September 18, 2020 — Alaska plans to stop providing state funding for hatcheries that produce king and coho salmon, according to a KFSK radio report.
The state of Alaska has in the past provided millions of dollars to king and coho hatcheries from money collected via a surcharge on sport fishing licenses, along with allocations of federal sport fishing money.
September 17, 2020 — U.S. President Donald Trump said there would be “no politics” in the review process of Alaska’s Pebble Mine project which has previously been opposed by prominent Republicans and environmentalists who say it would damage wetlands and popular fishing sites.
“Don’t worry, wonderful & beautiful Alaska, there will be NO POLITICS in the Pebble Mine Review Process. I will do what is right for Alaska and our great Country!!!,” Trump said in a tweet late on Wednesday.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency that regulates the development and dredging of wetlands, had last month placed an additional hurdle in front of the project to mine copper and gold, giving developers 90 days to explain how they would offset concerns about the environment.
September 17, 2020 — Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Alaska has faced its share of monumental challenges. The testing of all incoming travelers, providing relief for devastated tourism businesses, creating a new unemployment program from scratch. Yet none compared to the challenge of protecting our critical seafood industry and the communities that rely on their economic production.
We commend Alaska’s seafood industry for successfully navigating the most difficult season Alaska has ever experienced. Captains, deckhands, processors and hatcheries worked tirelessly to protect coastal communities, jobs and the health of Alaska’s people and economy. Local leaders, health care workers, and state officials devoted countless hours to developing policies and reviewing community protection plans.
From the beginning, it was obvious this would not be an easy road. Many believed that holding a fishing season was simply not possible. To their credit, many skeptics later joined our effort, pitching in to work toward a common goal. The cooperation between industry, communities and the state was truly a bright spot in an otherwise bleak summer.
September 16, 2020 — Bering Sea crabbers will soon know how much they can pull up in their pots for the season that opens Oct. 15.
This week the Crab Plan Team, advisers to state and federal fishery managers who jointly manage the fisheries, will review stock assessments and other science used to set the catches for Bristol Bay red king crab, Tanners and snow crab.
Normally, the biggest driver would be data from the annual summer trawl surveys that have tracked the stocks for decades. But this year, the surveys were called off due to the coronavirus, and that has crabbers worried.
“There are certainly some added uncertainties,” said Jamie Goen, executive director of the trade group Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, which represents harvesters.
September 15, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
Ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) has been applied in Alaska for decades with great success. Alaska’s valuable commercial fisheries are among the most productive and sustainable in the world. However, current EBFM policies were not designed to address climate change.
A new study evaluates the future performance of EBFM in the eastern Bering Sea. The innovative experiment projects that EBFM can forestall climate-driven collapse of key Alaska fisheries better than other management policies. This management approach considers the impacts on fish stock productivity from environmental variables, such as changing ocean conditions, and socio-economic factors. It can help fishery managers and fishermen in planning for the future.
“Ecosystem-based management doesn’t just help fish, it helps fishing communities. It is the best strategy we have to provide harvest stability in the coming years. It buys time for Alaska fisheries and fishing communities to prepare and adapt. EBFM is going to be a vital tool for us under climate change,” said Kirstin Holsman, biologist at NOAA Fisheries’ Alaska Fisheries Science Center. “But no matter how effective management is, by mid-century—maybe sooner—Alaska fisheries may reach a tipping point of rapid decline in the eastern Bering Sea if climate change continues on the current trajectory and fish and fisheries are not able to adapt to these changing conditions. To guarantee long-term success, we need to couple EBFM with global climate change mitigation.”
September 15, 2020 — A recent study that dove into more than 60 years of records from the Alaska Department Fish and Game found that salmon returning to Alaska’s rivers are on average smaller than they were in the past.
The study, headed up by biologists from the University of California Santa Cruz and the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, attributes declines in salmon size to “shifting age structures associated with climate and competition at sea.”
September 14, 2020 — The U.S. Department of Agriculture says it’s setting aside more than half a billion dollars for fishermen hurt by tariffs associated with the U.S.-China trade war. Some Alaskans are applauding the move, but others worry the program leaves some out.
Jeremy Leighton is a dive fisherman based in Ketchikan. That means that as often as he can, he spends his days on the cold, murky seafloor looking for sea cucumbers and geoduck clams.
He was among the first Alaskans to see the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic — most of Alaska’s geoduck clam harvest is sold to consumers in China. When China locked down as the coronavirus spread, demand for the husky bivalves collapsed and managers closed the market.
Leighton and other fishermen were already facing a tough market — they were already looking at a 25% tariff on seafood exported to China.
“So the last year prices dropped since […] the tariffs were put on,” Leighton said.
But it’s not just geoduck fishermen. Frances Leach heads up United Fishermen of Alaska, a fishing industry group.
September 14, 2020 — One day in April 1991, a large fishing boat sliced through the cobalt waters of the North Pacific, not far from Sitka, Alaska, on its way to the Bering Sea. For some reason, perhaps to make sure its gear was in order, the boat dropped its weighted trawling net, dragging it across the ocean floor. As the boat drifted by, thousands of pounds of rockfish got scooped up in the mesh. Just like that, the local rockfish season was over.
“Outraged.” That is how Linda Behnken, a Sitka-based fisherman and director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, described her reaction to news of the trawler’s nets rising from the ocean full of strangled or struggling fish, leaving the area’s fishing territory depleted. “It was a major catalyzing event.”
Facing the loss of a resource that had supported generations of fishing families, Behnken and the local community set out to protect the pristine waters of Southeast Alaska from the ravages of industrial fishing and banish trawling boats that drag wide nets to indiscriminately collect fish. A David to industrial fishing’s Goliath, Behnken was told to give up, that the cards were stacked against her. It took years of lobbying and rallying local support, but with the passage of the Southeast Alaska Trawl Closure in 1998, she had helped enact what at that time was the world’s largest ban on trawling, protecting 70,000 square miles of ocean habitat.
“The trawling ban is the reason we still have healthy small-scale fisheries in Southeast Alaska,” she said.
In the decades since, as the global fishing industry has consolidated into fewer, larger corporate fleets and environmental changes have threatened the ocean’s resources, Alaska’s Southeastern panhandle has emerged as a bastion for sustainable, small-scale fishing.
September 14, 2020 — Not long after purchasing hefty amounts of U.S. pollock, salmon, and other seafood, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is now asking for bids on large quantities of wild shrimp and wild Alaska pollock nuggets.
The USDA is asking suppliers to bid on 318,000 containers of frozen peeled and deveined shrimp – required to be in two- or five-pound primary packages further packaged into 20-pound shipping containers – by 18 September. The shrimp will be delivered to several U.S. cities between 1 November, 2020, and 31 January, 2021.
September 9, 2020 — A new study has found that global warming could produce higher numbers of pink salmon in the Arctic by making rivers and streams more hospitable for spawning.
The analysis was published by U.S. and Canadian scientists in the journal Deep Sea Research Part II, Alaska’s Energy Desk reported Monday.
The findings bolster reports by Alaska subsistence fishermen that pink salmon numbers have increased as the Arctic warms at more than double the rate of the rest of the globe.
“Maybe in the past, they’d see a few adult pink salmon here and there every few years. Now they’re seeing them every year,” said Ed Farley, a federal fisheries scientist at the Auke Bay Laboratories in Juneau.