Saving Seafood

In survey, Alaska fishermen offer guidance for use of pandemic relief funds

May 27, 2020 — A rapid survey response by nearly 800 Alaska fishermen will provide a guideline for giving them a hand up as the coronavirus swamps their operations.

The online survey from April 14 to May 3 by Juneau-based nonprofit SalmonState asked fishermen about their primary concerns both before the COVID-19 outbreak and in the midst of the pandemic in April. It also asked what elected officials at local, state and federal levels can do to help them directly.

Over half of the 817 responses came in over four days, said Tyson Fick, SalmonState communications adviser.

“Clearly, people were interested to have their stories heard and to weigh in. In several ways we feel like we had a very broad swath of regions and gear types and fishermen,” he said.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

NOAA Cancels Five Large-Scale Fishery Surveys Due to COVID-19

May 26, 2020 — NOAA Fisheries announced Friday that it will cancel five out of its six large-scale research surveys in Alaskan waters this year due to COVID-19. The canceled surveys include the Aleutian Islands bottom trawl survey, the eastern Bering Sea bottom trawl survey, the northern Bering Sea bottom trawl survey, the Bering Sea pollock acoustics survey, and the Fall Ecosystem Survey. The Alaska Longline Survey is not affected.

“We determined that there is no way to move forward with a survey plan that effectively minimizes risks to staff, crew, and the communities associated with the surveys. For instance, conducting the key groundfish and crab surveys in a limited timeframe would require extraordinarily long surveys, well beyond standard survey operations,” wrote NOAA Fisheries in a statement. “Extended quarantines for the survey team prior to and following surveys would also be necessary to ensure survey team and public health and safety.”

Read the full story at The Maritime Executive

NOAA cancels Alaskan research surveys citing COVID-19

May 26, 2020 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has canceled five of the six large-scale research surveys scheduled to take place in the waters off Alaska this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an NOAA press release.

The release cited the unique challenges and uncertainties posed by the coronavirus crisis, which have resulted in the cancellation of the Aleutian Islands bottom-trawl survey, the eastern Bering Sea bottom-trawl survey, the northern Bering Sea bottom-trawl survey, the Bering Sea pollock acoustics survey, and the fall ecosystem survey. The Alaska longline survey will go ahead as planned.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Trident Seafoods’ Boss Charts Safer Course for Alaska Fishing Season

May 21, 2020 — Joe Bundrant runs one of the world’s largest seafood companies. He knows that without healthy fishermen there will be no catch in the bountiful waters off Alaska’s coast.

Mr. Bundrant, the 54-year-old chief executive of Trident Seafoods, has enforced a strict quarantine to protect people and keep business going during the critical summer fishing season. The pandemic could wreak havoc on the Last Frontier, and Mr. Bundrant wants to avoid a repeat of the 1918 pandemic that decimated Alaska’s remote communities.

“If I’m going to put 145 people on a ship, including my son, and ask them not to get off the ship for six months, this is my only choice,” Mr. Bundrant said.

The $10 million effort includes isolating hundreds of workers for two weeks before sending them to sea and remote fishing villages, their rooms monitored by quarantined guards. On day 15, if they have tested negative for the virus, they are ushered by quarantined drivers to ships or private airplanes to begin a six-month fishing season in some of the world’s most remote waters.

There are consequences for those who refuse to play along. The six workers who tried to leave quarantine were fired.

Trident is the largest U.S. seafood company, employing 5,000 during the peak fishing season in Alaska. The state’s fishing industry catches 60% of the seafood in the U.S., including salmon, cod, halibut, rock fish and herring.

The fishing industry is seasonal, presenting a challenge for a company trying to prevent the spread of a virus in an industry considered among the most hazardous in the U.S.

Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal

Alaskan Salmon Industry Faces Off Against COVID-19

May 20, 2020 — Rich in omega-3 fatty acids, Vitamin D, and antioxidants, sockeye is health food for your heart, brain, eyes, and skin. And given the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s careful management of the fishery, it’s a sustainable resource. In 2018, according to the ADFG, 63 million sockeye returned, and a record 41.9 million of them were netted. Bristol Bay is, by far, the world’s largest sockeye fishery, and the biggest salmon fishery in Alaska. It is a well-tended natural bounty valued at more than $1 billion. Along with the other salmon fisheries in Bristol Bay, it returns an annual $14.7 million to local governments and employs a third of the residents in the largely indigenous communities. Norman Van Vactor, President and CEO of the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation (BBEDC), estimates that, all totaled, salmon fishing brings up to $200 million into the region each year.

There are many reasons to feel good about eating Bristol Bay sockeye, but this is 2020, a year that has complicated everything in food. While subsistence salmon fishing is essential to the region’s 6,700 residents, the commercial fishery is operated primarily by outsiders. As of now, there are less than 400 confirmed cases of COVID-19 across Alaska. But as 13,000 fishermen, processors, and other workers from around the world arrive in May for Bristol Bay’s season, which begins in early June, they bring the danger of spreading the virus to isolated communities with few medical resources.

