Saving Seafood

Alaska cod: Gulf cod stocks creep back, but Bering and Aleutian still down

April 5, 2021 — Pacific cod stocks have begun to rebound in the Gulf of Alaska, but the TAC for 2021 remains low at 17,321 metric tons. Last year managers curtailed the fishery in federally managed waters after stock assessments put the biomass near the bottom of the threshold for conducting the fishery.

Though the recruitment of younger cod and the uncaught fish from last year have added to the abundance in most recent assessments, full recovery of the stock could take years. The warm-water blob of 2014 has been blamed for the crash.

The warming waters began in 2013 and precipitated a 79 percent decline in the stocks. Prevalent theories suggest that warmer waters raise the metabolic rates for the young cod. At the same time the forage species for young cod appeared to have higher concentrations of protein and lower concentrations of fat. More recent studies determined that the eggs of cod survive in a narrow range of temperature (3 to 6 degrees C, or 37.4 to 42.8 degrees F).

Stocks also continue to decline in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands harvest areas. The 2021 TAC for the Bering Sea has been set at 111,380 metric tons with a TAC of 13,796 metric tons for the Aleutian Islands.

The 2020 TACs for the respective areas had been set at 141,799 metric tons and 14,214 metric tons.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

2020’s Southeast salmon harvest among worst on record, according to Alaska Fish & Game data

April 1, 2021 —  Last year’s salmon harvest across all species in Southeast Alaska was one of the worst in 50 years. Here’s what Southeast’s regional commercial fishery supervisor had to say about the terrible season, and about his hopes for the coming year.

A special report released in March paints a stark picture of 2020’s salmon harvest in Southeast Alaska.

“Overall, it was one of the lowest harvests we’d seen, I think since the ’70s,” says Lowell Fair. He’s the Southeast regional supervisor for the commercial fisheries division of Alaska Department of Fish and Game. It was already clear from preliminary reports that last year’s salmon season was a rough one. But just how rough?

For sockeye, the harvest was the second lowest since 1962 — that’s just a couple of years after the Department of Fish & Game was formed and started collecting data.

King harvest was in the bottom five harvests since the early 1960s as well.

Coho and pink harvests came in stronger than kings and sockeye, but were still among the lowest years in recent memory, ranking 48th and 53rd since 1962, respectively.

Read the full story at KNBA

ALASKA: ADF&G Commissioner Addresses Disaster Relief, Cook Inlet Closure, Large Salmon Forecast for 2021

April 1, 2021 — Alaska’s Governor Mike Dunleavy has received 11 requests for fisheries disaster declarations, said Doug Vincent-Lange, Alaska’s Commissioner of Fish and Game, in an update at the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce’s ComFish Expo.

Noting the good news of over half of Alaska’s population now vaccinated, and shots now available for anyone over 16, Vincent-Lange said, “I don’t see why you wouldn’t all be able to fish this year.”

Read the full story at Seafood News

ALASKA: With Fishing Slowed By Pandemic, Bering Sea Crabbers Push For Extended Season

March 29, 2021 — A group of Bering Sea crabbers say the pandemic has slowed their fishing season, and they want more time to catch their quota before the state shuts down their season next week.

But the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has denied their request for an extension, citing low population numbers and an upcoming mating season.

For the few boats fishing bairdi crab this year, there could be a lot at stake if they don’t have time to catch their full quota.

“I’m thinking they don’t quite understand what we’re going through out here,” said Oystein Lone, captain of the 98-foot crab boat Pacific Sounder, which is based out of Dutch Harbor.

Until recently, Lone’s been fishing in the Bering Sea for snow crab, also known as opilio. But right now, he and his five-person crew have switched to fishing for a different type of crab called bairdi, which is also known as tanner crab.

Both bairdi and snow crab seasons open in October. But Lone recently switched to fishing for bairdi because that season is nearly over — even though as of Wednesday, only 46% of the total quota had been caught.

Read the full story at KUCB

Alaska’s salmon harvest for 2021 is projected to be a big one

March 17, 2021 — Alaska’s salmon harvest for 2021 is projected to be a big one, with total catches producing a haul that could be 61% higher than last year, due mostly to an expected surge of pinks.

Fishery managers are predicting a statewide catch topping 190 million fish compared to 118.3 million in 2020. The breakdown by species includes 46.6 million sockeye salmon (a 203,000 increase), 3.8 million cohos (1.4 million higher), 15.3 million chums (6.7 million more), 296,000 Chinook (up by 4,000) and 124.2 million pink salmon (a 63.5 million increase).

In its report Run Forecasts and Harvest Projections for 2021 Alaska Salmon Fisheries and Review of the 2020 Season, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game provides breakdowns for all species by region.

