Saving Seafood

Alaska seafood brings $5.7 billion to local economies

January 14, 2022 — Alaska’s seafood industry directly employs more workers than any other private sector industry in the state, according to a new report released this week.

The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute released an updated “Economic Value of Alaska’s Seafood Industry Report,” compiled by McKinley Research. The research documents that the seafood industry employs 62,200 workers annually, statewide, and contributes $5.7 billion to Alaska’s economy.

Of that total, 31,000 jobs worth $1.01 billion were in commercial fisheries, including 8,900 fishing vessels and 52 catcher-processors.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Dunleavy administration enters court fight alongside feds to keep Cook Inlet fishing grounds closed

January 13, 2022 — Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration will be fighting in court to keep much of Cook Inlet closed to commercial salmon fishing after a federal judge approved the state’s request to intervene in a lawsuit over the fishery.

U.S. District Court of Alaska Judge Josh Kindred granted the state’s motion Jan. 6 to join the National Marine Fisheries Service as a defendant in suits filed last fall by the United Cook Inlet Drift Association and individual fishermen in an attempt to force the agency to reopen the federal waters of central Cook Inlet to salmon fishing this coming season.

Often referred to as the EEZ — an abbreviation for its formal name, the exclusive, economic zone — the area currently closed by federal regulations this year covers all of the waters beyond 3 miles offshore in central Cook Inlet. Fishing would still be allowed in state waters up to the 3-mile line.

Intervening in the consolidated lawsuits also puts the state in the odd legal circumstance of arguing alongside the federal government in court to prevent what Dunleavy administration officials insist would be a gross example of federal overreach.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

 

Glaciers’ retreat could open new Alaska salmon habitat

January 12, 2022 — Melting glaciers in Alaska and British Columbia could open up new stream habitat for Pacific salmon – conceivably almost equal to the length of the Mississippi River by 2100, under one scenario of “moderate” climate change.

But on balance a warming climate will continue to take its toll on salmon populations on the U.S. Pacific coast.

Researchers from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia and the NMFS Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, Wash., published their findings from modeling glacier retreat in the journal Nature Communications, looking at how new salmon spawning streams might appear as ice melts, bedrock gets exposed and new streams thread over the exposed landscape.

“We predict that most of the emerging salmon habitat will occur in Alaska and the transboundary region, at the British Columbia – Alaska border, where large coastal glaciers still exist,” lead author professor Kara Pitman of Simon Fraser University says in a NMFS summary of the findings.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

After 33 years, Fish Radio’s Laine Welch hangs up her mic

January 11, 2022 — If you listen to radio in Alaska, or if you’re involved in the fishing industry, you’ll probably recognize the voice of Laine Welch.

“When I came here, I had never even seen a salmon,” she said. “My life was cod fish and haddock and lobsters.”

Welch served as host of Alaska Fish Radio for more than three decades, bringing news and perspectives on the fishing industry to listeners around the state.

Now, at age 72, she’s hanging up the mic.

“I have a lot of mixed feelings,” she said. “I really feel like the time is right. I mean, radio is my passion. And I think radio rules in Alaska, because of its remoteness. I have to admit that once I hit 70, I really got tired of the daily deadlines. But when I originally had decided to get out of everything, the writing and the radio, I really had some difficulty accepting that, because I still love what I do. I still learn something new every day.”

Read the full story at KTOO

ALASKA: Gov. Dunleavy announces members of new fisheries bycatch task force

January 10, 2022 — Gov. Mike Dunleavy has named 11 people to a new task force set to study fish bycatch happening in Alaska waters.

In November, Dunleavy issued an administrative order to establish the Alaska Bycatch Review Task Force, with the aim of “exploring the issue of bycatch and providing recommendations to policymakers with the goal of improving the health and sustainability of Alaska’s fisheries.”

Bycatch is the incidental harvest of fish like salmon and halibut by commercial operators that cannot be processed or sold. The practice remains a target of criticism by subsistence and personal-use fishermen, particularly at a time when stocks of a number of species are collapsing around Alaska.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Off Washington state’s coast, crabbers get early start to season, haul in bounty of Dungeness crab

January 6, 2022 — Some 60 vessels in Washington’s oceangoing crab fleet worked through a stormy December to bring in more than 4.69 million pounds of Dungeness in a strong start to the annual harvest.

For fishers, processors and retailers, this is a welcome change from the past six years when the season hasn’t started until Dec. 31 or later due to the lack of meat in the crabs or the presence of domoic acid, a marine biotoxin.

The Dungeness crab, as well as shrimp and razor clams, have benefited from improved ocean conditions of the Northwest coasts with strong cold-water upwellings of the past year bringing nutrients and helping to strengthen the base of the marine food web.

Read the full story at The Seattle Times

 

NMFS Revises TAC Amounts For Gulf of Alaska Pollock, Pacific Cod

January 6, 2022 — The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) revised the 2022 total allowable catch (TAC) amounts for pollock and Pacific cod in the Gulf of Alaska. The changes, which increases the pollock TAC and decreases the Pacific cod TAC, were put into effect at 12 noon Alaska local time on January 1, 2022.

According to NMFS, the pollock TAC will increase from 99,784 metric tons (mt) to 141, 117 mt. The TAC for Pacific cod decreased from 27,961 mt to 24,111 mt.

Read the full story at Seafood News

ALASKA: Fisheries board member steps down, citing workload and bout with COVID

January 5, 2022 — Indy Walton of Soldotna has resigned from his seat on the state Board of Fisheries, the seven-member board that makes decisions about fish allocation and management in Alaska’s waters.

Walton said he’s dealing with a confluence of health issues that have been exacerbated by stress and a bout of COVID-19. While he thought he could balance those issues when he accepted Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s nomination in September, he said he has since had to reconsider.

“I hoped when I accepted the position that things would be different and change as far as my schedule, and I didn’t realize some of the health issues that I was being faced with until doing some tests,” he said. “And I know now I’ve got to alleviate some of the stress and lighten my load a little bit.”

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Best and Worst in Alaska Seafood: Laine Welch’s Picks and Pans for 2021

January 5, 2022 — Since 1991, the weekly Fish Factor column has highlighted Alaska’s seafood industry with its annual Picks and Pans — a no holds barred look back at some of the year’s best and worst, and my choice for the year’s biggest fish story.

Here are the choices for 2021, in no particular order:

Most business potential — Seaweed mariculture. The market value of U.S. seaweed is pegged at $41 billion by 2031. Driving the demand is increased use in pharmaceuticals, health supplements, as a natural thickening agent and in animal feeds.

Best fish invention — Lightweight, collapsible slinky pots for catching black cod that solve the problem of whales stripping as much as 75 percent of the pricey fish from longline hooks.

Biggest fish booster — The pandemic continues to push record sales of all seafood with no end in sight. Pre-covid, most Americans only ate fish and shellfish at restaurants. Now they are buying seafood to cook at home. Online sales also have soared and are expected to grow.

Best fish fighters — Reps. Sarah Vance of Homer, Kevin McCabe of Big Lake, Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins of Sitka. They’ve put partisan politics aside to protect Alaska’s fishery resources.

Best fish knowledge builders — Alaska Sea Grant

Read the full story at National Fisherman

New NOAA reports on Alaska’s oceans highlight disruptive warming trends

December 27, 2021 — The annual Ecosystem Status Reports from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration collect a wide range of data to better assess maritime trends and help steer fisheries management.

Elizabeth Siddon, who edited a report on the eastern Bering Sea, called the annual documents “anthologies of the ecosystems as we know them” — collaborative efforts pulling information from scientists, community members and industry groups, among others. The reports released this week also cover the Gulf of Alaska and Aleutian Islands.

If there’s any theme in this year’s detailed surveys of Alaska’s marine systems, it’s heat. The three areas assessed all involve “sustained warm conditions” that are affecting environment dynamics like sea ice and water columns, as well as the composition of animal stocks thriving and failing in recent years. The assessments factor into harvest policies set by the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council and touch any Alaskans who depend on sea animals, whether for work or food.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News