Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Disaster declarations, relief in limbo for multiple fisheries

January 16, 2019 — The last few years of commercial fishing for Alaska have turned up poor for various regions of the state, resulting in disaster declarations and potential federal assistance.

The 2018 season proved no different, with at least two disaster requests in the works at the state level. A third is in process at the federal level, and yet another is finally distributing money to affected fishermen from the 2016 season.

The three in process still have to be approved before going to Congress, where funds can be appropriated to assist fishermen. The process is affected by the federal government shutdown, as most of the National Marine Fisheries Service employees are furloughed until a resolution is reached.

The pink salmon disaster, which was requested in 2016 after catches across the Gulf of Alaska came in dismally below expectations, is awaiting a finalized plan for distributing $56 million in relief funds.

The plan is currently being reviewed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration before the fund distribution is coordinated by the Pacific State Marine Fisheries Commission, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

 

ALASKA: Cook Inlet sockeye forecast improves; kings closed in North

January 10, 2019 — After two disappointing sockeye seasons in a row, the 2019 season may look up for Upper Cook Inlet commercial fishermen.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s sockeye salmon forecast, published Jan. 4, predicts a total run of 6 million sockeye to Upper Cook Inlet stream systems, with an expected commercial harvest of 3 million and 1 million for sportfishing and subsistence harvest.

If the forecast proves true, the run will be nearly double the 2018 run of 3.1 million.

The Kenai River, the largest sockeye-producing river in the region, is projected to receive a run of about 3.8 million sockeye, the majority of which are the 1.3 age class (one year in freshwater, three years in saltwater).

The Kasilof River, the second-largest producer, is projected to see about 873,000 sockeye come back, with a slight majority in the 1.3 age class.

The Kenai’s forecast is greater than its 20-year average of 3.5 million, while the Kasilof’s is behind its 20-year average of 979,000 fish.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Scientists in Alaska are tracking fish by DNA

January 7, 2019 — Have you ever thought about testing your DNA through companies like 23andMe or Ancestry.com?

Geneticists here in Alaska are using that same technology on fish, but they’re not looking for their ancestors. Instead, they’re using it to trace back where marine species are born and where they’re caught.

The administrative headquarters for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game off of Raspberry Road in Anchorage is best known as an office building, but tucked inside is one of the most advanced genetics labs on the Pacific Rim.

“We have one instrument in particular that is the same instrument that is used by 23andMe and Ancestry.com,” said lab supervisor Heather Hoyt.

But unlike those organizations, its not human DNA that Hoyt and her team are testing. They’re focused mainly on fish.

Read the full story at KTVA

OSU scientist studies slimy new way to count salmon

January 3, 2019 — Scientists have published a novel method for counting Pacific salmon – analyzing DNA from the slime the fish leave behind in their spawning streams.

The study, funded by The National Geographic Society, is published in the journal Molecular Ecology Resources.

“When we analyzed the environmental DNA sloughed into water from salmon tissues, including mucus and skin cells, we got very accurate counts,” said Taal Levi, an ecologist at Oregon State University and lead author on the study. “This is a major first step for more informed salmon management decisions because it opens up the possibility to affordably monitor many more streams than the few that are currently monitored.”

Pacific salmon are a keystone resource in the Pacific Northwest, with an economic impact of well over $500 million each year in Alaska alone. Currently, spawning salmon are counted at just a few streams due to the reliance on human counters, or in rare cases, sonar. Five species of Pacific salmon – pink, chum, sockeye, coho, and chinook – are distributed through more than 6,000 streams in southeast Alaska alone. More than 1,000 of those streams host spawning salmon.

Salmon are anadromous: They migrate from home streams to the ocean as juveniles, and return a few years later as adults to spawn. Anadromous fish such as salmon provide a straightforward scenario for testing whether environmental DNA (eDNA) can be used to count fish, because large numbers of salmon release their DNA as they pass a fixed sampling point, either as they swim up a river or stream as inbound adults or swim downstream as outbound juveniles.

In many rivers and streams, including the majority of freshwater systems in Alaska, adult salmon returning to spawn are poorly monitored, as are fry and smolt production resulting from spawning salmon.

For the study, researchers collected water samples in 2015 and 2016 near the Auke Creek research weir, nearly 16 kilometers north of Juneau. Weirs consist of a series of closely spaced bars across an entire stream to prevent the passage of salmon, except through a single, narrow gate over which a human observer tallies and identifies salmon as they file through.

The Auke Creek weir, cooperatively operated by the National Marine Fisheries Service, in collaboration with the University of Alaska and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, is known as one of the most accurate fish counters in the world, Levi said.

Read the full story at KTVZ

Alaska Department of Fish and Game Releases New Pacific Salmon Treaty Language: New Provisions Go into Effect Tomorrow

January 2, 2019 — The following was released by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game:

With implementation poised to begin January 1, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game today released three chapters of new Pacific Salmon Treaty language. These three chapters will directly impact Alaska and Alaskans.

The current chapters of the Pacific Salmon Treaty that affect southeast Alaska expire December 31, 2018. Over the past several years a team of 58 Alaskans including department staff and affected users have been working towards negotiating a new agreement. In June 2018 the Pacific Salmon Commission completed negotiations regarding a new conservation and harvest sharing agreement between the United States and Canada. This new agreement forms the basis for management of southeast Alaska salmon fisheries.

The negotiated treaty language has been held in confidence for a variety of reasons. However, since the revised treaty takes effect January 1, 2019, releasing the latest version of the agreed to treaty language is in the best interest of affected users. It is important to understand that the treaty language is not open to renegotiation as it has been agreed upon formally. The release of the language will allow affected users the opportunity to become familiar with the stipulations as management strategies are developed for the upcoming season.

The revised agreement addresses a number of salmon fisheries in southeast Alaska, including those near the Alaska/British Columbia border and on several transboundary rivers.

Read the full release here

Alaska’s Sitka Tribe sues state, claims mismanagement of herring fishery

December 19, 2018 — A tribal government is filing suit against the State of Alaska, alleging mismanagement of the Sitka sac roe herring fishery. The Sitka Tribe of Alaska has retained a major Anchorage law firm that specializes in tribal advocacy and subsistence issues. KCAW’s Katherine Rose reports on the build-up to this moment over the future of Sitka’s sac roe herring fishery.

For 20 years, tribal leaders have been worried about the health of Sitka’s herring. The silvery fish return every spring to spawn and are pursued by commercial fisherman, subsistence harvesters, and marine mammals alike. As a forage fish, they’re a cornerstone of the ecosystem.

Herring rock is blessed with water to mark this seasonal moment.

Audio: “This is spring. We are getting ready for our season. This is our time for work. Gunalchéesh.”    

Jessie Johnnie told the story of herring rock to the Board of Fish in 1997 — one of a young Tlingit woman sitting on the rock and lowering her hair into the ocean for the herring to lay their eggs. “All the herring would come to the rock and swim around,” she said, “and she would sing lullabies to them.”

Herring have cultural, ecological, and economic significance for Sitka. But the message to the Board of Fish back then was that the herring weren’t spawning the same way in the same places, and subsistence harvesters were struggling to gather enough roe.

Herman Kitka, testifying at that 1997 meeting, feared for the worst. “If nothing is done,” he said, “we will lose the herring stock that is left in Sitka Sound.”

In 2018, his son Harvey Kitka went before the Board of Fish to say the same thing: Act now, or potentially lose our herring. Sitka Tribe proposed capping the commercial harvest of herring at 10-percent. But the Board took no action, maintaining a formula that calculates a sliding scale of 12- to 20-percent depending on the size of the biomass.

Read the full story at KCAW

ALASKA: Poor pink runs forecast again; return to ‘normal’ in Bristol Bay

November 29, 2018 — Next summer may be a slow one for Southeast and Bristol Bay salmon fishermen.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s annual salmon forecasts for the Southeast and Bristol Bay regions predict weaker runs for the 2019 season. In Southeast’s case, it’s the pink salmon predicted to come up short compared to recent averages; in Bristol Bay, it’s the sockeye.

About 18 million pink salmon are predicted to be harvested in Southeast Alaska in 2019, placing the run in the weak range, or between 20 percent and 40 percent of the 59-year average in the history of the fishery. The forecasted number is about half the recent 10-year average of 36 million pinks, according to the ADFG forecast. If the forecast holds true, it will be the lowest odd-year harvest since 1987.

The low number of juveniles in 2018 was unexpected, as the previous year’s escapements met goals.

“This indicates that brood year 2017 pink salmon likely experienced poor freshwater and/or early marine survival,” according to the forecast.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

ALASKA: Upper Cook Inlet fishermen seek federal disaster declaration

November 15, 2018 — This season was a sour one for salmon fishermen across the Gulf of Alaska, and participants in multiple fisheries are seeking funding for relief.

The Board of Fisheries and Gov. Bill Walker already granted a disaster declaration for Chignik, which harvested next to zero sockeye salmon this year due to an unprecedented poor return to the Chignik River on the Alaska Peninsula. Sockeye salmon runs across the Gulf of Alaska failed to deliver this year, either in timing or in size, at a huge cost to fishermen.

Now the Upper Cook Inlet fishermen want a chance at federal funding to recover some of their losses. The set gillnet and drift gillnet fleet in Upper Cook Inlet harvested about 1.3 million salmon, 815,000 of which were sockeye, or about 61 percent below the 10-year average harvest of sockeye.

This year was forecasted to be lower than the average, but the harvest as of Oct. 5 — when all Upper Cook Inlet salmon fishing closed for the 2018 season — brought in about $11 million in ex-vessel value, a little more than a third of the $31 million recent 10-year average.

The total run, however, was about 32 percent below what was forecast, according to the 2018 salmon fishing summary from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game issued Oct. 22.

The trick of it was that the Kenai River sockeye run — the heavy-hitting run of the region, which usually peaks in July — didn’t arrive in force until August. For only the second time in Fish and Game’s records, more than half the run arrived after Aug. 1.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Smaller than average sockeye return predicted for Alaska’s Bristol Bay in 2019

November 12, 2018 — The heart of Alaska’s most prolific salmon fishery, Bristol Bay, is projected to see a return of 40 million sockeye in 2019, under the 10-year average of 44m sockeye, biologists at the Alaska Department of Fish & Game (ADF&G) predicted.

The return — a range of 27.9m to 52.5m sockeye has been estimated — would still be larger than the 55-year average of 34.2m sockeye, the agency said.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Alaska Fishermen Sentenced for Killing Endangered Sea Lions

November 8, 2018 — An Alaska salmon boat skipper who killed endangered Steller sea lions with a shotgun and hindered an investigation has been fined $20,000 in federal court.

Jon Nichols, 31, of Cordova, was sentenced Tuesday to five years’ probation, three months of home confinement and 400 hours of community service.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Smith also ordered Nichols to publicly apologize in a national commercial fishing magazine.

One of Nichols’ crewmen, Theodore “Teddy” Turgeon, 21, of Wasilla, also shot the endangered animals. He was sentenced to four years’ probation, one month of home incarceration and 40 hours of community service. He was fined $5,000.

Steller sea lions are the largest members of “eared” seals family, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and can live to be 20 to 30 years old. Females can reach nearly 580 pounds (263 kilograms) and males up to 1,245 pounds (565 kilograms) in the North Pacific Ocean. They get their name from the big males’ intimidating roar as they protect harems.

Steller sea lions are voracious feeders of fish. Adults eat upward of 6 percent of their body weight per day. They target fish that are always available such as pollock and cod as well as seasonally available fish such as herring and salmon.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The New York Times