Along with the projected 49% increase in pink salmon catches, Bristol Bay will again rule the day with sockeye runs to the region’s nine river systems expected to exceed 51 million fish and a harvest of 36.35 million reds, 13% higher than the 10 year average.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Copper River Forecast Still Off from Historical Returns

March 15, 2021 — State research biologists expect the famed Copper River salmon fishery to rebound from what was nearly a lost season in 2020, but runs for the river’s high-value species are still expected to fall well short of historical averages.

Just more than 1.3 million sockeye are projected to return to the Copper River this year for a corresponding allowable commercial harvest of 672,000 fish, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game‘s 2021 Prince William Sound and Copper River Salmon Forecast.

Read the full story at Seafood News

ALASKA: Proposal for state buyback of Cook Inlet setnet permits advances in Legislature

March 12, 2021 — Legislation aimed at easing tensions and fishing pressure in one of the state’s most popular fisheries is already on the move this session after dying in the COVID-shortened session last year.

Without objection, the Senate Resources Committee advanced Sen. Peter Micciche’s Senate Bill 29 to the Finance Committee March 8; the bill authorizes the state to buy back nearly half of the upper Cook Inlet setnet permits on the Kenai Peninsula from any members.

Micciche, a Soldotna Republican who was also selected Senate President earlier this year, said during a March 3 Resources hearing that the plan for the state to voluntarily repurchase permits from East Side Cook Inlet setnetters was initially drafted by a group of sport anglers and commercial harvesters “who have struggled to work together for many years and now feel like they have a solution moving forward.”

Resources chair Sen. Josh Revak, R-Anchorage, noted that public testimony on SB 29 generated nearly 30 mentions of support, primarily from East Side setnetters, and no opposition, which was a contrast from prior attempts to move similar legislation.

“We’re finally at the end of our rope. Fishing families that have been fishing the East Side of Cook Inlet for generations are at the end of their rope,” Micciche said to the committee. “We want some of those fishing families to remain viable and give those that choose to be bought out an opportunity to move to other fisheries or to retrain for another line of work.”

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Feds approve $50m pandemic relief for Alaska’s fishing sector

February 26, 2021 — Alaska’s plan to pay out nearly $50 million to the fishing industry for pandemic relief has been approved by the federal government.

That’s after two major revisions and more than 200 public comments from every industry sector.

“It really was a balance between getting the funds out quickly and developing a spending plan with the input of affected fishery participants,” Alaska Department of Fish and Game Deputy Commissioner Rachel Baker told CoastAlaska.

Final details were released on Thursday. Commercial applicants will need to show that the COVID-19 pandemic caused them at least a 35% loss in revenue last year. Applications will be accepted during a two-month window that opens March 1. Payments could come as early as June.

Baker says a major change to the final plan now excludes commercial permit holders who live in other Pacific states like Washington and Oregon.

“Non-Alaska resident commercial harvesters who fish up here but live in a state that received a CARES Act allocation must apply to their state of residence,” she said. “They’re not eligible to apply to the state of Alaska for a funds.”

Read the full story at KFSK

Outlook poor for 2021 Copper River, Upper Cook Inlet sockeye runs in Alaska

February 3, 2021 — Sockeye salmon forecasts for both the Copper River and the Upper Cook Inlet came in well below historical averages for the upcoming season, a blow to fisheries already reeling from poor runs and pandemic-related losses last season.

For the Copper River, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) predicted a total run of nearly 1.3 million sockeye salmon. That number would be 37.4 percent short of the most recent 10-year average of around 2.1 million sockeye, and comes on the heels of a 2020 sockeye season where Copper River fishermen scarcely put their nets in the water.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Alaska scallopers manage with covid quarantines, but clams stay in the sand

February 3, 2021 — Alaska scallopers fished on a guideline harvest level of 277,500 pounds of shucked meat for the 2020-21 season. That’s up from the GHL of 271,300 pounds from the year before. Harvests, however, have been declining, and the 2019-20 landings of 224,765 pounds were the lowest since the 1993-94 season.

Scallops mature into the fishery at 4 years old, and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game conducts population surveys in rotating areas each year, according to Andrew Olson, an area management biologist, in Yakutat. Of the management areas lying in the waters offshore of Yakutat, Kodiak, the Alaska Peninsula, Dutch Harbor and Bristol Bay, the area near Yakutat has maintained the highest GHL in recent years. The GHL for the Yakutat in the 2020-21 season had been set at 145,000 pounds, shucked.

Like many other fisheries, covid caused some ripples in this year’s season, primarily with lining up observers for the two vessels that fish the scallops in a cooperative harvest agreement. As per federal regulations, the scallopers operate under 100 percent observer coverage. This year that meant quarantining the observers before they boarded. After that, the season went off without a hitch and fishing began.

Read the full story at National Fisherman