May 5, 2023 — A U.S. district judge in Washington state has affirmed a controversial recommendation that could shut down summer trolling for king salmon in Southeast Alaska this summer.
Judge Richard A. Jones signed the two-page order on Tuesday. It requires the National Marine Fisheries Service to remedy a violation of the Endangered Species Act concerning a threatened population of killer whales in Puget Sound.
February 6, 2023 — Local governments around Southeast Alaska are speaking out against a lawsuit that threatens to shut down trolling for king salmon, also known as Chinook salmon, across the region this year. The lawsuit aims to protect an endangered population of orcas in Washington state.
Ketchikan, Wrangell and Petersburg are set to join a growing chorus of Alaska voices highlighting the impact the suit could have on the region’s fishing fleet.
The lawsuit from the Washington state-based Wild Fish Conservancy centers on an endangered Puget Sound population of orcas known as Southern Resident Killer Whales.
Killer whales eat salmon — especially big, meaty king salmon — and the conservation group argues federal officials haven’t properly accounted for the impact the Southeast king salmon fishery has on the Puget Sound orcas.
August 12, 2022 — A U.S. District Court judge in Seattle has found the National Marine Fisheries Service has failed to ensure that Southeast Alaska salmon harvests not harm protected Pacific Northwest chinook and endangered southern killer whales that prey upon them.
The Monday ruling came in a brief summary judgment from U.S. District Court Judge Richard Jones. It is a significant victory for the Washington-based Wild Fish Conservancy, which argued that the National Marine Fisheries Service approved a flawed plan to compensate for the harvest by increasing hatchery release of chinook.
“We applaud Judge Jones’ ruling that is finally calling into question decades of unsustainable Chinook harvest management in Southeast Alaska,” said Emma Helverson, Wild Fish Conservancy executive director, who in a statement called the decision a “watershed moment” for efforts to recover southern resident orcas and wild chinook.
The southern resident killer whales are an endangered community native to the Pacific Northwest that consists of 73 members across three pods: J, K and L, which have struggled amid a decline in wild chinook populations that are a key part of their diet. Some whale advocates have long looked with concern to Southeast Alaska harvests of the salmon.
It is still uncertain what the judge’s ruling will mean for Southeast Alaska fisheries catching salmon that would eventually head south to British Columbia or the Pacific Northwest to spawn.
August 12 , 2022 — A federal court ruling this week has thrown into doubt the future of a valuable commercial salmon fishery in Southeast Alaska.
November 16, 2018 — Bigger and bigger, with a puff and a blow, the orca surfaces, supreme in his kingdom of green.
Northern resident orcas like this one live primarily in the cleaner, quieter waters of northern Vancouver Island and Southeast Alaska, where there also are more fish to eat. They are the same animal as the southern residents that frequent Puget Sound, eating the same diet, and even sharing some of the same waters. They have similar family bonds and culture.
The difference between them is us.