Saving Seafood

Prehistoric stone fish trap discovered on Alaska island

June 29, 2017 — Archaeologists have discovered a prehistoric fish trap constructed of rock walls near the mouth of a salmon stream on Alaska’s Kodiak Island.

The trap is in a lower intertidal zone that’s covered by ocean water at high tide and exposed at low tide, the Kodiak Daily Mirror reported (http://bit.ly/2t0of5f) Tuesday.

Archaeologists at the Alutiiq Museum in the city of Kodiak identified the trap. Salmon at high tide could swim into the stream, and when the tide receded, fish would be stranded in one of two corrals, said Patrick Saltonstall, the museum’s curator of archaeology.

Prehistoric fish traps previously have been found in streams on Kodiak, the second largest island in the United States, Saltonstall said. The V-shape devices faced upstream and channeled salmon to a spot where fishermen could spear fish. Saltonstall had not seen an ocean trap on Kodiak before.

“These are the first ones we’ve found in the intertidal zone, and that’s kind of exciting,” he said.

The trap reminded Saltonstall of stone walls of a New England farm.

“They’re pretty big piles. They’re like four or five feet across. They’re stacked,” he said. Wood or netting may have helped capture fish.

One corral was roughly rectangular. Farther from shore was a U-shape corral. Together they stretched about 165 yards (150 meters).

The trap is not in shape to catch fish now.

“The walls have gotten too low and they’re too many gaps,” Saltonstall said, likely from tides knocking down rocks over centuries or silt covering the base. Large rocks anchor the trap but most rocks, weighing around 80 pounds (36 kilograms), would have been carried and stacked by hand.

Read the full story at ABC News

Jellied sea creatures confound scientists, fishermen on U.S. Pacific Coast

June 28, 2017 — Drifting throngs of jelly-like, glowing organisms native to tropical seas far from shore have invaded Pacific coastal waters from Southern California to the Gulf of Alaska this year, baffling researchers and frustrating fishing crews.

Known as pyrosomes, they are tubular colonies of hundreds or thousands of tiny individual creatures called zooids, enmeshed together in a gelatinous tunic roughly the consistency of gummy bear candy.

No relation to jellyfish, they resemble bumpy, opaque pickles in the water, typically a few centimeters or inches long, though some grow 1 or 2 feet (30cm or 60cm) in length.

They feed by filtering microscopic algae, or phytoplankton, as they float with the current, and are known to glow in the dark – a bioluminescent characteristic that gives the organism its scientific name — Pyrosoma, Greek for “fire body.”

Pyrosomes have rarely if ever been seen along the U.S. West Coast until 2012, when first spotted in California waters. Since then, they have gradually multiplied and spread north, before exploding in numbers this spring, according to scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Although harmless to humans, they have been especially troublesome to the commercial salmon catch in Oregon, with large globs of the rubbery critters clogging fishing gear by the thousands in recent months. Some have even washed ashore.

“It gets to a point where they’re so abundant, you can’t even fish out there, so you have to pick up your gear and move elsewhere,” Nancy Fitzpatrick, executive director of the Oregon Salmon Commission, said on Monday.

A single five-minute trawl with a research net by scientists off the Columbia River in late May scooped up roughly 60,000 pyrosomes, NOAA reported.

Fishermen were also hit in southeastern Alaska, where some crews suspended operations earlier this year when pyrosome densities were at their height, said Aaron Baldwin, a fishery biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Read the full story at Reuters

FRI trains the fishery managers of tomorrow

June 26, 2017 — Area management biologists in Bristol Bay are responsible for tracking and maintaining the escapement numbers of multiple salmon species in multiple river systems. Not only are they charged with preserving the health of the run’s biology, but they are often held, at least partly, accountable for the economic viability of the fishery as well. One of the inherent challenges of the job is that the sustainability of the salmon run is not always synonymous with the profit margins of industry entities, and the managers are often the first to be blamed when the catch and escapement don’t go as planned.

The University of Washington’s Fisheries Research Institute is taking on the tall task of training those who hope to one day be fishery managers. Seven grad students—two from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, three from the University of Washington and two from Kamchatka State Technical Institute in Russia—are taking the three week course at FRI’s cabin on Aleknagik Lake.

Professors Milo Adkinson and Ray Hilborn are teaching the course.  “We bring our graduate students in fisheries out to see a real fishery in action,” said Adkinson.

For the class’s main term project, the students will work directly with the three area management biologists in Bristol Bay as the salmon run is going on.

“They get to pretend that they’re managing the fisheries,” said Adkinson. “So I’ve got a group of students that are going be deciding whether to open and close the Naknek-Kvichak district every day.”

The students will simulate making announcements relevant to the current salmon run, allocating when and where sport and commercial fisherman are allowed to fish. They will then be given a math equation which will determine the catch and escapement numbers based on the management decisions they made. The students will receive feedback from the actual area managers as the course progresses.

“We had one year where the students let several million fish escape into the Egegik system. I think the managers got a kick out of that,” said Adkinson.

Tim Sands is the area management biologist for the Nushagak and Togiak districts. He gave a lecture at FRI this week, and is making himself available to answer any questions the students charged with simulating his job might have.

“So there’s rules like what time of the tide you have to open the set nets—it’s all specified in the management plan. They can ask me questions like that, or things about allocation,” said Sands. “That’s what I do. Tell them the rules of the district.”

Read the full story at KDLG

Congressman Young Welcomes Selection of Chris Oliver as Assistant Administrator for NOAA Fisheries

June 20, 2017 — The following was released by the office of Congressman Don Young:

Alaska Congressman Don Young today shared the following statement of support on the appointment of Chris Oliver, Executive Director of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, as Assistant Administrator for NOAA Fisheries:

“The Secretary got this one right – it’s the right pick for Alaska and for the country,” said Congressman Don Young. “This decision underscores the leadership and qualifications of Chris Oliver, who has spent his lifetime working to build Alaska and the North Pacific into the gold standard for fisheries management. Chris’ depth of knowledge and experience, as the head of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, will bring much needed expertise to a position tasked with addressing some of the most challenging aspects of fisheries management throughout the United States. I look forward to working with Chris during his tenure as Assistant Administrator – I know he’ll be a huge asset to NOAA.”

ALASKA: In a Bering Sea battle of killer whales vs. fishermen, the whales are winning

June 20, 2017 — In the Bering Sea, near the edge the continental shelf, fishermen are trying to escape a predator that seems to outwit them at every turn, stripping their fishing lines and lurking behind their vessels.

The predators are pods of killer whales chasing down the halibut and black cod caught by longline fishermen. Fishermen say the whales are becoming a common sight — and problem — in recent years, as they’ve gone from an occasional pest to apparently targeting the fishermen’s lines.

Fishermen say they can harvest 20,000 to 30,000 pounds of halibut in a single day, only to harvest next to nothing the next when a pod of killer whales recognizes their boat. The hooks will be stripped clean, longtime Bering Sea longliner Jay Hebert said in a phone interview this week. Sometimes there will be just halibut “lips” still attached to hooks — if anything at all.

“It’s kind of like a primordial struggle,” fisherman Buck Laukitis said about the orcas last week. “It comes at a real cost.”

The whales seem to be targeting specific boats, fisherman Jeff Kauffman said in a phone interview. FV Oracle Captain Robert Hanson said juvenile whales are starting to show up, and he thinks the mothers are teaching the young to go for the halibut and black cod the fishermen are trying to catch.

Hanson, a fisherman who’s worked in the Bering Sea since 1992, said the orca problem has become “systemic” in recent years. There are more pods present, he said, and the animals are getting more aggressive.

In a letter he sent to the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council last month, Hanson described a series of challenges he faced in recent years. On a trip to the continental shelf in April he said his crew was “harassed nonstop.” He wrote that they lost approximately 12,000 pounds of sellable halibut to the whales and wasted 4,000 gallons of fuel trying to outrun them.

Read the full story at Alaska Dispatch News

Alaskan appointed to head U.S. fisheries management for NOAA

June 20, 2017 — Chris Oliver of Anchorage has been appointed to manage fisheries nationally for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Trump administration announced Tuesday.

Oliver has since 2000 led the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, for which he has worked for 27 years. He gained broad support for the position from fisheries groups and members of Alaska’s congressional delegation.

Oliver’s first day as assistant administrator for NOAA Fisheries was Tuesday. He relocated to the Washington area for the job. The position is a political appointment but does not require Senate confirmation.

Oliver said in a statement that he plans “to make long-term sustainability the top priority, while looking for ways to maximize fishing opportunities for the benefit of recreational and commercial fishermen, processors, coastal communities, and the economies which depend upon them.”

“Oliver’s background and expertise will be an asset at NOAA Fisheries as they work to reduce our nation’s $11 billion seafood trade deficit,” said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

The agency is responsible for managing sustainable U.S. fisheries under the Department of Commerce, as well as recovery and protection of species of whales, sea turtles and corals.

Read the full story at Alaska Dispatch News

Changes to Halibut Fishery in the Bering Sea Being Considered by North Pacific Council

June 16, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — At their June meeting last week, the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council moved forward on a regulatory amendment to allow Western Alaska Community Development Quota (CDQ) groups to lease halibut IFQ during times of low abundance.

The issue has been before the council since December 2015; last week the 11-member panel selected a preferred alternative for further analysis.

Low relative abundance has been an issue throughout the range of Pacific halibut since 2010 or so when the phenomenon of lower size at age became widely discussed. That years-long event, marked by successive generations of halibut not reaching sizes they have in the past at advanced ages, appears to have leveled out in recent years.

Both Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) and CDQ are issued in units which are converted to pounds, so the problem of lower pounds to fish, in a region defined by few processing plants and vast distances between fishing ports where product is processed and the markets that buy it, continues to affect residents of the Pribilofs and the Aleutian Islands.

In 2015, the issue reached a critical point when the International Pacific Halibut Commission’s (IPHC) stock assessment and harvest policy justified some half a million pounds of halibut in an area where over a million was required to run the plants and allow the fleet to go fishing.

The IPHC’s method for setting annual catch limits uses an equation that removes from the total biomass mortalities that are estimated by each country the year before, for example subsistence removals and bycatch removals.

In the Bering Sea, removals of halibut bycatch in the pursuit of flatfish and P-cod, amounted to 4.6 million pounds, nearly 14 percent of all halibut caught by the directed fishery in both countries that year. Catch limits went down from there in 2016. Additionally, most of the bycatch was smaller than 32-inches, which is the legal limit for the directed fishery.

In June 2015 the Council recognized the need to reduce bycatch in the Bering Sea and set goals for each fishing sector. The Amendment 80 fleet, targeting flatfish that inhabit the same sea floor as halibut, exceeded their reduction targets in the following years.

Any savings in the over 26-inch portion of the groundfish fleets’ halibut bycatch translates the following year as increased catch limits to the directed halibut fleet in the Bering Sea. Any savings of under 26-inch fish is taken into account by the IPHC’s annual stock assessments and improves the overall abundance of the species in that area and other areas affected by out-migration and recruitment to the biomass.

The action taken by the Council to allow CDQ groups to lease IFQ is seen as a stop-gap measure only in times of severely low abundance and until the Council completes their work on shifting the managment of halibut bycatch from a set Prohibited Species Catch (PSC) to an Abundance Based Management (ABM) scheme.

That effort continues at the Council with a step-wise process to establish first, indices that answer the question “Abundance of what?”, for instance just in the Bering Sea, or also the Aleutians or Gulf of Alaska, and a starting point that answers the question “Where do we begin measuring the ratio of what we’re catching with what is out there?”

Analyses will be done this summer for the Council’s consideration and further action at the October meeting.

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

Alaska budget deadlock would spell disaster for state’s fisheries

June 12, 2017 — Want a fishing license to crew on a salmon boat this summer? Got friends or family visiting who want to wet a line for a prized Alaska catch? Don’t count on it.

If the Alaska legislature continues to defy its constitutional obligation to pass a budget, those opportunities will be lost because there won’t be any state workers to issue fishing licenses. Layoff notices went out on June 1 to thousands of state employees who will be off the job at the July 1 start of the fiscal year.

That’s just one of the lesser impacts of the legislative impasse, hundreds of which are now being outlined by the governor and state agencies as the deadline approaches.

Here’s an overview of potential fishery related impacts from various divisions:

The Commercial Fisheries Division, which receives nearly all its management money from the state general fund, will be hit the hardest. The budget deadlock would bring all state fisheries to a screeching halt, and thousands of processing workers who live in or come to Alaska each summer would suddenly find themselves out of a job.

The biggest punch, of course, would be felt by the salmon fisheries — and the harm could extend well beyond this year.

Field staff at remote weirs, towers and salmon sonar counting projects from Southeast to Kotzebue will be pulled, said Scott Kelley, division director with the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game.

“A ballpark count is 40-50 projects for commercial fisheries. That doesn’t include projects operated by Sport Fish which are oftentimes equally important for overall salmon assessment, as well as aerial and foot surveys,” he said.

The stall means that managers’ ability to forecast future salmon escapement goals and collect other critical data also would be significantly compromised.

Cancelled harvests also could force too many salmon to head upstream and exceed the carrying capacity of food and oxygen in their home lakes or streams.

“That entirely depends on the strength of a given run,” Kelley explained. “In rearing limited systems, where the more spawners we put in the more fry we get, we could see significant impacts in terms of future yields. If we put a big number of sockeye into a system above the upper end of an escapement goal, the result could be reduced yield when that brood year returns over 3 to 5 years. If there are more fry than feed, they could have reduced in-lake survival, reduced marine survival because they leave freshwater smaller and less fit than normal. Prey densities also take a hit and take a while to recover.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Moving Tribute Marks Oliver’s Last Council Meeting

June 6, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Chris Oliver, executive director of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council and soon to be head of the National Marine Fisheries Service, did not want a going away party and his staff assured him they would not throw one during his last fisheries council meeting.

But shortly after the agency “B” reports yesterday morning, members of the Council’s Advisory Panel, the Scientific and Statistical Committee, other agencies involved in Alaska’s fishing industry, and stakeholders all quietly gathered in the main meeting room to wish him well.

Deputy Director Dave Witherell started things off with a tongue-in-cheek video showing the young Oliver coming to Alaska from Texas and “of course, falling in love with Alaska.” Oliver is an accomplished hunter and fisherman, one of many talents highlighted in the humorous tribute.

Witherell turned serious at the end, though, and called Oliver an important role model, a “leader, mentor, and friend” — words that would be echoed by many during the event.

Then Captain Stephen White, Coast Guard member of the Council, stepped up to present Oliver with the Meritorious Public Service Award on behalf of the Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard.

As White pinned the award on Oliver’s lapel, the commendation was read aloud.

“….Mr. Oliver led the Council’s efforts in rationalizing the world’s most complex fisheries, significantly improving safety measures and practices amongst federal fishing fleets and preserving sustainability of fishery resources for future generations.

“…Mr. Oliver’s vigilance, leadership, and professionalism have been fundamental to the stewardship of Alaska’s fishery resources. His many contributions and dedication to public service are most heartily commended and are in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Coast Guard.” The commendation was signed by Rear Admiral Michael F McAllister, Commander of the 17th Coast Guard District.

Other members of the Council related poignant and humorous stories about Oliver and his 15 years as the executive director of the Council — longer than any other.

Council chairman Dan Hull described Oliver as a “great mentor, pragmatic, a man who gets straight to business, but he’s always open to alternative views and innovation.  He’s been a strong supporter of our partner agencies and user groups and communities.

“There is no one more experienced or knowledgeable,” Hull said, “or with a better character or attitude to lead NOAA Fisheries.

“The loss to this region is a huge gain for the nation, the agency and for the regional fisheries management council system across the country,” Hull said.

Oliver took the microphone after sustained applause and remarked “I wouldn’t have had this opportunity if it weren’t for this Council. And the support of an excellent staff. They make me look good.” A slight pause, then “They mostly make me look good.”

The audience, many of them on their feet, laughed lightly.

Then with an emotion-laden voice, Oliver said, “This has been the hardest career decision I’ve ever made. I will do you proud.”

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

Shutdown puts salmon fisheries at risk

June 9, 2017 — Alaska Department of Fish & Game workers are heading out to weirs and counting towers this month to prepare for the opening of salmon fisheries across the state, but with the Alaska Legislature unable to reach agreement on an operating budget, uncertainty remains about how to pay them.

State workers have already received notice of potential layoffs should the Legislature pass the July 1 deadline.

Fish & Game is rolling out management plans under the assumption that the Legislature will pass a budget before July 1. If lawmakers don’t pass that budget, a government shutdown would result in the layoff of thousands of state workers, ADF&G Commissioner Sam Cotten told the Empire in an interview Thursday at the State Office Building in Juneau.

Lucrative salmon fisheries are set to open in Bristol Bay and Southeast Alaska in coming weeks. Bristol Bay salmon runs traditionally peak around Independence Day. Because salmon only spawn during the summer, the shutdown makes them particularly vulnerable, Cotten said.

“If we’re talking about cod fish, you can wait a few months and the cod fish will still be there. But with salmon, the timing is pretty critical,” Cotten said.

In 2015, ADF&G estimated the value of Alaska’s commercial salmon harvest at $414 million.

“There’s thousands of jobs that are involved here, hundreds of millions of dollars of investment and logistic planning,” Cotten said. “Big ships are in Bristol Bay waiting to haul fish out and people are being moved there and processing crews are getting the equipment ready to roll and it’s a situation we don’t want to find ourselves in. It’s hard and I’m struggling a little bit because there is so much uncertainty.”

Read the full story at the Juneau Empire