Saving Seafood

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: Fishing industry weighs in on state’s $50M COVID-19 relief plan

November 2, 2020 — A statewide commercial fishing industry group is asking the Dunleavy administration to justify its proposal for distributing $50 million dollars in federal pandemic relief for Alaska’s fishing industry.

Federal guidance recommends allocating more than half of the CARES Act funds to seafood processors and just 5% to the charter fleet and lodges.

But a draft released this month by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game recommends dividing the allocation evenly among sectors, which would increase the pot of money for fishing guides and lodges by more than $13 million.

United Fishermen of Alaska, which represents the commercial fleet and processors, asked the agency to explain its rationale for boosting the charter fleet’s allocation at the expense of other sectors.

UFA’s president Matt Alward signed a three-page letter to the commissioner’s office.

Read the full story at KTOO

Alaska proposes to split $50 million in virus aid among fishermen

October 8, 2020 — The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is taking public comments on a plan to split $50 million in federal coronavirus aid among commercial, sport and subsistence fishermen.

Under the state plan, sportfishing businesses will share $16 million, commercial fishing businesses will split $16 million, and fish processors will split $16 million. Subsistence fishermen will split $1.5 million, and aquaculture businesses will share $500,000.

The aid will be distributed by the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, which is expected to take applications later this year using the state’s plan.

Applicants will have to sign an affidavit swearing that they lost at least 35% of their fishing revenue between March 1 and Nov. 1 as a result of COVID-19.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

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

“More negatives than positives” as Alaska salmon season wraps up

September 25, 2020 — As Alaska’s salmon fishing season starts to wrap up, numbers are indicating a relatively poor showing overall.

While landings and fish tickets continued to trickle in, preliminary numbers from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game showed Alaskan salmon fishermen harvested around 113 million fish on the 2020 season, falling well short of the pre-season projection of nearly 133 million fish. It makes the season the fifth-worst even-year harvest since 1975, according to Garrett Evridge, chief economist for the McDowell Group.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Salmon fishing in Alaska off to a slow start statewide

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.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Pandemic slows distribution of relief funds for 2018 Gulf of Alaska cod crash

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.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

All systems are ‘go’ for near-shore Alaska fisheries, state officials say

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.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News