Lawsuit blames fisheries management for decline of southern resident orca population in Salish Sea

By Alex Halverson
3 April 2019

(SeattlePI) – West Coast salmon fishing contributed to southern resident orca population decrease through mismanagement and a reliance on outdated science, a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court Wednesday argued.

The Center for Biological Diversity and the Wild Fish Conservancy filed a suit against the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, arguing that the Fisheries Service reduced the chinook salmon population by relying on an outdated study to allow fishing through the Pacific Coast Fishery Management Plan (FMP).

The lawsuit accused the Fisheries Service of failing to consider the impacts on orcas when setting out the rules for fishing under the FMP, therefore violating the Endangered Species Act.

“This lawsuit asks the federal government to take a new look at ocean salmon fisheries,” Julie Teel Simmonds, one of the attorneys representing the Center for Biological Diversity, told SeattlePI. “There’s new science that’s crystallized the relationship between killer whales and salmon.”

Ultimately, the lawsuit asked the court to set a deadline for the Fisheries Service to reintroduce the FMP and consider how it affects southern resident killer whales. It also asked the Fisheries Service to adopt efforts to improve the orca population.

Reducing chinook salmon populations has an effect on southern resident killer whale populations because they rely on the fish, the lawsuit said. [more]

Lawsuit blames fisheries management for decline of southern resident orca population