Saving Seafood

Alaska ports hope to keep fish tax: ‘We can’t get answers’ says Stutes

July 10, 2019 — One fisheries item that appears to have escaped Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto pen so far is his desire to divert local fish taxes from coastal communities into state coffers.

Dunleavy’s initial budget in February aimed to repeal the sharing of fisheries business and landing taxes that towns and boroughs split 50/50 with the state. Instead, all of the tax revenues would go to the state’s general fund – a loss of $28 million in FY 2020 to fishing communities.

“There is a recognition that these are viewed as shared resources, and they should be shared by Alaskans,” press secretary Matt Shuckerow said at the time. “So that’s kind of what this proposal does. It takes shared resources and shares them with all Alaskans, not just some select communities.”

The tax split remains in place, and the dollars are still destined for fishing towns, said Rep. Louise Stutes (R-Kodiak), who also represents Cordova, Yakutat and several smaller towns.

“It’s general fund revenue and that has been appropriated to the appropriate communities,” Stutes said in a phone interview. “What we can tell right now is it slipped by unscathed because it appears he did not veto that revenue to the communities that generate the dollars. So, it looks like we’re good to go there.”

What’s not so good is the nearly $1 million cut to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s commercial fisheries budget.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Alaska salmon catches continue to grow

July 5, 2019 — Alaska salmon numbers keep rising as the US enters its Independence Day holiday, July 4.

Forecasters with Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game are looking for indications of a plateau or beginning of a decrease in catches in the test fishery, 150 miles seaward of Bristol Bay, or in the catch or escapement (C + E = total run) in the bay itself, and are seeing none.

What they are seeing is increasing numbers of fish being caught furthest offshore in the Port Moller Test Fishery (PMTF), those linked to the run in the Nushagak district and other westside districts.

Since the last PMTF Interpretation on test fishery catches since June 29, two more days of catches much higher in stations 14-22 than previously seen and outweighing those caught in nearer-shore stations 2-12. The highest daily catch index on July 1 was station 16 with 166. However, that index only edged out the June 29 index at station 8 of 161 which may indicate that the run to the Egegik district continues to build.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Season of uncertainty: Alaska braces for seafood tariffs

June 14, 2019 — Fisheries are always fraught with uncertainties, but there is an added element this year: trade tariffs on Alaska’s largest export: seafood. “The industry is accustomed to dealing with uncertainty about harvest levels, prices and currency rates. The trade disputes just add another layer to that,” said Garrett Evridge, an economist with the McDowell Group.

Tariffs of up to 25 percent on U.S. seafood products going to China went into effect last July and more are being threatened now by the Trump administration. China is Alaska’s biggest seafood buyer purchasing 54 percent of Alaska seafood exports in 2017 valued at $1.3 billion.

“It’s important to remember that a tariff is simply a tax and it increases the prices of our products,” Evridge explained. “As Alaskans we are sensitive to any increase in the price of our seafood because we are competing on a global stage. And right now we have tariffs imposed on seafood from the Chinese side and the U.S. side.”

In terms of Alaska salmon, the new taxes could hit buyers of pinks and chums especially hard. Managers expect huge runs of both this summer and much of the pack will be processed into various products in China and then returned to the United States.

“There is uncertainty as to whether or not those products will be tariffed and the Trump administration has indicated they want to tariff all products from China,” Evridge said.

For salmon, in a typical year Alaska contributes 30 to 50 percent of the world’s wild harvest. But when you include farmed salmon, Evridge said, Alaska’s contribution is closer to 15 percent of the global salmon supply.

The Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game is predicting a total catch of 213.2 million salmon this year, more than 80 percent higher than in 2018.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

ALASKA: Feds still working on plan for $56M in disaster relief funds

June 12, 2019 — Alaska fishermen are still awaiting disaster relief funds for the 2016 pink salmon run failure that was the worst in 40 years.

Congress approved $56 million that year for Alaska fishermen, processors and communities hurt by the fishery flop in three Alaska regions: Kodiak, Prince William Sound and Lower Cook Inlet.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game and National Marine Fisheries Service finalized plans and procedures for payouts last August. Since then, the paper push has stalled on various federal agency desks.

NMFS missed a promised June 1 sign off deadline and now says the funds will be released on the first of July, according to Rep. Louise Stutes of Kodiak, who has been tracking the progress.

“It affects all the cannery workers all the processors, all the businesses in the community,” she said. “This has a big trickle-down effect.”

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Alaska’s fledgling mariculture industry expands its reach; former Dunleavy staffer named to fish board

June 6, 2019 — More Alaskans are turning to seaweed farming as the state’s fledgling mariculture industry expands to more regions. Shellfish growers also are finding that an oyster/aquatic plant combo boosts their bottom line.

Sixteen applications were filed for new or expanding aquatic farms from January through April, of which 56% were for growing various kelp, 31% for a combination of Pacific oysters and kelp, and 13% for oysters only.

While 2019 saw the same number of applications as 2018, the underwater acreage increased considerably, said Cynthia Pring-Ham, aquatic farming coordinator at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, which issues the farm permits.

