The Sitka Assembly is moving forward with plans to donate $25,000 to the Alaska Trollers Association, to support the organization’s ongoing legal fight against a Washington environmental group that hopes to shut down commercial fishing for king salmon in Southeast Alaska. And other organizations and locals are piling on, in anticipation of a lengthy — and costly — appeals process.
Alaska trollers and the Alaska Department of Fish & Game intervened in a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service brought by the Wild Fish Conservancy in 2020. The Duvall, Washington-based group argues that commercial trolling in Alaska threatens an endangered population of killer whales in Puget Sound by depriving them of king salmon – their primary food source. And they’ve been successful in court:
