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The conflicting testimony Tuesday, sometimes in English, sometimes in Yup'ik, came as the Federal Subsistence Board considered a first-ever request: to protect subsistence fishing in several western Alaska rivers by restricting commercial fishing in Area M hundreds of miles to the south.

Subsistence advocates say federal intervention is necessary after the Alaska Board of Fisheries this winter loosened restrictions in the June fishery in Area M, located off the Alaska Peninsula and at the beginning of the Aleutian Islands. They fear higher catches of sockeye and chum salmon bound for streams where conservation measures restrict subsistence fishermen.

The federal secretaries of Interior and Agriculture will make the final decision. But the Anchorage-based subsistence board is providing a recommendation, and so many people signed up to testify that the board extended the meeting another day.

Many Area M advocates noted that their Aleut forebears had fished salmon along the Alaska Peninsula for thousands.

"We consider our lifestyle commercial-subsistence," said David Osterback of Sand Point. It takes cash to subsist, he said, and the cash comes from a healthy commercial fishery.