Saving Seafood

Feds must decide on protections for Chinook salmon

June 30, 2025 — In a move environmentalists are hailing as an important victory for Chinook salmon conservation, the federal government has agreed to decide this year whether the fish warrants federal protections.

By Nov. 3, the National Marine Fisheries Service must decide whether so-called Oregon Coast and Southern Oregon and Northern California Coastal varieties of Chinook salmon warrant protections under the Endangered Species Act.

By Jan. 2 of next year, feds must do the same for Washington Coast spring-run Chinook salmon, according to a settlement agreement from Thursday.

The Center for Biological Diversity — joined by the Native Fish Society, Umpqua Watersheds, and Pacific Rivers — in February sued the service and two top officials after the service failed to issue 12-month findings on the groups’ petitions to list the fish.

Read the full article at Courthouse News Service

Salmon, tribal sovereignty, and energy collide as US abandons Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement

June 30, 2025 — Earlier this month, the Trump administration pulled the federal government out of the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement — a deal struck in 2023 by the Biden administration between two states and four Indigenous nations aimed at restoring salmon populations and paving a way to remove four hydroelectric dams along the river system. The move is likely to revive decades-old lawsuits and further endanger already struggling salmon populations.

But hydroelectric producers in Washington and Oregon have hailed the administration’s decision, citing an increased demand for energy driven primarily by data centers for AI and cryptocurrency operations.

Anchovy Dominated Diets off the West Coast Pose New Dangers for Salmon

June 26, 2025 — A vitamin deficiency likely killed as many as half of newly hatched fry of endangered winter-run Chinook salmon in the Sacramento River in 2020 and 2021. These new findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The deficiency of thiamine, or Vitamin B1, is linked to large-scale shifts in the ocean ecosystem. These shifts changed the prey adult salmon consume before they return to West Coast rivers to spawn, scientists reported. They said the longtime loss of habitat and water has already weakened many California salmon populations. Further declines from thiamine deficiency or other impacts may lead to their extinction.

The deficiency syndrome can also affect salmon runs like the Central Valley’s fall-run that once supported valuable commercial fisheries across California. They have since dwindled to the point that commercial ocean salmon fishing in California has been closed for the last 3 years.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

Seafood Producers Cooperative response to WFC lawsuit

May 22, 2025 — On behalf of the nearly 400 members of Seafood Producers Cooperative, who are very dependent on the wild chinook fishery for a large part of their livelihoods, and as such, are very supportive of conservation efforts regarding Chinook, I would like to respond to the recent news of another attempt by the Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC), in their typical fashion of accusations and demands via litigation, to sue the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for not listing Alaska Wild King Salmon stocks under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), which the WFC, in their opinion, feels is necessary.

Alaska possesses the largest coastline of all other states combined, over 33 thousand miles, with 19,000 rivers and streams that salmon spawn in. To undertake a scientific study that identifies the Chinook returns to these spawning areas is a huge task, and to complete this with any degree of accuracy could take years. With NOAA currently facing major budget reductions, it is likely that NMFS will be even more challenged in their ability to conduct the studies to determine whether Chinook ESA listing is warranted or not, in a time frame that satisfies the WFC.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Greens sue NOAA over delayed ESA decision on Alaska chinook salmon

May 21, 2025 — Environmentalists are suing NOAA for failing to issue an Endangered Species Act listing decision for Gulf of Alaska chinook salmon within one year of receiving a petition to protect the species.

In a filing before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Wild Fish Conservancy says NOAA’s listing decision delay means Alaskan chinook salmon “are more likely to continue to decline toward extinction.”

“The Endangered Species Act sets clear deadlines … to evaluate the risk of extinction and trigger action while recovery is still possible,” Emma Helverson, executive director of Wild Fish Conservancy, said in a statement. “By ignoring those deadlines, NOAA isn’t just breaking the law — it’s perpetuating the collapse of Alaskan chinook and threatening the ecosystems and communities that depend on them.”

Read the full article at E&E News

ALASKA: Alaska fishing groups denounce ongoing effort to list Chinook salmon under ESA

May 19, 2025 — Alaska’s commercial fishing sector is up in arms again over ongoing efforts to have the state’s Chinook salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), a determination that could have massive impacts for the state’s fisheries.

Last year, Wild Fish Conservancy, a conservation group based out of Duvall, Washington, U.S.A., petitioned NOAA to list Alaskan Chinook salmon under the ESA, arguing that the once-abundant species had suffered chronic declines. An initial review by the agency found that ESA protections may be warranted; however, the government has yet to complete its review, completely missing its 12-month deadline for issuing a determination.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Projected 2025 Copper River sockeye commercial harvest nears 2 million fish

May 15, 2025 — A new 2025 Copper River sockeye salmon forecast released on May 13 by state fisheries officials predicts a potential commercial run of about 2.5 million fish, with a harvest of 1.9 million Copper River sockeye salmon — up from a 2024 harvest estimated at almost 1.3 million reds.

That would be 50% above the recent 10-year average (2015-2024) total run of 1,757,000 reds, Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) officials said.

The 2025 Copper River District commercial salmon drift gillnet fishery is scheduled to open at 7 a.m. for 12 hours on May 22 for sockeye and Chinook salmon.

Wild sockeyes in the Copper River district were forecast at 55% above the 10-year average. Copper River Chinook salmon forecasts were down 25% from the 10-year average and categorized as a weak run, while stocks of sockeyes from the Gulkana hatchery were forecast at 27% below the 10-year average.

State biologists noted that salmon forecasts are inherently uncertain and are primarily used to gauge the general magnitude of expected runs and set early season harvest management strategy. This year the department will manage Prince William Sound and Copper River area commercial salmon fisheries in-season based on the strength of salmon abundance indices — including sonar counts, weir passage, aerial escapement surveys and fishery performance data.

Read the full article at The Cordova Times

Conservation group lawsuit seeks to speed listing of Alaska king salmon under Endangered Species Act

May 13, 2025 — A Washington state-based conservation group filed a lawsuit this week in an effort to speed up the federal government’s review of a proposal to list king salmon as threatened or endangered across the Gulf of Alaska.

The Wild Fish Conservancy filed its lawsuit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., saying that the National Marine Fisheries Service had missed a 12-month deadline under the Endangered Species Act to decide on the conservancy’s proposal to list Gulf of Alaska king salmon.

The conservancy, in its 17-page complaint, said it formally asked the service to list the king salmon in a petition Jan. 11, 2024, which gave the agency until Jan. 11, 2025, to respond. The lawsuit asks a judge to order the service to “promptly issue” its decision on the petition by a specific date.

“With the crisis facing Alaskan chinook, we are out of time and options,” Emma Helverson, Wild Fish Conservancy’s executive director, said in a prepared statement, using another name for king salmon. She added: “The Endangered Species Act sets clear deadlines for a reason, to evaluate the risk of extinction and trigger action while recovery is still possible.”

Read the full article at Northern Journal

‘A ghost town’: How Bodega Bay is adapting to the ailing seafood industry

April 30, 2025 — From the living room window of their waterfront home, Carol and Tony Anello have watched the rise and fall of Bodega Bay. Traffic on Westshore Road flows past in waves, fishing boats pull into the docks and throngs of visitors line up at Spud Point Crab Co., their restaurant next door. Launched more than 20 years ago and known for its chowder and Dungeness crab rolls, the restaurant has helped make the Anellos beacons of the community.

It has also served as a life raft as they left the commercial fishing business.

“I had a premonition that the fishing industry was going down,” said Tony Anello, who fished commercially for salmon, crab and herring for 54 years before selling his boat Anabelle last year. “There are guys dropping out of this industry like flies, and I’m one of them.”

At Bodega Bay and other picturesque seaside villages along the California coast, the fishing economy is gradually sinking.

The latest blows came earlier this month: Commercial harvest of Chinook salmon was banned in California for the third consecutive year because of low populations, and the state’s Dungeness crab fishery has been severely restricted in an effort to protect humpback whales from entanglements. Sportfishing for salmon — a valuable industry and a beloved pastime — also was prohibited for two straight years, and will be severely cut back this year to what may amount to a single weekend in June in Northern California.

Read the full story at CalMatters

Federal subsistence king salmon fishery closes this season on Stikine River

April 28, 2025 — The Wrangell Ranger District will close the federal subsistence Chinook or king salmon fishery in the Stikine River between May 15 and June 30. It’s the ninth year in a row that the fishery has been closed.

According to a press release from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the preseason forecast for king salmon in the Stikine is low, at 10,000 large kings – salmon greater than 28 inches in length.

Read the full story at KSTK