1 week ago
9
Climate|NOAA Staffing Cuts Threaten Years of Salmon Harvests
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/climate/noaa-doge-cuts-salmon.html
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
In Washington, where salmon is a multibillion dollar industry, government staff terminations and budget freezes may put salmon production at risk.
April 9, 2025Updated 10:05 a.m. ET
In Washington State, April is when millions of young Chinook salmon are released from hatcheries, where they started as tiny, pink globes, to swim downstream and rebuild the salmon population. They are part of an ecosystem that affects tribal, commercial, and recreational fishing and are a main source of food for endangered killer whales.
But this year, almost a dozen hatcheries in the Puget Sound region are in limbo because a single employee from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was terminated in February, a casualty of cuts made by billionaire Elon Musk’s advisory group known as the Department of Government Efficiency.
That employee was Krista Finlay and her job at NOAA was to ensure hatcheries complied with the Endangered Species Act before the fish were released into Puget Sound. She was among tens of thousands of federal employees with probationary status who lost their jobs in February. Ms. Finlay, who had worked at NOAA since March 2024 after more than two years as an intern and then fellow, said she feared for the salmon run.
“If I don’t release millions and millions of salmon, there’s less this year and years going forward,” Ms. Finlay said. “If we don’t have salmon returning in 2027 and 2028, we don’t have offspring to release the following year, so it will take many, many years to repair this, if it’s even possible.”
