Saving Seafood

Conservation groups to sue over hatchery salmon in Columbia River

September 24, 2025 — The Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC) and The Conservation Angler (TCA) have announced plans to sue the federal government over the damage they claim hatchery fish are doing to wild salmon, steelhead, and orca populations.

“Mitchell Act hatcheries are causing harm that we know how to prevent. We’re taking this action today as part of our long-standing commitment to hold the federal government accountable and prevent further violations that imperil these species and the ecosystems they depend on,” WFC Executive Director Emma Helverson said in a release. “It’s time for NOAA to stop prioritizing maintaining harmful hatchery practices over their responsibility to protect wild fish for current and future generations.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Raising the idea of salmon farms in Alaska, Gov. Dunleavy swims against a tide of skeptics

August 25, 2025 — Amid the hubbub of President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Alaska summit last week, Gov. Mike Dunleavy, posting on social media, posed a provocative question.

“Alaska is a leader in fresh caught wild salmon. We could also be a leader in the farmed salmon industry. Why not do both instead of importing farmed salmon from Scotland?,” he wrote, sharing an article about the value of fish farming in Scotland, where Atlantic salmon are raised in net pens in the ocean. “This would be a great opportunity for Alaska.”

The answer from scientists, wild salmon advocates, restaurant people and regular salmon-eating Alaskans has come swiftly, full of alarm and often along the lines of one of the early commenters on his post, who wrote, “Are you insane?”

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Alaska salmon harvest tops to 129 million fish

August 15, 2025 — Alaska’s 2025 commercial salmon harvest reached over 129 million fish through Aug. 12, with sockeye, keta and coho catches appearing on pace to reach total annual projections.

Those projected 2025 harvests would add up to 214.6 million salmon, including over 138 million pink, 52.9 million sockeye, 20.8 million keta, 2.3 million coho and 144,000 kings.

Data compiled by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game showed the statewide pink harvest at 62.3 million fish, followed by 51.3 million sockeyes, 14.5 million chum, 888,000 coho and 150,000 king salmon.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Alaska salmon groups hail legal filing on Pebble Mine

July 21, 2025 — Salmon fishers, Tribes, and associated businesses in Bristol Bay, Alaska, U.S.A. have welcomed a recent legal filing regarding Pebble Mine, claiming the Trump administration is backing their opposition to the development of Pebble Mine.

“We thank President Trump for defending this one of a kind natural resource from short term exploitation by foreign controlled interests,” SalmonState Executive Director Tim Bristol said in a statement. “Bristol Bay’s world class salmon runs generate upwards of USD 2.2 billion (EUR 1.9 billion billion) in economic activity, are a vital source of clean, nutritious food, and represent one of the great hunting and angling destinations on the planet. Simply put, Bristol Bay is the biggest and the best and it’s clear the President knows this based on his wise decision today.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: The June salmon harvest in the southern Alaska Peninsula was the worst in 4 decades

July 16, 2025 — Last month’s commercial salmon harvest in the southern Alaska Peninsula was the lowest in four decades, according to the state’s preliminary data for the management region known as Area M.

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, fishermen in the Shumagin Islands and South Unimak areas harvested about 720,000 salmon through the end of June — the second-lowest June on record since the 1980s.

Technically, the lowest harvest occurred in 2001, but Area Management Biologist Matthew Keyse said that year was an outlier due to a price dispute that kept many boats off the water.

Read the full article at KTOO

Court affirms split federal-state Cook Inlet salmon management system

July 14, 2025 — A federal judge has upheld the National Marine Fisheries Service’s new system to manage commercial harvests in federal waters of Cook Inlet, concluding that the agency has no obligation to extend that management to state waters.

The July 1 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason lets stand a split federal-state management regime for commercial salmon harvests in Cook Inlet, the marine waters by Alaska’s most heavily populated region.

The ruling is a win for the NMFS, an agency of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and a loss for fishers who sought federal management of all Cook Inlet commercial salmon harvests because they were dissatisfied with state management.

