Saving Seafood

Alaska crab shells displacing man-made chemicals

July 28, 2021 — Most people are unaware that the yarns and fabrics that make up our carpets, clothing, car seats, mattresses, even mop heads, are coated with chemicals and metals such as copper, silver and aluminum that act as fire retardants, odor preventers, antifungals and anti-microbials.

Now, crab shells from Alaska are providing the same safeguards in a bio-friendly way.

The metals and chemicals are being replaced by all-natural Tidal-Tex liquid treatments derived from chitosan molecules found in the exoskeletons of crab shells.

The bio-shift stems from a partnership between Leigh Fibers of South Carolina and Tidal Vision, the proprietary maker of the crab-based product that it began making in a 20-foot Conex van in Juneau six years ago. The company, which now operates near Seattle and has 22 full-time employees in three production facilities, expects to put up to 60 people to work within two years.

In July, Tidal Vision opened its newest facility within Leigh Fibers’ headquarters, bringing its earth-friendly technology into the heart of the U.S. textile industry. Leigh Fibers is one of North America’s largest textile waste and byproduct reprocessing businesses that dates back to 1866 and now services 25 countries.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

NOAA’s first tribal research coordinator aims to build partnerships with Alaska’s Indigenous communities

July 27, 2021 — For the first time, the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has a tribal research coordinator.

Mabel Baldwin-Schaeffer was born and raised in Kiana, a small Iñupiaq village on the Kobuk River in Northwest Alaska. She said she’ll bring that perspective with her as the first tribal coordinator for the Alaska Fisheries Science Center’s communications program.

“Near and dear to my heart has always been to improve local participation and to engage rural communities and research development,” she said. “I am most excited to work with elders and local people in the community.”

NOAA is a key federal leader of environmental research. Those involved say the new position is a step toward better representation for Alaska’s Indigenous communities.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

US House bill would add tribal seats to North Pacific Fisheries Management Council

July 27, 2021 — A key Democrat in the U.S. House introduced a bill Monday to renew the Magnuson Stevens Act. Magnuson Stevens is the primary law that covers fishing in federal waters. Past bills have languished in Congress, in part because many in the industry were generally happy with the law as it is.

But Jared Huffman, D-Calif., included a few provisions in his bill that certain Alaska groups have been requesting for a long time. Huffman chairs the Oceans subcommittee of the House Resources Committee.

The bill emphasizes the need to consider the impacts of climate change on marine resources. It would, for the first time, recognize the importance of subsistence fishing. It would also put two tribal representatives on the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council — the committee responsible for fisheries in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation Aims To Expand Mariculture In The Aleutians

July 27, 2021 — Representatives from the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation visited Unalaska last week as part of its push to expand the state’s mariculture industry.

Gov. Bill Walker created the Alaska Mariculture Task Force in 2016. Since then, the organization has been focused on developing the state’s mariculture industry to meet its long-term goal of $100 million by 2038.

Mariculture refers specifically to farming and enhancing shellfish and seaweeds, and does not include farming finfish like salmon, which is illegal in Alaska. The state’s mariculture industry was valued at approximately $1 million in 2018.

Julie Decker, executive director of the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, sees opportunities in the shorelines and beaches of the Aleutian coast.

“You have lots of water, so you have lots of space. Relatively little population which means relatively little conflict,” Decker said. “The people that do live here are used to working on the water. There’s North America’s largest processing port. These are some pretty significant assets.”

Read the full story at KUCB

ALASKA: Federal fisheries officials raise concern over Kensington Mine expansion

July 27, 2021 — Coeur Alaska reported its Kensington Mine produced around 125,000 ounces of gold in 2020. And its most recent report suggests it’s on track for a similar yield this year. At current prices that’s around $225 million worth each year.

“Gold prices have been excellent,” said Coeur Alaska’s General Manager Mark Kiessling in Juneau in a recent interview. “They came up quite a bit in 2019 and 2020. They’ve come down a little bit and 2021. But it’s still been very promising.”

The mine is on a patchwork of leased private land and Tongass National Forest in an area between Juneau and Haines east of Lynn Canal.

It’s one of the region’s largest private sector employers with around 360 employees.

But in order to stay open through 2033, the mine needs to expand its footprint.

“We’re looking forward to continuing to to be partners in the community and continue to provide employment for Southeast Alaska for the for the near future,” Kiessling said.

Read the full story at KCAW

Alaskan Scientists Continue Humpback Research as Whale Watching Industry Aims to Rebound

July 26, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Juneau, Alaska is one of the most popular whale watching tourism destinations in the world. Roughly 1.3 million tourists visited the city in 2019 via cruise ship, and more than 330,000 of those visitors participated in local whale watching trips during their port-of-call.

In 2020, cruise ships did not visit Juneau due to COVID-19, and whale watching companies lost a majority of their business. This provided a rare opportunity for scientists to study humpback whale behavior and health in the absence of vessel traffic and heavy whale watching tourism.

Heidi Pearson of the University of Alaska Southeast partnered with Shannon Atkinson of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and NOAA scientists Suzie Teerlink and John Moran to collect baseline data during this unusual time. Their research will help us understand how changes in vessel activity potentially impact whale behavior and health.

The scientists are currently in the second year of the study. Field crews from the UK’s BBC visited Juneau during last year’s field season to collect footage of the collaborative research project that they have now compiled into a featurette that is being circulated around the globe.

Read the full release here

ALASKA: “It’s the fabric of our culture coming apart”: Yukon River communities face chinook and chum closure

July 26, 2021 — In late June, summer chum salmon numbers in the Yukon River were the lowest on record. The Chinook run is also extremely low, resulting in ongoing closures of salmon fishing on much of the Yukon River.

The loss is causing anxiety for more than 30 riverside communities that depend on chinook and chum as a main source of protein for the winter.

Ben Stevens is the Tanana Chiefs Conference tribal resources manager. Stevens is from Stevens Village on the upper Yukon and said he has never before seen such a total shut down.

Below is a transcript of an interview with Lori Townsend on Alaska News Nightly with minor edits for clarity

Ben Stevens: We’ve seen chinook crashes before in recent history. We were still okay with the idea because we had something else to fall back on. And that was the fall chum.

This year, it’s unprecedented because we don’t have the chinook or the fall chum and that has disturbed our folks to a level I haven’t seen before.

Lori Townsend: Are there other river or tributary opportunities close enough that could help people get fish in other places? Or is it just not possible?

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Smaller pollock during Alaska’s season B expected to tighten supplies

July 23, 2021 — Alaska’s Bering Sea pollock B season, which runs from June 10 to October 31, is experiencing strong volumes, but smaller fish sizes are causing a shortage of supply for the pollock fillet market.

This season is an improvement over last year’s B season, when a disappointing slog ended with fishermen leaving part of the total allowable catch in the water. Brent Paine, the executive director of United Catcher Boats, told SeafoodSource that the fish are out there, but they are about half the ideal size.

“The fishing is okay, but the fish are small. The fleet would like to see 700- to 800-gram fish, but what they’re bumping into is a lot of 400-gram fish. They’re smaller than we would like to see,” Paine told SeafoodSource.

During a recent 3-Minute Market Insight, Tradex Foods, a Canadian seafood supplier, warned that the smaller pollock size would strain supply for once-frozen pollock fillets.

“Small-size pollock will ultimately minimize the amount of pollock fillets being produced, especially for anything larger than two to four ounces,” said Tradex’s Kyla Hayward.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Peter Pan raises Bristol Bay base price; meager king salmon return shuts Alaska fisheries

July 23, 2021 — Late last week, Peter Pan Seafood raised its base price for sockeye salmon in Bristol Bay from $1.10 to $1.25 “after gauging the strength of the run and the market,” said the company in a press release.

“We felt it was only responsible to push the base price up to $1.25, once again demonstrating our commitment and our partnership with the harvesters,” said Jon Hickman, Peter Pan’s vice president of Operations.

Peter Pan is also now offering a late season incentive of $0.10 for harvesters to stay in the water and keep fishing. This is only for fish harvested after July 18.

Peter Pan was the first out of the gate this season to announce its initial base price of $1.10 early in the season “to put fishermen at ease that they would receive a fair price and to help them plan their finances for the year,” the company reported.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Adak stakeholders protest denial of proposed cod allocation

July 22, 2021 — Stakeholders of an isolated Aleutians fish plant contend state appointees on the federal fisheries management board have ignored calls for help to keep more of the area’s large Pacific cod catch in Alaska despite a court order that shot down the first attempt to do so.

Representatives from Aleut Corp., which owns the fish processing plant in Adak through a subsidiary, and Peter Pan Seafood Co., have said they need to be able to rely on a foundational allocation of cod from federal fisheries to reopen the currently shuttered plant.

It’s believed a reliable allocation of roughly 5,000 metric tons of Pacific cod to the plants in Adak and Atka, where a plant is also currently closed, would provide a base volume of fish that would allow an operator to keep it open year-round with purchases in the state waters cod and other fisheries throughout the year.

Doing so could provide the ultra-remote community of approximately 300 residents with nearly 200 jobs during peak activity and several dozen steady positions if the plant were operated year-round, they estimate.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council that oversees the largely Seattle-based trawl cod fishery is in the process of reforming those allocations amidst other regulatory changes.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce