Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Alaska to Study Fishing in Protected Arctic Waters

April 17, 2o23 — The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) has said that it is preparing for an eventual end to the longstanding moratorium on commercial fishing in U.S. Arctic waters.

Speaking last month during the Arctic Encounter Symposium held in Anchorage, Alaska, ADF&G Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang said his department is seeking $1 million in state funds and another $2 million in federal funds to work on research aimed at understanding sustainable fishing in the Arctic, in the event it happens there.

“As fish stocks move north around the circumpolar north – and fishing fleets from other countries follow them – Alaska should not be left out. We see opportunities for our coastal communities to develop fisheries. And we certainly do not want to be left onshore while Russia and other countries go out and fish those waters,” said Vincent-Lang, according to the Alaska Beacon.

If the funding is approved, the scientific research will identify stocks north of the Bering Strait that are capable of being developed into commercial fisheries. Thereafter, ADF&G will draft a fishery management plan, determining participants and possibly allocating shares by communities.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

ALASKA: Alaska Department of Fish and Game releases Kuskokwim Bay salmon fishery announcement

April 2, 2o23 — The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) released an announcement on March 29, 2023. The advisory announcement notes that ADF&G does not expect to open any commercial gillnet fishing in Districts 4 and 5 of Kuskokwim Bay.

This news may not come as a surprise to commercial gillnetters in that region. Those fisheries have been closed for most years since 2016 because there hasn’t been a commercial buyer.

Read the full article at KYUK

ALASKA: Fish & Game task force suggests updates to fishing industry in managing bycatch

February 15, 2023 — Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Alaska Bycatch Review Task Force provided its recommendations on how to manage bycatch to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council last Thursday.

Bycatch describes any marine species unintentionally harvested in a fishery that cannot be sold or kept due to regulations or a lack of demand, according to Fish & Game’s Extended Jurisdiction Program Manager Karla Bush.

“(The) purpose of the task force was to explore the issue of bycatch and provide recommendations to policymakers, and in this case, that’s the governor of Alaska as the lead policymaker for the state,” Bush said.

Read the full article at Alaska News Source

Above-average herring season winds down in Alaska

May 27, 2022 — The 2022 herring season in the U.S. state of Alaska has concluded successfully, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

In recent years, the fishery’s value has been estimated at around USD 5 million (EUR 4.7 million), down from the record of USD 55 million (EUR 51.3 million) in 1988, with most of the fish sold to Japan. Herring roe, or kazunoko in Japanese, is commonly eaten during Oseibo, the Japanese Christmas season. 

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

Alaska Anticipates Limited Salted Salmon Roe Production and Air Freight to Japan

May 17, 2022 — The Copper River salmon fishery, which is the start of Alaska salmon fishing season in Alaska, opened today, May 16, which is one day earlier than last year.

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the first day of the season opener is set from 7 am for 12 hours on May 17, and fishing restrictions continue for king salmon as usual for resource protection, Suisan Keizai reports.

According to the previous forecast, the Fish & Game said that the number of sockeye salmon fishing in the Copper River area would increase to 1,432,000 fish this summer, including the returning to the hatchery, which is more than double the previous year’s level, but 34% less than the average of the past 10 years. Last year, the actual catch was 404,653, 68% less than the 10-year average of 1,250,000 fish.

Read the full story at Seafood News

ALASKA: Record 74 Million Sockeye Run Forecast for 2022, Low Return for Pinks, as Expected

April 26, 2022 — Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game has released their final “Run Forecasts and Harvest Projections for 2022 Alaska Salmon Fisheries and Review of the 2021 Season” and once again Bristol Bay is outdoing its own record of consistently massive returns.

The forecast for the statewide total salmon return is lower than last years by 800,000 salmon, but it doesn’t detract much from the forecasted run in the Bay.

The 2021 inshore Bristol Bay sockeye salmon run of 67.7 million fish is the largest total run on record — 64% above the 41.3 million average run for the latest 20-year period. It was also the third time on record that the sockeye run exceeded 60.0 million fish. Last year’s 42.0 million harvest was 15% above the 36.4 million fish preseason forecast and the third largest harvest on record. It was also the third time in the last 4 years that landings  exceeded 40.0 million fish.

