Saving Seafood

ALASKA: State closes commercial king salmon troll fishery

July 10, 2025 — The Southeast and Yakutat commercial troll fishery for king salmon closed on Friday, July 4, as the Alaska Department of Fish and Game projected that the fleet would hit the harvest limit for the season’s first opener in just four days.

The target harvest set by the state for the opening which began on July 1 was 38,000 fish. State fisheries managers forecast the catch would total 37,700 kings as of the evening of July 4, pending a final count of fish tickets.

After the closure, all trollers are required to offload any kings before setting out gear for other salmon species.

The short opening was expected under this year’s more restrictive catch numbers, intended to preserve low salmon runs.

The commercial troll harvest limit for this year was set at 92,700 so-called treaty kings — salmon governed by the U.S.-Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty — a steep drop from last year’s limit of 153,000. Hatchery kings from Alaska facilities are excluded from the treaty.

Read the full article at Wrangell Sentinel

EPA ‘open to reconsideration’ of Alaska’s Pebble mine — DOJ

July 8, 2025 — Some Trump administration officials are open to reconsidering its prior opposition to the contentious Pebble mine in Alaska’s pristine Bristol Bay watershed, which is a prime salmon habitat, according to federal lawyers.

Attorneys with the Department of Justice said in recent court filings that EPA officials are considering a veto the agency issued in 2023 under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act that halted the open-pit copper and gold mine. The mine has drawn considerable pushback given it would be built near the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery.

“Agency officials remain open to reconsideration, and Defendants and [Pebble Limited Partnership] are negotiating to explore a potential settlement,” Adam Gustafson, acting assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division, wrote in a Thursday legal filing.

Read the full article at E&E News

Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes several seafood provisions

July 8, 2025 — U.S. President Donald Trump has signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, an omnibus piece of legislation enacting the president’s policy preferences into law.

While the U.S. Senate made substantial changes to the bill before passing it, several seafood provisions included in early versions of the legislation survived the final cut, and a few additional carveouts were added for the Alaska fishing sector during last-minute negotiations.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Green crab discoveries in Ketchikan show the invasive threat is spreading in Alaska

July 7, 2025 — On a sandy beach in a state park in Ketchikan, a group of local beachcombers encountered something ominous: shells of two invasive European green crabs, shed as part of the creatures’ growth process.

That discovery, made during a June 6 beach survey that was part of a class held by the University of Alaska Southeast Ketchikan campus, led to more in the community.

It makes Ketchikan the newest known Alaska beachhead in a northward invasion of non-native crabs that are known to wreak havoc on native species and habitats.

European green crabs, first confirmed to be in Alaska when their shells were discovered in 2022 on Annette Island in the far southeast corner of the state, are likely here for good, said the UAS professor who was one of the class instructors and helped lead the beach surveys.

“They have continued to spread. They will continue to spread,” said Barbara Morgan, who is based in Ketchikan. “They are expected to spread through Southeast Alaska, probably most of Southcentral — kind of the southern coast of Southcentral. And maybe, depending on water temperature and how tolerant they are to the colder water temperatures, they might go up into the really southern part of the Bristol Bay area, too.”

Read the full article at Alaska Beacon

Federal judge upholds state control in Cook Inlet salmon fishery management dispute

July 7, 2025 — US District Judge Sharon Gleason has ruled in favor of the National Marine Fisheries Service, upholding Amendment 16 to the federal salmon fishery management plan and confirming the agency’s authority to regulate only federal waters in the Cook Inlet Exclusive Economic Zone.

The decision is a legal victory for the State of Alaska, preserving state jurisdiction over nearshore salmon fisheries and reinforcing the state’s role in sustainable resource management.

The ruling stems from a legal challenge to Amendment 16, which clarified NMFS’s decision to manage salmon fishing in federal waters — waters beyond three miles from shore. But the amendment did not grant authority over Alaska’s state waters.

The plaintiffs in the case — United Cook Inlet Drift Association and Cook Inlet Fishermen’s Fund — argued that the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act required a unified approach across both federal and state jurisdictions to effectively manage salmon stocks. They also claimed NMFS’s actions violated the Administrative Procedure Act.

Read the full article at Must Read Alaska

US district court judge dismisses lawsuit brought against NMFS by Alaska set-net fishers

July 7, 2025 –A judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska has dismissed a lawsuit brought by the United Cook Inlet Drift Association and the Cook Inlet Fishermen’s Fund against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) over what the organizations claimed was violations of the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA).

The two organizations, which represent fishers in the Cook Inlet in the U.S. state of Alaska, have spent over a decade launching lawsuits against NMFS, with the latest complaint saying the action was intended to “get Federal Defendants to stop shirking their duty” on the Cook Inlet salmon fishery. Plaintiffs claimed the NMFS ignored statutory duties intended for the federal government and, instead, deferred to the state of Alaska.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Unalaska formally accepts disaster relief, 3 years after crab crash

July 2, 2025 — Unalaska is finally seeing some financial relief nearly three years after the collapse of Alaska’s snow crab and red king crab fisheries.

The city has now officially secured more than $3 million in federal disaster money.

The City of Unalaska formally accepted the relief funds at its June 24 city council meeting. That officially adds the money to the city budget, but the move was mostly procedural.

Councilmember Shari Coleman, who’s been on the council since the city first braced itself for a shortfall in 2021, said the move was largely procedural.

Read the full article at KUCB

ALASKA: Copper River run winding down, still pacing below forecast

June 27, 2025 — Sockeye salmon harvests from the Copper River were holding their own in quality, but not quantity, and still tracking well below forecast earlier this week, with the catch from the 48-hour opener still to be calculated.

Data compiled in the aftermath of the commercial opener that ended on June 20 showed a harvest of over 60,000 wild Copper River sockeyes from that run as of June 24. Had that harvest been on track with the forecast, the catch would have been more like 115,000 reds, said Jeremy Botz, a veteran fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) at Cordova.

Botz said the chum harvest is coming in as anticipated but there has not been a directed fishery on chums because of the hatchery cost recovery program and a large part of the chum run this year is being taken for cost recovery. The Chinook run, which is about done, is low, similar to the forecast, and looks healthy, he said.

On the bright side, if the harvest remains low retail prices should hold, where those fish were still not sold out.

In Anchorage they were sold out at seafood specialty shop 10th & M Seafoods. The seafood department at New Sagaya still had Copper River red fillets for $19.99 a pound and headed and gutted reds for $19.99 a pound, and Costco warehouses had fresh Copper River red fillets still at $16.99 a pound.

Read the full article at The Cordova Times

ALASKA: Copper River reds tracking below forecast, pinks predicted to soar

June 26, 2025 — Arobust harvest of Copper River sockeye salmon has not panned out for 2025, leaving customers scrambling in Anchorage, Alaska, as fillets disappear for the season, with prices ranging from $16.95 to $56.95 a pound.

Harvesters in the Cordova area of Alaska’s Prince William Sound brought in just over 60,000 reds in the commercial opener that ended on June 20. “They would have been looking at about 115,000 reds based on the anticipated opener on June 19,” said Jeremy Botz, a veteran fisheries biologist in Cordova with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G).

Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle was posting availability of Copper River reds and Chinooks, including whole sockeyes for $124.99 and whole kings for $639.99. Fishmongers there also had plenty of fillets of sockeyes for $39.99 a pound and fresh kings at $119.99 a pound.

A total of nine Copper River openers beginning on May 22 brought in an estimated 362,983 reds, according to the latest ADF&G preliminary harvest report available on June 24. An update on the newest 48-hour opener was still being compiled.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Fisheries council tightens its belt as funding comes ‘in dribs and drabs’

June 25, 2025 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, a federal board that helps oversee federal fisheries off Alaska’s coast, is scaling back operations due to uncertainty over federal funding.

The council meets five times a year to help set fishing policies, like quotas, regulations and bycatch restrictions. But federal budget cuts under President Donald Trump have whittled down the organization’s resources, forcing them to scale back their activities.

At a meeting earlier this month, the council said it had received less than half of its federal funds. They got another payment last week, but Executive Director David Witherell said they’ve still only received about two-thirds of their annual funding. Typically, the council receives full funding by March.

“This is a highly unusual situation that we’re in,” Witherell said. “We can normally be able to plan our meeting schedule for the year and not have to worry that the Council offices might have to close because we run out of funds to pay staff.”

The funding is disbursed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as part of a four-year grant. This is the first year of that grant cycle — and Witherell said they’re starting from zero, with no rollover from the previous year.

He said the council has been told to expect another installment once Congress finalizes a federal spending plan. But for now, there’s no timeline and no guarantee.

“The funding this year has been coming in dribs and drabs, and it’s making it challenging to reserve meeting spaces and to know that we have the funds to host a meeting,” Witherell said.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media