Tag: fishery

Alaska’s Copper River Wild Salmon Fishery Opens May 16: ADF&G
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Alaska’s Copper River Wild Salmon Fishery Opens May 16: ADF&G

Alaska’s celebrated Copper River wild salmon fishery opens on Thursday, May 16 for a 12-hour commercial drift gillnet fishing period, while waters within the expanded Chinook salmon inside closure area closed for that same period. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced the opener May 1, noting that subsistence harvest will also be allowed in the Copper River District during commercial fishing periods, until the season ends. ADF&G biologists said their Miles Lake sonar camp was scheduled to open May 7, but that the banks of the river are still covered with shore ice in the vicinity of the sonar sites. Commercial fishing in the Bering River District also are scheduled to open May 16 for a 12-hour commercial drift gillnet fishing period. The next announcement fro...
Alaska Files New Appeal in Litigation over Southeast Alaska Chinook Salmon Fishery
Fishermen's News Online, News

Alaska Files New Appeal in Litigation over Southeast Alaska Chinook Salmon Fishery

Alaska officials have filed a new motion with the Ninth Circuit Court for a stay of the district court’s vacatur order of the incidental take statement (ITS) for the Southeast Alaska winter and summer commercial Chinook salmon troll fishery. That action this past week (May 26) came on the heels of U.S. District Court Judge Richard Jones’s decision denying the state’s request for a stay of his May 2 order vacating the ITS for the fisheries. That order has the practical effect of closing those two fisheries, which are vital to the Southeast Alaska economy, until a new ITS is in place. The litigation began when the Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC) in Seattle sued National Marine Fisheries Service, alleging violations of the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act. The prim...