Saving Seafood

Crab Fight! Aboard Alaska’s Quest To Be America’s King Of Crab

February 28, 2018 — Deep in the Bering Sea off Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, the U.S. and Russia share fishing waters that are home to this nation’s supply of king and snow crab. Predictably, the relationship is contentious. While the two nations compete for room on your plate, the deck is stacked against Alaskan fisheries thanks to cheaper imported product and illegal crab. Despite the economics, the Alaskan crab industry, made famous by The Discovery Channel’s hit show Deadliest Catch, fights for quality and sustainability in a competitive, and sometimes sketchy, global market.

Alaska’s modern fishing industry accounts for nearly 60% of America’s seafood, and today’s sustainability practices stem from the Alaskan constitution, written in 1959. But the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act marked the first significant shift in the regulation of our modern seafood, starting with redefining our fishing boundaries.

“Magnuson-Stevens expanded our coast from three to 200 miles offshore,” says Tyson Fick, Executive Director of Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers. “We decided we were tired of foreign fleets fishing off our shore, and we said, ‘You know what’? Those are our fish.’ We stepped up and claimed it.”

2005 was another year of sweeping changes. Magnuson-Stevens implemented a catch-share program, reducing the number of crab-fishing boats from three hundred to about eighty. The drastic cut sounds harsh, but crabbing was dangerous, even by today’s standards. Excellent seamen competed with less experienced captains commanding inadequate vessels in a race to catch crab regardless of the weather. People died. Crowded ports meant the catch was stretched thin and few were making decent money. Talented captains were falling into debt.

Read the full story at Forbes

 

Massachusetts: Cape Cod drilling protesters dress to express

February 28, 2018 — BOSTON — They came dressed to make a public statement.

Brewster’s Christopher Powicki’s bearded face poked out of a plush full-length lobster costume. Kevin O’Brien of Boston was head-to-toe great white shark, and Don Mallinson of East Falmouth wore a cardboard tricorn hat — think homemade “Cheesehead” — with each side bearing an anti-oil and gas drilling message like “Exxon Valdez, Deepwater Horizon, New England.”

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management didn’t allow oral testimony at its public meeting Tuesday at the Sheraton Boston Hotel on a Trump administration proposal to open New England’s ocean waters to gas and oil exploration and extraction. While speakers lining up to give testimony at public hearings has been a familiar sight for other controversial proposals, like the defunct Cape Wind project, that practice ended for the bureau five years ago under the Obama administration.

That didn’t stop people from making their voices heard Tuesday. A costumed, sign-bearing crowd jammed into a conference room a floor above the agency’s public meeting rooms to listen to representatives from a panoply of environmental organizations, more than 20 nonprofit organizations, state elected officials, and others, speak in opposition to exploration and drilling anywhere off the New England coastline.

Their concerns ranged from the effects on everything from plankton to whales of seismic testing, which is used to pinpoint likely oil and gas deposits, and the possible effects of an oil spill on fisheries, marine life and our valuable coastline and tourist economy.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

 

Alaska: Sullivan offers legislators six reasons for optimism

February 27, 2018 — In his final reason for optimism, Sullivan echoed Alaska’s official slogan and said the state can be “a land of the future” with high technology investment.

He said that as a member of the committee in charge of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, he has been seeking ways to move NOAA facilities and employees to Alaska.

Currently, many of NOAA’s Alaska offices — including the National Marine Fisheries Service region for the state — are found in Washington and Oregon. The City and Borough of Juneau has long sought to transfer some or all of those offices to the capital city.

“As for science, we have so much potential to be a vibrant hub of research, but the federal government needs to be a better partner,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan concluded his remarks by urging the Legislature to act on its opportunity.

Read the full story at the Juneau Empire

 

Alaska: First hatchery was not “eggs-actually” a success

February 26, 2018 — The first hatchery in the Cordova area was located a mere seven miles from town, on what is now known as Power Creek Road.

Today only a wide turnout, plus two large culverts that are a popular viewing area for spawning sockeye, and also brown bear looking for a tasty treat, give hints of its past. Remnants of a wooden bridge that led to the hatchery that was situated above the parking area can be seen if the water level is low.

A fascinating chronology of events leading to the establishment of this hatchery can be found in paper titled “History of Eyak Lake” by the Copper River Watershed Project.

In 1871, just six years after the end of the Civil War and four years after the purchase of Alaska from Russia, the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries was established “to determine the cause of decreasing salmon runs.”

In 1889, those concerns resulted in the establishment of the first Alaskan hatchery in Kodiak and made it unlawful to build obstructions to bodies of water offering habitat for salmon. By the late 1890s, government hatcheries had been abandoned; and canneries, wanting to protect their own interests, created their own.

Read the full story at the Cordova Times

 

Alaska: In Nome, state experts ponder responses to Bering Sea crises

February 21, 2018 — Experts from around the state gathered in Nome to discuss marine mammals and how multiple entities can respond to different types of emergencies that may happen in the Bering Sea.

Mandy Migura with the National Marine Fisheries Service was one of the presenters at a “Strait Science” talk hosted at University of Alaska Fairbanks Northwest Campus.

Migura discussed how marine mammal stranding events take place in Alaska sporadically but have been rising in numbers since tracking began in the 1980s.

“Strandings involve live marine mammals. these may be animals that are unable to return to their natural habitat without some kind of assistance. And they may be injured, they may be entangled in gear or marine debris, they may be entrapped — ice entrapment, ice may form up and they’re in an area where they can’t get back to where they should be — or they may be disoriented, may be a health issue or something in the environment that’s affecting them.”

Migura is Alaska’s marine mammal stranding coordinator and said dead marine mammals can also be categorized as stranded.

With more cases of marine mammal strandings being reported, the Bering Sea marine ecosystem is currently in a volatile state.

Nome-based marine advisory agent Gay Sheffield mentioned how sharks have been found more frequently in the Bering Straits region, with the latest one documented in Gambell in summer 2017.

On the other side of St. Lawrence Island, a stellar sea lion was harvested last year in Savoonga, which she said is uncommon.

Migura said local and regional partners reporting this kind of information greatly benefits the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Read the full story at KTOO

 

Alaska: Bering Sea Trawl Cod Fishery May Have Been Shortest Ever, as High Prices Attract Effort

February 20, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Bering Sea federal trawl cod fishery closed in what may be record time on Feb. 11, just 22 days after the Jan. 20 opener, according to National Marine Fisheries Service Biologist Krista Milani in Unalaska/Dutch Harbor.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the shortest ever,” and certainly for as long as she’s had the job going back to 2009.

While the Bering Sea cod quota is down 20 percent from last year, Milani said other factors are at play. She pointed out that in a previous year, with an almost identical quota, the season remained open for about six weeks, ending the second week of March in 2010.

This year, the A season Bering Sea cod trawl quota is 24,768 metric tons, and in 2010 it was 24,640 mt.

“The bigger thing is the price is good, and there’s a lot of interest in it,” Milani said.

“I think there’s a lot of reasons,” including fishermen feeling a need to build catch histories to qualify for future Pacific cod fishing rights, if a rationalization program is adopted for cod in the Bering Sea, she said.

“I think there’s some fear it could go to limited access,” Milani said.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Program is now considering a plan to restrict the number of boats eligible to fish for cod in the Bering Sea.

The fish council floated ideas to limit catcher vessel participation in the Bering Sea cod fishery, including controversial catch shares or individual fishing quotas, during a December meeting in Anchorage.

IFQs are not among alternatives the council is considering. The purpose and need statement, approved unanimously, includes limiting trawling to vessels actually fishing cod in various years between 2010 and 2017.

This would create a limited entry program within a limited entry program. Bering Sea cod fishing is already limited to boats with licenses. Some of those boats don’t usually participate, but can when prices are high or stocks are low in their usual fisheries.

Brent Paine, the executive director of United Catcher Boats, said something needs to be done to regulate fishing in the congested “Cod Alley.” He accurately predicted a three-week season in 2018 in the area offshore of Unimak Island.

“This is the last unrationalized fishery in the eastern Bering Sea,” Paine said. “If you don’t do anything, we’re all going to be losers.”

While Paine said the NPFMC’s present majority is unsympathetic to rationalization, calling it the “R word,” he said that may change in the future.

Rationalization opponents see IFQs as privatization adding another barrier to entry into the fishing world, while supporters call it a reward for investment with benefits including substantial retirement income.

Milani said Tuesday it was still too early to say how many trawlers participated, as there were vessels still delivering cod to processing companies, and perhaps some trawlers delivering loaded nets to offshore motherships. The last count had 55 in the federal cod fishery, compared to 57 last year, she said, expecting this year’s final count will be higher.

The number of boats is hard to track in-season, as many go back and forth between cod, pollock and other fisheries, although there are some that only fish cod, Milani said.

The depressed cod stocks in the Gulf of Alaska probably also contributed to this year’s fast pace, she said. Gulf cod stocks are way down, far worse than the smaller decline in the Bering Sea, an 80 per percent decline from last year.

Earlier in the season, Milani said the number of Gulf boats coming into the federal Bering Sea cod fishery was smaller than expected.

The Gulf cod crash appears to be having a greater impact in the state cod fishery, with 32 small boats registered on Tuesday, up from 24 last year in the Dutch Harbor Subdistrict. The state waters fishery is limited to boats 58 feet or shorter fishing within three miles of shore and using only pot gear.

The Dutch Harbor Subdistrict total catch on Monday was 11.4 million pounds caught in pots from a total quota of 28.4 million pounds. The pot cod fishery is expected to continue for another 14 to 16 days, according to Alaska Department of Fish and Game Biologist Asia Beder in Unalaska.

In the Aleutian Islands Subdistrict state waters fishery, with a quota of 12.8 million pounds, Beder couldn’t release precise total catch numbers because of confidentiality rules when there’s fewer than three processors. She said the fleet has caught somewhere between 25 and 50 percent. There’s only one processor, in Adak, Golden Harvest — formerly Premier Harvest, she said. And she could also say there were eight small boats fishing cod in the Aleutian subdistrict, all in the Adak section.

In the Aleutians, cod boats are allowed up to 60 feet in with various gear types, although longliners are limited to 58 feet.

In Bering Sea crab fisheries, the 50 boats dropping pots for opilio snow crab had made 134 landings for 10.9 million pounds or 58 percent of the total quota. The cumulative catch per unit of effort for the season is an average of 161 crab per pot, according to shellfish biologist Ethan Nichols of ADF&G in Unalaska.

In the Western Bering Sea Tanner fishery, 28 vessels had made 66 landings for 2.1 million pounds, with the quota nearly wrapped up at 85 percent.

In the Eastern Aleutian District, two small boats harvesting bairdi Tanner had landed over 75 percent of the total quota of 35,000 pounds, Nichols said.

The EAD is open this year only in the Makushin and Skan Bay area, and that’s where the Tanners are from that sell for $10 each by local fisherman Roger Rowland at the Carl E. Moses Boat Harbor in Unalaska.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

 

Alaska: Bristol Bay Stakeholders to Testify in Juneau Regarding Proposed Pebble Mine

February 16, 2018 — JUNEAU, Ala. — Members of the Alaska Legislature will hear from a diverse group of Bristol Bay leaders and top scientists regarding permits for the proposed Pebble Mine and impacts the mine would have on Bristol Bay’s watershed and all it sustains.

Despite steadfast opposition to the project from Bristol Bay tribes, residents, businesses, anglers, commercial fishermen, and native corporations, Northern Dynasty continues to pursue its toxic mining project at the headwaters of Bristol Bay’s world-class fishery. In December, the company applied for permits with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, initiating the environmental impact statement process. Bristol Bay is home to the world’s last great sockeye run, which sustain the region’s indigenous cultures, generate more than 14,000 jobs and support a $1.5 billion economy each year.

Read the full story at the Alaska Native News

 

Commercial fleet highlights economic impact of Sitka Sound herring catch

February 15, 2018 — Despite three days of impassioned testimony before the Board of Fisheries in January, not much has changed for the Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery, which will ramp up in about a month.

Local subsistence harvesters won an increase in the size of their exclusive use area, but failed to persuade the board to reduce the commercial catch.

Fishermen and processors from Petersburg joined with other commercial interests to remind the board of the economic importance of the annual springtime export.

Commercial fishing representatives at January’s meeting testified in oral and written comments about the economic importance of the annual fishery in Sitka Sound.

Icicle Seafoods processes some of the catch at its Petersburg plant and the company’s John Woodruff talked about the impact to the Petersburg economy.

“Last year, we spent roughly $450,000 just on Sitka herring labor,” Woodruff said. “Most of this stays in Petersburg and it comes at a time when there’s not much other economic activity in town and a half-million bucks might not seem like much but at that time of year for a town like Petersburg, I think it’s impactive.”

Read and listen to the full story at KTOO

 

To get good credit, Alaska’s fishing towns may have to factor in climate change

February 15, 2018 — Late last year one of the world’s largest credit rating agencies announced that climate change would have an economic impact on the U.S.

Moody’s suggested that climate risks could become credit risks for some U.S. states.

Even though Alaska is warming nearly twice as fast as the rest of the U.S., its credit rating doesn’t seem to be in danger. But take a closer look at some of the state’s coastal communities and the story changes, especially when Alaska’s fishing towns consider adding climate risks to their balance sheets.

Frank Kelty is the mayor of the Unalaska, a tiny town is on an island sandwiched between the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska, near some of the richest fishing grounds in the world.

Kelty has been there for 45 years, and lately, he’s seen a lot of changes.

“We’ve had a huge increase in humpback whales coming right into the inner harbor by the road system. Just hundreds of them hanging around,” he said.

People have been pulling off of the road to watch what he calls the “whale show.”

Read the full story at KTOO

 

A new study looks at why Pacific Cod stocks are crashing in the Gulf of Alaska

February 14, 2018 — A new study in Kodiak will hopefully shed some light on what Pacific cod go through when they’re young.

“We don’t know how they do in the winter. Where they are. What they are eating. What their energetic requirements are.”

One of the leaders of the project, Mike Litzow is a researcher for the University of Alaska Fairbanks based in Kodiak.

He said the recent crash in the Pacific cod population in the Gulf of Alaska was a wake-up call that there’s a lot to be learned about the early life stages of Pacific cod.

A few years ago a body of warm water settled in the gulf and it may have made it difficult for juvenile cod to survive.

“The operating hypothesis right now is that you can warm the temperatures up and they’ll survive if there’s enough food, but there wasn’t enough food to meet those requirements.”

The National Marine Fisheries Service, according to Litzow, recently found that the Pacific cod population had dropped by about 60 percent since 2015.

The North Pacific Fisheries Pacific Council reduced the amount of Pacific cod that can be caught by commercial fishermen in the Gulf of Alaska by about 80 percent because of the crash.

The decrease in cod will be hard for Kodiak fisherman because Pacific Cod is one of the bigger fisheries in the region.

Litzow thinks Kodiak will have to face the possibility that more fishery disasters could be in its future because of climate change.

Read the full story at KTOO