Saving Seafood

New Bedford fishermen net sea scallops—and the richest catch in the country

October 28th, 2016 — Who knew a such a tiny mollusk could turn such a hefty sum?

According to a federal report Wednesday, the city of New Bedford retained its pole position as the nation’s most-valued port in 2015, pulling in a total catch worth $322 million.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s annual fisheries report, New Bedford’s total haul weighed 124 million pounds.

While that amount wasn’t even enough to land New Bedford in the top 10 ports for total quantity (Dutch Harbor, Alaska topped that list with 787 million pounds of mostly pollock and cod), it yet again made the Massachusetts port the richest—by more than $100 million. They were first by even a wider margin in 2014.

Why? Sea scallops.

According to the Associated Press, the pricey seafood delicacy (the larger counterpart to the bay scallop) accounted for more than three-quarters of New Bedford’s catch. More than 60 percent of the 35.7 million pounds of sea scallops were caught in Massachusetts, according to the NOAA.

The NOAA put the price of sea scallops at $12.26 per pound in 2015, slightly down from $12.55 per pound in 2014. But that’s still more than double the market price during the mid-2000s.

As The Boston Globe reported in 2013, the New Bedford scallop industry has buoyed the lives of fishermen in an otherwise struggling city.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe 

Alaska SeaLife Center Collaborates with NOAA

October 27, 2016 — SEWARD, Alaska — Scientists from the Alaska SeaLife Center (ASLC) recently returned from the first research mission to utilize new satellite technology for the study of harbor seal populations.

The month-long expedition to the Aleutian Islands on board the research vessel Norseman, was conducted in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Polar Ecosystems Program.

“The population trends and factors that may be influencing harbor seals remain poorly understood,” said ASLC President and CEO Tara Riemer. “We are excited to increase our understanding of harbor seals and for the potential to better inform the science community and resource managers.”

Co-funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the study brings together scientists from two different organizations to collaborate on the next steps toward understanding and addressing shared concerns. Using Life History Transmitters (LHX), developed by Dr. Markus Horning, ASLC Science Director, in collaboration with Wildlife Computers, Inc. under funding from the National Science Foundation, researchers will be able to collect survival and reproductive data to better understand harbor seal population trends.

Read the full story at Alaska Business Monthly

ALASKA: SE legislators seek inclusion in pink salmon disaster request

October 26th, 2016 — A pair of Southeast legislators is asking the governor to include Southeast fishermen in Alaska’s request for federal disaster relief under the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

Sitka representative Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and Ketchikan representative Dan Ortiz made the appeal in a letter to Governor Bill Walker on October 21, on behalf of Southeast fishermen affected by this season’s weak pink salmon return.

Under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, fishermen are eligible for automatic disaster relief if the value of a fishery drops more than 80-percent below its five-year average.

Staffers for Kreiss-Tomkins and Ortiz calculated this season’s loss at 55-percent, which qualifies the Southeast pink salmon fishery for “further evaluation” for disaster relief.

Governor Walker in September applied for disaster relief for the pink salmon fisheries in Prince William Sound, Kodiak, Lower Cook Inlet, and in Chignik.

In Southeast, pink salmon are targeted primarily by seiners. In their letter, Kreiss-Tomkins and Ortiz argue that Southeast fishing families are facing huge losses through no fault of their own, and there is no reason to bar them from the same support requested for Southcentral fishermen.

Read the full story at KCAW

ALASKA: Budget cuts take bite out of herring harvest

October 25, 2016 — ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is buckling under deep budget cuts, and now the state’s largest herring fishery is feeling the squeeze.

ADFG has canceled vital abundance studies and surveys for several fisheries, meaning fishermen won’t get to prosecute the full amount of otherwise healthy stocks.

Last year, based on 17,337 tons harvested in all Togiak herring fisheries and an average price of $100 per ton, the total ex-vessel value for the Togiak herring fishery was $1.52 million. The season allowed for a harvest of over 32,000 tons.

This year’s harvest will be less.

