October 10, 2023 — The fishing of chinook or king salmon is back on the desk of the National Marine Fisheries Service, part of the whipsaw rulings this past summer that saw the king salmon season shut down — and then reinstated — as a case brought by environmentalists wound its way through the courts.
NMFS issued a notice Wednesday it is beginning work on an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and a review of alternatives to its incidental take statement (ITS). The ITS is the amount of take allowed to occur in compliance with the Endangered Species Act.
NMFS is accepting public comments through noon on Nov. 20, said Gretchen Harrington, assistant regional administrator for the Sustainable Fisheries Division. The EIS is required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
The case, Wild Fish Conservancy v. Quan, was filed in U.S. District Court in March 2020. Lawyers for WFC argued fishery managers and representatives of the Pacific Salmon Treaty were ignoring their own research by allowing fishing that harmed the endangered king salmon and the southern resident killer whale population, which feeds on them.