Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Alaska’s 2025 salmon forecast more than doubles last year

May 14, 2025 — An early advance from fishery managers shows that Alaska’s 2025 salmon season could be a doozy.

A full report on the 2025 salmon fishery and an overview of the 2024 season should be released any day, but draft projections by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) reveal big increases for all but Chinook salmon.

If the numbers hold true, a statewide salmon catch of nearly 215 million salmon would more than double a 2024 harvest that barely topped 101 million fish.

Here’s the projected harvest breakdown by species with comparisons to the 2024 season.

For sockeye salmon, the forecast calls for a catch of nearly 53 million fish, compared to just over 42 million last year.

For pinks, a huge boost to more than 138 million should hit Alaska fishermen’s nets this summer. In 2024, the pink salmon catch barely topped 40 million fish.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Salmon and lobster in harmony

March 31, 2025 — There is quite a pile of evidence at this point that wild lobster populations have historically co-existed very nicely with salmon farming, but new chapters of this story continue to be written. 

Just recently, in November 2024, a lawsuit was filed by a U.S.-based environmental group Conservation Law Foundation against Cooke Aquaculture, contending that its salmon farming sites off the Maine coast involve dischargement of “pollutants such as fish feces, dead fish and trash.” 

Sebastian Belle, executive director of the Maine Aquaculture Association, has stated publicly that the lawsuit was a surprise as this group has worked with salmon farmers to develop environmental standards. He did not respond to a request for further comment, but Joel Richardson, vice-president of Public Relations at Cooke, says it’s irresponsible for this group or anyone else to claim that modern marine finfish aquaculture harms lobsters.

“It is simply not true,” says Richardson. “Salmon aquaculture and the lobster fishery have co-existed in Atlantic Canada and Maine waters for more than 40 years under the existing environmental compliance criteria. Cooke’s Atlantic Canadian and Maine salmon farms are routinely inspected by government regulators and subject to regular monitoring reports. Lobster landings are not negatively affected by Atlantic salmon farms. In fact, lobster fishers are welcome to set lobster gear alongside and within aquaculture lease boundaries and they tell us they have success in every location where we operate. We support wild fisheries harvesters and their families 100 percent. We all need strong working waterfronts in our rural coastal communities.” 

Read the full article at Aquaculture North America

ALASKA: AK 2024 salmon hatchery catches & values plummet

March 26, 2025 — Alaska’s 2024 salmon fishery saw double-digit declines in both catch and value, and the hits also hurt the state’s vital hatchery program.

Alaska produced a total catch of just over 101 million salmon last year, a 56 percent decrease from the more than 232 million fish caught in 2023. Fishermen’s paydays also took a beating with the total salmon value at $304 million, down from $398 million the previous year.

In all, Alaska’s 2024 salmon fishery was the lowest on record for fish poundage (450 million pounds), and the third lowest in value to fishermen since 1975.

Alaska salmon that begin their lives in hatcheries and are released to the sea as fingerlings, return home as adults and typically make up about 30 percent of both the state’s total statewide production and value. The 2024 season was no exception, but the hatchery output was the 16th lowest since 1977.

Approximately 30.2 million hatchery-produced salmon were caught in Alaska’s commercial fisheries last year, valued at nearly $77 million at the docks. That compares to 80.4 million fish taken in 2023 with a dockside value of $131 million, drops by almost 63 percent and 40 percent, respectively.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: State seeks fishery resource disaster determination for Prince William Sound salmon

March 6, 2025 — State officials are seeking millions of dollars in financial relief funds for six salmon fisheries disasters in 2024, including one in Prince William Sound.

In his letter of Jan. 28 to Acting Commerce Secretary Jeremy Pelter, Gov. Mike Dunleavy noted that there was an unexpectedly large decrease in the harvest of pink and chum salmon in 2024 in the Prince William Sound salmon fisheries.

The harvests of 9.95 million pink salmon and 1.70 million chum salmon were below the recent five-year averages by 75% and 57% respectively.

Preliminary data estimates the financial value of the 2024 Prince William Sound pink and chum salmon fisheries were also below the recent five-year average – 78% to 88% respectively – and that estimated losses totaled more than $85 million.

The federal government has already acknowledged the request for funding for the Kotzebue area and more acknowledgements are anticipated for requests for Prince William Sound pink and chum fisheries, Lower Cook Inlet pink salmon, Kodiak pink salmon, and Alaska Peninsula sockeye and South Peninsula pinks.

Read the full article at The Cordova Times

ALASKA: Alaska governor proposes lifting state’s longtime ban on fish farms

February 24, 2025 — Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Friday introduced a bill that would partially reverse Alaska’s 35-year-old ban on fish farms. House Bill 111 was referred to the House Fisheries Committee for consideration.

If signed into law, HB 111 wouldn’t allow salmon farming, but it would allow the farming of “any bony fish belonging to the osteichthyes class.”

