Saving Seafood

Texas captain dies after F/V Pneuma capsizes in Alaska’s Bristol Bay

July 7, 2021 — Record-breaking salmon hauls in Bristol Bay were met with tragedy on July 1, when the captain of the F/V Pneuma died after the gillnetter capsized in the Nushagak District fishery, sending the whole crew overboard.

Lance Eric Norby, 45, of Texas, was identified as the captain, according to the Alaska State Troopers.

“Pneuma was stuck on a sandbar when a large wave knocked the entire crew overboard. The F/V Fortress, and tenders Provider and Last Frontier responded to the call,” said OBI Seafoods in a statement released over the weekend.

The Alaska Wildlife Troopers reported that they received a call just before 6 a.m. on July 1 that a commercial fishing boat was taking on water on the South end of Nushagak Bay. All three crew members went into the water, and two troopers patrolling the area in a skiff immediately responded. They were able to pull one of the survivors to safety aboard the skiff. The good Samaritan commercial fishing boats pulled the other deckhand and Norby from the water.

“Poor weather combined with an uneven fish load is likely what caused the vessel to capsize,” said Austin McDaniel spokesman for the troopers, based on the agency’s preliminary investigation.

A Coast Guard rescue swimmer assisted with initial medical care for the crew. Despite extensive life-saving efforts, the captain was declared deceased by Coast Guard personnel at about 9:40 a.m.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

UAA researchers present link between commercial fishing and local economies

July 7, 2021 — The following was released by the University of Alaska Anchorage:

Fishing season is back! Commercially, fishing constitutes considerable economic activity in Alaska, generating thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in value. However, despite the industry’s size, mostly anecdotal evidence is available about how commercial fishing activity benefits residents of coastal communities compared to those who travel from the Lower 48 or internationally to participate in the season.

Brett Watson, Ph.D. and researcher for UAA’s Institute of Social and Economic Research, along with UAA economics professors Mouhcine Guettabi, Ph.D. and Matthew Reimer, Ph.D., as well as National Marine Fisheries Service economist Alan Haynie, Ph.D., developed a statistical model to bridge this gap: “Commercial Fisheries and Local Economies,” published in the January 2021 issue of the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.

“If you go to Seward, Homer or Bristol Bay, you can see the fishing happening. But seeing activity doesn’t mean the benefits are going to stay in that place,” said Watson. “In the paper we cite that if you drive through rural Texas or rural North Dakota, you can see oil rigs for miles and miles. But the ones getting the checks live in Houston, Oklahoma City, New York or LA.”

Read the full release here

Alaska pollock: Alaska product now 86 percent of U.S. consumption

July 6, 2021 — The Bering Sea TAC for pollock has been ratcheted back to 1.375 million metric tons — that’s down from last year’s 1.425 million and close to what it was set at in 2019. In the Aleutian Islands harvest area, the quota has been set at 19,000 metric tons, unchanged from last year. For the Gulf of Alaska waters, the TAC fell from the 115,930 metric tons to 113,227 metric tons for 2021.

In May, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the purchase of $159.4 million in domestic seafood and agricultural products. Of that, seafood will account for $70.9 million. Alaska pollock products have always been high on the list of purchases by the USDA for school lunch and other institutional food programs, and pollock contracts in 2021 will tally up to $20 million.

Also in May, data released by the National Fisheries Institute indicated that pollock pulled ahead of tilapia to rank fourth place in domestic seafood consumption. Though shrimp, salmon and canned tuna continue to rank above pollock, NFI noted that consumption of pollock products increased by a quarter pound per capita from 2018 to 2019. Meanwhile, the NFI research conducted for the Seattle-based Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers found that wild Alaska pollock products comprised 86 percent of that national increase from 2018 to 2019.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

ALASKA: 2019 Norton Sound crab fishery gets disaster status

July 6, 2021 — The 2019 Norton Sound red king crab fishery has been determined by Commerce Secretary Gina M. Raimondo to qualify for disaster status.

Positive determinations make this and other fisheries eligible for disaster assistance from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They may also qualify for disaster assistance from the Small Business Administration.

Raimondo worked with NOAA Fisheries to evaluate the fishery in the Nome area. A declared fishery disaster must meet specific requirements under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act or the Interjurisdictional Fisheries Act. For example, there must be commercial fishery economic impacts and declines in fishery access or biomass resulting from specific allowable causes due to the fishery disaster event.

Read the full story at The Cordova Times

ALASKA: Dungeness catch down from 2020 but price is up

July 6, 2021 — Commercial Dungeness crabbers will have a full two-month summer and two-month fall season in most of the region, based on the first week’s catch.

The 2021 Southeast season isn’t off to as strong a start as last year. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game reports the preliminary catch estimate from the first week is around 711,000 pounds, landed by 163 permit holders. Those numbers are expected to increase as more landings are reported. Nevertheless, that’s under half of the bumper crop harvested in 2020. Last year saw a first-week catch of around 1.5 million pounds and the full season harvest went on to be the second highest on record, 6.7 million pounds.

Based on that first week catch, Fish and Game estimates this year’s total catch will wind up around 3.4 million pounds. That’s well above the threshold to allow a full season. Fishing time’s been shortened only a few times in the past two decades, because of a weak catch or poor quality crab.

Read the full story at KFSK

Authorities identify man who died after fishing boat sinks in Nushagak

July 6, 2021 — A commercial fisherman has died after a vessel sank in the south end of Nushagak Bay on Thursday morning with three people on board.

Authorities on Friday identified the deceased as Lance Eric Norby, 45, of Arlington, Texas. He captained the F/V Pneuma. Norby’s next of kin has been notified.

Alaska State Troopers report receiving a call around 5 a.m. Thursday morning that a commercial vessel was taking on water. Two wildlife troopers responded immediately. Before they got there, they heard reports that the three people on board were in the water.

Authorities credit Good Samaritans on the scene with helping in the rescue. Among those was skipper Caleb Mikkelsen, who said his crew was getting ready for an opener when he got a call from a friend that there was a vessel in distress on the VHF radio.

“We could hear that there were two boats and a skiff trying to help this vessel that was sinking out on those Snake River flats there,” he said.

The people at the scene said they still needed help. So Mikkelsen piloted his boat, the F/V Fortress, about seven miles to help.

Read the full story at KDLG

Investigation into Scandies Rose sinking points to faulty stability instructions

July 2, 2021 — The National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation into the Scandies Rose sinking has found no fault with the captain or crew but pointed to inaccurate vessel stability instructions that could have led to dangerous ice accumulation.

Included in the NTSB report, which was released on Tuesday, were a series of findings voted on and accepted by the board. Among them was the finding that there were no issues with the conduct of captain or crew or problems with the vessel itself. The hearing looked closely at a series of welds made on the Scandies Rose, but the NTSB found they did not contribute to the sinking, either.

The NTSB also found that the ice accumulation on the F/V Scandies Rose likely would have been between 6 and 15 inches on the wind-facing side. This would have raised the boat’s center of gravity and lowered its stability, contributing to the capsizing.

Read the full story at KTOO

Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute to receive millions in CARES Act funding

July 1, 2021 — The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI) will receive USD 3 million (EUR 2.5 million) in CARES Act funding to help cover additional costs precipitated by COVID-19, money that should help the organization rework pandemic-era marketing strategies.

Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy recently announced the allocation to ASMI, Alaska’s largest marketing association for seafood.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ALASKA: More of the same a good thing as Bristol Bay gets underway

June 30, 2021 — Early indicators are pointing to yet another strong year in the massive Bristol Bay sockeye fishery, which is contrasted against the continued struggles in many of the state’s other large salmon fisheries.

Just more than 3.2 million sockeye had been harvested through June 27, according to Alaska Department of Fish and Game figures, with the Nushagak District accounting for more than half of the catch so far at nearly 1.7 million fish. The 3.2 million-fish harvest to-date this year is between the comparable totals for recent years; 1.2 million sockeye were harvested through June 27 last year, while more than 4.4 million were caught by the same day in 2019.

With sockeye harvests of more than 40 million fish and total runs greater than 56 million sockeye, both of the last two years have been among the most productive in the history of the Bristol Bay fishery.

Dillingham Area Management Biologist Tim Sands said early June 29 that he’s confident there are a lot of fish still making their way to the head of Bristol Bay based on catches in the Port Moller test fishery.

He noted that returns to the Egegik River down the Alaska Peninsula have been particularly strong, with a harvest of more than 1.2 million fish and a total return estimated at more than 1.7 million sockeye through June 27, several-fold more than last year in each category.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

The Future of Ocean Farming

June 29, 2021 — Called regenerative ocean farming, this model involves growing shellfish and kelp in underwater gardens.

For all his life, Alaskan fisherman Dune Lankard has looked to the sea—for food, work and purpose. “I started fishing when I was five,” says Lankard, a member of the Athabaskan Eyak community, an Indigenous group from the Copper River Delta. “I really don’t have any skills beyond the ocean.”

Born in 1959, the same year Alaska became a state, Lankard has witnessed various natural and man-made disasters—including the commoditization of Indigenous peoples’ traditional fishing way of life—that have disrupted his industry and homeland. “As an Indigenous fisherman, I’ve seen it all,” he says.

In 1964, a massive magnitude 9.2 earthquake, fittingly called the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964, triggered a swell of tsunamis that killed more than 130 people and devastated fisheries. Exactly 25 years later, an Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck Bligh Reef in the Prince William Sound, spewing 10.8 million gallons of crude oil into the sea. The spill affected 1,300 miles of water and coastline, much of which is still considered to be in recovery.

Now, Alaskan fishermen are facing another urgent problem. Alaska is already feeling the effects of climate change, as the warming oceans have wreaked havoc on ecosystems of krill, wild kelp forests, salmon and birds. That’s all on top of the lingering losses caused by the 1989 oil spill. Before the Exxon spill, the Sound’s spring run of herring totalled more than 200,000 tons returning home. Today, there are only 4,000 tons returning annually. Lankard recently sold his fishing permit after several consecutive bad seasons.

To help mitigate the effects of warming waters, Lankard is now embracing an approach known as regenerative ocean farming, which involves growing seaweed and shellfish in small underwater gardens. Once a commercial fisherman, Lankard now mostly farms kelp.

“Alaska has always been based on extraction. We’re a natural resource extraction state,” says Lankard. “What regenerative ocean farming does is create a new regenerative economy that’s based on conservation, restoration and mitigation, as opposed to more extraction of resources.”

The burgeoning concept of regenerative ocean farming was developed and named by Bren Smith, a Canadian commercial fisherman turned ocean farmer. He believes ocean farming is the new farming model of the future.

Read the full story at Modern Farmer