Saving Seafood

ALASKA: State appeals to U.S. Supreme Court to overturn salmon decision

March 1, 2017 — In the midst of the Upper Cook Inlet Board of Fisheries meeting, the battle for state management of Cook Inlet salmon fisheries continues.

The State of Alaska has filed with the U.S. Supreme Court to review a recent 9th Circuit Court of Appeal decision that would require some of Alaska’s salmon fisheries to conform to federal management.

The state says this is the wrong move.

“This is an area where the federal government recognizes the State’s expertise and agrees that the State is better equipped to manage the fishery, even in federal waters,” said Attorney General Jahna Lindemuth in a press release Feb. 27. “We hope the U.S. Supreme Court will review this important issue and reverse the Ninth Circuit’s decision.”

Last September, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 2011 decision by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to remove several Alaska salmon fisheries from the federal management plan.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Karl Johnstone: Alaska needs to update fisheries management

February 15, 2017 — The Alaska of today is not the Alaska of statehood. The 49th state has grown and changed radically.  The economy of the state is wholly different, and yet Alaska salmon management continues to be treated as if we just became a state.

Almost all major fisheries in the state have, for decades, been managed on the premise that commercial catches are always the highest and best use of Alaska salmon resources. This is especially true in upper Cook Inlet.

This premise ignores the changes that have occurred. In 1976, 191,000 sportfishing licenses of all types — resident and nonresident — were sold in Alaska. Nonresidents accounted for only 47,000 of them. By 2015, nonresident license sales alone had topped 278,000 — a six-fold increase.

Read the full opinion piece at the Alaska Dispatch News