Council Members,

Too many of our salmon are killed far from home in distant ocean fisheries of Alaska and British Columbia—and too few fish return to spawn for recovery and support the communities, economies, and ecosystems that depend on them. As the Pacific Salmon Commission (PSC) renegotiates the 2028 Pacific Salmon Treaty (PST) and controversy mounts regarding inequities, interceptions, and bycatch of salmon from industrial-scale fisheries north of the US-Canada border, I urge the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) to take the lead for our region and adopt bold positions that improve the precision of fisheries management and Let Our Salmon Come Home to waters of the Lower 48.

In recent decades, it has become abundantly clear that the status quo of ocean fishery management under the PST, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC), and the PFMC is wildly insufficient at preventing overfishing, achieving conservation goals, promoting equitable fisheries, and upholding Tribal treaty rights across our region. Excessive Chinook interceptions in Alaska and British Columbia, unsustainable bycatch in northern trawl fisheries, chronic failure to meet spawning goals, severely limited local fishing opportunities, struggling rural economies, and the continued decline of threatened Chinook and endangered killer whales demand immediate intervention. The data are clear:

• North and Central Puget Sound: More than 70 percent 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 percent of the returning adult population; spawner escapement has trended downward, and spawning goals have been missed routinely.
  
  
• Washington Coast: More than 70 percent 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 percent of the returning adult population; spawner escapement has trended downward, and spawning goals have often been missed.
  
  
• Columbia River: More than 50 percent of all harvest of Hanford wild Chinook has occurred north of the US-Canada border, leaving severely diminished allocations for local Tribes, commercial fishers, and recreational fishers who depend on the upriver bright stock.
  
  
• Oregon Coast: For the Nehalem, Siletz, Siuslaw, and Salmon Rivers, and the five Tillamook Bay rivers, more than 60 percent of all Chinook harvest has occurred in Alaska and British Columbia; exploitation north of the US-Canada border has at times exceeded 50–60 percent of the returning adult population; spawner escapement has trended downward, and spawning goals have been missed routinely.
  
  

While communities in and near these watersheds have made numerous sacrifices to recover their local salmon and killer whale populations—giving up subsistence, commercial, and recreational fisheries—tens of thousands of Chinook bound for our depleted rivers across the coast are intercepted and killed annually miles from home in industrial-scale, mixed-stock ocean fisheries of Alaska and British Columbia. At the same time, residents of our region have invested billions of dollars in salmon recovery and fish production programs whose benefits are compromised when large portions of our returning adult salmon populations are harvested north of the US-Canada border.

Excessive mortality of our salmon in these northern ocean fisheries reduces spawning returns, undermines salmon recovery efforts, diminishes prey available to endangered killer whales, and severely limits fishing opportunities for our river-based and adjacent communities. This demonstrates an unacceptable imbalance in the sharing of fishing privileges and the conservation burden for salmon populations across the West Coast: communities in or near their salmon watersheds bear the cost of conservation through years of fisheries constraints and multibillion-dollar restoration efforts; meanwhile, unsustainable ocean fisheries that kill mixed stocks of salmon and other species bound for our watersheds are authorized to continue in Alaska and British Columbia, receiving the bulk of the fishing privileges for our salmon.

Making matters worse, some of these damaging northern fisheries near the Alaska Peninsula fall outside the jurisdiction of the PST and are granted permission to operate by the NPFMC without federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) oversight of their impacts to our threatened and endangered Chinook stocks. For these fisheries, as well as bycatch from groundfish fisheries, tens of thousands of Chinook mortalities remain unaccounted for in cumulative harvest analyses and decision-making processes by the PSC Chinook Technical Committee and PFMC. This means that total harvest-related mortality of our Chinook is gravely underestimated by all fisheries management bodies annually. When considering the many thousands of harvest-related mortalities that are unaccounted for in Alaskan waters by the PSC and PFMC, we cannot reasonably calculate the enormity of this equity and conservation problem. 

As the 2028 PST is renegotiated, we are faced with the most consequential opportunity in decades to address these problems head-on and bring hundreds of thousands more Chinook home to killer whales, fishing communities, and watersheds of the Pacific Northwest. I urge this council to take the following actions that stand up for the residents of our region and Let Our Salmon Come Home to the ecosystems, watersheds, and communities that depend on them:

1. Draft a letter to the PSC. Strongly advocate for reduced interceptions of our Chinook in fisheries north of the US-Canada border and the return of our salmon to local fisheries, endangered killer whales, and protected and restored spawning grounds for recovery. This form of leadership from the council will promote conservation and equitable fisheries and help protect the interests of the various communities, Tribes, and states represented within the management region of the PFMC. Bold actions like this will further promote confidence in your leadership.
   
   
2. Transmit a council-to-council letter to the NPFMC and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries). Achieve reduced interceptions of our Chinook in the Alaskan management region of the NPFMC to promote conservation and fair and equitable allocations in accordance with the National Standards of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA).
   
   
3. Formally request that NOAA Fisheries facilitate a joint cumulative harvest and equity analysis for ocean fisheries and individual salmon populations. For the first time, establish a cohesive database and reporting system that fully accounts for all salmon harvest and bycatch mortality of individual salmon populations that occurs in various ocean fisheries overseen by the PSC, NPFMC, and PFMC to improve our understanding of total harvest-related mortality, the distribution of fisheries mortalities, and management’s achievement of equity and conservation provisions of the MSA and ESA.
   
   
4. Manage ocean fisheries with a full understanding of the total quantity of harvest-related mortality that actually occurs (including directed harvest, incidental harvest, and bycatch mortality). By using all available data from the NPFMC, PSC, and PFMC, fisheries management bodies can make more informed decisions to better conserve individual salmon populations, protect endangered killer whales, and promote equitable fisheries across the coast.
   
   

The public will no longer accept a system in which industrial-scale ocean fisheries north of the US-Canada border harvest and kill the majority of our Chinook salmon while local watersheds and associated communities of our region bear the costs of recovery efforts, fishing restrictions, and declining salmon and killer whale populations. Strong leadership and advocacy are needed from the PFMC to ensure that our fisheries management systems better serve the people, fisheries, salmon, and killer whales of our region.

Thank you for your service and commitment to the natural resources and communities of the Lower 48.