Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Meeting

Stand Up for Our Salmon in Sequim

Join us in person or virtually as we rally in Sequim, Washington, on Thursday, October 22, to call on the Pacific Salmon Commission to reform unsustainable ocean fisheries and Let Our Salmon Come Home to the local watersheds, communities, and ecosystems that depend on them.
How would you like to participate?
Sign Up to Provide Oral Testimony and Attend in Person or Virtually

IMPORTANT: Submitting this form does not automatically register your testimony. After you submit the form, you'll receive an email with your completed form attached as a PDF. You must forward that email—with the attached PDF—to info@psc.org to finalize your sign-up.
Name

First NameLast Name
Organization/Affiliation:
Your organization or business name, or N/A if none.
Email
example@example.com
Phone Number
Please enter a valid phone number.Format: (000) 000-0000.
Address

Street Address

Street Address Line 2

CityState / Province

Postal / Zip Code
How would you like to attend the meeting?
How would you like to join us?
Note: To ensure your submission is processed by the Commission, the following fields have been prefilled and cannot be edited.
I request the opportunity to observe the following meetings:
Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Meeting (All Bilateral Sessions)
I request the opportunity to speak at the following meetings:
Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Bilateral Meeting (October 22 - Public Comment Period)
Topic (for speakers):
2028 Pacific Salmon Treaty Renegotiation
Message:
I am writing to request the opportunity to attend the Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Meeting on October 22 by webinar or in person. I am further requesting the opportunity to address the Commission during the public comment period.

During the public comment period, I intend to address the Commission and speak on necessary reforms to the 2028 Pacific Salmon Treaty.

Please see the attached Public and Media Participation form and confirm receipt of this request prior to the 2026 Fall Meeting.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to the opportunity to share my comments.

Choose a geographic area of concern from the options below, and we'll email talking points to help you draft your testimony.
Attend in Person and Submit Written Comments in Advance

Join us in person in Sequim, Washington, on Thursday, October 22, as we rally to Let Our Salmon Come Home—and submit written comments in advance that we'll share with the Pacific Salmon Commission on your behalf.
Name

First NameLast Name
Organization/Affiliation:
Your organization or business name, or N/A if none.
Email
example@example.com
Phone Number
Please enter a valid phone number.Format: (000) 000-0000.
Address

Street Address

Street Address Line 2

CityState / Province

Postal / Zip Code
How would you like to join us? (Select all that apply)
We've made it easy to share your voice with the Pacific Salmon Commission. Select a geographic area of concern from the list below to access talking points you can use to help draft your comments.
Pacific Salmon Commission Talking Points

You can submit the talking points below as is, but we encourage you to personalize them to reflect your perspective. Make edits directly in the field below. When you're ready, click Submit, and we'll deliver your comments to the Commission.
Oregon Coast: Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Meeting Talking Points
Under the existing Pacific Salmon Treaty, too many of our salmon are authorized to be intercepted and killed far from home in distant ocean fisheries. 

This leaves too few fish returning home from the ocean nursery to spawn for recovery and support the ecosystems, economies, and communities that depend on them.

For example:

- For the Nehalem River, Siletz River, Siuslaw River, Salmon River, and the five Tillamook Bay rivers, more than 60% of all Chinook harvest has occurred in Alaska and British Columbia.

- Exploitation north of the US–Canada border has at times exceeded 50–60% of the returning adult population.

- Spawner escapement has trended downward and spawning goals have been missed routinely.

- Local terminal fisheries have faced severe restrictions and closures while ocean fisheries managed under the Pacific Salmon Treaty have continued unabated.

- Endangered Southern Resident killer whales remain in critical condition, deprived of their primary food resource: Chinook salmon.

These high interception rates that are allowed for under the status quo reduce spawning returns, undermine salmon recovery efforts, diminish prey available to endangered killer whales, and severely limit fishing opportunities for local communities and struggling fishing economies across the West Coast.

At the same time, local residents have invested millions of dollars in salmon and steelhead recovery programs whose benefits are compromised when large portions of returning adult populations are intercepted in distant ocean fisheries.

As the data show, the Pacific Salmon Treaty is not adequately achieving its guiding principles to reduce interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the coast.

Your constituents can no longer accept a system in which distant fisheries are allowed to harvest excessive proportions of our threatened salmon and steelhead populations while local communities bear the costs of recovery efforts, fishing restrictions, and declining salmon and Southern Resident killer whale populations.

Given the shortcomings of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, I urge the Pacific Salmon Commission to:

1. Appropriately account for all salmon and steelhead mortalities in ocean fisheries.

2. Substantially curtail unsustainable ocean fishery interceptions.

3. Transition management of salmon fisheries closer to the rivers and estuaries where salmon originate and return to encourage development of selective, sustainable, and equitable fisheries.

4. Let Our Salmon Come Home to the ecosystems, spawning grounds, local fisheries, and communities that have invested in their recovery.

Through the adoption of these recommendations, the Pacific Salmon Treaty can better uphold legal requirements and guiding principles to meet Tribal Treaty and First Nation obligations, minimize interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the West Coast.
Lower Columbia River (Oregon and Washington): Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Meeting Talking Points
Under the existing Pacific Salmon Treaty, too many of our salmon are authorized to be intercepted and killed far from home in distant ocean fisheries. 

This leaves too few fish returning home from the ocean nursery to spawn for recovery and support the ecosystems, economies, and communities that depend on them.

For example:

- Exploitation rates authorized under the PST have ranged up to 57% for ESA-listed tule Chinook.

- Spawner escapement has trended downward and spawning goals have been missed routinely for many populations, such as in the Coast Stratum.

- In the last decade, five ESA-listed tule Chinook populations were functionally extirpated in the Clatskanie River, Scappoose Creek, Mill Creek, Abernathy Creek, and Germany Creek. 

- After more than $9 billion spent on salmon recovery efforts in the basin, researchers have found no evidence of any increase in wild fish abundance under status-quo salmon harvest management. 

- Endangered Southern Resident killer whales remain in critical condition, deprived of their primary food resource—Chinook salmon. 

- Local terminal fisheries have faced severe restrictions while ocean fisheries managed under the Pacific Salmon Treaty have continued unabated. 

These high interception rates that are allowed for under the status quo reduce spawning returns, undermine salmon recovery efforts, diminish prey available to endangered killer whales, and severely limit fishing opportunities for local communities and struggling fishing economies across the West Coast.

At the same time, local residents have invested millions of dollars in salmon and steelhead recovery programs whose benefits are compromised when large portions of returning adult populations are intercepted in distant ocean fisheries.

As the data show, the Pacific Salmon Treaty is not adequately achieving its guiding principles to reduce interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the coast.

Your constituents can no longer accept a system in which distant fisheries are allowed to harvest excessive proportions of our threatened salmon and steelhead populations while local communities bear the costs of recovery efforts, fishing restrictions, and declining salmon and Southern Resident killer whale populations.

Given the shortcomings of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, I urge the Pacific Salmon Commission to:

1. Appropriately account for all salmon and steelhead mortalities in ocean fisheries.

2. Substantially curtail unsustainable ocean fishery interceptions.

3. Transition management of salmon fisheries closer to the rivers and estuaries where salmon originate and return to encourage development of selective, sustainable, and equitable fisheries.

4. Let Our Salmon Come Home to the ecosystems, spawning grounds, local fisheries, and communities that have invested in their recovery.

Through the adoption of these recommendations, the Pacific Salmon Treaty can better uphold legal requirements and guiding principles to meet Tribal Treaty and First Nation obligations, minimize interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the West Coast.
Upper Columbia River (Oregon, Washington, and Idaho): Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Meeting Talking Points
Under the existing Pacific Salmon Treaty, too many of our salmon are authorized to be intercepted and killed far from home in distant ocean fisheries. 

This leaves too few fish returning home from the ocean nursery to spawn for recovery and support the ecosystems, economies, and communities that depend on them.

For example:

- > 50% of all harvest of Hanford Wild Chinook has occurred north of the US-Canada border. 

- This has left severely diminished allocations for local Tribes, commercial fishers, and recreational fishers that depend on the upriver bright stock.

- Local terminal fisheries have faced severe restrictions and closures while ocean fisheries managed under the Pacific Salmon Treaty have continued unabated. 

- After more than $9 billion spent on salmon recovery efforts in the basin, researchers have found no evidence of any increase in wild fish abundance under status-quo salmon harvest management. 

- Endangered Upper Columbia Basin Chinook populations have failed to recover while the Pacific Salmon Treaty’s Chinook Technical Committee has declined to monitor their harvest in various ocean-based fisheries of Alaska. 

- Endangered Southern Resident killer whales remain in critical condition, deprived of their primary food resource—Chinook salmon. 

These high interception rates that are allowed for under the status quo reduce spawning returns, undermine salmon recovery efforts, diminish prey available to endangered killer whales, and severely limit fishing opportunities for local communities and struggling fishing economies across the West Coast.

At the same time, local residents have invested millions of dollars in salmon and steelhead recovery programs whose benefits are compromised when large portions of returning adult populations are intercepted in distant ocean fisheries.

As the data show, the Pacific Salmon Treaty is not adequately achieving its guiding principles to reduce interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the coast.

Your constituents can no longer accept a system in which distant fisheries are allowed to harvest excessive proportions of our threatened salmon and steelhead populations while local communities bear the costs of recovery efforts, fishing restrictions, and declining salmon and Southern Resident killer whale populations.

Given the shortcomings of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, I urge the Pacific Salmon Commission to:

1. Appropriately account for all salmon and steelhead mortalities in ocean fisheries.

2. Substantially curtail unsustainable ocean fishery interceptions.

3. Transition management of salmon fisheries closer to the rivers and estuaries where salmon originate and return to encourage development of selective, sustainable, and equitable fisheries.

4. Let Our Salmon Come Home to the ecosystems, spawning grounds, local fisheries, and communities that have invested in their recovery.

Through the adoption of these recommendations, the Pacific Salmon Treaty can better uphold legal requirements and guiding principles to meet Tribal Treaty and First Nation obligations, minimize interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the West Coast.
Washington Coast: Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Meeting Talking Points
Under the existing Pacific Salmon Treaty, too many of our salmon are authorized to be intercepted and killed far from home in distant ocean fisheries. 

This leaves too few fish returning home from the ocean nursery to spawn for recovery and support the ecosystems, economies, and communities that depend on them.

For example:

- > 70% of all Chinook harvest has occurred in Alaska and British Columbia, with trends in interception worsening in recent decades. 

- Exploitation north of the US-Canada border has regularly exceeded 50–60% of the returning adult population. 

- Spawner escapement has trended downward and spawning goals have often been missed.

- Local terminal fisheries have faced severe restrictions and closures while ocean fisheries managed under the Pacific Salmon Treaty have continued unabated. 

- Endangered Southern Resident killer whales remain in critical condition, deprived of their primary food resource—Chinook salmon. 

These high interception rates that are allowed for under the status quo reduce spawning returns, undermine salmon recovery efforts, diminish prey available to endangered killer whales, and severely limit fishing opportunities for local communities and struggling fishing economies across the West Coast.

At the same time, local residents have invested millions of dollars in salmon and steelhead recovery programs whose benefits are compromised when large portions of returning adult populations are intercepted in distant ocean fisheries.

As the data show, the Pacific Salmon Treaty is not adequately achieving its guiding principles to reduce interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the coast.

Your constituents can no longer accept a system in which distant fisheries are allowed to harvest excessive proportions of our threatened salmon and steelhead populations while local communities bear the costs of recovery efforts, fishing restrictions, and declining salmon and Southern Resident killer whale populations.

Given the shortcomings of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, I urge the Pacific Salmon Commission to:

1. Appropriately account for all salmon and steelhead mortalities in ocean fisheries.

2. Substantially curtail unsustainable ocean fishery interceptions.

3. Transition management of salmon fisheries closer to the rivers and estuaries where salmon originate and return to encourage development of selective, sustainable, and equitable fisheries.

4. Let Our Salmon Come Home to the ecosystems, spawning grounds, local fisheries, and communities that have invested in their recovery.

Through the adoption of these recommendations, the Pacific Salmon Treaty can better uphold legal requirements and guiding principles to meet Tribal Treaty and First Nation obligations, minimize interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the West Coast.
Puget Sound (Washington): Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Meeting Talking Points
Under the existing Pacific Salmon Treaty, too many of our salmon are authorized to be intercepted and killed far from home in distant ocean fisheries. 

