July 21, 2021 — Alaska’s salmon harvest has continued to pick up steam, including the season’s largest weekly harvest.
A bump in pink salmon landings was driven by the Prince William Sound region, where pink hauls are up 21 percent over the pace set in 2019. In other regions of the state, harvests are currently well behind the 2019 pace for pinks, which typically produce big returns in alternating years. The harvest also tends to peak later in the summer.
July 21, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
In summer 2013, the number of juvenile Alaska pollock in the Gulf of Alaska was the largest on record by far. A year later, those fish were mostly gone.
A new NOAA Fisheries study explores what happened to the pollock born in 2013, focusing on the interaction between juvenile fish and their prey. Results suggest that a diet high in low-fat food may have kept fish from gaining the weight they needed to survive over winter.
“Our results point to poor diet as a contributing factor,” said NOAA Fisheries Alaska Fisheries Science Center biologist Jesse Lamb, who led the study with colleague David Kimmel. “But there is probably not just one answer. Cannibalism and wind-driven transport to inferior habitat likely also played a role. With that combination, the 2013 year class had the deck stacked against them.”
July 20, 2021 — Commercial net fishing for salmon in Southeast is off to a poor start in much of the region. Returns for most species are not meeting forecasts, which weren’t very high in the first place.
With some exceptions, it hasn’t been a very encouraging start to the salmon season.
“I guess for both net fisheries, gillnet and seine, we’re looking at poor chum salmon catches and poor sockeye catches and yet to be determined for pink salmon,” said Troy Thynes, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s management coordinator for commercial fisheries in the region.
By the middle of July, the region’s pink salmon catch neared 600,000 fish, still a far cry from the pre-season forecast of 28 million humpies, with the bulk of the season still to come. Thynes explained indicators have been mixed on whether returns later this summer will meet that, with some up and down fishing in southern Southeast near Ketchikan.
“There was some good pink catches that showed up in lower Clarence (Strait) a couple weeks ago, and then the pink catches kind of fell off,” he said. “And then they picked up again here this last opening in districts one and two. We are seeing a higher percent males than what we normally see this time of year, which is generally indicates that the run is coming in a little bit later than normal, and we have been seeing a low average weight on the pink salmon as well.”
Smaller sizes for individual fish can sometimes signal a larger overall return, and managers are hopeful the 28 million harvest forecast for the region is still a possibility. They’ll know more in the next few weeks, heading into what’s normally the peak of the pink season.
July 20, 2021 — Early prices to Alaska salmon fishermen are trickling in. As anticipated, they are up across the board. That will give a nice boost to the economic base of both fishing communities and the state from fish taxes, fees and other assessments.
About a third (62 million) of Alaska’s projected catch of 190 million salmon had crossed the docks by July 16 at the halfway point of the fishing season.
Prices paid to fishermen vary based on buyers, gear types and regions. And bonuses and post-season pay adjustments won’t be finalized until early next year.
Here’s an early snapshot of average base prices from major processors at this point in the season:
At Bristol Bay, the price to fishermen was boosted to $1.25 by OBI Seafoods, topping the $1.10 Peter Pan posted in June before the start of the fishery, and up from 70 cents last year.
Kodiak fishermen were getting $1.45-$1.50 for sockeyes and $1.75 at Southeast.
That compares to a statewide average of just $0.76 a pound for sockeye salmon last year. A 2021 catch of 46.6 million sockeyes was projected for Alaska; the total so far has topped 44 million.
July 20, 2021 — A resurgence of COVID-19 cases continues for a second week in Alaska with 456 new cases since Friday and an increase in the number of hospitalizations across the state.
But fishing communities that dot Alaska’s coastline are having very different experiences with keeping the virus at bay.
July 19, 2021 — The European green crab might be small, but it can destroy vital habitats for animals all along the food chain. It’s already costing New England shellfisheries million of dollars.
In July 2020, green crab were found in Haida Gwaii, the closest they’ve ever been to Alaska. With the help of volunteers, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game hopes to stay one step ahead of the invasive species.
At low tide at Sandy Beach in Petersburg, Sunny Rice and a group of volunteers walked toward a crab trap — on the lookout for European green crab.
Green crab are small but mighty, measuring around 3 or 4 inches wide. Their shells are a dark, greenish-brown shell with yellow spots, with five triangular points on either side of the eyes.
To check whether the crabs have made it this far north, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has asked volunteer groups to set up traps all over Southeast. Rice is with the Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program and wanted to get involved. She and a group of high school students with the Petersburg Indian Association’s natural resource management program set six traps at Sandy Beach and two at Hammer Slough.
July 16, 2021 — It’s catch as catch can in Alaska salmon fisheries with five of six species still lagging behind normal across the region. Bristol Bay and the rest of Southwest Alaska continue to be a bright spot for the second year running, but not across all species.
As of mid-July, 72 percent of the state’s projected sockeye harvest had been caught, while just 23 percent of the projected overall salmon harvest of 190 million fish has crossed the docks, according to McKinley Research Group’s weekly report for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.
Bristol Bay’s Nushagak District topped 1 million fish per day for seven consecutive days and edged the 2 million mark several times, and the boom harvest has since spread out to other rivers across the bay. The only damper on yet another year with strong sockeye returns is a smaller average fish size at 4.5 pounds, compared with 5.1 last year.
July 16, 2021 — Catches for Dungeness crab at Southeast Alaska are going slow so far for 163 boats, but prices of $4.20 a pound are more than double last year’s. The crab fishery will run through mid-August and reopen in October.
Kodiak crabbers were getting $4.25 for their Dungeness, also more than double.
Norton Sound opened for king crab on June 15 with a 290,000-pound catch limit. Concerns over the depleted stock resulted in no buyers and only one participant who is selling crab locally.
Prince William Sound’s pot shrimp fishery remains open until mid-September with a catch limit of 70,000 pounds. A lingcod fishery opened in the sound on July 1 for a catch of nearly 33,000 pounds.
Ling cod also opened at Cook Inlet with a 52,500-pound catch limit. The Inlet also opened July 1 for rockfish with a 150,000-pound harvest.
July 16, 2021 — This past year hasn’t been an easy one. The impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic are widespread, affecting the ability of Alaskans to support their families in the same way they did before. With tourism shut down in 2020 and fluctuations in the price of oil and the ever-mounting threat of climate change on our daily lives, it’s no wonder Alaskans are deeply concerned about the state’s economy. But here in 2021, we are in a better spot than we were a year ago, and there is light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. One component of the state’s economy has served as a consistent economic driver throughout last year’s trials and will continue to do so far into the future — Alaska’s salmon hatcheries.
Seafood, tourism, and oil & gas make up the three-legged stool of our economy, according to economic models. Our seafood sector has been able to thrive through the pandemic, thanks partly to the long-term and sustainable production of the salmon hatcheries established in Alaska in the 1970s. Across the state, the seafood industry employs almost 60,000 workers, nearly half of whom are Alaska residents, and it contributed more than $172 million in 2019 in raw fish taxes for state and local governments. The economic benefits generated by the seafood industry ripple across the state, and from Prince William Sound across Southcentral Alaska, raising incomes and lowering the cost of living in many communities, not to mention increasing food security. Harvests from Prince William Sound specifically make up more than half of the state’s ex-vessel value from hatchery-raised fish harvests — $69 million out of a total of $120 million. Our Alaska salmon hatcheries contribute 1 billion meals of nutritious Alaskan salmon to Alaska and the world annually.
Even those without direct ties to seafood can look to hatcheries as drivers of economic opportunity. A recent report by McKinley Research Group — formerly McDowell Group — highlights the impacts that hatcheries have on economic outcomes throughout Alaska. Each year, Alaska hatcheries account for roughly 4,700 jobs, $218 million in labor income, and a total of $600 million in economic output. In Prince William Sound alone, hatcheries generate roughly 2,200 jobs, $104 million in labor income, and a total economic output of $316 million each year. Hatcheries drive economic impacts far beyond direct labor and income by benefiting thousands of fishermen, processing employees, and hatchery workers, not to mention thousands more support sector workers, and even sportfish charter operators and guides, who likely rely on hatchery production for some portion of their income.
It’s hard to overstate the far-reaching impacts of Alaska’s hatcheries, especially when it comes to additional tax revenue. Hatcheries and the fish they produce generate local revenue through taxes on raw fish, property, and sales paid by commercial and charter fishermen, seafood processors, hatchery associations, and support sector businesses and employees. These tax revenues help Alaskan communities to survive in the challenging years and thrive in the good years across the state.
July 16, 2021 — The Biden administration announced sweeping protections for Alaska’s Tongass National Forest on Thursday, including an end to large-scale old-growth logging and a proposal to bar road development on more than 9 million acres.
The 16.7 million-acre forest — which once boasted major pulp mills but is now targeted for its fine-grain, centuries-old trees that are coveted for pricey musical instruments, expansive outdoor decks and elegant shingles — has been a political flash point for two decades. While Democrats have sought to scale back logging in the forest over time, the administration’s moves go further than any previous president’s efforts.