ANCHORAGE, ALASKA—Alaska Native and fisheries conservation organizations have filed an amicus curiae “friend of the court” brief supporting the lawsuit brought by the Association of Village Council Presidents, Tanana Chiefs Conference, and city of Bethel against federal fisheries managers. The lawsuit alleges the National Marine Fisheries Service (NFMS) violated the National Environmental Policy Act by authorizing large-scale industrial fishing companies to catch billions of pounds of fish without appropriately considering the impacts in light of rapid environmental changes, ongoing species collapses, and closures on in-river salmon fisheries.

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA—Despite continued impassioned testimony from Alaskans, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council this week again postponed setting any kind of limit for chum salmon bycatch and for reducing seafloor damage caused by “midwater” trawl gear. It also failed to address the deep and growing inequities in federal fishery management off Alaska’s coast. More than 50 people, the majority of them rural Alaskans and tribal government representatives, testified before the Council.

JUNEAU, ALASKA— Thousands of Alaskans and Americans, as well as the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, Bering Sea Fishermen’s Association, Native Peoples Action, SalmonState, Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association (ALFA), The Boat Company, Bear Trail Lodge, and DeepStrike Sportfishing, have formally urged federal fisheries managers to institute new, desperately needed updates to their management guidelines.

JUNEAU, ALASKA—Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, Bering Sea Fishermen’s Association, SalmonState, Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association (ALFA), The Boat Company, and DeepStrike Sportfishing applaud the start of a federal process that gives Alaskans an opportunity to weigh in on potential new guidelines for federal fisheries management — including trawl bycatch, support for community-based fisheries, and much-needed consideration of climate change in management decisions.

ANCHORAGE—After days of powerful testimony and comments from hundreds of Alaskans over the course of its week-long April meeting, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council once again failed to meaningfully address the issue of the pollock trawl fleet’s prolific bycatch of chum salmon, king salmon, herring, halibut, snow crab, Bristol Bay red king crab, and many other species. Instead of recognizing the need to manage Alaska’s oceans as an ecosystem and accepting its own Salmon Bycatch Committee (SBC) and Advisory Panel’s (AP) recommendations for a range of measures to reduce chum salmon bycatch, the Council threw out the guidance of the advisory boards they charged with developing this very proposal and assigned the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to start again from square one in proposing a cap. This decision postpones any meaningful action for this fishing season at the very least.

ANCHORAGE—As the North Pacific Fishery Management Council convenes in Anchorage for its April meeting, SalmonState delivered more than 700 comments from Alaskans and concerned citizens urging the council to take meaningful action to address the pollock trawl fleet’s catching and wasting of chum salmon, Chinook salmon, halibut, crab and other species. While nearly every other sector of Bering Sea-reliant fisheries suffers — traditional fishing has been shut down; small boat fisheries are closed; crab fisheries are closed — the council’s inaction means trawling, the largest, most wasteful fishery, continues full steam ahead with the catching and wasting of those same species.