Saving Seafood

Conservation group to sue over Kodiak, Gulf salmon management

November 4, 2026 — The Wild Fish Conservancy has sent notice to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and NOAA Fisheries it intends to sue over management of sport and commercial salmon fisheries in Kodiak, Chignik and Alaska Peninsula waters, alleging violations of the Endangered Species Act.

“Nearly nine out of ten Chinook salmon caught in commercial fisheries along the South Alaska Peninsula in 2024 and 2025 originated outside Alaska, according to research from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

“Yet these fisheries operate without federal Endangered Species Act oversight of their impacts on threatened and endangered Pacific Northwest Chinook, even as communities where these fish return face strict fishing limits and invest heavily in their recovery,” WFC wrote in an Oct. 28 letter to ADF&G Commissioner Douglas Vincent-Lang.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

California establishes two new marine protected areas, expands others

October 22, 2026 — The state of California has created two new marine protected areas and strengthened and expanded two more to conserve coastal waters in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to increase oil drilling off the coast.

“Our ocean is essential to who we are. It’s part of our DNA as Californians,” Governor Gavin Newsom said in a release. “While Donald Trump attempts to roll back decades of environmental protections and open our shoreline to new oil drilling, we’re protecting more of our coast and ocean than ever before. In partnership with California tribes, we’re safeguarding coastal communities, marine life, and ways of life that depend on a healthy ocean.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

WASHINGTON: Fish & Game considers cap on pink and chum egg takes for Alaska hatcheries

October 22, 2026 — A fognak Lake sits in the middle of the forested expanse of Afognak Island, north of Kodiak. Normally it would be eerily quiet, but not one sunny day in late August. The Kodiak Regional Aquaculture Association was conducting its annual egg take for the strain of sockeye that returns here.

The dozen or so technicians and volunteers gathered at the lake have been waiting for this day for weeks.

“It’s shaping up to be pretty sweet, except for the bugs,” said Peter Weinzierl, a technician with the aquaculture association. “Didn’t expect this many bugs.”

The team blasted pop music as technicians pulled skeins of eggs out of sockeye salmon and emptied them into plastic bowls. Taking eggs from wild fish is a way that aquaculture associations maintain genetic diversity in their broodstock and prevent domestication.

Read the full article at KMXT

King salmon runs are crashing. In Kodiak, a pioneering conservation project aims to save one

October 21, 2026 — The mountains had turned orange and yellow above Kodiak’s Pillar Creek hatchery as James ‘Hawk’ Turman waited at the hatchery gate on a September day.

“It smells a little bit right now, because you got a bunch of pink salmon out there dying in the river,” he said as he unlocked the gate. “I’m waiting for a bunch of rain to just wash them all down.”

Turman manages the Pillar Creek hatchery. Most of the time, it’s home to the Kodiak Regional Aquaculture Association’s sockeye and silver salmon operations. But something new is happening here. The aquaculture association is trying to rehabilitate a crashing king salmon run from the Karluk River, on the southwest side of the island.

Eggs collected from those wild salmon are now incubating at the hatchery. And although many support the project, some scientists worry it could do more harm than good.

Alaska’s king salmon runs are in trouble

The Karluk run is one of only two native king salmon runs on Kodiak Island, and it has deep cultural and historical significance for the Alutiiq people. But the run is in major trouble. Last year, only 93 kings returned to the Karluk River. The year before, it was just 76.

Across Alaska, king salmon populations have been returning in record low numbers. Turman said the Karluk project, which according to the aquaculture association is the first of its kind in the state, might be the start of something bigger.

“Our efforts are being used as kind of a test case for other stocks of concern around the state,” he said. “Someone had to finally kick the can off the bridge, and why not us?”

Read the full article at KMXT

CALIFORNIA: California’s rarest salmon face a narrow window for survival

August 24, 2026 — For California’s most endangered salmon, the difference between surviving and dying may come down to just 15 days.

In a study published Friday in Science Advances, researchers say the chance of juveniles surviving fell by about 73% for every 1.8-degree Fahrenheit increase in average river temperature during those first 15 days.

Sacramento River winter-run Chinook have only one surviving population, with an average of a few thousand fish returning in recent decades.

Shasta Dam keeps the salmon from returning to their original cold-water habitat around Mount Shasta in Northern California. Instead, they spawn in the Sacramento River, where warmer summer water can threaten their developing eggs.

Cold water is released from Shasta Reservoir to keep the river cool enough for salmon eggs to survive, but that water is also needed by farms and cities.

The balance becomes harder in dry years, when there’s less water to go around.

Kohma Arai, who conducted the research as a postdoctoral scholar at UC Davis, said a full summer of spawning doesn’t necessarily mean a successful season.

Read the full article at Courthouse News Service

ALASKA: After historic crash, Yukon River’s iconic king salmon run shows early signs of rebound

August 18, 2026 — For the past few years, smokehouses in the Yukon River village of Anvik have sat empty.

After salmon populations crashed, dozens of Alaska Native communities along the river faced a stark new reality, one without the fish that fed families and sustained Yup’ik and Athabascan traditions for generations.

This summer, though, smoke once again wafted through Anvik, on the middle Yukon some 350 miles west of Anchorage.

The river’s two main species, chinook and chum, have recorded a surprising uptick in numbers. And in spite of state regulations that bar fishing for chinook, Anvik’s fishermen have caught dozens of the fish this year, plus even more salmon of other species — meaning that there are enough to share with elders, hang in smokehouses and store in freezers.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen the smokehouses smoking in five years,” said Robert Walker, former chief of the Anvik Tribal Council. “I was just amazed. People are so happy.”

The returning fish could represent a remarkable rebound for one of Alaska’s most iconic and culturally important salmon runs, though scientists caution that numbers are still relatively low and that more data are needed before they can be confident about a meaningful turnaround.

The harvest in Anvik, announced by Walker on a public teleconference with fishery managers and local leaders in July, also has inflamed a long-running political debate over fishery closures and government policies aimed at rebuilding the runs.

In 2024, Alaska state officials agreed with the Canadian government to a seven-year ban on harvesting chinook along the Yukon, which flows from northwest Canada more than 2,000 miles through Alaska to the Bering Sea.

Even though many Alaska Native leaders generally agreed about the need to limit fishing, they also criticized Alaska’s government for not formally including tribal governments in the decision-making process.

Read the full article at Alaska Beacon