Saving Seafood

Alaska’s commercial fishery managers appear to be spared big budget cuts next year

December 29, 2020 — As Alaska faces its toughest budget squeeze ever, the state’s commercial fisheries are set to get a bit of a breather. But it is due more to fund swapping than lawmakers’ largess.

For the commercial fisheries division, the largest within the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the preliminary FY2022 budget released by Gov. Mike Dunleavy reflects a slight increase to $72.8 million, compared to nearly $68 million last year.

“I think we did really well this year,” said Sam Rabung, commercial fisheries division director, speaking last week at a United Fishermen of Alaska webinar. “Where we’re at right now, the legislature actually restored many of the cuts that we sustained in FY20 and the governor didn’t veto all of them so we got some funds back in FY21,”

“In a nutshell, we are being reduced $783,500 in general funds but to offset that, we are being granted $855,000 in increased authority for using what we call GFP, our general fund program receipts from commercial crew licenses,” he added. “We’ve been collecting more revenue from crew licenses every year than we have authority to use. It’s kind of like creating a piggy bank and it keeps building and that money rolls forward. We’re going to be able to utilize those funds now in lieu of general funds. So it’s pretty much a wash.”

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Pacific cod appears to be rebounding throughout the Gulf of Alaska after long heat wave

December 23, 2020 — Alaska coastal communities will get a bit of an economic boost in 2021 from increased catches of Pacific cod.

The stock, which crashed after a multiyear heat wave starting in 2014 wiped out several year classes, appears to be rebounding throughout the Gulf of Alaska.

No cod fishery occurred at all this year in federally managed waters (from 3 to 200 miles out) where the bulk of the harvest is taken, and a catch of under 6 million pounds was allowed in state managed waters (out to 3 miles).

For 2021, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council set the federal cod catch at just over 38 million pounds and nearly 11.7 million pounds for the state. While it’s a bump up, managers caution that the stock remains very low.

“The state waters GHLs (guideline harvest levels) have gone up about two and half times since last year. While it’s good, we are still at a very low level of abundance, so that should be kept in mind,” said Nat Nichols, area groundfish manager for the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game at Kodiak.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Alaska geoduck biomass is down, but sea cucumbers on the upswing

December 16, 2020 — This year, divers in Southeast Alaska will focus on a guideline harvest level of 523,500 pounds of geoducks and 1.75 million pounds for sea cucumbers, which is down from the 1.9 million-pound guideline harvest level (GHL) they saw in the 2019-2020 season.

Though the GHL appears to have come down from a year ago, the schedule of dive openings in areas that alternate every other year show that biomass is actually on the rise for cucumbers.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ALASKA: Sen. Murkowski “Disappointed” by Cook Inlet Closure, Supports “Long-Term Solution” for CI Fleet

December 14, 2020 — Two days after Monday’s decision to close the federal waters of Cook Inlet to commercial salmon fishermen, Alaska’s senior Senator Lisa Murkowski called for “the need to collaboratively resolve tensions that have long persisted in Cook Inlet.”  The decision came at the beginning of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council’s December meeting.

The ‘historical tensions” the senator referred to have been between both commercial and recreational fishermen and between all fishermen and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Cook Inlet is home to Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage, the nearby Matenuska-Susitna Borough, and the state’s most popular recreational area, the Kenai Peninsula. About two-thirds of the state’s population lives on or near Cook Inlet, which is accessed by the state’s only road system.

Read the full story at Seafood News

After a summer of pandemic disruptions and poor salmon runs, Alaska fishermen await more federal relief money

November 23, 2020 — Many of Alaska’s commercial salmon fishermen faced a summer of poor fish runs and market impacts driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Government relief money has helped fishermen, and the state is finalizing a plan for how to spend another $50 million in federal dollars for the industry.

For some fishermen, it can’t come soon enough.

“The season was, it was almost a complete loss,” said Mike Webber who gillnets for salmon on the Copper River and in Prince William Sound. “Meaning the return numbers were down very low. We went almost a month without a fishing period this year.”

Webber sells some of his fish to processors, but a lot of it gets marketed directly to individual customers and restaurants. And, while he saw strong individual sales:

“Bottom line, we lost pretty much all of our restaurant markets,” said Webber.

Read the full story at KTOO

ALASKA: Converging Forces Make For Worst Upper Cook Inlet Season in Decades

November 17, 2020 — Low prices, an oddly timed sockeye run and another year of very poor Kenai king returns combined to result in one of the worst Upper Cook Inlet commercial fishing seasons on record.

The 2020 Upper Cook Inlet harvest of roughly 1.2 million salmon was less than half the recent 10-year average harvest of 3.2 million fish and the estimated cumulative ex-vessel value of approximately $5.2 million was the worst on record, according to Alaska Department of Fish and Game‘s Upper Cook Inlet Commercial Salmon Fishery Season Summary.

Read the full story at Seafood News

ALASKA: 2020 Salmon harvest in Southeast less than half of previous year’s

November 10, 2020 — Southeast Alaska’s salmon harvest was less than half of last year’s haul. That’s according to a preliminary report from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game released on Monday.

Commercial fishermen in Southeast harvested just over 14.3 million salmon across the five species this year — almost 5 million chum salmon, 8 million pinks and 1.1 million coho. For sockeye, the harvest was about 373,000 and 200,000 Chinook.

That’s a drop in harvest for every species except Chinook — also known as king salmon — which increased by a few thousand fish this year. In other words, Southeast’s total salmon harvest was 19 million fewer fish than last year.

The preliminary ex-vessel value of Southeast’s 2020 salmon fishery was just over $50 million dollars. That’s less than half of 2019’s estimated value, and the third consecutive year that Southeast’s value paid to fishermen has dropped.

Read the full story at KSTK

Alaska salmon: Annual harvest tallies lower, as expected; 
sales stay hot for self-marketed fishermen

November 4, 2020 — Alaska’s preliminary statewide salmon harvest came in at 113.56 million fish, down sharply from last year’s 199.98 million fish and ranking it 34th largest on record.

As predicted by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the harvest of pink salmon this year was expected to drop by around 68 million fish from last year; so there were no surprises when the final pink tally came at 57.91 million.

As for the harvest of other species in 2020, fleets landed 7.89 million chums, 2.14 million silvers, 249,000 kings and 45.38 million sockeyes.

In Bristol Bay, about 70 percent of the gillnetters showed up to fish as the season got underway in late June. Fishermen and seafood plant workers were quarantined in some cases, and drift fishermen were confined to living on their boats out on the water for the season instead of tying up to the docks during fishing closures.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Alaska Releases Plan and Application Forms for CARES Act Fisheries Relief

October 7, 2020 — The state of Alaska released its plan to “broadly distribute stimulus payments to those eligible individuals and businesses” who qualify for the $50 million allocated to Alaska in May through the CARES Act. Alaska and Washington state each received $50 million, a combined total of $100 million or about a third of the full $300 million appropriated by Congress for fisheries relief nationwide.

Eligible sectors are seafood processing, commercial harvesting, sport charter, subsistence, and aquaculture.

Read the full story at Seafood News

ALASKA: Fisheries assistance plan available for public comment

October 6, 2020 — The Alaska Department of Fish and Game today released the Section 12005 CARES Act fisheries assistance draft spending plan for public comment at adfg.alaska.gov.

The draft spending plan provides eligibility criteria for participants in seafood processing, commercial harvesting, sport charter, subsistence, and aquaculture.

On May 7, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce announced allocations of Section 12005 CARES Act fisheries assistance funding to all coastal states and territories.

Alaska will receive $50 million of the $300 million available for this assistance program.

The spending plan will allocate 100% of available funds as direct payments to fishery participants in eligible sectors.

Read the full story at KINY