Alaska Archives - Page 190 of 279

ALASKA: Petersburg assembly to ask for hearing on humpback whale critical habitat

October 25, 2019 — Petersburg’s borough assembly Monday voted to seek a hearing in the Southeast Alaska community for proposed habitat protection for some of the humpback whales that frequent the region.

The National Marine Fisheries Service published a federal register notice Oct. 9 for a proposed rule to designate critical habitat for some populations of humpback whales. Those include whales listed as threatened that winter in Mexico and spend part of their year in Southeast Alaska.

Assembly member Bob Lynn thought the rule could have wide impacts starting with crabbers and gillnetters.

“I really do believe we need to have a meeting in Petersburg, let them describe what effects that has on our population,” Lynn said. “I’m very adamant we need to do that because it’s not very specific. But it also affects power lines, it affects a lot of our businesses here in town in addition, like our fishery processors and a few other folks too.”

The mayor and assembly were in agreement on this topic. Assembly member Jeff Meucci also wanted to request a hearing here.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Genetic studies confirm Alaska cod stocks pushing north

October 25, 2019 — Biologists were shocked in 2017 when they found that the numbers of Pacific cod had risen exponentially in the northern Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska. Now, researchers at NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center have used genetic testing to prove that those fish, enabled by warming waters and a lack of sea ice, have moved north from the southeastern Bering Sea.

Surveys as recent as the 1970’s revealed “trace amounts” of cod in the northern Bering Sea, according to a brief released by NOAA. Major Alaska cod fisheries in the past decades have operated in the southeastern Bering Sea, the Aleutian Islands, and the Gulf of Alaska, which meant management biologists conducted only sporadic bottom trawl surveys in the north.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

This Alaska mine could generate $1 billion a year. Is it worth the risk to salmon?

October 24, 2019 — A brown bear loped across rolling green tundra as Charles Weimer set down a light, single-engine helicopter on a remote hilltop.

Spooked, the big grizzly vanished into alder thickets above a valley braided with creeks and falls. Weimer’s blue eyes scanned warily for more bears. He warned his passenger, Mike Heatwole, to sit tight as the blades spun to a halt, ruffling red, purple and yellow alpine flowers.

The two men, each slim with a goatee, stepped out into the enveloping silence of southwest Alaska’s wilderness. Before them stretched two of the wildest river systems left in the United States. Beneath their feet lay the world’s biggest known untapped deposit of copper and gold.

Weimer and Heatwole worked for Pebble Limited Partnership, a subsidiary of a Canadian company that aims to dig Pebble Mine, an open pit the size of 460 football fields and deeper than One World Trade Center is tall. To proponents, it’s a glittering prize that could yield sales of more than $1 billion a year in an initial two decades of mining.

It could also, critics fear, bring about the destruction of one of the world’s great fisheries.

Read the full story at The Los Angeles Times

Anti-Pebble group asks SEC to investigate possible ‘insider trading’ involving project owner

October 23, 2019 — A conservation group on Monday asked federal regulators to investigate possible insider trading involving the owner of the Pebble copper and gold mine and an analyst who tracks the company’s stock.

Earthworks believes securities analyst John Tumazos “received and disclosed insider information” to investors in the weeks before the Trump administration in July released a decision favoring the project, according to a complaint filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The value of Northern Dynasty Minerals’ stock rose sharply following the July announcement. Northern Dynasty Minerals is based in Canada and owns the Pebble Partnership, the company aiming to develop the mine.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Efforts underway to streamline fisheries disaster relief

October 23, 2019 — With an increasing number of fisheries disaster requests coming from all over the United States, members of Congress and the federal government are looking for ways to improve the relief process.

Summer 2018 brought disappointing results for many fishermen across Alaska, particularly for sockeye salmon fishermen in the central Gulf of Alaska, but only two fisheries were officially granted federal disaster declarations: the 2018 Chignik sockeye salmon run and the 2018 Pacific cod fishery. While many other fishermen at least got a few fish to fill their wallets, Chignik fishermen had virtually no season, and Gulf of Alaska Pacific cod fishermen saw their total allowable catch reduced by 80 percent from 2017 because of low abundance.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced a dozen commercial fishery disaster declarations Sept. 25 for the 2018 calendar year. Congress appropriated $165 million for fisheries disaster relief, to be allocated according to the losses in revenue for the selected fisheries.

It’s the second time in recent years there have been disastrously poor returns to some fisheries. In 2016, the failed pink salmon run across the Gulf of Alaska left many fishermen holding empty nets, particularly in Kodiak and Prince William Sound, resulting in a disaster declaration in 2017 and eventually $56 million in relief funds for stakeholders.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

ALASKA: Black cod bycatch in the Bering Sea surges

October 22, 2019 — Trawlers in the Bering Sea have hauled up some 2,500 metric tons of black cod in bycatch circa the end of last month, according to a NOAA fisheries report.

An Alaska Public Media report suggests that small-boat fishermen who have bought black cod (also known as sablefish) fishing rights are frustrated that there will be fewer fish to harvest after the accidental catch of the trawlers.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Will new gray whale migration season prove as deadly as the last one?

October 18, 2019 — Gray whales had a rough go last season as they made their annual migration — skinny, emaciated, even dead whales showing up along the West Coast prompting concern over the health of the species.

With the new season’s first gray whales being spotted in recent weeks off the South Bay, Long Beach and Orange County, whale researchers and enthusiasts are hopeful for a healthier season, one that would indicate the whales found enough food to forage in Alaska as they make their trek to the warm waters of Baja, Mexico.

A young gray whale was spotted last week by Harbor Breeze Cruises, which followed it from the Palos Verdes Peninsula to Long Beach. Another was seen off the PV Peninsula earlier in the month, and another around Torrance Beach.

Orange County’s first gray whale sighting was reported Tuesday, Oct. 15, first by a diver near the Newport Pier and then by a Dana Wharf boat captain.

Read the full story at The Mercury News

ALASKA: Forest Service proposes logging in salmon habitat

October 18, 2019 — More than 9 million acres of Southeast Alaska’s 16.7 million-acre Tongass National Forest could lose clearcutting protections with a proposed repeal of the 2001 Roadless Rule.

The U.S. Forest Service will publish its draft environmental impact statement in the Federal Register this week with a preferred alternative to remove all protections for the roadless acres. A 60-day comment period will follow publication.

The statement provides analysis of six alternatives related to the management of the Tongass.

The alternatives range from no action to the removal of the Tongass from the 2001 Roadless Rule (details below). The Department of Agriculture has identified Alternative 6, which is a full exemption, as its preferred alternative. A final decision is expected in 2020.

“As an Alaska salmon troller, I am increasingly dependent on coho salmon reared in the watersheds of Southeast Alaska. Coho live at least a year in fresh water and need the habitat provided by old growth forests,” said 2007 NF Highliner Eric Jordan of Sitka, Alaska. “Meanwhile, the forest service still has a huge list of salmon habitat restoration projects needing funding from the previous era of Industrial clear cut logging in Southeast Alaska. “

Read the full story at National Fisherman

A fish mystery solved using genetic testing

October 17, 2019 — The population of cod in the Northern Bering Sea has increased immensely since 2010, and scientists are using fish DNA to find out why.

Think of it like a genetic ancestry test, but for fish.

Until recently, pacific cod were rarely found in the Northern Bering Sea. A 2010 survey showed cod made up only three percent of the entire fish population. That’s been changing, fast.

A survey in the summer of 2017 showed that number shot up 900 percent.

Ingrid Spies is a research fisheries biologist who led the way on this research to determine whether the population spike is evidence of a growing population or of an existing population migrating from elsewhere?

One thought was that cod could have migrated from Russia or the Gulf of Alaska, where they observed cod numbers decline significantly in 2017. Scientists were able to come to a conclusive answer to the question using genetic testing.

Read the full story at KTUU