Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Southeast pink salmon catch lowest in over four decades

August 30, 2018 — Southeast Alaska’s commercial pink salmon catch will wind up way below forecasts, the lowest harvest in more than four decades. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s pink and chum salmon project leader for Southeast Andy Piston said the region’s commercial catch this summer is 7.3 million fish.

“And that would be the lowest region-wide harvest since 1976,” Piston said. “And our Southeast purse seine catch, and that’s the gear group that catches most of our pink salmon, is about 6.5 million which again is the lowest we’ve seen since the mid-1970s.”

It’s not the lowest catch ever. There were a handful of years in the 1960s and 70s with lower. The fishery is essentially over and the total catch is not expected to increase very much. This year’s harvest is well below the department’s pre-season forecast of 23 million fish. Two years ago, when the parents of this year’s run spawned, the catch was 18 million and the federal government declared a fishery disaster.

Recent even years have seen very poor returns to inside waters in northern Southeast. Managers were forecasting better runs in the southern Panhandle but those runs fell short. Piston said restrictions on fishing time did allow enough pinks to return to their spawning streams at least on the southern end.

“That’s a positive,” Piston said. “Obviously from a harvest perspective it looks poor but I guess the good thing is that we, it appears we have enough fish in our streams in southern Southeast that if survival rates turn around it gives you the potential to spring back pretty quickly. If you see a turnaround in survival you have enough eggs in the gravel that you can have a turnaround quickly.”

Read the full story at KFSK

Tariffs set to take toll on Alaska seafood exports and imports

August 30, 2018 — More seafood tariffs in Trump’s trade war with China are hitting Alaska coming and going.

On July 6, the first 25 percent tax went into effect on more than 170 U.S. seafood products going to China. On Aug. 23 more items were added to the list, including fishmeal from Alaska.

“As of right now, nearly every species and product from Alaska is on that list of tariffs,” said Garrett Evridge, a fisheries economist with the McDowell Group.

Alaska produces more than 70,000 metric tons of fishmeal per year (about 155 million pounds), mostly from pollock trimmings, with salmon a distant second. The pollock meal is used primarily in Chinese aquaculture production, while salmon meal goes mostly to pet food makers in the U.S.

In 2017 about $70 million worth of fishmeal from Alaska pollock was exported to China from processing plants all over the state.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Chinese buyers hesitant to buy Alaska seafood as U.S. weighs another round of tariffs

August 28, 2018 — In the first round of what seems to be an escalating trade dispute between the U.S. and China, tariffs have been levied on billions of dollars worth of goods in both countries. The Alaska fishing industry, which harvests roughly 60 percent of all wild seafood in the U.S., has been caught in the crosshairs of that disagreement.

But it’s not the Chinese tariffs that’s giving the industry heartburn. It’s a proposed tariff on seafood imported from China.

The Alaska seafood industry has a unique relationship with China. Nearly $1 billion worth of Alaska seafood was exported into the country in 2017, but that’s just the first step in a global supply chain.

“So much of our exports to China are reprocessed and re-exported,” Garrett Everidge, a fisheries economist with the McDowell Group, said.

Everidge explains that after those fish are reprocessed, they’re exported into markets around the world, including the U.S. Although, it’s hard to discern from trade data just how much winds back up in the U.S. market.

China kept its relationship with the Alaska seafood industry in mind when it levied a 25 percent tariff on U.S. seafood earlier this summer.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Locals catch and chow down on invasive species in Kodiak

August 28, 2018 — An informal sport fishery has popped up in Kodiak. For crawdads.

They’re crustaceans that look like little lobsters, and they’re native to the Pacific Northwest, but not Alaska. In 2002, they were found scuttling along the bottom of a popular fishing area near Kodiak, in the Buskin River watershed, mainly in the lake.

Now, a local tribal organization is studying their movement, distribution, and diet.

They are concerned the crawdads could be snacking on salmon and disrupting their natural environment.

In a parking lot next to Buskin Lake, four guys pull on neoprene wetsuits and snorkeling masks. They’re gearing up for the hunt.

“Man, I’m ready to slay some frickin’ crawdad right now.”

That’s Ryan Gabor. He and some friends have put aside the day to snorkel for the mud-colored crustaceans.

They’re called a variety of names throughout the world including: crawfish, crawdads, and crayfish.

Read the full story at KMXT

Alaskan man stole $85,000 worth of frozen fish and crab

August 28, 2018 — A Homer man faces two felony charges after Alaska State Troopers say he stole around $85,000 in frozen fish and crab from a fish processing business on the Kenai Peninsula.

Garrett Shaw Fitzgerald, 53, was charged Friday with first-degree theft and second-degree burglary, troopers said. Troopers say that Fitzgerald broke into Tanner’s Fresh Fish Processing in Ninilchik at 2:50 a.m. Wednesday.

Owner Jason Tanner said the door to his business was kicked in and $400 dollars was stolen before the suspect went into the commercial freezer.

Surveillance footage showed the thief spent an hour walking back and forth between the freezer and a vehicle outside. He carried box after box of frozen salmon, halibut, king crab and smoked fish.

“Every time I saw him, I go, ‘Oh, there’s a thousand bucks,'” Tanner said.

Troopers say about 3,000 pounds in frozen seafood was stolen from the business. Investigators believe an accomplice helped Fitzgerald, and that a second vehicle was also used to load up the stolen product, said spokeswoman Megan Peters.

