Saving Seafood

A court decision may help endangered orcas, but Alaskan fishermen are wary

November 8, 2021 — The southern resident killer whale population, three pods of orcas that ply the coastal waters between Monterey, California, and Vancouver Island, British Columbia, has dwindled to only 73 members. Scientists believe this endangered species, which relies almost exclusively on Chinook — or king — salmon, which are also in steep decline, is basically starving its way to extinction.

This past September, however, the U.S. District Court in Seattle seemed to offer the marine mammals a lifeline when it issued a preliminary decision that might make more Chinook available to orcas. Responding to a lawsuit filed by the Wild Fish Conservancy, the court found that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the agency responsible for management of both fisheries and endangered marine species, had violated the Endangered Species Act when it determined that commercial harvest of Chinook off southeast Alaska would not jeopardize southern residents or endangered king salmon populations.

But while the court decision is expected to help orcas, it may be bad news for fishermen, as NMFS will likely need to rethink Chinook harvests.

Read the full story at FERN News

 

Alaska Files to Defend Salmon Fisheries in Southeast Alaska

March 17, 2021 — The State of Alaska has moved to intervene in a federal case that threatens state management of Alaska’s salmon fisheries.

The Wild Fish Conservancy, a conservation organization based in Washington state, claims that Alaska’s management of fisheries under the Pacific Salmon Treaty threatens the survival of several salmon stocks in Washington and Oregon, and the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales that depend on them.

The lawsuit seeks to shut down all salmon fisheries in the federal waters off the coast of Southeast Alaska.

Read the full story at KINY

Fight over Cooke’s steelhead permits in Puget Sound headed to Washington Supreme Court

November 27, 2020 — Earlier this month, conservation groups lost a lawsuit to block Cooke Aquaculture from raising domesticated steelhead in net-pens in Washington’s Puget Sound, but the groups announced on 23 November they will file a second appeal to the state’s Supreme Court.

In January, authorities from Washington’s Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) granted Cooke a five-year permit to farm steelhead in Puget Sound, and received water quality permits from the state’s Department of Ecology in September. A month later, a coalition of environmental groups, led by the Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC), filed a lawsuit claiming the permitting process was incomplete.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Alaska Chinook Fishermen Push Back on Wild Fish Conservancy Injunction to Stop Fishery

April 29, 2020 — Alaska environmentalists, commercial fishermen, charter operators and recreational anglers have pushed back on an injunction filed by Washington-based Wild Fish Conservancy that would prevent Chinook salmon trolling in Southeast Alaska.

WFC sued NOAA Fisheries in March for mismanaging Chinook salmon, a prime prey for the critically endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales. While that lawsuit is pending, WFC filed an injunction on April 17 to prevent Chinook salmon trolling in Southeast Alaska effective July 1, 2020.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Washington lawsuit targets Alaska trollers

April 29, 2020 — Nearly 1,600 trollers who fish for king salmon in Southeast Alaska could be beached this summer over a lawsuit to protect killer whales — in Washington’s Puget Sound.

On April 16 the Wild Fish Conservancy filed an injunction against NMFS to block the summer king salmon season set to open July 1 until the lawsuit is resolved.

KCAW in Sitka reported the Conservancy claims NOAA has failed to allow enough king salmon to return to Puget Sound to feed endangered resident killer whales. Their lawsuit says that 97 percent of the kings caught in Southeast’s troll fishery are from British Columbia, Washington and Oregon. Alaska data show catches range from 30 to 80 percent, depending on the year.

Amy Daugherty, director of the Alaska Trollers Association, said her group is in shock and has intervened in the lawsuit.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Conservationists Say Salmon Fishing Plan Imperils Whales

March 19, 2020 — The government allowed salmon fishing in Alaska at rates its own reports said will push endangered Southern Resident killer whales closer to extinction, environmental groups claim in a lawsuit filed Wednesday.

Salmon born in the rivers and streams of Oregon, Washington state and British Columbia migrate to the Pacific Ocean and through the Gulf of Alaska, home to a major troll fishing fleet. In southeast Alaska, 97% of the Chinook salmon fishermen harvest were born elsewhere. The fish they take never make it back to their home waters, where they could have been dinner for the 72 remaining Southern Resident killer whales – a genetically distinct group of orca that are starving due to a lack of their main prey.

“It is reckless and irresponsible for NOAA to approve this harvest, these salmon don’t belong to Alaska, they belong to Southern Resident killer whales, indigenous peoples, and fishing communities down the coast,” Kurt Beardslee, Wild Fish Conservancy’s executive director, said Wednesday in a press release.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

Lawsuit targets Alaska salmon management to protect southern killer whales

January 27, 2020 — A conservation organization based in Washington state is threatening to sue the federal government over the management of Alaska’s chinook salmon fisheries.

