Alaska Archives - Page 14 of 305

Alaska researchers using tagging data to reduce fishing bycatch

June 11, 2026 — A stream of data more than a decade in the making is helping a team of Alaska researchers’ efforts to boost the health of the local salmon population and the bottom line of fishing trawlers.

A University of Alaska Fairbanks research team has translated a trove of data from a chinook salmon tagging program into a predictive model that could help reduce bycatch by fishing trawlers.

Chinook salmon range from the ocean’s surface to depths where trawl nets target groundfish species. The researchers’ model uses more than 700,000 data points between Southeast Alaska and the Bering Sea to predict how chinook will be distributed across the water column. With that information, trawlers can potentially adjust their operations to reduce inadvertent salmon catches.

Read the full article at Peninsula Clarion

Chinook salmon tagging data aims to help reduce trawler bycatch

June 11, 2026 — Fisheries scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks are on a mission to find out where Chinook salmon are at all times, not to catch them, but to avoid them.

Their research draws on a trove of data from a Chinook salmon tagging program, with a focus on helping commercial trawl harvesters avoid the depths and areas where these fish risk becoming bycatch, and where they may also be adversely affected by naval exercises in the Gulf of Alaska used to train U.S. military forces for combat at sea.

Chinook and chum salmon have been hard hit in recent years by rising ocean temperatures, anthropogenic impacts, and increased microplastic pollution.

Bycatch limits already in place for declining Chinook stocks shut down the trawl fishery in Kodiak in 2024, when two trawl boats caught so many Chinooks over a single weekend that the entire fleet had to stop fishing, leaving most of their total allowable groundfish catch in the water.

Read the full article at the

Opinion: Fisheries need science, not opinions

June 10, 2026 — There’s an old saying that “when an argument depends on a lie, it’s the lie that’s doing the work, not the argument.” Lies work because they discard nuance, science and the complexity of issues to paint a clear narrative to further an outcome. Reading the recent op-ed (“Alaska’s ‘midwater’ trawl fleet needs to fish like one,” May 28) by a group of well-funded nonprofits, with 2024 revenue of around $87 million, it’s easy to see the power of such a narrative.

The inconvenient truth these NGOs wish to skirt is that the science is actually very clear: Habitat impacts from pelagic trawl gear are minimal, temporary in nature and well managed. Since 2005, managers have evaluated impacts on essential fish habitat, or EFH, in Alaska. These EFH evaluations are peer-reviewed by scientists every five years, and for two decades, the science has shown that the disturbance by all fishing gear is less than 5% in the Bering Sea and less than 1% in the Gulf of Alaska.

The science is also clear that where and how trawling occurs matters. While it is true that trawling can have a negative impact, the degree of that impact depends on the type of habitat, disturbance from storms and currents, and the design and use of the trawl gear.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Alaska’s board of fish restricted a commercial fleet to protect Western Alaska salmon. Then the AG stepped in

June 8, 2026 — Just as hundreds of fishermen begin pouring into the Aleutian Islands ahead of its most productive season, a conflict over restrictions on commercial salmon harvests has erupted.

After the Alaska Board of Fisheries passed restrictions on the Aleutian commercial fleet to protect salmon bound for Western Alaska spawning streams, Alaska’s acting attorney general, Cori Mills, invalidated the measures last month.

Now, subsistence advocates say they may try to win the restrictions back in a lawsuit against Mills.

The board’s new regulations, pushed by subsistence fishermen for years as Western Alaska salmon runs declined, would have shortened the number of days and the size of the harvest that commercial fishermen could make in the Aleutians, widened a regulated area, and added some restrictions on net depths.

The threat of a lawsuit follows the subsistence advocates’ attempt to re-implement the regulations ahead of the commercial fishery opener on June 6. The advocates tried to join a lawsuit originally filed by the commercial fleet and its allies that challenged the restrictions — but the judge threw out the suit on June 1.

Read the full article at KYUK

Loss of ocean monitoring could create fisheries blind spot

June 8, 2026 — The Alaska Marine Community Coalition is raising concerns over plans to dismantle much of the federal Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), arguing that the loss of long-term ocean monitoring could reduce critical information used to understand changing conditions in Alaska’s fisheries.

In a recent statement, the coalition said the National Science Foundation plans to remove in-water equipment from four of the five OOI sites over the next 15 months, including Ocean Station Papa in the Gulf of Alaska, located roughly 620 miles offshore. The network has collected continuous oceanographic data since 2016, while Station Papa itself has served as one of the North Pacific’s longest-running ocean monitoring locations.

