Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Mine developer and EPA fail to reach agreement over Pebble copper and gold project

July 22, 2025 — A possible settlement agreement between the Trump administration and the Pebble copper and gold prospect in Southwest Alaska did not pan out, according to a recent filing in a federal court by Pebble Limited Partnership.

That means the legal case brought by Pebble against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency continues. Pebble is seeking to overturn the unusual 2023 decision by the agency, known as a veto, that stopped the project.

“Those discussions were productive but the parties did not reach a negotiated resolution,” said the status report from Pebble, filed Thursday.

Earlier this month, Northern Journal reported that EPA was negotiating a deal that could have ended the lawsuit between Pebble’s owner company and the federal agency.

Conservation groups characterized the lack of a settlement as a sign that the administration of President Donald Trump is standing by the agency’s decision, which was made under former President Joe Biden.

Pebble last week said in a statement that with no settlement reached, it is asking the court to set a briefing schedule for a summary judgment to have the EPA decision quickly withdrawn.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

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

Veteran fisheries researcher says smart development can still protect Alaska salmon habitat

July 17, 2025 — Nearly three decades into his research on how aquatic systems are responding climate change in Bristol Bay, University of Washington (UW) veteran fisheries biologist Daniel Schindler says smart development will be needed to protect Alaska’s salmon habitat.

“I think it is an important message that Alaska must protect its habitat,” Schindler said in an interview with National Fisherman from a UW field camp in the Bristol Bay watershed, on July 13. “We have destroyed so much habitat in so many places due to ignorance, only to learn afterward how important that habitat was to our fisheries.

“All over the West Coast and in Europe, habitat has been destroyed,” he said. “Alaska still has most of the pieces on the table. We are in a position to protect most of these ecosystems, and I hope we wake up and realize we can seriously degrade their capacity to support fisheries.”

To Schindler and many others, mines such as Pebble and Donlin mine in salmon habitat, along with certain energy and road development projects, pose distinct threats. Backers of mineral exploration and development say that using state-of-the-art practices will protect the fisheries, but history and science do not support these claims.

The University of Washington’s Alaska Salmon Program, which dates back to the 1940s, focuses on all aspects of the ecology and evolution of Pacific salmon in watersheds in western Alaska, the Bering Sea, and Gulf of Alaska.  Every summer, as many as 30 researchers, including undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty professors, rotate through several field stations for the program, with a handful of them there for the entire summer.

One of them is Schindler, who began his research there in 1997 on the invitation of UW professor Ray Hilborn before joining the faculty and beginning to teach on the UW campus. Program facilities include a network of field camps on Wood River, Lake Iliamna, and at Chignik.

UW also has a broad web of collaborators in Alaska, nationwide, and globally, but they have to pay their own way to Bristol Bay and for accommodations at the field camps.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: Setnetters revive beach seine tests amid shuttered fishery

July 17, 2025 — For the second year in a row, permit holders in Cook Inlet’s east side setnet salmon fishery are experimenting with new equipment they hope will get them back in the water after years of consecutive closures. The system isn’t totally honed yet, but people are giving it a try.

It’s a cloudy day on the beach in Clam Gulch. Brent Johnson kneels in the sand while a wall of emerald trees sways in the wind above him. He’s splicing two ropes together while his wife, Judy, thinks out loud.

“It doesn’t make sense in my head,” Judy said. “It’s not regular setnetting.”

The couple has been setnetting for decades, so they’d know. And she’s right – it isn’t regular settnetting. It’s beach seining.

The Johnsons are permit holders in Cook Inlet’s east side setnet fishery. But over the last five years, the federal government has formally considered the fishery an economic disaster.

Setnetters like the Johnsons target sockeye salmon. But chinook sometimes end up in their nets. And that’s a problem — declining chinook salmon runs in the Kenai and Kasilof rivers have prompted state fishery managers to crack down on commercial fishing in the area. That means the setnet fishery is sometimes closed altogether, including this year.

That’s what spurred another pair of setnetters, Brian and Lisa Gabriel, to get what’s called an experimental permit from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to try beach seine gear instead. It’s the Gabriels’ second summer using the new method. Last year, they brought their seines to multiple beach sites to try the gear out in different environments.