That includes things like tilapia, catfish or carp — the world’s most widely farmed fish. Any farmed fish would have to be sterile, unable to reproduce if they escape into the wild. They would also have to be contained by an escape-proof barrier.

Fish farms would be subject to regulation by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and subject to oversight by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.

Alaska already has a significant and growing number of shellfish farms.

Read the full article at the Alaska Beacon

ALASKA: ‘Mining and salmon have never gotten along’: Alaskan tribes don’t want B.C. gold mine

December 20, 2024 — Southeast Alaskan tribal groups are decrying a proposed mine in northwestern British Columbia, arguing it will have disastrous environmental repercussions for the Taku River watershed.

Vancouver-based Canagold Resources Ltd., is proposing to develop the New Polaris gold mine, an underground gold mine located 100 kilometres south of Atlin, B.C. and 60 kilometres northeast of Juneau, Alaska.

The remote, fly-in mine would produce around 1,000 tonnes of ore per day.

“The people of the Taku have subsisted, survived and stewarded the Taku River watershed for thousands of years,” said Jill Weitz, government affairs liaison for the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.

“It’s such a magical place that to even think about activity like that, for those of us downstream, it’s kind of mind boggling,” she said.

The Taku River, as well as the Stikine and Unuk rivers, flow from northwestern B.C. to southeastern Alaska.

The rivers are home to all five species of wild Alaska salmon, brown bears, moose and other wildlife and fish species.

Read the full article at Yahoo! News

ALASKA: Copper River fishing kicks off salmon season marked by fewer buyers and more uncertainty

June 28, 2024 — Justin Johnson surveyed his nets and the large net reel of his bowpicker the F/V White Night at the Cordova Harbor in early June, as he prepared for the next day’s opener.

“So a 20 pound king is a $300 fish or better, so you definitely don’t want to see it splash out of the net,” he said, gesturing to the dip net on hand to snap up the coveted Copper River king salmon.

The Copper River fishing season started on May 15, and marks the first salmon run of the year with the highest prices in the state, especially for kings. The Alaska commercial fishing season has been through an economic tailspin over the last year. Fishing crews grappled with historically low prices, and processors sold and closed down plants over the winter. The Prince William Sound fishery is one of the most productive in the state, but fishing crews are also feeling the pressure.

Back at the Cordova harbor, lifelong commercial fisherman Nick Nebesky took a break from boat engine repairs to share his concerns with market prices.

“It was rough. I’ve spent all winter redoing my finances, accounting everything, to try to get myself back where I need to be,” he said. “And it seems like this year could possibly make that happen. But last year was awful, it was a terrible price. There was good fish – the fish were beautiful, the fish were healthy, and I see them in the grocery stores. Seems like they’re the same price in the grocery stores, but we did not get paid as much.”

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Many Southeast Alaska salmon runs expected to be fairly good this year

June 27, 2024 — As commercial salmon fishing gets under way in Southeast Alaska, projections for salmon returns are up. Troy Thynes is the regional finfish coordinator for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. He said as with any forecast, this one is only good until the fish start returning.

“Last year, with that 19 million forecast in the poor category, we ended up with a harvest of around 48 million pink salmon. So needless to say the forecast was a little off,” he said.

The purse seine fishery brings in the largest salmon harvest in the region because it’s primarily a pink and chum salmon fishery. Pinks are the most numerous salmon species in Southeast. The pre-season forecast is for 19.2 million fish. That’s just a little above last year’s harvest estimate of 19 million, but well under half of the actual harvest of 48 million fish.

Thynes said the seine pink salmon harvest probably could have been even higher last year, but market conditions got in the way. Processors dropped pink and chum salmon prices, and then quit buying early, saying the global salmon market was flooded.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: As salmon season kicks off, some Alaska fishermen fear for their futures

June 26, 2024 — On a brilliant spring morning, Buck Laukitis, a longtime fisherman from this Kenai Peninsula town, stood at the city dock watching his catch come ashore.

Crew members aboard Laukitis’ boat, the Oracle, filled bags with dozens of halibut — some of the fatter ones worth $200 or more — which a crane would lift up to the dock. There, processing workers on a small slime line weighed the fish, tossed crushed ice into the gills and slid them into boxes for shipment to Canada.

Harvest, unload, sell, repeat — exactly how the iconic Alaska commercial fishing industry is supposed to work. Until you ask Laukitis about the Oracle’s sister vessel, the Halcyon.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

Silver Bay Seafoods acquires Alaska salmon plant from Trident Seafoods

June 13, 2024 — US-based company Silver Bay Seafoods has bought an Alaskan processing facility from local peer Trident Seafoods.

The plant, located in False Pass, is dedicated to processing salmon. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The facility is located close to Silver Bay Seafoods’ own processing plant in False Pass, which opened in 2019.

Silver Bay Seafoods, which is owned by 600 fishermen, is a processor of frozen salmon, herring, whitefish and squid products for the US and for export markets.

Read the full article at Yahoo News!