Court Recommends Halting Alaska’s Unsustainable Harvest to Protect Wild Chinook and Southern Resident Killer Whales

Yesterday, The federal court in Seattle issued a landmark decision. The outcome of this is still to be determined. But it likely means an end to Chinook harvest in Alaska. NOAA has been losing in court due to their lack of rigorous science behind their decisions. This lawsuit was brought by the Wild Fish Conservancy, one of the most effective environmental organizations in the Pacific Northwest. If you want to support their work, it’s a good time to donate.

More to come on this. 

December 16, 2022— In a massive international and coast-wide decision for wild Chinook and Southern Resident killer whale recovery, Seattle’s federal Court issued a landmark opinion on Tuesday that recommends terminating unsustainable commercial salmon harvest that has persisted for decades until new environmental reviews of those fisheries occur. Overfishing was found in a previous ruling to illegally harm the recovery of both endangered Southern Resident killer whales and wild Chinook salmon across the Pacific Northwest.


On Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michelle Peterson issued a report and recommendation on Wild Fish Conservancy’s lawsuit, agreeing that halting the summer and winter seasons of the Southeast Alaska Chinook troll fishery is the most appropriate remedy. Simultaneously, the judge found the federal government’s inadequate biological opinion should be remanded back to NOAA in order for the agency to address violations of environmental law.


In August, U.S. District Court Judge Richard A. Jones issued a stunning summary judgment based on a previous report and recommendation by Magistrate Peterson confirming that NOAA violated the law by improperly relying on undeveloped and uncertain future mitigation to offset ongoing overfishing authorized by NOAA.


In their most recent analysis of this fishery’s impact on threatened and endangered species, NOAA admits that over the last decade and continuing today, Chinook harvest is occurring at levels that are unsustainable for the long-term survival and reproductive success of both threatened wild Chinook populations and endangered Southern Resident killer whales. The overharvest of the whales’ prey has been ongoing for decades.


“The benefits to wild Chinook and Southern Resident killer whale recovery from the Court’s action cannot be overstated,” says Emma Helverson, Executive Director of Wild Fish Conservancy. “If adopted by the District Judge, this recommendation will result in the first scientifically-proven recovery action in the Pacific Northwest to immediately provide Chinook for starving killer whales. The decision will also recover and restore the larger and more diverse life histories of wild Chinook these whales evolved to eat, which are fundamental for rebuilding both populations.”


While these Chinook are harvested in Southeast Alaska marine waters and currently certified by major U.S. seafood certifiers as ‘sustainable wild caught Alaskan Chinook’, approximately 97% of all Chinook harvested in the Southeast Alaska troll fishery actually originate from rivers throughout British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. Currently, these Chinook are harvested prematurely, before they can migrate back into southern waters where the Southern Resident killer whales encounter them. In 2021, the fishery of concern harvested approximately 150,000 Chinook, many of which were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
For the first time in decades, Magistrate Peterson’s recommendation to terminate this fishery would finally allow these Chinook to migrate back down the coast and pass through the Southern Resident killer whales’ key foraging areas. Similarly, this action would support the coastwide recovery of wild Chinook stocks by allowing far more wild Chinook to return and spawn in rivers in B.C., Washington, and Oregon.


“I want to emphasize that Alaskan fishers are not to blame for NOAA’s chronic mismanagement of this fishery, and we are sympathetic to the burden this decision may pose on Southeast Alaskan communities,” says Emma Helverson, Executive Director of Wild Fish Conservancy. “However, it’s critical to also acknowledge that for decades this fishery has harvested majority non-Alaskan Chinook at unsustainable levels with cascading and coastwide consequences for fishing communities throughout British Columbia, Oregon, and Washington. In addition to the unparalleled benefits to killer whale and Chinook recovery, the Court’s decision will restore more control to communities over the recovery of their local Chinook salmon populations, particularly tribal people and First Nations.”


