November 22, 2021 — The Alaska Symphony of Seafood announced its 2021 winners at Pacific Marine Expo on Friday, 19 November in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.
Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation Executive Director Julie Decker was on hand to announce all winners in the competition, which was created to encourage more product development in Alaska’s seafood sector.
Read the full story from National Fisherman at SeafoodSource
November 22, 2021 — Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s office recently announced that it’s setting up a task force to tackle the thorny issue of trawler bycatch.
Bycatch is what fishermen catch unintentionally — fish they aren’t targeting that get caught up in their nets, anyway. Federal bycatch data shows trawl fisheries in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska this year have caught tens of thousands of chinook salmon, millions of pounds of halibut and hundreds of thousands of crabs.
Meanwhile staple species like chinook salmon, red king crab and halibut have been on the decline, forcing subsistence, sport and commercial fishermen to pack up nets or reduce harvest.
“We’ve had a reduction in or closure of the crab fisheries in the Bering Sea. The [North Pacific Fishery Management] Council is discussing how to deal with halibut bycatch, and I think there’s a lot of perception that there are bycatch issues associated with what’s happened with salmon in Western Alaska systems,” said Alaska Fish & Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang.
November 19, 2021 — We’ve got the most sustainable fishery in the world,” said Michael Jackson, board president of the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association on Thursday in Seattle. “We didn’t do anything to earn that. But it’s there.”
Jackson spoke on behalf of the Alaska fishing organization for a Pacific Marine Expo panel discussing the future of Bristol Bay’s salmon fishery and the increasing hopes that locals, fishermen and other stakeholders may be able to put a wrap on threats from the proposed Pebble Mine.
News this week that the EPA put dates on the time line to reinstate Clean Water Act protections propelled the hopeful vibe at this standing Expo session, along with a robust projection for 71 million to 75 million salmon to return to the bay in 2022.
Read the full story at National Fisherman
November 15, 2021 — A trio of Alaskan fishermen has sued the National Marine Fisheries Service (NFMS)’s Assistant Administrator Janet Coit and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo for a recently announced rule change that will close commercial salmon fishing in the federal waters of Cook Inlet, as SeafoodNews covered on November 4.
The fishermen, Wes Humbyrd, Robert Wolfe and Dan Anderson, argue that the rule, which implemented Amendment 14 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Salmon Fisheries in the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska (Salmon FMP), was unconstitutional.
“This casually destructive rule must be vacated, however, because it violates the Constitution’s Appointments Clause and Take Care Clause. These “essential” structural provisions of the Constitution are accountability-preserving mechanisms,” the complaint from the fishermen wrote. “Their basic function is to ensure presidential control over the agents who exercise executive power on his behalf.
November 12, 2021 — Salmon fishermen are suing the Biden administration because an “unaccountable” federal fisheries board plans to shut down federal waters in Cook Inlet in Alaska, a move that will put them out of business.
The legal complaint in Humbyrd v. Raimondo was filed Nov. 9 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska. Longtime salmon fishermen Wes Humbyrd, Robert Wolfe, and Dan Anderson are suing Gina Raimondo in her official capacity as secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
A regulation known as Amendment 14 that was proposed by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, a body created under federal law, would permanently close the federal waters of Cook Inlet in Alaska to commercial salmon fishing. This federally controlled area spans 3 nautical miles to 200 nautical miles off Alaska and is referred to as the Cook Inlet Exclusive Economic Zone.
“In less than a month, the Rule will permanently close the commercial salmon fishery in Cook Inlet’s federal waters—not because the fishery is overfished or for any other conservation or environmental reason, but simply because the government finds it too bothersome to coordinate with the State of Alaska in managing the fishery,” the legal complaint states.
Read the full story at The Epoch Times
November 10, 2021 — Juneau, Alaska (KINY) Seafood harvesting jobs in Alaska were down last year.
State Labor Economist Joshua Warren wrote about that in the November edition of Alaska Economic Trends.
He reported that there was a 14.1 percent drop, the largest decline since they created the job estimates in 2000.
Employment decreased from a monthly average of 7, 653 in 2019 to 6,575 in 2020.
November 9, 2021 — Alaska’s 2021 salmon fishery produced the third highest catch, fish poundage and value on record, dating back to 1975.
According to preliminary harvests and values by region from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the catch of nearly 234 million salmon had a dockside value of almost $644 million, and weighed in at 858.5 million pounds.
That compares to 117 million salmon harvested in 2020 valued at just over $295 million and a combined weight of 517.5 million pounds.
All Alaska regions saw salmon earnings double or nearly triple from last year, except for the Kuskokwim, Yukon and Kotzebue, where values decreased.
November 8, 2021 — The southern resident killer whale population, three pods of orcas that ply the coastal waters between Monterey, California, and Vancouver Island, British Columbia, has dwindled to only 73 members. Scientists believe this endangered species, which relies almost exclusively on Chinook — or king — salmon, which are also in steep decline, is basically starving its way to extinction.
This past September, however, the U.S. District Court in Seattle seemed to offer the marine mammals a lifeline when it issued a preliminary decision that might make more Chinook available to orcas. Responding to a lawsuit filed by the Wild Fish Conservancy, the court found that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the agency responsible for management of both fisheries and endangered marine species, had violated the Endangered Species Act when it determined that commercial harvest of Chinook off southeast Alaska would not jeopardize southern residents or endangered king salmon populations.
But while the court decision is expected to help orcas, it may be bad news for fishermen, as NMFS will likely need to rethink Chinook harvests.
Read the full story at FERN News
November 8, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
Navigating the aquaculture leasing and permitting process in Alaska is a barrier to development. To reduce this barrier to sustainable aquaculture growth, we have produced a new permitting portal and guidance document to aid prospective and established farmers.
These processing barriers were identified by both the Alaska Mariculture Task Force and the NOAA Fisheries Alaska Mariculture Workshop Summary Report.
The mariculture industry in Alaska has great economic potential, and the Governor’s Mariculture Task Force set a goal of growing it into a $100 million industry in 20 years. However, one hindrance included the complex leasing and permitting process. The Task Force noted that farmers are required to file multiple permits with at least four different state and federal agencies—sometimes more, depending on the project. This results in a confusing and time-consuming process.
Read more.
Questions?
Contact Julie Fair, Public Affairs Officer.
November 5, 2021 — A crash in crab populations in the U.S. state of Alaska is being partially blamed on a mortality event scientists cannot fully explain.
A catastrophic drop in Alaska’s snow crab population led the state to set a much lower quota for the upcoming season. Along with a significant drop to the Bering Sea bairdi crab quota and the closure of the winter Bristol Bay red king crab fishery, Alaska’s overall crab fishery could lose up to USD 100 million (EUR 86.5 million) or more in value in the 2021-2022 season, according to the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers.
Read the full story at SeafoodSource