All told, the frozen seafood was worth about $85,000 at retail prices, Tanner said.

Fitzgerald was arrested Friday in Soldotna, troopers said. Some of the stolen fish was recovered, but nearly all of it is unusable, Tanner said.

“He was cutting it open and repackaging it,” Tanner said. Fish was found in loose bags, some thawed. None of the king crab has been recovered, he said.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

US senator from Alaska speaks out against Trump tariffs

August 27, 2018 — If the Trump administration is serious about putting “America First,” then it must consider what the proposed 25 percent tariff on Chinese products will do to the Alaskan seafood industry. That was the message U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan delivered last week at a public hearing held by the U.S. International Trade Commission.

The Alaska Republican testified his state is currently caught in the crossfire as the world’s two largest economies consider hiking levies on goods imported from each other.

Sullivan said nearly USD 1 billion (EUR 859.4 million) in U.S. seafood ultimately destined for American consumers is being targeted by these tariffs. That’s because frozen fish, after it’s initially processed in the States, is sent to China to be filleted because it is more cost-effective. Most of that is caught by Alaskan fishermen.

Sullivan likened the fish to an American car made in the U.S. by local workers, only to have the final detailing performed in China before its sent back to dealerships here. The Trump administration wouldn’t consider increasing tariffs on those automobiles, Sullivan said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Seafood marketing group says fish meal included in tariff changes, calls for comments

August 27, 2018 — Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute recently received clarification about tariff changes, which went into effect on July 6, for Alaska seafood products going into the Chinese domestic market, an organization spokesperson said.

The public-private marketing organization promotes Alaska’s seafood industry.

“We previously thought that fish meal would not be included and we now know that fish meal products will be included in those proposed tariff increases from China,” communications director Jeremy Woodrow said.

Woodrow says $69 million in fish meal products — mostly used in animal feed — were exported to China last year.

Woodrow said one of the largest generators of fishmeal is the Alaska pollock industry.

The fishmeal market is important to Alaska because it ensures full utilization of seafood and helps generate revenue.

“The more that you can get out of the fish, the more everybody benefits,” Woodrow said. “That’s right down to the fishermen, to the processors, as well as the communities.”

Many fishing communities rely on a variety of fish taxes.

Read the full story at KTOO

 

Citing failed sockeye runs, Alaska Gov. Walker declares economic disaster for Chignik fisheries

August 24, 2018 — ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Citing a preliminary harvest count of 128 sockeye salmon and rapidly declining escapement counts, Gov. Walker declared an economic disaster for the Chignik fisheries region Thursday.

According to a Thursday release, the governor’s decision is a result of harvest numbers that pose a threat to communities in the region that rely on subsistence and commercial salmon fishing, including Chignik, Chignik Lake, Chignik Lagoon, Ivanof Bay and Perryville.

“Chignik is used to catching more than a million sockeye every year. This year, they caught 128 fish,” Gov. Walker said in the statement. “Salmon is the economic and subsistence staple in these communities and the failure of this year’s fishery is a one-two punch. It is critical that we do what we can to support them as they work to recover: that’s what we’re here for.”

Read the full story at KTUU

 

ALASKA: Roundtable discussion focuses on salmon sustainability, culture

August 24, 2018 — With participants from a broad swathe of the salmon spectrum, the Kenai River Sportfishing Association’s Classic Roundtable discussion Wednesday focused on new research and management tools to preserve troubled salmon returns in the state.

Part of the Soldotna-based sportfishing association’s annual Classic event, the roundtable discussions invite experts and stakeholders to address various issues related to fishing and fisheries management. This year, the panelists focused on science related to recent changes in salmon size and age, the cultural and economic impacts of the declines and market-based strategies to change salmon fishery allocation.

Presiding as the keynote speaker was National Marine Fisheries Service Assistant Administrator Chris Oliver, who previously lived in Alaska for 27 years and served as the executive director of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. Since taking the role as the head of the National Marine Fisheries Service, which among other functions regulates fisheries in federal waters and enforcing the Marine Mammal Protection Act, he said he’s made a few adjustments to overall identified goals and gotten a broad perspective on issues in fisheries nationwide.

Read the full story at The Peninsula Clarion

For small boat fishermen in Alaska, the business can be boom or bust

August 23, 2018 — The Alaskan seafood industry is one of the many industries with its eyes on the back-and-forth between the U.S. and China. Seafood was one of the U.S. exports to get slapped with a retaliatory tariff from China, and that’s an issue for Alaska seafood producers because a lot of their seafood exports are sent there.

But in this installment of our on-going series My Economy, we’re looking beyond the news headlines to see how people are actually doing. And there are a variety of things that might be on an Alaskan fisherman’s mind right now, as fisherman Hannah Heimbuch describes from Homer, Alaska.

My name is Hannah Heimbuch. I’m a commercial fisherman from Homer, Alaska. My brother and I are drift gillnetters. We fish for sockeye salmon. We grew up deckhanding with our dad on his boat in a couple different areas in Alaska. And two years ago we decided to invest in our own operation. You know we’re in our early 30s and kind of looked at each other and were like, well, I guess we’re in this together.

Probably our biggest annual investment is our boat payment. That runs about $11,000. We also have permit payments, that’s another $5,000. And then after that you have the basic maintenance. You know we spend a few thousand dollars upgrading. So we have a boat that’s in tip top shape, but we needed to make more than $20,000 to breakeven this year. We did not come close to that.

Read the full story at the Marketplace