to such low levels to promote conservation?

"That is my question."

The Yukon River Panel heard from a number of experts Wednesday afternoon, and all day Thursday. It continued this morning with discussions around the growing concern regarding the number of Yukon River chinook accidentally caught off the coast of Alaska by the high seas pollock fishery.

A panel delegation will be in Anchorage next week to push for a hardcap on the number of chinook the pollock industry can catch before having to shut down. The panel wants to work toward a hardcap of 32,000. Industry has countered with a figure somewhere between 68,000 and 84,000.

Chinook caught by the pollock fishery cannot be sold, and must be thrown overboard as waste or delivered to port for use by food banks and homeless shelters.

Issues before the panel in the last two days covered continuing research into a potentially fatal disease in the Yukon River chinook stocks, to a growing absence of the larger, seven- and eight-year-old fish returning in the annual migration.

Technical staff presented research suggesting Yukon River chinook are generally smaller overall these days.

There was discussion about whether managing spawning targets should be based on the total number of fish entering the river - as is the common practice now - or the percentage of females in the run.

Panel members also reviewed 35 proposals worth $1.2 million, as part of its annual process to fund projects that assist in the restoration and enhancement of salmon stocks.

Yukon River biologist Pat Milligan of the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans and a member of the joint technical committee said the committee is again recommending a target of 45,000 chinook spawning on the Yukon side of the border.

Scientifically, the math says the return of Canadian chinook to the mouth of the Yukon River could hit 90,000 to 100,000, Milligan noted.

A return of 100,000, he pointed out to the panel members, would allow for a Yukon harvest of about 12,700, and an Alaskan harvest of 43,000 Yukon-bound chinook.

Milligan said in recent years, however, the actual return is coming in much lower than the equation suggests it should be.

Therefore, as a "precautionary" measure, the estimated return at the river mouth for management purposes this year is being set at 61,000 to 72,000, the biologist pointed out.

He explained that of a total return of 61,000 Canadian fish, 45,000 would be required to meet the spawning goal, 3,700 would be allocated for the aboriginal food fishery in the Yukon, and 12,300 would be allocated for the Alaskan subsistence fishery.

Information presented to the panel suggested there wouldn't be enough fish for a commercial fishery on the mainstem of the Yukon River inside Alaska, but perhaps a restricted commercial fishery on the Tanana River. It's likely conservation measures will be needed

for Alaska's subsistence fishery, it was pointed out.

Alaskans - aboriginal and non-aboriginal - have passionately defended their subsistence fishing rights.

Complicating matters is the depressed economic state of many Alaskan communities who rely on the chinook migration, it was said.

Late last year, a delegation of Yukoners delivered a message to the Alaska's subsistence users that they, like Yukoners, needed to embrace conservation and cut back on their harvest, which runs at about 50,000 chinook annually, about half of which would be salmon bound for the Yukon.

Yukon first nations harvested 3,400 in 2008.

The Yukon River Panel sponsored an $80,000 campaign this past winter to promote conservation among the residents of Yukon River communities in Alaska.

"I believe if things are going to work for us, we need to work together," elder Lizzie Hall of the Selkirk First Nation told panel members.

Before the white man arrived, she said, there were aboriginal governments and methods of managing salmon and other resources the people depended on.

Hall said the panel needs to embrace the wisdom of elders and traditional knowledge, and seek more input and involvement of those who depend on the salmon.

There needs to be more monitoring of the catch at the mouth of the river where all the big fish are being taken, the elder told the panel.

"If you do not look after it at the mouth for fishing, we are going to be out of fish," she said. "We have to learn to share equally."