Regulating Alaska’s Salmon

• Main Author: Quick, Erin
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Penn Carey Law: Legal Scholarship Repository 2019
• Subjects: Environment; Administrative Law; Alaska Department of Fish and Game; Environmental Regulation; National Marine Fisheries Service; Salmon; Law; Pink salmon; Alaska
• Online Access: https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/regreview-analysis/163; https://www.theregreview.org/2019/04/17/quick-regulating-alaska-salmon/

The idea of Alaska salmon calls to mind images of fish swimming up streams in picturesque wilderness, completing a grueling journey to return to the same places they began their lives. Yet billions of salmon in Alaska do not begin their lives in this way—instead, they are born in hatcheries and released to grow to adulthood in the open ocean, where they mix with naturally occurring salmon populations and eventually make up part of the commercial salmon harvest. Alaska’s salmon hatchery program supplements the wild salmon catch by increasing the number of fish that survive the early stages of life. In 2017, Alaska’s salmon hatcheries released about 1.6 billion juveniles, and of those, about 50 million adult salmon returned—approximately 21 percent of the total salmon harvest in Alaska. Although numerous statutes and regulations mandate that the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) protect wild Alaska salmon populations, some commentators question whether hatchery programs harm wild populations. Salmon begin their lives in freshwater, but as the fish grow to adulthood they transition to living in saltwater before returning to their place of birth to lay the eggs that will become the next generation. Hatcheries take advantage of this life cycle by protecting billions of eggs and juveniles from predators and other environmental factors until they reach an age where the hatcheries can release them into the natural environment. The hatchery salmon that survive to reproductive age out in the ocean return to their birth hatchery, where some are randomly selected for the collection and fertilization of eggs for the cycle to repeat the following year. Most returnees, however, are harvested to be sold as food. A 2017 study examined the effects of pink salmon population enhancement through hatcheries and concluded that although enhancement has resulted in overall greater yields and stable wild salmon populations, greater overall yields come at the expense of an increase in wild pink salmon population. The study’s ...