The coalition said the station provides information on deep-water temperatures, ocean chemistry, currents and biological conditions that help scientists track changes affecting species including salmon, halibut, crab and pollock.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Groundfish industry cleans 55,935 pounds of nets for recycling

June 8, 2026 — Four huge worn-out midwater trawl nets that in old times might have been buried in a landfill are instead being repurposed into usable new products and protection for Ukrainians from explosive Russian drones.

The efforts of over 100 volunteers from Seattle’s wild Alaska pollock catcher-processor fleet hunkered down in 80-degree heat at Terminal 91 on Thursday, May 28, offered both environmental and financial benefits to American Seafoods, Arctic Storm Management Group, Coastal Villages Region Fund, Glacier FIsh Company and Trident Seafoods, all members of the At-Sea Processors Association.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

Area M salmon restrictions remain sidelines as subsistence groups weigh legal action

June 8, 2026 — As hundreds of fishermen prepared for the June 6 opener in Alaska’s Area M salmon fishery, a dispute over new harvest restrictions remains unresolved after Alaska Acting Attorney General Cori Mills invalidated regulations approved earlier this year by the Alaska Board of Fisheries.

The regulations, adopted in February after years of advocacy from Western Alaska subsistence users, would have reduced fishing time and harvest levels in parts of the Aleutian Islands fishery, expanded a regulated area and added net depth restrictions intended to protect salmon bound for Western Alaska rivers.

Mills overturned the measures on May 19, ruling that the board’s vote was improper following ethics complaints filed by the Aleutians East Borough and commercial fishing interests against several board members who supported the restrictions. After Mills’ decision, the commercial fishing groups and borough dropped their lawsuit challenging the regulations.

A subsequent effort by the Bering Sea Fishermen’s Association to intervene in the case was rejected by Anchorage Superior Court Judge Herman Walker Jr., though subsistence advocates say they may appeal to the Alaska Supreme Court or pursue separate legal action.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

ALASKA: New Requirements for Halibut Charter Fishing in Alaska

June 8, 2026 — The following was released by the NOAA Fisheries:

If you’re going charter fishing in Alaska this year, you’ll need a charter halibut stamp if you plan on bringing halibut home.

New Halibut Stamp Requirements

Beginning in 2026, adult anglers fishing aboard a charter vessel need a charter halibut stamp for each day they intend to catch and retain halibut. This applies to fishing in International Pacific Halibut Commission regulatory areas 2C (Southeast Alaska) and 3A (Southcentral Alaska). If you are fishing without a guide, you do not need a halibut stamp.

The stamps cost $20—your fishing guide will take care of this for you. All you have to do is let them know that you plan to keep any halibut you catch before you start fishing for the day. Some guides might bundle the price into the total cost of the trip, while others might charge separately for it. If you’re just planning to catch and release, you don’t need a stamp!

High fuel prices could hurt Kodiak’s salmon fishermen

June 5, 2026 — The high cost of diesel, fueled by the war in Iran, coincides with a projected weak salmon harvest for this summer.

Down at the dock in Kodiak’s St Paul harbor on a windy Tuesday in May, Darren Platt organized his boat, a 42-foot seiner called the Agnes Sabine, ahead of the upcoming salmon season.

“Before a season, you just tear everything apart, and then just desperately try to put it back together,” he said. “I’m still in the tearing everything apart phase.”

This time of year, Platt would normally be excited to hit the water. This summer though, he said he’s feeling apprehensive, mostly about the price of diesel.

“It’s probably going to be close to double what it was last year,” he said.

Platt is one of many who work on the water who are concerned about the price at the pump. Gas prices are still high as a result of the war with Iran, and even a small increase could make or break an already short season.

Last summer, Dave Kubiak, owner and operator of the fishing vessel Lara Lee, said he paid around $3.75 a gallon for fuel. But when he filled his tank on May 20, diesel was $6.70 a gallon, an increase of more than 80%. He calculated that filling the vessel’s tank from empty would have cost him nearly $10,000.

Read the full article at KMXT

ALASKA: Pelagic trawl debate returns as council weighs next steps on gear performance

June 5, 2026 — As the North Pacific Fishery Management Council meets this week, a renewed debate over pelagic trawl gear is drawing attention from conservation groups, fishermen and fisheries managers.

In a June 1 statement, Alaska-based nonprofit SalmonState urged the council to close what it describes as a loophole that allows pelagic, or “midwater,” trawl vessel to make contact with the seafloor while operating in areas closed to other forms of bottom-contact fishing.

“In the Bering Sea alone, 40 percent of all bottom contact by fishing operations comes from ‘mid-water’ trawlers,” SalmonState stated in its release.

“No one should be allowed to drag the ocean floor in protected, sensitive areas closed to that practice,” said SalmonState executive director Tim Bristol. “It’s far past time to close this colossal loophole.”

SalmonState operations director Ryan Astalos argued that if pelagic gear is contacting the seafloor, it should be managed differently.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman