Saving Seafood

Past heat waves and low sea ice continued to impact Alaska’s waters in 2021

January 18, 2022 — The so-called blob that brought warm surface water temperatures to the Gulf of Alaska between 2014 and 2016 has passed.

But the effects of that blob, and a subsequent heat wave in 2019, are not all in the rearview mirror. And researchers are bracing for more as climate change brings with it more ocean warming.

“For an area like the Gulf of Alaska, definitely this is a topic we need to understand better,” said Bridget Ferriss, a research fish biologist with NOAA Fisheries. She edited this year’s Ecosystems Status Report for the Gulf of Alaska, used by federal managers to inform fisheries policy in Alaska.

Last year, researchers continued to track the impacts of recent heat waves on Alaska’s marine species.

Ferriss said a heat wave happens when the sea surface temperature on a given day is warmer than 90% of the temperatures on record for that same day, for five days in a row.

Read the full story at KTOO

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