Monday May 12, 2025
Arizona Daily Sun —
A Washington state-based conservation group filed a lawsuit in an effort to speed the federal government’s review of a proposal to list king salmon as threatened or endangered across the Gulf of Alaska.
The Wild Fish Conservancy filed its lawsuit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., saying that National Marine Fisheries Service had missed a 12-month deadline under the Endangered Species Act to decide on the conservancy’s proposal to list Gulf of Alaska king salmon.
The conservancy, in its 17-page complaint, said it formally asked the service to list the king salmon in a petition Jan. 11, 2024, which gave the agency until Jan. 11, 2025, to respond. The lawsuit asks a judge to order the service to “promptly issue” its decision on the petition by a specific date.
“With the crisis facing Alaskan chinook, we are out of time and options,” Emma Helverson, Wild Fish Conservancy’s executive director, said in a prepared statement, using another name for king salmon. She added: “The Endangered Species Act sets clear deadlines for a reason, to evaluate the risk of extinction and trigger action while recovery is still possible.”