September 18, 2020 — Alaska plans to stop providing state funding for hatcheries that produce king and coho salmon, according to a KFSK radio report.
The state of Alaska has in the past provided millions of dollars to king and coho hatcheries from money collected via a surcharge on sport fishing licenses, along with allocations of federal sport fishing money.
July 6, 2020 — Salmon harvests across Alaska are slow so far as the fisheries head toward their usual high points in July.
So far, fishermen have landed about 5.8 million salmon. That’s less than half of the 2018 numbers by the same date, when 14 million had been landed. Much of that is due to poor sockeye returns, particularly in the Copper River area, though everywhere is slower than previous years, including Bristol Bay.
The Copper River and Bering River districts continue their shutdown this week due to unexpectedly low sockeye returns. The return to the Copper River is not living up to the preseason forecast, with only 378,058 sockeye through the Miles Lake weir as of June 29, compared to more than 696,828 by the same date last year. The forecast called for 1.5 million sockeye to return to the Copper River this year.
In an emergency order issued June 27, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game noted that the escapement through June 25 is about 85,000 fish behind projections, and the surveys of the Copper River Delta are significantly behind estimated ranges.
June 24, 2020 — Upheavals stemming from the coronavirus pandemic have slowed the process of getting relief payments into the hands of fishermen and communities hurt by the 2018 Gulf of Alaska cod crash.
In late February, the secretary of commerce cut loose $24.4 million for affected stakeholders. Then in late March, Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang proposed a written timeline for developing a distribution plan and also called for input from communities and fishing groups.
A draft of the initial plan was intended to compile stakeholder comments in April, be revised in May, and go out for a second round of public input in June and July. But that timeframe was derailed a bit by COVID-19.
Now, the state is “aiming” to get the draft distribution plan out for the first round of stakeholder and public comments by the end of June, according to Rick Green, assistant to the Fish and Game commissioner.
June 18, 2020 — All systems are go for keeping close tabs on fish and crab stocks in waters managed by the state, meaning out to three miles. While constraints from the coronavirus resulted in nearly all annual stock surveys being cut in deeper waters overseen by the federal government, it’s “closer to normal” closer to shore.
“While it’s not business as usual, we are conducting business in as close to normal fashion as we can,” said Forrest Bowers, deputy director of the commercial fisheries division of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
“We have kept all of our area offices open and all of our field projects in place to monitor salmon stocks around the state this summer, as well as our projects and support for other fisheries,” Bowers said, adding that Fish and Game has responded to the COVID-19 pandemic “very seriously” and has had strict protection plans in place since March.
May 20, 2020 — Rich in omega-3 fatty acids, Vitamin D, and antioxidants, sockeye is health food for your heart, brain, eyes, and skin. And given the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s careful management of the fishery, it’s a sustainable resource. In 2018, according to the ADFG, 63 million sockeye returned, and a record 41.9 million of them were netted. Bristol Bay is, by far, the world’s largest sockeye fishery, and the biggest salmon fishery in Alaska. It is a well-tended natural bounty valued at more than $1 billion. Along with the other salmon fisheries in Bristol Bay, it returns an annual $14.7 million to local governments and employs a third of the residents in the largely indigenous communities. Norman Van Vactor, President and CEO of the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation (BBEDC), estimates that, all totaled, salmon fishing brings up to $200 million into the region each year.
There are many reasons to feel good about eating Bristol Bay sockeye, but this is 2020, a year that has complicated everything in food. While subsistence salmon fishing is essential to the region’s 6,700 residents, the commercial fishery is operated primarily by outsiders. As of now, there are less than 400 confirmed cases of COVID-19 across Alaska. But as 13,000 fishermen, processors, and other workers from around the world arrive in May for Bristol Bay’s season, which begins in early June, they bring the danger of spreading the virus to isolated communities with few medical resources.
