April 12, 2023 — Alaska tribal leaders from the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers regions filed a federal lawsuit Monday against the National Marine Fisheries Service, seeking a new review of groundfish catch limits in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands.
Years of restricted chinook and chum salmon seasons have resulted from salmon bycatch in the pollock trawl fishery, contends the lawsuit by the Association of Village Council Presidents and Tanana Chiefs Conference, now represented in court by the nonprofit environmental law group Earthjustice.
The lawsuit claims NMFS “relied on outdated environmental studies and failed to consider monumental ecosystem-wide changes that have occurred in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands ecosystems over the last two decades.”
Subsistence fishing in the Yukon and Kuskokwim regions has been cut back over years. Tribal advocates who say salmon bycatch is a major factor are pressuring NMFS and the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to put more restrictions on bycatch in the pollock trawl fishery.
Since at least 2007, western Alaska chinook salmon stocks have been in decline, followed by collapses in chum and coho salmon stocks over the last three years, the lawsuit says.