The Wild Fish Conservancy claims that management strategies in Alaska approved by the government pose a threat to the survival of several salmon runs in Washington, and the killer whales who depend on them.

The Wild Fish Conservancy filed notice on January 9, stating its intentions to sue the National Marine Fisheries Service for violating the Endangered Species Act, and jeopardizing the existence of southern resident killer whales.

The Conservancy argues that an important food supply of the whales — endangered stocks of chinook salmon originating in Puget Sound, the lower Columbia River, the Willamette River, and Snake River — is being depleted by the commercial troll and sport harvest in Southeast Alaska.

Kurt Beardslee is the director of the Wild Fish Conservancy. Chinook — or king salmon — are managed under treaty between the United States and Canada, overseen by the Pacific Salmon Commission.

Read the full story at KNBA

Cooke settles lawsuit with NGO over 2017 collapse of Washington salmon pens

December 2, 2019 — Canada’s Cooke has reportedly paid $2.75 million to settle a lawsuit with NGO Wild Fish Conservancy, brought after the collapse of 10 Atlantic salmon pens in the US state of Washington in 2017.

The lawsuit — brought in November 2017 by the Northwest arm of the NGO — was set to go to court in Seattle on Dec. 3. On Nov. 27, myclallamcounty.com reported comments from Kurt Beardslee, executive director of the NGO, announcing the settlement. Cooke then confirmed the settlement to Undercurrent News.

“This afternoon, Cooke agreed to a settlement over the Clean Water Act violations with us. It was a $2.75m settlement,” said Beardslee. About half of the settlement will pay for legal expenses, he said.

The rest of it’s going to the Rose Foundation, which is going to be opening up to receive grant opportunities “for helping to save wild salmon and killer whales”, said Beardslee.

“Out of respect for the judicial process, we will not comment on the settlement contents given that this agreement takes effect upon entry by the court,” said a spokesman for Cooke.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Killers and kings: West Coast group intervenes in orca lawsuit

May 31, 2019 — On Wednesday, May 29, the federation, the West Coast’s largest trade organization of small-scale commercial fishermen, filed its opposition to the lawsuit filed in a Seattle federal court lawsuit on April 3, by the Wild Fish Conservancy and the Center for Biological Diversity.

The suit was reportedly filed to protect endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales which eat primarily king salmon, by arguing that their food supply is not well managed. This orca subgroup migrates from California’s coastal waters to Washington’s Puget Sound and into British Columbia. West Coast salmon fisheries outside of state waters are managed by the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which prioritizes sustainability and replenishment.

The suit claims that federally managed ocean salmon fisheries are allowing commercial harvest of the orcas’ food supply, which is contrary to NMFS data and management standards that commercial salmon fisheries have little or no impact on the whales. For many years the council has managed West Coast salmon fisheries to minimize any potential competition between orcas and fishermen, including through a NMFS-approved 2009 biological opinion, which contains various required mitigation measures that further minimize and mitigate impacts to the endangered whales.

“Seafood lovers on the West Coast should be proud of their fisheries management system, which is among the best in the world,” said Noah Oppenheim, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “The Center for Biological Diversity and Wild Fish Conservancy lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service is naïve, counterproductive, and unnecessary. By suing, these two groups instead undermine the extraordinary coalition of scientists, managers, commercial fishermen, and conservationists that has come together to identify the strategies that will be used to recover the Southern Resident Killer Whale population.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Groups sue to restrict salmon fishing, help Northwest orcas

April 4, 2019 — Federal officials say they may restrict salmon fishing off the West Coast to help the Pacific Northwest’s critically endangered killer whales, but two environmental groups are suing anyway to ensure it happens.

The Center for Biological Diversity, which filed a lawsuit nearly two decades ago to force the U.S. government to list the orcas as endangered, and the Wild Fish Conservancy asked the U.S. District Court in Seattle on Wednesday to order officials to reconsider a 2009 finding that commercial and recreational fisheries did not jeopardize the orcas’ survival.

The National Marine Fisheries Service issued a letter early last month indicating that it intends to do so. Julie Teel Simmonds, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the point of the lawsuit is to ensure they finish the job with urgency, given the plight of the whales, and to take short-term steps in the meantime to help provide more of the orcas’ favored prey, Chinook salmon.

“We have got to figure out how to get them more salmon,” she said. “Since 2009 it’s become much more crystallized just how critical prey availability is to their reproductive success and survival.”

The Endangered Species Act requires the government to certify that any actions it approves won’t jeopardize the survival of a listed species. In the 2009 review, experts found that it wasn’t clear how a lack of prey affected orcas, but that the fisheries were not likely to contribute to their extinction.

Read the full story at the Associated Press