For the locals of Bristol Bay, the possibility of an outbreak engenders a horrifying dèjá vu. “Our people keep saying that we went through this already,” says Alannah Hurley, executive director of United Tribes of Bristol Bay, a consortium of 15 Yup’ik, Den’ina, and Alutiiq tribes representing 80 percent of the region’s inhabitants. She’s referring to the Spanish flu, which arrived in Bristol Bay in 1919, possibly on a cannery ship, and decimated the native population. “A lot of us are descendents. So for native people, the devastation of a pandemic is not an obscure concept,” she said. “We are the people raised by the orphans who survived.”
May 19, 2020 — The North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, in their first-ever special electronic meeting, acted on five requests for emergency rules triggered by the corona virus outbreak, in less than a day last Friday.
Halibut fishermen and fleet associations asked the 11-member council for relief on requirements to make medical quota transfers during the pandemic. Council members agreed to an option that would “allow the temporary transfer of halibut and sablefish IFQ for all quota share holders for the remainder of the 2020 fishing season,” without changing anything else in the program.
May 13, 2020 — Although there was no commercial herring sac roe fishery this year in Sitka Sound due to small average fish size, an Alaska Department of Fish and Game report has provided encouraging data for the fishery to consider an eventual reopening.
Some 83 percent of this year’s guideline harvest level was forecast to be age-four herring, with an average weight of 92 grams. The size forecast for herring across all age classes was slightly larger, at 97 grams.
May 8, 2020 — The state of Alaska will receive $50 million in federal coronavirus aid for fisheries, the U.S. Department of Commerce said Thursday.
While that amount ties with Washington for the most given to any individual state, it’s only half what state officials had expected. In 2018, Alaska landed 58% of the nation’s seafood by volume and 32% when measured by value. (Alaska waters are home to large stocks of pollock, the inexpensive fish used in fast-food sandwiches and fish sticks.)
With those facts in mind, the administration of Gov. Mike Dunleavy had expected Alaska would receive one-third of the $300 million set aside in the federal CARES Act for fisheries dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, going so far to request in advance that the Alaska Legislature’s budget and audit committee give it authority to accept $100 million in federal fisheries aid.
April 24, 2020 — Alaska’s fisheries are world-renowned. They feed Alaskans through subsistence, sport and personal use fishing. Our commercial fisheries feed the world, and our charter and guide industries provide much-needed fishing access to both Alaskans and our guests. All contribute greatly to our state and local economies.
The response to the COVID-19 pandemic has touched us all and impacted our daily lives in many ways. From hunkering down in our homes, to school closures, to lost jobs and income, to not being able to join friends at the local watering hole, these are trying times.
Trying to find the right balance to protect public health while ensuring we do not destroy the economic foundation of our state is challenging. Our knowledge of the virus is rapidly growing, and as we learn more, our strategies for addressing the pandemic are evolving. This flux is understandably causing uncertainty and uneasiness as we gradually move back to normalcy and a reopening of our economy.
In this light, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is preparing to prosecute fisheries this summer as close to normally as possible. We have plans in place to deploy the necessary research and management infrastructure to allow us to manage the state’s fisheries and we are developing implementation plans to protect the health of our employees, the health of fishery participants and the health of the communities where fishing takes place.
April 22, 2020 — Alaska’s total salmon catch for 2020 is projected to be down 36 percent from last year’s haul of 207 million fish, the eighth largest on record that was valued at nearly $658 million at the docks.
In the Run Forecasts and Harvest Projections and Review of the 2019 Season just released by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, managers are calling for a harvest of just under 133 million salmon across Alaska. The decline is driven by a much lower forecast for those hard-to-predict pink salmon of just over 60 million fish, down nearly 53 percent.
Here are the salmon harvest forecasts and outlooks for most Alaska regions:
A catch of 4.2 million coho salmon is projected this year, a 300,000 fish increase. For chums, a catch of 19.5 million would be a drop of 100,000 fish.
For sockeye salmon, a harvest forecast of just over 48 million compares to 55.5 million reds taken in Alaska last year, or a drop of 13.3 percent.
A run of nearly 50 million sockeyes is expected to surge into Bristol Bay’s nine river systems, 6 percent higher than the 10 year average. That should produce a catch of 37 million reds, down from nearly 42 million last year.