“There were about 616 acres that were applied for in 2019 compared to 462 acres in 2018. That’s about a 33% increase,” she said, adding that Fish and Game partners with the state Department of Natural Resources, which leases the tidal and submerged lands where aquatic farming takes place.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Emerging mariculture industry seeks to streamline permitting

May 6, 2019 — Alaska may be famous for its wild fish, but some are working to make room in the state’s waters for more shellfish, kelp, and crabs on aquatic farms.

Mariculture is a hot topic in fisheries right now. Essentially, mariculture can be defined as the cultivation of plants or animals in controlled saltwater environments, but in Alaska, it doesn’t include finfish, as that’s illegal in the state. So mariculture farmers have stuck to primarily kelp and oysters so far, but they’re starting to get more adventurous.

As of December 2018, 58 aquatic farms were operating in the state along with five hatcheries and seven nurseries, though only 41 of the farms documented production in 2017, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Oysters are still the most widely grown product, though kelp is gaining ground; after the first operations for kelp were permitted in 2016, four farms had produced 16,570 pounds of ribbon and sugar kelp by the following year.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce 

ALASKA: Fisheries management a bright spot for state despite budget roller coaster

April 22, 2019 — Times are tight for state budgets these days. It’s easy to forget the crucial role government agencies play in sustaining our economy. Fisheries are a prime example. Most Alaskans don’t know that Alaska is world-famous for its management of fisheries through a system based on science.

Even those of us familiar with highly political “fish wars” over allocations of salmon between sport and commercial fishers sometimes forget that.

To be able to fight over fish we need healthy fisheries, however. Thanks to the commitment of Alaskans over the years to science-based fisheries management — in fact, since we became a state in 1959 — we’ve been blessed with a huge natural resource that employs thousands and feeds millions.

The sustainability of that depends on science-based management. For that, Alaskans can give themselves a pat on the back.

Interestingly, Alaska was the first place where the scientific principles of sustained-yield fisheries management were put in place on a broad scale, first with salmon and now with all the fisheries we manage in both state and federal waters, including cod, crab, herring and pollock.

Before Alaska became a state, our salmon fisheries were overfished and depleted. There had been decades of mismanagement by the federal government.

Read the full story at Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Council committee struggles with federal Cook Inlet salmon plan

April 18, 2019 — Two-and-a-half years after a federal court directed the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to develop a fishery management plan for the Cook Inlet salmon fishery, there is still a lot of work to do.

The commercial salmon fisheries of Alaska are primarily managed by the state, including in Cook Inlet, where part of the fishery takes place in federal waters. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council for years deferred management of the salmon fishery there to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, finally removing Cook Inlet completely from its FMP in 2012.

The United Cook Inlet Drift Association and the Cook Inlet Fishermen’s Fund sued, saying the federal government had a responsibility to manage that fishery to ensure it complies with the Magnuson-Stevens Act. In 2016, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, and the council reluctantly turned back to developing a management plan.

Many of the commercial fishermen there have a longstanding dissatisfaction with the Alaska Fish and Game and the Board of Fisheries, stemming from a belief that the department’s allocation decisions governed by the board are politically rather than scientifically motivated and that the escapement goals for sockeye salmon on the Kenai River are too high.

They sought to exercise federal influence over state management through the lawsuit, and now are running into roadblocks on federal authority to do so.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Alaska Fish and Game forecasts a 2019 salmon catch of 213.2 million fish

April 10, 2019 — Alaska fishermen could catch 85 percent more salmon this year (nearly a hundred million more) if state forecasts hold true.

That’s good news for fishermen in many Gulf of Alaska regions who in 2018 suffered some of the worst catches in 50 years.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is predicting a total salmon catch of 213.2 million fish for 2019, compared to about 116 million salmon last year. The increase comes from expectations of another big haul of sockeyes, increases in pinks and a possible record catch of chum salmon.

The harvest breakdown calls for 112,000 chinook salmon in areas outside of Southeast Alaska. The catch for the Southeast troll fleet, which is determined by a treaty with Canada, will be 101,300 kings, a 5,600-fish increase.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

 

State of Alaska petitions federal government to delist Arctic ringed seals under the Endangered Species Act

April 9, 2019 — In the latest chapter of an ongoing debate over the status of Arctic ringed seals, the state of Alaska has petitioned the federal government to take the seals off the list of threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

Ringed seals were added to the list back in 2012 because their sea ice habitat is expected to decline significantly in the coming years as the Arctic warms. A species can be designated “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act if it’s likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future through much of its range.

But in its petition, the state says that new research and re-analysis of prior data shows that ringed seals are doing well despite documented sea ice loss, and are likely to adapt to changing habitat conditions.

“They’re the most abundant marine mammal in the Arctic, there’s millions of them, and they’re a very resilient marine mammal as far as we can tell,” said Chris Krenz, the wildlife science coordinator for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Krenz said that the “threatened” designation could create hindrances for oil and gas development, as well as for subsistence hunters.

Three North Slope entities are listed as partners in the state’s petition: the North Slope Borough, Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, and the Iñupiat Community of the Arctic Slope.

Subsistence hunting is generally exempt from restrictions under the Endangered Species Act, although the government can put regulations in place if they find that a hunt materially and negatively affects a species protected by the act. There are currently no such regulations for ringed seals, and federal government officials say there are no plans to put any in place.

Read the full story at KTOO