Rich Chapell has retired after nearly 20 years as the Haines area sport fish biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Chapell plans to spend his retirement cross-country skiing, spending time with his family, and enjoying life in the Chilkat Valley. "There's a big world out there," Chapell told the CVN days before his Dec 1 retirement. "I'd like to get out there a little bit more than I have in the past."

Chapell started working for Fish and Game in 1990 at a hatchery in Gulkana. After years of traveling and working seasonally, he moved to Haines in 2003 with his wife and 8-month-old son.

"I needed a job that allowed me to come home every night," Chapell said. "I couldn't just disappear all summer long any more."

Chapell managed king salmon sport fisheries, tracked king and coho salmon populations, adjusted species bag limits, and promoted sport fishing in the upper Lynn Canal.

"The best part of the job was seeing the rivers and spawning grounds in the Chilkat valley, boating, walking and wading in the streams of the upper Chilkat drainage," Chapell said.

Chapell witnessed a decline in the king and coho salmon populations throughout his career in Haines. Chapell says the cause is still a "big puzzle."

"Starting in 2012 the (king salmon) run started coming back smaller than expected, based on previous survival rates in the ocean," Chapell said. "That trend has continued to today. We don't know the exact cause of why they aren't thriving as well as they used to, but that's the reality we've had to deal with."

Fish and Game has since cut king salmon harvesting limits to 2%. Chapell said restricting fisheries was the "biggest challenge" of his job.

"It's been difficult, a lot of people have had to sacrifice their traditional fishing time and area," Chapell said. "We haven't had a king salmon derby since 2015. It's been a long time for people in Haines to go without that traditional spring fishery."

The 2019, 2020 and 2021 king salmon escapements met their target and this year's coho run successfully met its escapement goal.

Chapell says he is "optimistic that the stock will rebound," given the recent data and harvesting restrictions.

"I think the habitat is still pretty pristine and we don't have any huge impacts hurting the fisheries," Chapell said.

Conditions in the field were sometimes "hellacious," Fish and Game employee Jane Pascoe said. Pascoe and Chapell surveyed coho salmon together for 10 seasons, often working in challenging weather and water conditions.

"Being out on the Chilkat River in October with a canoe was often stressful," Pascoe said. "Lots of sinkholes, dragging the canoe from one sandbar to another with the wind howling was tough".

Yet, October was Chapell's favorite month, Pascoe said, because it was the one month he was out in the field instead of the office.

"I think he was happiest when he was out in the field," Pascoe said.

Chapell said his favorite project with Fish and Game was working on the Yukon River subsistence salmon survey. He "hopped his way from village to village" along the Yukon River drainage, meeting locals and learning their stories.

"There were some harvesters on the Bering sea coast that could tell me exactly how many chum salmon filets packed in salt and sea oil it took to fill a barrel," Chapel said. "It's pretty amazing how much work they put into preserving fish and the wildlife they harvest."

After 19 years in the Haines Fish and Game office, Chapell's retirement will be spent enjoying the "bountiful resources, recreational opportunities, and good weather days" of Haines.

"Our family is going to be around," Chapell said.

Fish and Game will begin recruitment for the position after the new year with applications available on the Workplace Alaska web page.