Alaska salmon season back on after court halts closure that sought to protect orcas

By MARK THIESSEN and AUDREY McAVOY
Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A U.S. appeals court has halted a lower court ruling that would have shut down southeast Alaska’s chinook salmon troll fishery for the summer to protect endangered orca whales that eat the fish. Wednesday’s ruling from a three-judge 9th Circuit Court panel means the summer chinook, or king, salmon season will start as usual July 1 for an industry that supports some 1,500 fishery workers in southeast Alaska. The opinion says the state Alaska and others who were part of the appeal established a sufficient likelihood that certain and substantial impacts of the lower court’s decision “outweigh the speculative environmental threats.”