Read the full story at Seafood News

ALASKA: An epic forecast for Bristol Bay salmon has industry leaders worried it will be too much to handle

April 7, 2022 — Alaska biologists are forecasting another massive run of sockeye salmon in Bristol Bay this summer, raising questions in commercial fishing circles about whether the industry in the Southwest Alaska region will be able to keep up.

The Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association, representing the area’s commercial driftnet fleet, is urging processors to boost their capacity to maximize the fishery’s value and prevent harm to future runs if too many salmon return.

“We’re in unprecedented territory as far as what is forecast, so we never had a test like this to see how it would go,” said Andy Wink, executive director of the association.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game predicts that a record 75 million fish will return to Bristol Bay rivers this summer, with 60 million available for harvest, according to the agency’s commercial fisheries division.

But the agency reported early this year that 15 main commercial processors said they expect to buy 52 million Bristol Bay salmon, according to a survey. That amount of purchased fish would also be a record.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Board votes to continue conservation measures for weak Southeast Alaska king salmon stocks

March 28, 2022 — Alaska’s Board of Fisheries this week voted to continue with conservation measures for chronically low returns of king salmon in Southeast Alaska. Some stocks are forecast to be at their lowest levels on record this year and others have rebounded a little under fishery closures.

The region has 34 stocks of king salmon and the board has listed seven as stocks of concern. That means for four years or more, those runs have not had enough fish making it back to spawn, or what managers call an escapement goal.

Ed Jones is an Alaska Department of Fish and Game coordinator specializing in king salmon research. He outlined to the board the measures taken to reduce harvest of those fish.

“Through the actions taken beginning in 2018 with the action plans, we have taken good steps towards achieving the escapement goals,” Jones said. “The problem is the production of these stocks has just continued to be low. And so right now we’ve not been able to provide a harvestable yield annually. The hopes are that that production will change, escapement goals will be met and we’ll also be able to identify yield.”

Read the full story at KTOO

Hooked on Data: How Numbers Guide Alaska’s Commercial Fisheries

March 23, 2022 — Alaska fisheries run on data–data and the hard work of those in the Last Frontier’s seafood industry. Data inform every aspect of the management of the state’s fisheries, from policy decisions and regulations to how much fish can be caught in a season. Data also play a vital role in understanding the markets for Alaska’s various seafood products, as well as the economic impact of the sector.

The Alaska Constitution entrusts the Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) to “manage, protect, maintain, improve, and extend the fish, game, and aquatic plant resources of the state in the interest of the economy and general well-being of the state.” Given the weight of the responsibility, the department has developed a robust, data-driven method for managing the state’s fisheries, from sea cucumbers to salmon and everything in between.

“We collect assessment information for basically all of our fisheries so that we understand the status of the population, allowing us to operate under long-term sustainable management principles,” explains Bert Lewis, a regional supervisor for the Division of Commercial Fisheries at the ADF&G.

Each assessment program is designed to provide a basic count or an estimated biomass for a target species. The programs are based on an understanding of a species’ lifecycle and include what information needs be collected in the field, such as size, age, sex, and location the catch came from, Lewis says.

Read the full story at Seafood News

ALASKA: More than 70 million sockeye salmon expected in Bristol Bay next year, potentially busting this year’s record

December 8, 2021 — If the forecasts are close to accurate, this year’s Bristol Bay sockeye run won’t be a record for long.

Biology teams with University of Washington and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game both expect more than 70 million sockeye to return to Bristol Bay for the first time in recorded history.

Daniel Schindler, a biologist with UW’s Alaska Salmon Program, said multiple factors in the university’s record run forecast bolster its credibility. For one, all of the Bay’s nine large river systems are predicted to do very well, rather than just one or two forecasted to have outsized sockeye returns. The fact that the 2022 run will be on the heels of an inshore run of approximately 66.1 million sockeye — the all-time record — which provides researchers more to go on as well, according to Schindler.

Both the UW and Fish and Game forecasts are a weighted average of several models that use what are known as sibling relationships to formulate predictions, largely based on how many salmon of certain age classes returned in prior years.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News