This leaves too few fish returning home from the ocean nursery to spawn for recovery and support the ecosystems, economies, and communities that depend on them.

For example:

- > 70% of all threatened Puget Sound Chinook harvest has occurred in British Columbia and Alaska. 

- Exploitation north of the US-Canada border has at times exceeded 50–60% of the returning adult population. 

- Spawner escapement has trended downward and spawning goals have been missed routinely.

- Local terminal fisheries have faced severe restrictions and closures while ocean fisheries managed under the Pacific Salmon Treaty have continued unabated. 

- Endangered Southern Resident killer whales remain in critical condition, deprived of their primary food resource—Chinook salmon. 

These high interception rates that are allowed for under the status quo reduce spawning returns, undermine salmon recovery efforts, diminish prey available to endangered killer whales, and severely limit fishing opportunities for local communities and struggling fishing economies across the West Coast.

At the same time, local residents have invested millions of dollars in salmon and steelhead recovery programs whose benefits are compromised when large portions of returning adult populations are intercepted in distant ocean fisheries.

As the data show, the Pacific Salmon Treaty is not adequately achieving its guiding principles to reduce interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the coast.

Your constituents can no longer accept a system in which distant fisheries are allowed to harvest excessive proportions of our threatened salmon and steelhead populations while local communities bear the costs of recovery efforts, fishing restrictions, and declining salmon and Southern Resident killer whale populations.

Given the shortcomings of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, I urge the Pacific Salmon Commission to:

1. Appropriately account for all salmon and steelhead mortalities in ocean fisheries.

2. Substantially curtail unsustainable ocean fishery interceptions.

3. Transition management of salmon fisheries closer to the rivers and estuaries where salmon originate and return to encourage development of selective, sustainable, and equitable fisheries.

4. Let Our Salmon Come Home to the ecosystems, spawning grounds, local fisheries, and communities that have invested in their recovery.

Through the adoption of these recommendations, the Pacific Salmon Treaty can better uphold legal requirements and guiding principles to meet Tribal Treaty and First Nation obligations, minimize interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the West Coast.
Skeena and Nass Rivers (British Columbia): Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Meeting Talking Points
Under the existing Pacific Salmon Treaty, too many of our salmon are authorized to be intercepted and killed far from home in distant ocean fisheries. 

This leaves too few fish returning home from the ocean nursery to spawn for recovery and support the ecosystems, economies, and communities that depend on them.

For example:

- On average, 50% of the total Skeena and Nass River Chinook harvest has occurred in ocean based fisheries of Alaska each year, with trends in interception worsening over the last two decades.

- In 2021, approximately 91% of total Chinook harvest occurred in Alaska.

- Chinook spawner escapement has trended rapidly downward over the last two decades in the Skeena and Nass Rivers. 

- For Skeena River coho salmon, Alaskan interceptions amount to 75% of the total harvest.

- Steelhead are unaccounted for in Pacific Salmon Treaty fisheries despite estimates suggesting that up to 50% of the Skeena River steelhead return have potentially been intercepted as bycatch in commercial fisheries of Alaska. 

- Local terminal fisheries have faced severe restrictions and closures while ocean fisheries managed under the Pacific Salmon Treaty have continued unabated. 

These high interception rates that are allowed for under the status quo reduce spawning returns, undermine salmon recovery efforts, diminish prey available to endangered killer whales, and severely limit fishing opportunities for local communities and struggling fishing economies across the West Coast.

At the same time, local residents have invested millions of dollars in salmon and steelhead recovery programs whose benefits are compromised when large portions of returning adult populations are intercepted in distant ocean fisheries.

As the data show, the Pacific Salmon Treaty is not adequately achieving its guiding principles to reduce interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the coast.

Your constituents can no longer accept a system in which distant fisheries are allowed to harvest excessive proportions of our threatened salmon and steelhead populations while local communities bear the costs of recovery efforts, fishing restrictions, and declining salmon and Southern Resident killer whale populations.

Given the shortcomings of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, I urge the Pacific Salmon Commission to:

1. Appropriately account for all salmon and steelhead mortalities in ocean fisheries.

2. Substantially curtail unsustainable ocean fishery interceptions.

3. Transition management of salmon fisheries closer to the rivers and estuaries where salmon originate and return to encourage development of selective, sustainable, and equitable fisheries.

4. Let Our Salmon Come Home to the ecosystems, spawning grounds, local fisheries, and communities that have invested in their recovery.

Through the adoption of these recommendations, the Pacific Salmon Treaty can better uphold legal requirements and guiding principles to meet Tribal Treaty and First Nation obligations, minimize interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the West Coast.
Yukon River (Alaska): Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Meeting Talking Points
Under the existing Pacific Salmon Treaty, too many of our salmon are authorized to be intercepted and killed far from home in distant ocean fisheries. 

This leaves too few fish returning home from the ocean nursery to spawn for recovery and support the ecosystems, economies, and communities that depend on them.

For example:

- Despite the fact that thousands of Chinook and Chum salmon are harvested annually in ocean-based Area M salmon fisheries of Alaska, the Pacific Salmon Treaty fails to account for these interceptions and mortalities. 

- While industrial-scale salmon and trawl fisheries continue unabated, local terminal fisheries face severe fisheries restrictions and closures.

- Canadian-origin Yukon River Chinook have fallen to less than 10% of their historical average of 150,000 adults, according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada. 

- In 2024, under the Treaty's Yukon River chapter, the two countries agreed to suspend directed fisheries for Canadian-origin Yukon River Chinook for seven years. 

- Subsistence fishing stays closed unless more than 71,000 Canadian-origin Yukon River Chinook are projected to reach the border, and Alaska has kept Yukon Chinook subsistence fishing closed every summer since 2021. 

- The same agreement says Alaska will keep working to reduce "marine catches and bycatches of Yukon River-origin salmon to the extent practicable."

- Meanwhile, Bering Sea pollock trawlers caught 8,046 Chinook in 2024.

- Preliminary genetic analysis traced nearly half of the 2023 pollock bycatch to a western Alaska stock group that includes Yukon and Kuskokwim tributaries.

These high interception rates that are allowed for under the status quo reduce spawning returns, undermine salmon recovery efforts, diminish prey available to endangered killer whales, and severely limit fishing opportunities for local communities and struggling fishing economies across the West Coast.

At the same time, local residents have invested millions of dollars in salmon and steelhead recovery programs whose benefits are compromised when large portions of returning adult populations are intercepted in distant ocean fisheries.

As the data show, the Pacific Salmon Treaty is not adequately achieving its guiding principles to reduce interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the coast.

Your constituents can no longer accept a system in which distant fisheries are allowed to harvest excessive proportions of our threatened salmon and steelhead populations while local communities bear the costs of recovery efforts, fishing restrictions, and declining salmon and Southern Resident killer whale populations.

Given the shortcomings of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, I urge the Pacific Salmon Commission to:

1. Appropriately account for all salmon and steelhead mortalities in ocean fisheries.

2. Substantially curtail unsustainable ocean fishery interceptions.

3. Transition management of salmon fisheries closer to the rivers and estuaries where salmon originate and return to encourage development of selective, sustainable, and equitable fisheries.

4. Let Our Salmon Come Home to the ecosystems, spawning grounds, local fisheries, and communities that have invested in their recovery.

Through the adoption of these recommendations, the Pacific Salmon Treaty can better uphold legal requirements and guiding principles to meet Tribal Treaty and First Nation obligations, minimize interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the West Coast.
Cook Inlet (Alaska): Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Meeting Talking Points
Under the existing Pacific Salmon Treaty, too many of our salmon are authorized to be intercepted and killed far from home in distant ocean fisheries. 

This leaves too few fish returning home from the ocean nursery to spawn for recovery and support the ecosystems, economies, and communities that depend on them.

For example:

- Despite the fact that thousands of Chinook and Chum salmon are harvested annually in ocean-based Area M salmon fisheries and trawl fisheries of Alaska, the Pacific Salmon Treaty fails to account for these interceptions and mortalities. 

- While industrial-scale fisheries continue unabated, local terminal fisheries face severe fisheries restrictions and closures.

- The Kenai River produced the all-tackle world-record Chinook, a 97-pound, 4-ounce fish caught in 1985. In 2026 the Kenai was closed to king salmon sport fishing for the fourth summer in a row. 

- Late-run Kenai Chinook fell to a record low of 6,906 spawners in 2024. 

- The state's preliminary 2026 count of about 9,800 was roughly two-thirds of the minimum recovery goal. 

These high interception rates that are allowed for under the status quo reduce spawning returns, undermine salmon recovery efforts, diminish prey available to endangered killer whales, and severely limit fishing opportunities for local communities and struggling fishing economies across the West Coast.

At the same time, local residents have invested millions of dollars in salmon and steelhead recovery programs whose benefits are compromised when large portions of returning adult populations are intercepted in distant ocean fisheries.

As the data show, the Pacific Salmon Treaty is not adequately achieving its guiding principles to reduce interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the coast.

Your constituents can no longer accept a system in which distant fisheries are allowed to harvest excessive proportions of our threatened salmon and steelhead populations while local communities bear the costs of recovery efforts, fishing restrictions, and declining salmon and Southern Resident killer whale populations.

Given the shortcomings of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, I urge the Pacific Salmon Commission to:

1. Appropriately account for all salmon and steelhead mortalities in ocean fisheries.

2. Substantially curtail unsustainable ocean fishery interceptions.

3. Transition management of salmon fisheries closer to the rivers and estuaries where salmon originate and return to encourage development of selective, sustainable, and equitable fisheries.

4. Let Our Salmon Come Home to the ecosystems, spawning grounds, local fisheries, and communities that have invested in their recovery.

Through the adoption of these recommendations, the Pacific Salmon Treaty can better uphold legal requirements and guiding principles to meet Tribal Treaty and First Nation obligations, minimize interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the West Coast.
Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak (Alaska): Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Meeting Talking Points
Under the existing Pacific Salmon Treaty, too many of our salmon are authorized to be intercepted and killed far from home in distant ocean fisheries. 

This leaves too few fish returning home from the ocean nursery to spawn for recovery and support the ecosystems, economies, and communities that depend on them.

For example:

- Despite the fact that thousands of Chinook and Chum salmon are harvested annually in ocean-based Area M salmon fisheries and trawl fisheries of Alaska, the Pacific Salmon Treaty fails to account for these interceptions and mortalities. 

- While industrial-scale fisheries continue unabated, local terminal fisheries face severe fisheries restrictions and closures.

- Chignik River Chinook have missed their spawning goal in seven of the last nine years. 

- The 2023 count of 267 fish was the lowest on record. 

- In 2026, the state again barred subsistence users from keeping Chinook anywhere from Chignik Lake down through Chignik Lagoon. 

- Trawl fisheries in the central and western Gulf of Alaska caught about 28,000 Chinook as bycatch in 2024, the most since 2010. 

- Preliminary genetic analysis of 2023 bycatch from the Gulf pollock trawl fishery traced about 7% of it to a stock group that includes Chignik, Kodiak and Cook Inlet rivers. None of these fish count against a Pacific Salmon Treaty catch limit.

These high interception rates that are allowed for under the status quo reduce spawning returns, undermine salmon recovery efforts, diminish prey available to endangered killer whales, and severely limit fishing opportunities for local communities and struggling fishing economies across the West Coast.

At the same time, local residents have invested millions of dollars in salmon and steelhead recovery programs whose benefits are compromised when large portions of returning adult populations are intercepted in distant ocean fisheries.

As the data show, the Pacific Salmon Treaty is not adequately achieving its guiding principles to reduce interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the coast.

Your constituents can no longer accept a system in which distant fisheries are allowed to harvest excessive proportions of our threatened salmon and steelhead populations while local communities bear the costs of recovery efforts, fishing restrictions, and declining salmon and Southern Resident killer whale populations.

Given the shortcomings of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, I urge the Pacific Salmon Commission to:

1. Appropriately account for all salmon and steelhead mortalities in ocean fisheries.

2. Substantially curtail unsustainable ocean fishery interceptions.

3. Transition management of salmon fisheries closer to the rivers and estuaries where salmon originate and return to encourage development of selective, sustainable, and equitable fisheries.

4. Let Our Salmon Come Home to the ecosystems, spawning grounds, local fisheries, and communities that have invested in their recovery.

Through the adoption of these recommendations, the Pacific Salmon Treaty can better uphold legal requirements and guiding principles to meet Tribal Treaty and First Nation obligations, minimize interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the West Coast.
Write Your Comments to the Pacific Salmon Commission
Stand with Us in Sequim to Let Our Salmon Come Home

Join us in person on Thursday, October 22, as we rally in Sequim, Washington, during the Pacific Salmon Commission's 2026 Fall Meeting. The day includes a pre-meeting rally, media conference, and march to the Pacific Salmon Commission's 2026 Fall Meeting, followed by a post-conference celebration. Sign up below, and we'll send you full event details as they're confirmed.
Name

First NameLast Name
Email
example@example.com
Phone Number
Please enter a valid phone number.Format: (000) 000-0000.
Address

Street Address

Street Address Line 2

CityState / Province

Postal / Zip Code
How would you like to join us? (Select all that apply)
Submit Written Comments to the Pacific Salmon Commission

Even if you can't join us in person or virtually, you can still make your voice heard. Submit written comments today to help amplify the call to Let Our Salmon Come Home!
Name

First NameLast Name
Organization/Affiliation
Your organization or business name, or N/A if none.
Email
example@example.com
Phone Number
Please enter a valid phone number.Format: (000) 000-0000.
Address

Street Address

Street Address Line 2

CityState / Province

Postal / Zip Code
We've made it easy to share your voice with the Pacific Salmon Commission. Select a geographic area of concern from the list below to access talking points you can use to help draft your comments.
Pacific Salmon Commission Talking Points

You can submit the talking points below as is, but we encourage you to personalize them to reflect your perspective. Make edits directly in the field below. When you're ready, click Submit, and we'll deliver your comments to the Commission.
Oregon Coast: Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Meeting Talking Points
Under the existing Pacific Salmon Treaty, too many of our salmon are authorized to be intercepted and killed far from home in distant ocean fisheries. This leaves too few fish returning home from the ocean nursery to spawn for recovery and support the ecosystems, economies, and communities that depend on them. For example: - For the Nehalem River, Siletz River, Siuslaw River, Salmon River, and the five Tillamook Bay rivers, more than 60% of all Chinook harvest has occurred in Alaska and British Columbia. - Exploitation north of the US–Canada border has at times exceeded 50–60% of the returning adult population. - Spawner escapement has trended downward and spawning goals have been missed routinely. - Local terminal fisheries have faced severe restrictions and closures while ocean fisheries managed under the Pacific Salmon Treaty have continued unabated. - Endangered Southern Resident killer whales remain in critical condition, deprived of their primary food resource: Chinook salmon. These high interception rates that are allowed for under the status quo reduce spawning returns, undermine salmon recovery efforts, diminish prey available to endangered killer whales, and severely limit fishing opportunities for local communities and struggling fishing economies across the West Coast. At the same time, local residents have invested millions of dollars in salmon and steelhead recovery programs whose benefits are compromised when large portions of returning adult populations are intercepted in distant ocean fisheries. As the data show, the Pacific Salmon Treaty is not adequately achieving its guiding principles to reduce interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the coast. Your constituents can no longer accept a system in which distant fisheries are allowed to harvest excessive proportions of our threatened salmon and steelhead populations while local communities bear the costs of recovery efforts, fishing restrictions, and declining salmon and Southern Resident killer whale populations. Given the shortcomings of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, I urge the Pacific Salmon Commission to: 1. Appropriately account for all salmon and steelhead mortalities in ocean fisheries. 2. Substantially curtail unsustainable ocean fishery interceptions. 3. Transition management of salmon fisheries closer to the rivers and estuaries where salmon originate and return to encourage development of selective, sustainable, and equitable fisheries. 4. Let Our Salmon Come Home to the ecosystems, spawning grounds, local fisheries, and communities that have invested in their recovery. Through the adoption of these recommendations, the Pacific Salmon Treaty can better uphold legal requirements and guiding principles to meet Tribal Treaty and First Nation obligations, minimize interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the West Coast.
Lower Columbia River (Oregon and Washington): Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Meeting Talking Points
Under the existing Pacific Salmon Treaty, too many of our salmon are authorized to be intercepted and killed far from home in distant ocean fisheries. 

This leaves too few fish returning home from the ocean nursery to spawn for recovery and support the ecosystems, economies, and communities that depend on them.

For example:

- Exploitation rates authorized under the PST have ranged up to 57% for ESA-listed tule Chinook.

- Spawner escapement has trended downward and spawning goals have been missed routinely for many populations, such as in the Coast Stratum.

- In the last decade, five ESA-listed tule Chinook populations were functionally extirpated in the Clatskanie River, Scappoose Creek, Mill Creek, Abernathy Creek, and Germany Creek. 

- After more than $9 billion spent on salmon recovery efforts in the basin, researchers have found no evidence of any increase in wild fish abundance under status-quo salmon harvest management. 

- Endangered Southern Resident killer whales remain in critical condition, deprived of their primary food resource—Chinook salmon. 

- Local terminal fisheries have faced severe restrictions while ocean fisheries managed under the Pacific Salmon Treaty have continued unabated. 

These high interception rates that are allowed for under the status quo reduce spawning returns, undermine salmon recovery efforts, diminish prey available to endangered killer whales, and severely limit fishing opportunities for local communities and struggling fishing economies across the West Coast.

At the same time, local residents have invested millions of dollars in salmon and steelhead recovery programs whose benefits are compromised when large portions of returning adult populations are intercepted in distant ocean fisheries.

As the data show, the Pacific Salmon Treaty is not adequately achieving its guiding principles to reduce interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the coast.

Your constituents can no longer accept a system in which distant fisheries are allowed to harvest excessive proportions of our threatened salmon and steelhead populations while local communities bear the costs of recovery efforts, fishing restrictions, and declining salmon and Southern Resident killer whale populations.

Given the shortcomings of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, I urge the Pacific Salmon Commission to:

1. Appropriately account for all salmon and steelhead mortalities in ocean fisheries.

2. Substantially curtail unsustainable ocean fishery interceptions.

3. Transition management of salmon fisheries closer to the rivers and estuaries where salmon originate and return to encourage development of selective, sustainable, and equitable fisheries.

4. Let Our Salmon Come Home to the ecosystems, spawning grounds, local fisheries, and communities that have invested in their recovery.

Through the adoption of these recommendations, the Pacific Salmon Treaty can better uphold legal requirements and guiding principles to meet Tribal Treaty and First Nation obligations, minimize interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the West Coast.
Upper Columbia River (Oregon, Washington, and Idaho): Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Meeting Talking Points
Under the existing Pacific Salmon Treaty, too many of our salmon are authorized to be intercepted and killed far from home in distant ocean fisheries. This leaves too few fish returning home from the ocean nursery to spawn for recovery and support the ecosystems, economies, and communities that depend on them. For example: - > 50% of all harvest of Hanford Wild Chinook has occurred north of the US-Canada border. - This has left severely diminished allocations for local Tribes, commercial fishers, and recreational fishers that depend on the upriver bright stock. - Local terminal fisheries have faced severe restrictions and closures while ocean fisheries managed under the Pacific Salmon Treaty have continued unabated. - After more than $9 billion spent on salmon recovery efforts in the basin, researchers have found no evidence of any increase in wild fish abundance under status-quo salmon harvest management. - Endangered Upper Columbia Basin Chinook populations have failed to recover while the Pacific Salmon Treaty’s Chinook Technical Committee has declined to monitor their harvest in various ocean-based fisheries of Alaska. - Endangered Southern Resident killer whales remain in critical condition, deprived of their primary food resource—Chinook salmon. These high interception rates that are allowed for under the status quo reduce spawning returns, undermine salmon recovery efforts, diminish prey available to endangered killer whales, and severely limit fishing opportunities for local communities and struggling fishing economies across the West Coast. At the same time, local residents have invested millions of dollars in salmon and steelhead recovery programs whose benefits are compromised when large portions of returning adult populations are intercepted in distant ocean fisheries. As the data show, the Pacific Salmon Treaty is not adequately achieving its guiding principles to reduce interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the coast. Your constituents can no longer accept a system in which distant fisheries are allowed to harvest excessive proportions of our threatened salmon and steelhead populations while local communities bear the costs of recovery efforts, fishing restrictions, and declining salmon and Southern Resident killer whale populations. Given the shortcomings of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, I urge the Pacific Salmon Commission to: 1. Appropriately account for all salmon and steelhead mortalities in ocean fisheries. 2. Substantially curtail unsustainable ocean fishery interceptions. 3. Transition management of salmon fisheries closer to the rivers and estuaries where salmon originate and return to encourage development of selective, sustainable, and equitable fisheries. 4. Let Our Salmon Come Home to the ecosystems, spawning grounds, local fisheries, and communities that have invested in their recovery. Through the adoption of these recommendations, the Pacific Salmon Treaty can better uphold legal requirements and guiding principles to meet Tribal Treaty and First Nation obligations, minimize interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the West Coast.
Washington Coast: Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Meeting Talking Points
Under the existing Pacific Salmon Treaty, too many of our salmon are authorized to be intercepted and killed far from home in distant ocean fisheries. This leaves too few fish returning home from the ocean nursery to spawn for recovery and support the ecosystems, economies, and communities that depend on them. For example: - > 70% of all Chinook harvest has occurred in Alaska and British Columbia, with trends in interception worsening in recent decades. - Exploitation north of the US-Canada border has regularly exceeded 50–60% of the returning adult population. - Spawner escapement has trended downward and spawning goals have often been missed. - Local terminal fisheries have faced severe restrictions and closures while ocean fisheries managed under the Pacific Salmon Treaty have continued unabated. - Endangered Southern Resident killer whales remain in critical condition, deprived of their primary food resource—Chinook salmon. These high interception rates that are allowed for under the status quo reduce spawning returns, undermine salmon recovery efforts, diminish prey available to endangered killer whales, and severely limit fishing opportunities for local communities and struggling fishing economies across the West Coast. At the same time, local residents have invested millions of dollars in salmon and steelhead recovery programs whose benefits are compromised when large portions of returning adult populations are intercepted in distant ocean fisheries. As the data show, the Pacific Salmon Treaty is not adequately achieving its guiding principles to reduce interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the coast. Your constituents can no longer accept a system in which distant fisheries are allowed to harvest excessive proportions of our threatened salmon and steelhead populations while local communities bear the costs of recovery efforts, fishing restrictions, and declining salmon and Southern Resident killer whale populations. Given the shortcomings of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, I urge the Pacific Salmon Commission to: 1. Appropriately account for all salmon and steelhead mortalities in ocean fisheries. 2. Substantially curtail unsustainable ocean fishery interceptions. 3. Transition management of salmon fisheries closer to the rivers and estuaries where salmon originate and return to encourage development of selective, sustainable, and equitable fisheries. 4. Let Our Salmon Come Home to the ecosystems, spawning grounds, local fisheries, and communities that have invested in their recovery. Through the adoption of these recommendations, the Pacific Salmon Treaty can better uphold legal requirements and guiding principles to meet Tribal Treaty and First Nation obligations, minimize interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the West Coast.
Puget Sound (Washington): Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Meeting Talking Points
Under the existing Pacific Salmon Treaty, too many of our salmon are authorized to be intercepted and killed far from home in distant ocean fisheries. This leaves too few fish returning home from the ocean nursery to spawn for recovery and support the ecosystems, economies, and communities that depend on them. For example: - > 70% of all threatened Puget Sound Chinook harvest has occurred in British Columbia and Alaska. - Exploitation north of the US-Canada border has at times exceeded 50–60% of the returning adult population. - Spawner escapement has trended downward and spawning goals have been missed routinely. - Local terminal fisheries have faced severe restrictions and closures while ocean fisheries managed under the Pacific Salmon Treaty have continued unabated. - Endangered Southern Resident killer whales remain in critical condition, deprived of their primary food resource—Chinook salmon. These high interception rates that are allowed for under the status quo reduce spawning returns, undermine salmon recovery efforts, diminish prey available to endangered killer whales, and severely limit fishing opportunities for local communities and struggling fishing economies across the West Coast. At the same time, local residents have invested millions of dollars in salmon and steelhead recovery programs whose benefits are compromised when large portions of returning adult populations are intercepted in distant ocean fisheries. As the data show, the Pacific Salmon Treaty is not adequately achieving its guiding principles to reduce interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the coast. Your constituents can no longer accept a system in which distant fisheries are allowed to harvest excessive proportions of our threatened salmon and steelhead populations while local communities bear the costs of recovery efforts, fishing restrictions, and declining salmon and Southern Resident killer whale populations. Given the shortcomings of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, I urge the Pacific Salmon Commission to: 1. Appropriately account for all salmon and steelhead mortalities in ocean fisheries. 2. Substantially curtail unsustainable ocean fishery interceptions. 3. Transition management of salmon fisheries closer to the rivers and estuaries where salmon originate and return to encourage development of selective, sustainable, and equitable fisheries. 4. Let Our Salmon Come Home to the ecosystems, spawning grounds, local fisheries, and communities that have invested in their recovery. Through the adoption of these recommendations, the Pacific Salmon Treaty can better uphold legal requirements and guiding principles to meet Tribal Treaty and First Nation obligations, minimize interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the West Coast.
Skeena and Nass Rivers (British Columbia): Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Meeting Talking Points
Under the existing Pacific Salmon Treaty, too many of our salmon are authorized to be intercepted and killed far from home in distant ocean fisheries. This leaves too few fish returning home from the ocean nursery to spawn for recovery and support the ecosystems, economies, and communities that depend on them. For example: - On average, 50% of the total Skeena and Nass River Chinook harvest has occurred in ocean based fisheries of Alaska each year, with trends in interception worsening over the last two decades. - In 2021, approximately 91% of total Chinook harvest occurred in Alaska. - Chinook spawner escapement has trended rapidly downward over the last two decades in the Skeena and Nass Rivers. - For Skeena River coho salmon, Alaskan interceptions amount to 75% of the total harvest. - Steelhead are unaccounted for in Pacific Salmon Treaty fisheries despite estimates suggesting that up to 50% of the Skeena River steelhead return have potentially been intercepted as bycatch in commercial fisheries of Alaska. - Local terminal fisheries have faced severe restrictions and closures while ocean fisheries managed under the Pacific Salmon Treaty have continued unabated. These high interception rates that are allowed for under the status quo reduce spawning returns, undermine salmon recovery efforts, diminish prey available to endangered killer whales, and severely limit fishing opportunities for local communities and struggling fishing economies across the West Coast. At the same time, local residents have invested millions of dollars in salmon and steelhead recovery programs whose benefits are compromised when large portions of returning adult populations are intercepted in distant ocean fisheries. As the data show, the Pacific Salmon Treaty is not adequately achieving its guiding principles to reduce interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the coast. Your constituents can no longer accept a system in which distant fisheries are allowed to harvest excessive proportions of our threatened salmon and steelhead populations while local communities bear the costs of recovery efforts, fishing restrictions, and declining salmon and Southern Resident killer whale populations. Given the shortcomings of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, I urge the Pacific Salmon Commission to: 1. Appropriately account for all salmon and steelhead mortalities in ocean fisheries. 2. Substantially curtail unsustainable ocean fishery interceptions. 3. Transition management of salmon fisheries closer to the rivers and estuaries where salmon originate and return to encourage development of selective, sustainable, and equitable fisheries. 4. Let Our Salmon Come Home to the ecosystems, spawning grounds, local fisheries, and communities that have invested in their recovery. Through the adoption of these recommendations, the Pacific Salmon Treaty can better uphold legal requirements and guiding principles to meet Tribal Treaty and First Nation obligations, minimize interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the West Coast.
Yukon River (Alaska): Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Meeting Talking Points
Under the existing Pacific Salmon Treaty, too many of our salmon are authorized to be intercepted and killed far from home in distant ocean fisheries. 

This leaves too few fish returning home from the ocean nursery to spawn for recovery and support the ecosystems, economies, and communities that depend on them.

For example:

- Despite the fact that thousands of Chinook and Chum salmon are harvested annually in ocean-based Area M salmon fisheries of Alaska, the Pacific Salmon Treaty fails to account for these interceptions and mortalities. 

- While industrial-scale salmon and trawl fisheries continue unabated, local terminal fisheries face severe fisheries restrictions and closures.

- Canadian-origin Yukon River Chinook have fallen to less than 10% of their historical average of 150,000 adults, according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada. 

- In 2024, under the Treaty's Yukon River chapter, the two countries agreed to suspend directed fisheries for Canadian-origin Yukon River Chinook for seven years. 

- Subsistence fishing stays closed unless more than 71,000 Canadian-origin Yukon River Chinook are projected to reach the border, and Alaska has kept Yukon Chinook subsistence fishing closed every summer since 2021. 

- The same agreement says Alaska will keep working to reduce "marine catches and bycatches of Yukon River-origin salmon to the extent practicable."

- Meanwhile, Bering Sea pollock trawlers caught 8,046 Chinook in 2024.

- Preliminary genetic analysis traced nearly half of the 2023 pollock bycatch to a western Alaska stock group that includes Yukon and Kuskokwim tributaries.

These high interception rates that are allowed for under the status quo reduce spawning returns, undermine salmon recovery efforts, diminish prey available to endangered killer whales, and severely limit fishing opportunities for local communities and struggling fishing economies across the West Coast.

At the same time, local residents have invested millions of dollars in salmon and steelhead recovery programs whose benefits are compromised when large portions of returning adult populations are intercepted in distant ocean fisheries.

As the data show, the Pacific Salmon Treaty is not adequately achieving its guiding principles to reduce interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the coast.

Your constituents can no longer accept a system in which distant fisheries are allowed to harvest excessive proportions of our threatened salmon and steelhead populations while local communities bear the costs of recovery efforts, fishing restrictions, and declining salmon and Southern Resident killer whale populations.

Given the shortcomings of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, I urge the Pacific Salmon Commission to:

1. Appropriately account for all salmon and steelhead mortalities in ocean fisheries.

2. Substantially curtail unsustainable ocean fishery interceptions.

3. Transition management of salmon fisheries closer to the rivers and estuaries where salmon originate and return to encourage development of selective, sustainable, and equitable fisheries.

4. Let Our Salmon Come Home to the ecosystems, spawning grounds, local fisheries, and communities that have invested in their recovery.

Through the adoption of these recommendations, the Pacific Salmon Treaty can better uphold legal requirements and guiding principles to meet Tribal Treaty and First Nation obligations, minimize interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the West Coast.
Cook Inlet (Alaska): Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Meeting Talking Points
Under the existing Pacific Salmon Treaty, too many of our salmon are authorized to be intercepted and killed far from home in distant ocean fisheries. 

This leaves too few fish returning home from the ocean nursery to spawn for recovery and support the ecosystems, economies, and communities that depend on them.

For example:

- Despite the fact that thousands of Chinook and Chum salmon are harvested annually in ocean-based Area M salmon fisheries and trawl fisheries of Alaska, the Pacific Salmon Treaty fails to account for these interceptions and mortalities. 

- While industrial-scale fisheries continue unabated, local terminal fisheries face severe fisheries restrictions and closures.

- The Kenai River produced the all-tackle world-record Chinook, a 97-pound, 4-ounce fish caught in 1985. In 2026 the Kenai was closed to king salmon sport fishing for the fourth summer in a row. 

- Late-run Kenai Chinook fell to a record low of 6,906 spawners in 2024. 

- The state's preliminary 2026 count of about 9,800 was roughly two-thirds of the minimum recovery goal. 

These high interception rates that are allowed for under the status quo reduce spawning returns, undermine salmon recovery efforts, diminish prey available to endangered killer whales, and severely limit fishing opportunities for local communities and struggling fishing economies across the West Coast.

At the same time, local residents have invested millions of dollars in salmon and steelhead recovery programs whose benefits are compromised when large portions of returning adult populations are intercepted in distant ocean fisheries.

As the data show, the Pacific Salmon Treaty is not adequately achieving its guiding principles to reduce interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the coast.

Your constituents can no longer accept a system in which distant fisheries are allowed to harvest excessive proportions of our threatened salmon and steelhead populations while local communities bear the costs of recovery efforts, fishing restrictions, and declining salmon and Southern Resident killer whale populations.

Given the shortcomings of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, I urge the Pacific Salmon Commission to:

1. Appropriately account for all salmon and steelhead mortalities in ocean fisheries.

2. Substantially curtail unsustainable ocean fishery interceptions.

3. Transition management of salmon fisheries closer to the rivers and estuaries where salmon originate and return to encourage development of selective, sustainable, and equitable fisheries.

4. Let Our Salmon Come Home to the ecosystems, spawning grounds, local fisheries, and communities that have invested in their recovery.

Through the adoption of these recommendations, the Pacific Salmon Treaty can better uphold legal requirements and guiding principles to meet Tribal Treaty and First Nation obligations, minimize interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the West Coast.
Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak (Alaska): Pacific Salmon Commission 2026 Fall Meeting Talking Points
Under the existing Pacific Salmon Treaty, too many of our salmon are authorized to be intercepted and killed far from home in distant ocean fisheries. 

This leaves too few fish returning home from the ocean nursery to spawn for recovery and support the ecosystems, economies, and communities that depend on them.

For example:

- Despite the fact that thousands of Chinook and Chum salmon are harvested annually in ocean-based Area M salmon fisheries and trawl fisheries of Alaska, the Pacific Salmon Treaty fails to account for these interceptions and mortalities. 

- While industrial-scale fisheries continue unabated, local terminal fisheries face severe fisheries restrictions and closures.

- Chignik River Chinook have missed their spawning goal in seven of the last nine years. 

- The 2023 count of 267 fish was the lowest on record. 

- In 2026, the state again barred subsistence users from keeping Chinook anywhere from Chignik Lake down through Chignik Lagoon. 

- Trawl fisheries in the central and western Gulf of Alaska caught about 28,000 Chinook as bycatch in 2024, the most since 2010. 

- Preliminary genetic analysis of 2023 bycatch from the Gulf pollock trawl fishery traced about 7% of it to a stock group that includes Chignik, Kodiak and Cook Inlet rivers. None of these fish count against a Pacific Salmon Treaty catch limit.

These high interception rates that are allowed for under the status quo reduce spawning returns, undermine salmon recovery efforts, diminish prey available to endangered killer whales, and severely limit fishing opportunities for local communities and struggling fishing economies across the West Coast.

At the same time, local residents have invested millions of dollars in salmon and steelhead recovery programs whose benefits are compromised when large portions of returning adult populations are intercepted in distant ocean fisheries.

As the data show, the Pacific Salmon Treaty is not adequately achieving its guiding principles to reduce interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the coast.

Your constituents can no longer accept a system in which distant fisheries are allowed to harvest excessive proportions of our threatened salmon and steelhead populations while local communities bear the costs of recovery efforts, fishing restrictions, and declining salmon and Southern Resident killer whale populations.

Given the shortcomings of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, I urge the Pacific Salmon Commission to:

1. Appropriately account for all salmon and steelhead mortalities in ocean fisheries.

2. Substantially curtail unsustainable ocean fishery interceptions.

3. Transition management of salmon fisheries closer to the rivers and estuaries where salmon originate and return to encourage development of selective, sustainable, and equitable fisheries.

4. Let Our Salmon Come Home to the ecosystems, spawning grounds, local fisheries, and communities that have invested in their recovery.

Through the adoption of these recommendations, the Pacific Salmon Treaty can better uphold legal requirements and guiding principles to meet Tribal Treaty and First Nation obligations, minimize interceptions, provide for equitable fisheries, halt overfishing, and maintain healthy spawning levels across watersheds of the West Coast.
Write Your Comments to the Pacific Salmon Commission
By submitting this form, you agree to receive email updates from the Let Our Salmon Come Home campaign. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Should be Empty:

Stand Up for Our Salmon in Sequim

Sign Up to Provide Oral Testimony and Attend in Person or Virtually

Attend in Person and Submit Written Comments in Advance

Pacific Salmon Commission Talking Points

Stand with Us in Sequim to Let Our Salmon Come Home

Submit Written Comments to the Pacific Salmon Commission

Pacific Salmon Commission Talking Points