For the locals of Bristol Bay, the possibility of an outbreak engenders a horrifying dèjá vu. “Our people keep saying that we went through this already,” says Alannah Hurley, executive director of United Tribes of Bristol Bay, a consortium of 15 Yup’ik, Den’ina, and Alutiiq tribes representing 80 percent of the region’s inhabitants. She’s referring to the Spanish flu, which arrived in Bristol Bay in 1919, possibly on a cannery ship, and decimated the native population. “A lot of us are descendents. So for native people, the devastation of a pandemic is not an obscure concept,” she said. “We are the people raised by the orphans who survived.”

Read the full story at Food & Wine

NPFMC May Special Meeting Newsletter

May 19, 2020 — The following was released by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The Council met via web-conference on May 15th for a special Council meeting. The digital newsletter is published. For those interested, all the articles on one page to print is available here, and you can listen to the recording on box.net, or through the Adobeconnect app.  As always, you can access all other meeting information through the Agenda.

The Council will also hold its June meeting virtually through Adobeconnect, with the added component of the public able to provide public comment over the phone during the meeting. The intent is also to use web cameras for Council members and presenters during discussion and deliberation. The SSC and the AP will also be using the same platform and format. The meeting link will be the same throughout all of the June meetings. Detailed instructions for the public for joining and how to give public comments will be posted on the Council’s eAgenda and website.

NOAA hosts virtual meeting to discuss offshore mapping progress in Alaska

May 19, 2020 — Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) held a virtual meeting of the Hydrographic Services Review Panel (HSRP) to discuss progress made in the offshore mapping of Alaska, among other topics.

The HSRP is a federal advisory committee comprised of stakeholders who assists in advising NOAA on navigation-related products, data, and services.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Trawl fishing in the age of the coronavirus: First, you make it through quarantine

May 18, 2020 — The spring trawl harvest for whiting is underway off the Northwest coast in an unusual year when a crucial marker of success won’t just be nets stuffed with fish but crews that stay healthy and free from the COVID-19 disease.

To try to assure that outcome, hundreds of crew members went through two weeks of shore-side quarantine coupled with testing for the novel coronavirus that did identify a few who, if they had gone out to sea, risked sickness and spreading the virus.

“There’s no silver bullet. But this is a huge deal,” said Karl Bratvold, a managing partner of Aleutian Spray Fisheries, which operates the catcher-processor vessel Starbound now harvesting whiting in open waters off the Olympic Peninsula. “We have a steady crew. And I’m glad they came back. They work in tight quarters and it’s scary out there. We had to do what we had to do to keep these people safe.”

The testing unfolds as the food industry — considered essential since the pandemic spread widely earlier this spring — has struggled with operations that often involve long hours of labor for crews who work in proximity to one another.

Read the full story at The Seattle Times

Alaska’s Copper River fishing season kicks off in a year like no other

May 15, 2020 — An Alaska commercial fishing season unlike any other kicked off in Cordova on Thursday.

Normally, the Copper River gillnet season, the first salmon fishery to open in the state, is known for high-priced fish and celebrity-level fanfare: One of the first fish to be caught is flown to Seattle via Alaska Airlines jet, and greeted with a red carpet photo opportunity.

From there, plump ruby fillets of Copper River salmon typically fetch astronomical prices at fine dining restaurants and markets. Last year, Copper River king salmon sold for $75 per pound, a record, at Seattle’s famed Pike Place Fish Market.

In this pandemic year, things are different all around: The Alaska Airlines first fish photo op will still happen, but the festivities have been tamped down and six-foot distancing and masks are now required. Instead of a cooking contest pitting Seattle chefs against each other, a salmon bake for workers at Swedish Hospital in Ballard is planned.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Thousands Are Headed to Alaska’s Fishing Towns. So Is the Virus.

May 15, 2020 — The people of Cordova, Alaska, had weathered the coronavirus pandemic with no cases and the comfort of isolation — a coastal town unreachable by road in a state with some of the fewest infections per capita in the country.

But that seclusion has come to an abrupt end. Over the past two weeks, fishing boat crews from Seattle and elsewhere have started arriving by the hundreds, positioning for the start of Alaska’s summer seafood rush.

The fishing frenzy begins on Thursday with the season opening for the famed Copper River salmon, whose prized fillets can fetch up to $75 a pound at the market. Before the pandemic, Cordova’s Copper River catch was flown fresh for swift delivery to some of the country’s highest-end restaurants.

But the town of about 2,000 people has been consumed in recent weeks by debates over whether to even allow a fishing season and how to handle an influx of fishing crews that usually doubles its population.

Read the full story at The New York Times