"We can go fishing": appeals court says Southeast Alaska troll fishery can open this summer
A federal appeals panel issued a last-second ruling Wednesday that will allow this summer’s Southeast Alaska troll chinook salmon fishery to open as scheduled July 1.
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A federal appeals panel issued a last-second ruling Wednesday that will allow this summer’s Southeast Alaska troll chinook salmon fishery to open as scheduled July 1 — reversing a lower court ruling that would have kept the $85 million industry off the water.
“It’s a major victory,” Alaska Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang said in a brief phone interview Wednesday. “We can go fishing.”
The panel, in a five-page ruling, said that the entities defending the fishery — the Alaska Trollers Association, the state of Alaska and the National Marine Fisheries Service — met the legal standard required to grant what’s known as a “stay” of the lower court ruling.
The decision, the panel said, was based on the likelihood that those entities could show that “the certain and substantial impacts” of closing the harvest on the Alaska salmon fishing industry outweigh the “speculative environmental threats” posed by allowing the fishery to take place.
The Washington-based environmental group that sued in an effort to shut down the harvest, the Wild Fish Conservancy, argued that allowing the fishery to continue would harm a population of 73 endangered orca whales that live off the coast of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.
The “Southern Resident” orcas depend on chinook salmon for most of their diet.
This is a breaking news story — check back for updates.
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Nathaniel Herz
Nathaniel Herz is the Executive Editor of the Anchorage Press and founder of Northern Journal.
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