Saving Seafood

Alaska’s small crab fisheries kick-off, boosting coastal communities

January 24, 2019 — When most people think of Alaska crab, they envision huge boats pulling up “7 bys” (the 7-foot-by-7-foot-by-3-foot size of the crab pots) for millions of pounds of bounty in the Bering Sea. But it is the smaller, local crab fisheries that each winter give a big economic boost to dozens of coastal communities across the Gulf of Alaska. They occur at a time when many fishing towns are feeling a lull while awaiting the March start of halibut and herring openers. The gearing up means a nice pulse of extra work and money for just about every business tied to fishing.

High winds and overall snotty weather delayed Kodiak’s Tanner crab fishery, but 83 boats dropped pots a day late on January 16th. They will compete for a 615,000 pound catch quota, an increase from 400,000 pounds last season. At an average weight of 2.2 pounds, that will yield about 280,000 crabs.

The fishery will go fast, said Natura Richardson, assistant area manager for shellfish at the Department of Fish and Game office at Kodiak.

“It could be as quick as a couple days but it’s looking more like four to six days, something like that,” she said, adding that the mid-winter crab season picks up the pace at work.

“Oh yeah, there’s a lot of activity with all the registrations and figuring out who’s going where. There’s a lot of excitement in the office. It’s fun,” she said.

Reports of prices starting at $4.65 a pound also were exciting, an increase from $4.50 last year. That could mean a payout of nearly $3 million to Kodiak fishermen.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Alaska management untouched under revised Modern Fish Act

January 24, 2019 — Though a landmark piece of fisheries legislation will affect how many Lower 48 federal sportfisheries are managed, there won’t be many changes for Alaska.

President Donald Trump signed the Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Act — known as the Modern Fish Act — into law on Dec. 31, 2018. The law revises the management framework for recreational fisheries in federal waters, heralded by supporters as a way of differentiating sportfishing from commercial fishing and providing more fishing opportunity in the recreational sector.

In Alaska, though, the act won’t have much direct impact. Mike Leonard, the vice president of government affairs for the American Sportfishing Association, said it’s fair to say the provisions in the bill don’t herald many changes in the Pacific Northwest saltwater sportfisheries.

The final version of the bill itself removed some of the particular provisions directly changing management strategies, but the essential purpose of the bill remains, Leonard said.

“The passage of a bill itself that is focused on saltwater recreational fishing … I don’t know that Congress has ever done that,” he said. “The motivations behind this were to get a recognition within the (Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act) that recreational fishing is important but that (commercial and sport) are fundamentally different activities.”

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

ALASKA: Pollock ‘A’ season starts amid federal shutdown

January 23, 2019 –Pollock “A” season began Sunday at noon.

This year the total allowable catch is 1.397 million metric tons up from last year’s 1.364 million metric tons.

The partial federal government shutdown has caused some hiccups for the fishery, but it still started as scheduled Sunday.

Unalaska Mayor Frank Kelty said Juneau has two regular fish managers on the job, but local National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) offices like Unalaska’s are closed.

Read the full story at Alaska Pubic Media

Research on environmental DNA in salmon monitoring could have economic benefits

January 22, 2019 — Each year wild salmon return to the streams in which they were born to spawn and die. Salmon fishery managers must ensure that adequate numbers of fish return each year to spawn and produce offspring for future harvest. It is expensive and labor intensive to count returning salmon, especially in remote streams.

Researchers at the University of Alaska Southeast, Auke Bay Laboratories, Oregon State University, the UK and China have found that  DNA collected in water samples from Auke Creek can be used to infer the number of salmon passing upstream to spawn. Two of the authors on the published paper who contributed to the research are former UAS Biology students now in graduate school, Josh Russell and Donovan Bell. Russell is currently enrolled in the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences program, and Bell is in the biology graduate program at the University of Montana.

This form of DNA, termed “environmental DNA” or “eDNA”, can be collected from water samples. Water samples are then filtered and probed using molecular genetic techniques to quantify the amount of DNA belonging to each salmon species, providing insights into the number of salmon upstream.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

NOAA brings back inspectors to get Alaska cod, pollock boats on water

January 21, 2019 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) this month brought federal inspectors back from furlough to certify cod and pollock fishing boats in the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska, but has yet to bring back personnel necessary to free up boats for harvesting in New England, the Washington Post reports.

As the US federal government’s shutdown rolls into its record-setting fourth week, some constituencies have managed to obtain relief, while others remain shut out, according to the newspaper.

Count Alaska’s congressional delegation among those with apparently enough influence or luck.

As an Alaska radio station reported late last month how NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) wasn’t able to do the required inspections of scales for weighing fish on boats or monitoring equipment. Without the inspections, harvesters in their state would not have been able to catch cod starting on Jan. 1 or pollock beginning on Jan. 20.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

As many industries get shutdown relief, those without political clout feel left behind

January 21, 2019 — In the chaotic landscape of the partial federal shutdown, some constituencies have gotten speedy relief and attention from federal officials — while others are still trying to get in the door.

In some cases, even players within the same industry find themselves in starkly different predicaments.

When the shutdown began, members of Alaska’s congressional delegation said they made it clear that it was imperative that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service keep enough managers on the job. Without the inspections the NOAA staff perform, boat operators would not be able to head out to the Bering Sea to catch cod starting Jan. 1 and pollock beginning on Jan. 20.