Read the full article at KDLL

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

In court filing, Trump administration hints at a lifeline for embattled Pebble project

July 14, 2025 — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took a rare step under former President Joe Biden to block development of the Pebble mine, Alaska’s largest known copper and gold deposit, which for years has fueled controversy over its potential impacts on one of the world’s largest salmon runs.

Now, under President Donald Trump, the agency is giving its past Pebble decisions another look and negotiating a deal that could end a lawsuit filed by Pebble’s developer — an announcement that’s boosted the company’s stock price this week.

Administration officials “have been actively considering the agency decisions” and are “open to reconsideration,” according to a recent court filing submitted by U.S. Department of Justice lawyers. The three-page document does not elaborate, though it references the past decision by the EPA and a separate decision by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deny Pebble a key permit.

Read the full article at the Northern Journal

Ninth Circuit maintains protected status for arctic ringed seals

July 14, 2025 — The Ninth Circuit on Friday affirmed a lower court’s order blocking the state of Alaska’s efforts to delist ringed seals under the Endangered Species Act.

“National Marine Fisheries Service reasonably determined that new climate change projections were consistent with those it had considered at the time of its 2012 listing decision,” wrote the panel in a five-page order.

Joe Biden-appointed U.S. Circuit Judges Holly Thomas and Ana de Alba joined Bill Clinton-appointed Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Jed Rakoff on the panel that reviewed the case and published a per curiam opinion.

The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the federal government in 2008 seeking to protect the ringed seal, Pusa hispida, along with the bearded seal, Erignathus barbatus, and the spotted seal, Phoca largha, under the Endangered Species Act.

Citing the increasing strain of climate change, the federal government granted the ringed seal protected status in 2012, which the Ninth Circuit first affirmed four years later.

The state of Alaska petitioned and then sued the National Marine Fisheries Service, seeking to delist the marine mammal on Nov. 15, 2022.

The state known as the Last Frontier criticized the wildlife protections that span hundreds of millions of acres, interfering with the North Slope’s industrial economy as well as hunting.

Read the full article at Courthouse News Service

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

ALASKA: Deadliest Catch returns: Season 21 spotlights the struggling Alaska crab industry

July 14, 2025 — The red king crab fishery in Alaska has faced historic closures in recent years, leaving many harvesters sidelined and processors searching for opportunities elsewhere to meet demand. Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch returns for its 21st season on Friday, August 1. This season’s storylines reflect real and escalating tensions in the Bering Sea crab industry.

The fleet will head west toward Adak Island, a former military base located more than 1,000 miles from Dutch Harbor, in search of a rumored resurgence of red king crab. While the show highlights the danger and drama of the chase, the underlying theme focuses on economic pressures and biological uncertainties.

Alaska’s red king crab fishery in Bristol Bay, once one of the most valuable in the region, has been closed since the 2021–2022 season due to low stock assessments(https://www.nationalfisherman.com/red-king-crab-fishery-to-reopen-despite-uncertainty). According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G), surveys indicate that the biomass of mature female crabs in Bristol Bay remains below the regulatory threshold required for reopening. Limited harvesting opportunities are available in the Western Aleutians near Adak, though landings are modest and access is tightly controlled

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: New plan seeks to restore rural access to Alaska halibut fishery

July 11, 2025 — A Southeast Alaska fisheries entity with a proven track record for providing thousands of free seafood meals to those in need and educating the next generation of commercial harvesters has a new plan to make more halibut quota available to the area’s traditional coastal fishing communities.

Using grants and investments totaling $934,000 from the Rasmuson Foundation, the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust (ASFT), in collaboration with Sealaska Corporation, Central Council of Tlingit, and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska and Spruce Root, a non-profit community development financial institution, will purchase halibut quota on the open market this fall and winter to make the highly popular whitefish available for harvest in Craig, Kasaan, and Yakutat. The plans were announced on July 7.

The funds include a $700,000 grant and a $234,000 program-related investment (PRI) aimed at restoring rural and indigenous access to the coastal fisheries. All three communities have signed resolutions in support of the regional community quota entity (CQE).

“With this funding, which includes both Program Related Investment and grant funds, we will anchor access to the halibut fishery in rural communities and ensure residents enjoy the cultural, social, and economic benefits of participating in Alaska’s commercial fisheries,” said Linda Behnken, board president of ASFT, executive director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association (ALFA), and a veteran halibut and black cod commercial harvester from Sitka.

The halibut assigned to these communities is to be fished only by residents.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman