Saving Seafood

Alaska pollock stepping onto bigger stage for Lent

February 25, 2021 — U.S. quick-service restaurants are banking heavily on Lent for a lift as the foodservice sector continues to battle through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fish sandwiches have been popular additions to many menus in advance of the Lenten season, and Dairy Queen has become the latest chain to add a pollock fish sandwich, the Wild Alaskan Fish Sandwich, which includes a fried wild pollock fillet, lettuce, and tangy tartar sauce on a toasted bun. In addition, Jack in the Box’s new Deluxe Fish Sandwich features two fillets of wild Alaska pollock covered in crispy panko bread crumbs, along with cheese, tomato and tartar sauce, per Chew Boom. And Bojangles recently brought back its Bojangler fish sandwich, made with wild Alaskan pollock, while Wienerschnitzel’s reprised its Fish ’N Chips dish, which includes panko-crusted Alaskan pollock with french fries and tartar sauce.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

As most Alaska salmon fishing regions face another season of mediocre runs, Russia hikes competitive pressure

February 24, 2021 — Alaskans are preparing for another salmon season of poor to average runs in most regions.

The big exception once again is at Bristol Bay, where another massive return of more than 51 million sockeyes is expected. Managers predict that surge will produce a harvest of over 36 million reds to fishermen.

Bristol Bay is home to the largest wild sockeye salmon run in the world and typically accounts for 42% of the world’s sockeye harvest. Those fish and all wild salmon compete in a tough worldwide commodities market, where Alaska salmon claims 13% of the global supply.

Farmed salmon production, which outnumbers wild harvests by nearly 3 to 1, is Alaska’s biggest competitor; the other is Russia.

According to global seafood trading company Tradex, Pacific salmon catches from Russia are projected to top 1 billion pounds in 2021. As a comparison, Alaska’s 2020 catch of nearly 117 million salmon weighed in at just over 500 million pounds.

The Russian catch breaks down to more than 700 million pounds of pinks, nearly 206 million pounds of chum salmon, 70.6 million pounds of sockeyes, over 24 million pounds of coho salmon and 8.8 million pounds of Chinook.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

NPFMC April meeting via webconference

February 24, 2021 — The following was released by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The NPFMC will hold meetings April 5-17, 2021, via webconference. The eAgenda, Schedule, and a list of when documents will be available are now posted. Please note the SSC has a separate SSC eAgenda. More detailed information is available on our website.

You can submit and review comments for each agenda item through the Council and SSC eAgendas. The deadline for written comments is  Friday, April 2 at 5 PM (Alaska time).  If you have questions, please email npfmc.admin@noaa.gov.

Read the full release here

Inquiry into the fatal Scandies Rose sinking begins in Seattle

February 23, 2021 — A two-week federal inquiry into the fatal sinking of the F/V Scandies Rose — lost on New Year’s Eve 2019 west of Kodiak Island — opens today in Seattle.

The U.S. Coast Guard and partner agencies will hold a virtual formal hearing to consider evidence related to the sinking of the Dutch Harbor-based fishing vessel until March 5.

The 130-foot crab boat sank near Sutwik Island, Alaska around 10 p.m. on Dec. 31, 2019 with seven crew members aboard. Two fishermen were rescued wearing gumby survival suits in a life raft, but five others were never found.

The search spanned over 20 hours, 1,400 square miles, and included four MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crews, two HC-130 Hercules airplane crews and crew aboard the Coast Guard cutter Mellon.

The hearing will focus on the conditions before and at the time of the sinking, the Coast Guard said in a statement. This will include weather, icing, fisheries, the boat’s condition, owner and operator dynamics, the regulatory compliance record of the vessel and testimony from the survivors and others.

Read the full story at KTOO

Trident Seafoods resumes operations at Aleutian plant in Alaska after monthlong COVID-19 shutdown

February 23, 2021 — The massive and remote Trident Seafoods plant at Akutan resumed some processing Friday, nearly a month after a fast-spreading coronavirus outbreak forced the company to halt operations.

The Alaska plant, perched at the edge of the Bering Sea near the tiny village of about 100 people, is the largest seafood processing facility in North America. Four COVID-19 cases first reported by the company in mid-January quickly expanded in close quarters. Ultimately, more than 40% of 706 workers tested positive.

Now there are two positive cases at the plant, a company spokesman said Monday. Those workers are isolated on site.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Gov. Dunleavy taps real estate executive for fisheries commission

February 19, 2021 — The Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission is obscure to many Alaskans. But for those whose livelihoods are tied to fish, it’s a household name.

The agency was created in the 1970s after Alaska voters amended the state constitution to allow limits on the number of people allowed to fish — all for the sake of conservation. Fishermen had to show a history of their catch in a particular area to get rights to fish.

“The commission spent many, many years going through those applications, sorting through the permits,” said Juneau attorney and former lobbyist Vance Fate Putman, who former Gov. Bill Walker appointed to the two-person commission in 2017.

That work of documenting who did and didn’t get fishing rights took decades, but it’s finally done. Over the past few years, the commission has resolved all but one dispute: an excess of eligible permit holders for a single shrimp pot fishery in Southeast.

Read the full story at KTOO

Washington state salmon report offers warning to Alaska

February 17, 2021 — A report on Washington state’s dwindling wild salmon populations offers a warning to Alaska, where several stocks have registered concerning declines over the past years.

Washington’s 2020 State of the Salmon in Watersheds report chronicled a bleak panorama, with 14 of the state’s species listed as endangered. While conversation efforts have succeeded in revitalizing some salmon runs in Washington, the report said fish stocks in the Pacific Northwest face an uphill battle.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ALASKA: ‘Brutal’ start to 2021 crabbing

February 17, 2021 — It was a hectic and hazardous opening weekend for commercial crab fishermen and the Coast Guard monitoring the fleet.

Commercial crabbing kicked off in Washington with a majority of fishermen dropping their first load of pots late last week for a 73-hour day soak period.

Fishermen reported encountering challenging conditions during their initial trips offshore with rogue waves, freezing rain and dense fog combined with usual turbulence of crossing the Columbia River Bar in boats loaded with crab pots.

Fishermen described the opening weekend conditions as “gnarly,” “brutal,” and in some instances “the worst they’ve ever seen.” One said he was simply grateful there weren’t any deaths despite some close calls.

Read the full story at The Chinook Observer

ALASKA: Plunging fish tax payments raise concerns for coming years, Southeast officials say

February 16, 2021 — Wrangell will receive considerably less in its shared fish tax payments this year than the city expected, city manager Lisa Von Bargen explained at an assembly meeting on Tuesday.

“That speaks to the abysmal situation related to the fishing issues in our region,” Von Bargen said.

The payment she referred to is a fisheries business tax collected outside of municipal boundaries. The state disperses the tax money to communities in the region. Wrangell planned to receive $10,000 dollars this year from the shared fish tax. In reality, the city will receive just over $1,600.

Municipalities also receive another fisheries business tax for fishing business within municipal boundaries. Wrangell’s payment from that tax is lower than expected as well: about $203,000 for the last fiscal year.

Read the full story at KTOO

Alaskans pursue permanent protections for Bristol Bay

February 16, 2021 — Robin Samuelsen still recalls his first meeting about the prospective Pebble Mine. It was around 2005 or 2006, in Dillingham, Alaska. Listening to an early plan for developing a copper and gold mine in the spawning grounds of Bristol Bay’s abundant salmon, this Curyung tribal chief and commercial fisherman quickly made up his mind. “You’ll kill off our salmon,” Samuelsen remembers saying, adding: “I’ll be up there to stop you.”

More than 15 years later, in November 2020, the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) denied the Pebble Mine a key permit, a sharp setback for the mine — though not the first. Already, the mine’s developer, Pebble Limited Partnership (PLP), has filed an appeal challenging that decision. PLP was joined by the State of Alaska, which, in an unusual move, filed its own appeal. Both appeals are currently under review.

Even before these latest developments, however, the people living around the Bristol Bay region had been trying to bring this long-running tug of war to rest once and for all.

Just as he promised at the meeting in Dillingham, Samuelsen is part of a tribally led campaign to garner permanent legal protection for the Bristol Bay region’s thriving wild salmon from large-scale mining proposals — whether that be the Pebble Mine, or whatever comes next. Lindsay Layland, deputy director of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay (UTBB), which is involved in the effort, says the goal of the coalition is to find a way to legally prioritize the salmon that mean so much to the people living and fishing in the region.

Read the full story at High Country News