NMFS had previously deferred all Cook Inlet commercial salmon harvest management to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Read the full article at the Alaska Public Media

As glaciers melt, salmon and mining companies are vying for the new territory

May 28, 2025 — The Tulsequah Glacier meanders down a broad valley in northwest British Columbia, 7 miles from the Alaska border. At the foot of the glacier sits a silty, gray lake, a reservoir of glacial runoff. The lake is vast, deeper than Seattle’s Space Needle is tall. But it didn’t exist a few decades ago, before 2 miles of ice had melted.

On an overcast day, a helicopter carrying three salmon scientists zoomed up the valley. As it neared the lake, the pilot banked to the right and flew over the south side of the basin, whirring over a narrow outlet where it drains into the Tulsequah River. He landed on a beach of small boulders and the researchers clambered out one by one.

“We don’t think there are fish here yet,” said one of them, Jon Moore, an aquatic ecologist at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. “But there will be soon.”

The lake, so new to the landscape that it doesn’t have an official name, is still too cold and murky for salmon, but that’s likely to change soon. As the Tulsequah Glacier above it retreats, the lake is getting warmer and clearer, becoming a more attractive environment for migrating fish. “It’s going to be popping off,” Moore said.

Read the full article at KYUK

ALASKA: Bill targets watershed protection for Bristol Bay salmon

May 23, 2025 — Legislation aimed at protecting the Bristol Bay watershed in southwest Alaska, home of the world’s largest run of wild sockeye salmon, was introduced on May 20, by Speaker of the House Rep. Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, and Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage.

Coming at the end of a busy first legislative session, House Bil 233 – which would strengthen protections for wild salmon within the Bristol Bay Fisheries Reserve – will automatically be up for consideration when the Legislature reconvenes in January 2026.

Oil and gas development is currently prohibited in the Bristol Bay Fisheries Reserve without legislative approval. The reserve was established by the Legislature with the leadership of Gov. Jay Hammond in 1972 – marking more than half a century of state-based efforts to safeguard the region.

Northern Dynasty Minerals, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, has sought for years to mine the Pebble prospect, to extract copper, gold and molybdenum from lands abutting the Bristol Bay watershed. The mining company contends that by using state-of-the-art technology they can prevent spills from mining operations. Their plans have been challenged in court many times by concerns of potential environmental damage from copper spilling into the watershed in the event of equipment failure or other incidents.

Read the full article at The Cordova Times

ALASKA: As glaciers melt, salmon and mining companies are vying for the new territory

May 22, 2025 — The Tulsequah Glacier meanders down a broad valley in northwest British Columbia, 7 miles from the Alaska border. At the foot of the glacier sits a silty, gray lake, a reservoir of glacial runoff. The lake is vast, deeper than Seattle’s Space Needle is tall. But it didn’t exist a few decades ago, before 2 miles of ice had melted.

On an overcast day, a helicopter carrying three salmon scientists zoomed up the valley. As it neared the lake, the pilot banked to the right and flew over the south side of the basin, whirring over a narrow outlet where it drains into the Tulsequah River. He landed on a beach of small boulders and the researchers clambered out one by one.

“We don’t think there are fish here yet,” said one of them, Jon Moore, an aquatic ecologist at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. “But there will be soon.”

The lake, so new to the landscape that it doesn’t have an official name, is still too cold and murky for salmon. But that’s likely to change soon: As the Tulsequah Glacier above it retreats, the lake is getting warmer and clearer, becoming a more attractive environment for migrating fish. “It’s going to be popping off,” Moore said.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

Alaska officials forecast improvements for the state’s commercial salmon harvest

May 19, 2025 — After a poor showing last year, Alaska’s statewide commercial salmon harvest appears poised for a rebound, according to projections by state biologists.

This year’s total salmon harvest is expected to be more than twice as big as last year’s total, thanks primarily to stronger returns of pink salmon, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s annual statewide run forecast and commercial harvest projection. The report was released this week.

The department’s projected 2025 total harvest is 214.6 million fish, above the 2000-2023 average of 175 million fish, though well below the record 280 million salmon harvested commercially in 2013. This year’s projected total is much higher than the 103.5 million salmon harvested commercially last year.

If the harvest occurs as projected, it would be the 10th-largest on record, said Forrest Bowers, director of the department’s Division of Commercial Fisheries.

Read the full article at Alaska Beacon