Southern Resident killer whales were listed as Endangered in 2005. Currently, there are only 73 individuals in the population, an alarming decrease from nearly 100 only 25-years ago. Reduced prey availability, specifically large and abundant Chinook, has been identified by killer whale experts and NOAA as the primary cause of their decline.


“With less fishing in Alaskan waters, more Chinook can return to spawn in their home rivers in British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon,” said Dr. Deborah Giles, Science and Research Director at Wild Orca. “An increase in larger, mature fish is essential—not just for the whales— but for the survival of these imperiled Chinook populations, whose future also hangs in the balance. A recovery for Chinook benefits all fishers, whales, and humans alike.”


“Despite the clear evidence, for too long government agencies, certifiers, and the media have been unwilling to acknowledge and address the unsustainable salmon harvest management in this fishery and others that is harming the recovery of the Southern Resident killer whales and the wild Chinook they depend on,” says Helverson. “The Court’s finding is playing an important role in bringing science and policy closer together for the benefit of wild salmon, killer whales, and coastal communities.”


In the coming months, the Magistrate Judge’s report and recommendation and any objections from the defendants will be considered by the District Judge presiding over the case for a final ruling.
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Choosing Winners and Losers in Alaska’s Crab Fishery -Hakai Magazine

Great article on the Alaska crab season.

A quota system implemented in 2005 has meant economic and social trade-offs.

https://hakaimagazine.com/news/choosing-winners-and-losers-in-alaskas-crab-fishery/

Valuable crab populations are in a ‘very scary’ decline in warming Bering Sea

The latest from the Alaska seafood front. The warming planet is now severely impacting Alaskan crab.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/valuable-crab-populations-crash-in-a-warming-bering-sea/

Trump to strip protections from Tongass National Forest, one of the biggest intact temperate rainforests Seattle Times

And so it continues, the rolling back of environmental protection in some of our most critical remaining habitat. Vote Democratic and for Biden to end this madness.

President Donald Trump will open up more than half of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest to logging and other forms of development, according to a notice posted Wednesday, stripping protections that had safeguarded one of the world’s largest intact temperate rainforests for nearly two decades.

Logging in Alaska costs U.S. taxpayers millions each year, because of a long-standing federal mandate that companies profit from any timber sale. This means the Forest Service often covers harvesters’ costs, including road building. According to a Taxpayer for Common Sense analysis of the Forest Service’s accounts, the Tongass timber program has lost roughly $1.7 billion over the last 40 years.

Seattle Times

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/trump-to-strip-protections-from-tongass-national-forest-among-worlds-biggest-intact-temperate-rainforests/

Pebble Mine Alaska- Army Corps denies permit

The Army Corps of Engineers just denied the permit for Pebble Mine! The proposed mine threatens Bristol Bay, Alaska — home of one of the last great wild salmon runs and Indigenous communities who rely on it.

The Army Corps of Engineers found that the mine would likely result in significant degradation of the environment. So it officially rejected the permit under section 404 of the Clean Water Act.

This is a huge victory for communities near Bristol Bay, the salmon fisheries, our environment, and our climate. It sends a message loud and clear to corporate polluters that they cannot destroy our pristine wild places.  It does not end the project, but is a serious setback for it, easily carrying the decision over to a new President Biden if Trump is not re-elected.

If the mine is built, it could generate more than 10 billion tons of dangerous waste, wipe out 90 miles of salmon streams, and pollute more than 5,000 acres of wetlands, ponds, and lakes. It would likely decimate the local salmon populations — in turn impacting the local communities that depend on them.

More than 65 percent of Alaskans, and 80 percent of Bristol Bay residents — including Native people — strongly oppose the mine. The only ones who would benefit are Pebble Limited Partnership and their affiliates. Together, we stood up to the powerful advocates for the mine — and we won.

The Pebble Mine fight isn’t over yet. The EPA could still advance the project. But this victory is a huge step in the right direction — proving that people power works and we can stop polluters from harming the planet.

Pink salmon numbers may threaten other North Pacific species – AP

The pieces to the salmon puzzle continue to come in from the various angles of research being done. The scientists in this article don’t claim to be have the sole answer but are raising questions that run counter to the narrative that the hatchery supporters want to tell. This is healthy debate and given the stakes for our last great fishery, are worth putting more money into determining whether these root causes or not.

Biological oceanographer Sonia Batten experienced her lightbulb moment on the perils of too many salmon three years ago as she prepared a talk on the most important North Pacific seafood you’ll never see on a plate — zooplankton.

https://www.apnews.com/e589a757f4fd48869af6e17845c5c857

And this follow up story showed up from KUOW

‘Slowly slipping away.’ Fewest sockeye salmon ever counted at Ballard Locks

Sockeye salmon are returning to Lake Washington in the smallest numbers since record-keeping started.

As of early August, 17,000 sockeye had returned from the ocean, compared to hundreds of thousands inat their peak years.

https://kuow.org/stories/slowly-slipping-away-sockeye-numbers-at-ballard-locks-reach-record-lows

It’s been 30 years since the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Here’s what we’re still learning from that environmental debacle. – Hakai Magazine

Some facts on the ground. While the press may have moved on, the oil hasn’t. Why we are so adamant about new oil spill regulations in Olympia as Canada gears up to put hundreds of more oil freighters into our joint use Strait. Whatever could go wrong?

Before dawn on March 24, 1989, Dan Lawn stepped off of a small boat and onto the boarding ladder dangling from the side of the grounded Exxon Valdez oil tanker. As he made the crossover, he peered down into the water of Prince William Sound, and saw, in the glare of the lights, an ugly spectacle he would never forget. “There was a 3-foot wave of oil boiling out from under the ship, recalls Lawn, who was then a Valdez-based Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation employee helping to watchdog the oil industry. “You couldn’t do anything to stop it.”… Eventually, the oil would foul parts of 1,300 miles of coastline, killing marine life ranging from microscopic planktons to orcas in an accident that would change how the maritime oil-transportation industry does business in Alaska, and to a lesser extent, elsewhere in the world. Hal Bernton and Lynda Makes report. (Seattle Times) See also: Wounded Wilderness: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill 30 Years Later  On the surface, Prince William Sound appears to have recovered. But you don’t have to dig too deep—into the soil or into memories—to find the spill’s lingering effects. Tim Lydon reports. (Hakai Magazine)

It’s been 30 years since the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Here’s what we’re still learning from that environmental debacle.

Dismal Copper River salmon run prompts ‘unprecedented’ shutdown of dip-netting at Chitina – Anchorage Daily News

Not good news coming in from the Copper River. Salmon numbers are so bad they’ve close the fishery.

The state is taking the historic action of shutting down Copper River dipnetting at the popular, physically demanding sites around Chitina.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game issued an emergency order Wednesday closing the personal-use fishery until further notice as of Monday.

 

https://www.adn.com/outdoors-adventure/fishing/2018/06/13/dismal-copper-river-salmon-run-prompts-unprecedented-shutdown-of-dipnetting-at-chitina/

 

Homer writer Eva Saulitis gracefully authored the process of her death – Alaska Dispatch News

A moving piece, combining two things close to my heart. Nature, and death. Nature for the obvious reason, and death for the not so obvious. Having supported a number of people, including my late wife, father, mother and some friends through the process of dying, I feel it to be more of a friend than foe. Here’s a great story about someone I never knew, but hope that this piece brings some peace, and opens new ways of understanding and coping with death. An important part of this story is that Eva felt that she had to escape the hospital. That is exactly what I’ve counseled everyone I’ve been with through this journey. Doctors rarely understand how to do the most Buddhist act of all, which is to surrender. Death is about surrender. Surrendering is power for the dying. It’s allowing a person to have control over and make the decisions about  the one thing  that we have to do on our own, which is  to die.  Our medical society has become a money machine, and medical staff many times don’t have the choice to allow the patient to surrender to death, as it means an end to the revenue stream of the organization. They plead the Hippocratic Oath as a shield rather than a guidepost. There are exceptions, of course. But it’s been my experience that our hospitals work to postpone death to wring every cent from the patient’s insurance.  It is a bad situation, and I’ve seen it in every hospital I’ve been in. Hospice is not often valued as an option, only as a menu choice for those who have a taste for it, never really promoted as a choice.  In America, you have to fight to die as you wish. And even if the patient does fight, often because culturally it’s not acceptable to die, their family fights their decision. We  have a long way back to be able accept death  into our culture.

Writer Eva Saulitis composed her progress toward death as gracefully as one of her poems, right up to her last breath, which she breathed with her family at home in Homer on Saturday afternoon.

Saulitis, 52, wrote in ADN’s We Alaskans about her approaching death from breast cancer in September and in a book she finished on the subject, titled “Becoming Earth,” to be published by Boreal Books.

Read the whole story, by Charles Wohlforth here:

http://www.adn.com/article/20160120/homer-writer-eva-saulitis-gracefully-authored-process-her-death

 

Questions being raised about Navy’s possible implication in mass whale deaths in Alaska – KTUU TV

5 more dead whales found in Alaska waters since June; total 14 dead.

The highly unusual mass death of whales in Alaskan waters, happened during the time frame that Navy was conducting bombing training that they said, in their documents that they filed with their ESA, that would involve killing of sea mammals.

New concerns were raised for Alaskan whales as the Navy conducted a training exercise in the Gulf of Alaska for two weeks June. Researchers are monitoring for dead whale sightings after the exercise. Sonobuoys were used as part of the exercise – a technology that affects deep diving whale species like beaked whales and sperm whales most, researchers say.

Interestingly, once the Navy started monitoring the situation the whale deaths stopped.

http://www.ktuu.com/news/news/5-more-dead-whales-found-in-alaska-waters-since-june-total-14-dead/34101154

EPA Agreeing to Hold Seattle Bristol Bay Hearing on May 31

Seattle hearing requested by Cantwell will outline how the Pebble Mine would impact Bristol Bay salmon and WA state jobs, maritime economy

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) released the following statement regarding the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) announcement that the agency will hold a public hearing in Seattle next week to discuss how large scale development in Bristol Bay, Alaska – like the Pebble Mine proposal – could hurt salmon and Washington state jobs. The hearing will be held on Thursday, May 31st, at 2:00 p.m. Pacific time at the Federal Building in Seattle.

Earlier in May, Cantwell had asked EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to hold this Seattle hearing following the agency’s release of its draft watershed assessment, which itmade public last week. The EPA is also holding public hearings in Alaska June 4th-7th.

“I’m glad that Washington state voices will be heard as EPA works to finalize its scientific watershed assessment,” Cantwell said. “This public hearing is a critical step in ensuring Washingtonians’ livelihoods are protected. With thousands of Washington state jobs dependent on healthy, sustainable Bristol Bay salmon, I will continue fighting to ensure a final decision is based on sound science.”

Thousands of Washington state jobs – including commercial and recreational fishing, processing, shipbuilding and the restaurant industry – depend on Bristol Bay’s healthy, sustainable wild salmon populations. Nearly 1,000 Washingtonians hold commercial fishing permits in Bristol Bay. In 2008, Bristol Bay yielded over $113 million dollars in total value for Washington state commercial fishers. Recreational salmon fishers yielded an additional $75 million for Washington state businesses alone.

Bristol Bay is the most productive salmon run in the world, generating a total value of approximately $500 million dollars each year and supporting 14,000 full and part-time jobs.

In a September letter to Jackson, Cantwell became the first U.S. Senator to call on the EPA to use its Clean Water Act 404(c) authority to block any large development project in Bristol Bay if science determined that the project would “have unacceptable adverse impacts on water quality and the fish stocks that depend on it.”

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