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Every year, millions of British Columbia’s wild salmon are killed in commercial fisheries in Alaska.

 

Fisheries in Alaska are scooping up Canadian salmon before they reach their home rivers to spawn. Meanwhile, B.C.'s salmon and steelhead have hit record lows. Bears and other wildlife are going hungry and B.C. fisheries are closed. First Nations are not meeting their food needs, commercial fishers are out of work and hard-working B.C. families can no longer catch a salmon to bring home for dinner. 

The solution is easy—Alaska needs to move its dirty interception fisheries away from areas where B.C. salmon are returning to spawn, to inside waters where Alaskans can still catch their own fish.

Give our wild salmon a chance. Stop the Alaskan plunder.

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“Our salmon can’t wait. We need to take a hard stand with Alaska, telling them large mixed-stock interception fisheries are a relic of the past, and must be eliminated.”   — Misty McDuffee, Raincoast Conservation Foundation

“Our salmon can’t wait. We need to take a hard stand with Alaska, telling them large mixed-stock interception fisheries are a relic of the past, and must be eliminated.”   — Misty McDuffee, Raincoast Conservation Foundation

Send sustainable seafood verifiers a message about 'Alaskan' salmon


Fishers in Southeast Alaska net hundreds of thousands of Canadian sockeye, steelhead, chinook, chum, and pink salmon every year — many from critically endangered populations. In 2022, fishers in Southeast Alaska took 2.1 million of our salmon as they swam past Alaska on their way home, all while Canadian fisheries were closed to rebuild dwindling stocks.  

Wild salmon are part of who we are and are especially vital for Indigenous communities. Dwindling salmon stocks also affect our ecosystems, starving our bears, eagles and other wildlife. A U.S. federal judge recently ruled that Southeast Alaska's Chinook Troll Fishery violates the Endangered Species Act by depriving Southern Resident Killer Whales of critical prey. But other commercial fleets in Southeast Alaska continue their plunder of B.C. salmon unchecked.

Seafood certification organizations like Marine Stewardship Council and Ocean Wise have maintained their 'sustainable' certification for Alaskan seafood. But fisheries that survive by taking another country’s endangered fish are about as far from sustainable as you can get.

When seafood is labelled 'sustainable,' consumers expect it to be


Canadians rely on organizations like Ocean Wise and Marine Stewardship Council to help us choose sustainable seafood options, but when certification organizations are letting some fisheries slip by, it’s hard to know which options are right for our families.

Tell Marine Stewardship Council and Ocean Wise to decertify Southeast Alaska's salmon fisheries until they are truly sustainable, and when you can, reconsider your purchase of any Alaskan seafood until their fishing fleet in the Southeast stops intercepting and killing so many endangered Canadian salmon. 

Send your letter now, then check your email for some tips on where you can buy sustainably caught salmon.