On October 10, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that a lawsuit broadly alleging that salmon were mismanaged in the “Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers since statehood” could not proceed.
Upon achieving statehood, the states take ownership of the wildlife within their borders in their sovereign capacity, for the benefit of the citizens. This is commonly called the “public trust doctrine,” and is codified in Alaska’s Constitution: “Fish, forests, wildlife, grasslands, and all other replenishable resources belonging to the State shall be utilized, developed, and maintained on the sustained yield principle, subject to preferences among beneficial uses.”
The Alaska Supreme Court has previously ruled that the sustained yield mandate does not require any specific action, but only a “conscious application … of principles of management intended to sustain the yield of the resource being managed.” In other words, the state cannot willfully deplete its resources.
The lawsuit alleged that since achieving statehood in 1959, the state has failed to properly manage its salmon. The lawsuit attributed the declining salmon population to general “mining activities, overfishing, water pollution, and the State’s failure to incorporate indigenous knowledge in management decisions.” The problem with the lawsuit was that it made broad general allegations, but didn’t identify any specific mining activity, overfishing instance, type of water pollution, or management decision that could benefit from applying indigenous knowledge.
“Not all grievances can be redressed by the courts,” said Michael Jean, Litigation Counsel for Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation. “Our courts are empowered to resolve ‘cases and controversies’—they make factual findings and then determine if those facts amount to a violation of the law. But they do not resolve broad-based policy disputes. Courts often say that they are not ‘super legislatures’ and refer to the executive and legislative branches of government as the ‘political branches,’ charged with resolving the broader policy questions.”
The court ultimately ruled that because the lawsuit “failed to cite specific fishery management decisions, actions, or policies that give rise to” the sustained yield claim, it was merely asking for an order “requiring the State to comply with the sustained yield clause.” But without identifying any specific violations, the order “would not convey what management actions the State could take without risking contempt.” Instead, the broader issue of salmon management in general was one that needed to be addressed through the political branches of government.
This is not the only controversy involving salmon management in the Last Frontier. In May of 2024, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued a positive 90-day finding on a petition submitted by the Wild Fish Conservancy to list Chinook salmon in the gulf of Alaska, or any evolutionarily significant unit that may exist, as a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. That decision triggered a more thorough analysis to ultimately determine whether salmon should be federally protected. Last fall, the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation submitted comments in opposition to the petition. The National Marine Fisheries Service has not made a final decision on that petition.
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