Alaska’s board of fish restricted a commercial fleet to protect Western Alaska salmon. Then the AG stepped in.
Subsistence fishermen are fighting the attorney general’s decision to overturn the board’s action.
BY Olivia EbertzJun 4, 2026
TOPIC ARCHIVE
#COMMERCIAL FISHING
5 story dispatches filed under this topic.
‘The salmon people’: How Alaska’s only Native reservation saved its fishing culture
A half-century ago, the Indigenous Tsimshian village of Metlakatla, in Southeast Alaska, preserved its reservation when others in Alaska were terminated. Today, the reserve sustains a thriving fishing industry — and the tribe is fighting in court to expand its territory.
BY Nathaniel HerzApr 8, 2026
Coastal Alaskans see commercial fishing limits as a ‘crisis.’ Lawmakers don’t.
Alaska’s Legislature adjourned last week without addressing an issue that many residents of coastal, Native villages see as urgent: expanding access to commercial fishing careers.
BY Nathaniel HerzMay 28, 2025
The last skipper in Ouzinkie: How Gulf of Alaska villages lost their Native fishing fleets
A permitting system designed in the 1970s was supposed to make Alaska’s commercial fishing industry more sustainable and more profitable. But over the last 50 years, it has hollowed out many Indigenous coastal villages where residents no longer can earn a living by harvesting salmon.
BY Nathaniel HerzFeb 5, 2025
“Huge disaster”: Historically weak pink salmon runs strain Alaska’s seine fishermen
Skippers in Prince William Sound and Kodiak say this year's pink harvest is one of the worst they’ve ever seen. “I wake up every morning and I try to apply for a different job," one said.
BY Max GrahamAug 9, 2024