Tag Archives: Sitka assembly
Sitka Assembly considers helping Southeast trollers in legal fight that could shut down the fishery
The Seattle-based environmental group Wild Fish Conservancy wants to stop the Southeast troll fisheries, which they say harm an endangered population of orcas. And in December, a federal judge in Washington issued a report that puts the fisheries at risk of closure. The Alaska Trollers Association is a defendant in the 2020 suit against the National Marine Fisheries Service. Sitka fisherman Matt Donohoe is the president of the Trollers Association. He says they object to the report and expect their legal expenses to increase. “Anyone claiming that Southern Resident killer whales are starving because Alaska trollers were taking food from the mouths of their babies would be laughed out of court. That’s what we thought,” >click to read< 11:48
Following harvest shortfall, Sitka contemplates a herring moratorium
The Sitka Assembly has formed a committee to draft a resolution which may call for a moratorium on herring fishing in Sitka Sound. The move comes after the failure of this spring’s commercial sac roe fishery, which fell over 8,000 tons short of the expected harvest level. The idea of a commercial fishing moratorium has been around for a long time, backed primarily by the Sitka Tribe and other subsistence users concerned over declines in the local harvest of herring eggs. >click to read<16:35
Sitka assembly opposes summertime Naval exercises
The Sitka assembly has gone on record opposing training exercises by the US Navy in prime fishing habitat in the Gulf of Alaska next summer. Most members agreed that the use of live explosives and powerful sonar could be harmful to fish and marine mammals — and detrimental to the state’s fishing industry. Emily Stolarcyk, with the Eyak Preservation Council in Cordova, was quick to point out that the resolution under consideration was not anti-military. The proposed training area occupies around 70,000 square miles of the Gulf of Alaska, between Kodiak and Sitka. Roughly 90-percent of the area is designated Essential Fish Habitat. “This is about finding common ground between two very different user groups who have to use the same area — mainly commercial fishermen and the US Military. So what we’re asking for is for the Navy to make adjustments to their current plans to practice in the summer. We want them to go back to what they’ve historically done, and practice in the winter.” Read the story here 10:17
