April 1, 2024 — The federal government has won a permanent injunction against the state of Alaska in a case important to subsistence fishing rights.
U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason ruled Friday that state fisheries managers can’t allow salmon fishing on a long stretch of the Kuskokwim River if their orders conflict with federal management decisions aimed at protecting fish for subsistence use.
The dispute arose in 2021, a drastically low chinook salmon year. The Federal Subsistence Board and other federal officials sharply curtailed salmon fishing on 180 miles of the Kuskokwim, where it winds through the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta National Wildlife Refuge. They closed that section of river to non-subsistence harvests. They also limited subsistence fishing to local rural residents and imposed restrictions on when they could fish and what gear they could use.