A U.S. district court judge has rejected a lawsuit seeking a new environmental impact study of the Bering Sea commercial pollock fishery, allowing NOAA Fisheries to continue relying on studies from 2004 and 2007 to regulate the fishery.
“We are deeply disappointed by this decision, which allows the National Marine Fisheries Service to continue relying on outdated studies while our salmon populations collapse,” TCC Chief and Chairman Brian Ridley said in a statement.
The lawsuit was initially filed in 2023 by the Association of Village Council Presidents (AVCP) and Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC), representatives of Tribal communities that claim the commercial pollock fishery is contributing to the decline of salmon populations in the U.S. state of Alaska. Salmon abundance has dropped drastically in recent years, leading to closed fisheries and limits on subsistence fishing, and the salmon that are returning to Alaska rivers are smaller on average.
“As our environment changes, catastrophic impacts are occurring in our waters,” AVCP Chief Executive Officer Vivian Korthuis said in response to the judge’s ruling. “Tribes and communities throughout Western Alaska have been deeply harmed by severe and sustained restrictions to subsistence salmon fishing, while the pollock trawl fishery continues to fish uninterrupted even though it continues to catch thousands of salmon as bycatch while our salmon populations are at historically low levels. Our people are suffering without salmon as the agencies responsible for protecting our natural resources have stood back and watched the devastation unfold. The lack of salmon in our region has become a humanitarian crisis, the likes of which we have never before experienced.”
A University of Alaska Fairbanks report released in 2024 linked the changes in the salmon fishery to climate extremes. One well-known extreme in 2019 dubbed “the blob” resulted in decreased salmon fisheries and the migration of fish stocks.
In light of that warming, AVCP and TCC argued that NOAA Fisheries ought to conduct a new environmental impact analysis before determining how the Bering Sea pollock fishery should be regulated – and critically, how much salmon bycatch that fishery should be allowed to take.
Salmon fishers and pollock fishers have clashed over the impact of bycatch on salmon populations in Alaska for years. Earlier this year, salmon advocacy groups asked the Alaska Board of Fisheries to eliminate pollock trawling in Prince William Sound, although the proposal was soundly rejected.
Read more on Seafood Source. This article was published with permission.