Chris Oliver, NOAA assistant administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service — an Alaskan himself — tapped funds the agency had collected from industry to keep some employees at work over the past month and brought at least a couple back from furlough this month, according to several individuals briefed on the matter.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) credited Oliver’s “outstanding work” for keeping the fisheries in business.

“Since holiday break, my office and I have worked and been in direct communication with a number of Commerce Department officials to ensure that federal fisheries in Alaska opened on time and fishermen were able to gain the necessary approvals and inspections to get out on the water,” Sullivan said in a statement. “This approach is vastly different from the 2013 government shutdown, which delayed Alaska’s lucrative and iconic crab fishery, and the agency’s efforts at mitigating impacts from the lapse in funding should be commended.”

But some fishing operators on the East Coast have yet to receive similar help — leaving their vessels grounded.

John Lees, managing partner of the scallop fishing vessel Madison Kate in New Bedford, Mass., said he was in the final stages of getting NOAA officials to transfer his federal permit from his old boat to his new one last month when the agency closed. Under federal rules, he has until March 31 to catch 134,000 pounds of scallops under certain conditions.

If he cannot sail, he said, he and his crew stand to lose $1.5 million worth of seafood.

“All we’re looking for now is for NOAA to just assign a number. That’s it,” Lees said in an interview, adding that he is working to reach agency officials amid the short staffing and that his assigned quota could now be out of reach. “It’s possible that we won’t be able to do it.”

NOAA spokeswoman Julie Roberts said in an email that agency staffers were working on key matters, despite the shutdown.

“NOAA continues to conduct enforcement activities for the protection of marine fisheries including quota monitoring, observer activities, and regulatory actions to prevent overfishing,” she said. “This is not specific to Alaska.”

Read the full story at The Washington Post

‘Three-fold competition’ arises for tighter cod supplies as tariffs could invert haddock price gap

January 18, 2019 — According to figures released at the National Fisheries Institute’s Global Seafood Market Conference, world cod supply is expected to decline to 1.5 million metric tons in 2019, down from 1.59 million metric tons in 2018.

Todd Clark, a founder and partner at Endeavor Seafood, an importer and marketer of frozen seafood based in Newport, Rhode Island, said that there’s a downward supply trend in both Atlantic cod, driven by reductions out of the Barents Sea, and Pacific cod, where US supply has fallen somewhat in the Bering Sea and sharply in the Gulf of Alaska.

“There’s a steady decrease in both of these resources, really,” Clark said.

Looking at Atlantic cod supply in historical perspective, the resource, at 1.3 million metric tons in 2017, has fluctuated between a low of under 1 million metric tons in 2007 and a 2.75 million metric ton high seen in 1974.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Coast Guard gives approval to America’s Finest Jones Act waiver

January 18, 2019 — The U.S. Coast Guard has signed off on a Jones Act waiver for America’s Finest, a USD 75 million (EUR 65.8 million) vessel commissioned by Fishermen’s Finest, according to a press release issued by U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Washington) earlier this month.

That means the boat built by Dakota Creek Industries is free to fish in U.S. waters and deliver products to American ports.

“The Coast Guard worked hard to create a thorough report absolving Dakota Creek and giving the green light to the America’s Finest vessel,” said Larsen in the statement. “The employees at Dakota Creek support a job-creating industry that strengthens national defense and fosters innovation and contributes to the maritime economy in Washington state and Alaska. I am proud to be a part of giving the hard working employees at Dakota Creek a stronger future.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US, China are drivers of push for more salmon production

January 18, 2019 — Demand for salmon continues to be strong globally, but the dual markets of the United States and China have salmon sellers licking their lips at the massive opportunity they represent.

Salmon’s position as a healthy staple is driving interest in the species worldwide, but the low rates of per capita consumption in the U.S. and China show that there’s still plenty of room to grow the markets in both countries, a panel of salmon experts speaking on Wednesday, 16 January at the Global Seafood Market Conference in Coronado, California, U.S.A., agreed.

Natural limits in production from wild-catch salmon fisheries, and more complicated set of restrictions on farmed salmon production, means much of that demand likely won’t be met anytime soon. As a result, prices for salmon are rising. The average price of a pound of salmon in September 2015 was USD 4.12 (EUR 3.62) in 2015 and three years later, in September 2018, the price had risen to USD 5.80. (EUR 5.09).

“That’s the outcome of that gap between supply and demand,” Andy Wink, the executive director of the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association, said.

Wink is especially bullish on the potential for the United States to become a bigger consumer of salmon, even though it already represents the largest salmon market in the world.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Why Alaska has more at stake in the government shutdown than any other state

January 18, 2019 — Alaska is in the fourth year of a statewide recession. It has the nation’s highest unemployment rate and, since 2015, the fastest rate of job losses. And its weak economy is particularly vulnerable to a prolonged government shutdown — the federal impasse has sidelined more federal workers per capita there than in any other state. (D.C. is higher.)

About 5,700 of Alaska’s 15,100 federal employees are likely affected by the shutdown — about 1.7 percent of its entire workforce, according to an analysis of federal data by the Post’s Ted Mellnik, Laris Karklis and Kevin Schaul. That’s more than three times the national rate.

At least 382 of those workers applied for unemployment benefits in the three weeks ending Jan. 11, according to Patsy Westcott, employment and training services director at the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development. That’s up from 40 such claims in November. It’s one of many small signs the shutdown is beginning to take a toll in the state, especially in its vital fishing industry.

Read the full story at The Washington Post