Commercial trolling for king salmon in Southeast is back on the desk of the National Marine Fisheries Service, following on judicial rulings this past summer that saw the fishery shut down — and then reinstated — as a case brought by environmentalists wound its way through the courts.
NMFS issued notice on Oct. 4 that it is beginning work on an environmental impact statement and review of alternatives to its incidental take permit which allows Southeast trollers to harvest kings, many of which are destined for the Pacific Northwest feeding grounds of an endangered population of killer whales.
NMFS is accepting public comments through Nov. 20, said Gretchen Harrington, assistant regional administrator for the agency’s Sustainable Fisheries Division.
The EIS will look at three scenarios: The commercial harvest of kings in Southeast is allowed to continue at the current level; a new harvest limit is set; and there is no permit for commercial trollers to take kings other than those raised in Alaska hatcheries.
The third option “isn’t going to happen,” said Harrington, but is needed as a baseline for the analysis.
The litigation started in March 2020 in U.S. District Court when the Washington state-based Wild Fish Conservancy argued that federal fishery managers were ignoring their own research by allowing commercial troll catches of king salmon, endangering the southern resident killer whale population which feeds on them.
The U.S. District Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in May of this year, which would have closed the Southeast summer fishery. But a three-judge panel on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals halted the ruling in late June, finding that the lower court had outweighed “speculative environmental threats.” The court ruling allowed the summer fishery to proceed.
NMFS is working to address issues raised by the lower court regarding the incidental take permit. “The court pointed out problems with the biological opinion, and the document that covers the Endangered Species Act,” said Harrington.
The lower court considered various factors in its ruling, including the decline of the southern resident killer whale population, which dropped from 98 whales in 1995 to 73 whales as of December 2021.
Alaska trollers argue that their fishing plays a very small role in the mortality of the killer whales, which are more affected by habitat loss, stormwater pollution, stream temperature and natural predators, among other factors, said Amy Daugherty, executive director of Alaska Trollers Association.
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