ADFG will allow for a harvest of 26,170 tons, or 57.6 million pounds, of a forecasted biomass of 287.9 million pounds.

Read the full story at the Juneau Empire

Court backs seal protections on climate change grounds

October 25th, 2016 — A federal appeals court ruled Monday that the Obama administration had the right to use climate change to justify federal protections for the bearded seal.

The ruling from the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court ruling from 2014 and upheld the 2012 decision by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to designate the bearded seal as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

 The ruling is an important victory for the Obama administration and could help build a precedent of using climate change forecasts for decisions like species protections.

The case hinged on an argument from the oil industry and the state of Alaska that the NMFS relied on climate projections that were not reliable for the time period for which the agency used them.

“This case turns on one issue: When NMFS determines that a species that is not presently endangered will lose its habitat due to climate change by the end of the century, may NMFS list that species as threatened under the Endangered Species Act?” the appeals court asked in its ruling, answering in the affirmative.

Read the full story at The Hill 

Climate Change Projections Can Be Used To List A Species As Threatened, US Court Rules

October 25th, 2016 — In a landmark ruling Monday, a U.S. appeals court said that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) — a federal agency — had acted reasonably when it proposed to list certain populations of bearded seals in Alaska as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. The decision, which reverses a 2014 ruling by a lower court, could pave the way for other species being accorded protections based on their vulnerability to projected changes in climate.

“This is a huge victory for bearded seals and shows the vital importance of the Endangered Species Act in protecting species threatened by climate change,” Kristen Monsell, attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity — which had, in 2008, filed a petition to list the species as threatened, said in a statement. “This decision will give bearded seals a fighting chance while we work to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions melting their sea-ice habitat and keep dirty fossil fuels in the ground.”

The Pacific bearded seal is one of the two subspecies of bearded seals. Although it is currently listed as “Least Concern” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Center for Biological Diversity and the NMFS estimate — based on data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — that the seals’ winter sea-ice habitat in the Bering and Okhotsk seas off Alaska and Russia would decline by at least 40 percent by 2050, and that the subspecies would be endangered by 2095.

Read the full story at the IBT Times 

ALASKA: Crabbers holding out hope for high prices after cuts

October 19, 2016 — Despite a grim beginning to the season, members of the crab industry are holding out hope for high prices and a late fishery.

The Alaska Board of Fisheries hasn’t yet decided whether to review harvest guidelines for Eastern Bering Sea Tanner crab and potentially open the season in January or earlier, or leave the fishery closed entirely for the next two years. Meanwhile, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game cut the quota for snow crab by 50 percent and for Bristol Bay red king crab by 15 percent.

Despite the cuts, crab industry stakeholders say the season for Bristol Bay red king crab is moving along at more than a healthy clip.

“Some good news from the grounds, the crab look good. They’re heavy. There’s a lot of small crab, females. Folks are seeing pots just plugged with crab — so full they can’t get another one in,” said Jake Jacobsen, director of the Inter-Cooperative Exchange, a crab harvesting cooperative with 188 members that together harvest 70 percent of Alaska’s crab.

Jacobsen said that given the density of the fishing, he wonders why the surveys that measure abundance didn’t pick anything up.“The reports I’ve got, maybe the people who aren’t doing so well don’t say anything,” he said. “There’s a lot of very optimistic reports from the grounds. I’m not sure what happened with the survey last summer.”

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Clinton emails released by WikiLeaks reveal unlikely exchange over workers at Alaska fish processing incident

October 18, 2016 — Among the revelations in a batch of Hillary Clinton’s emails recently released by WikiLeaks is an exchange about an incident at an Alaska fish processing plant that drew attention of the top levels of the U.S. State Department but was never known to the public until now.

The situation involving young foreign workers from Central America laboring in a remote Alaska fish plant in the Aleutians occurred in January 2012, when Clinton was secretary of state.

At the time, the U.S. State Department was dealing with an onslaught of bad press about its J-1 Summer Work Travel visa program, which allows young foreign students to work seasonal jobs and travel in the United States as a “cultural exchange.”

The visa program is supposed to be a tool of soft diplomacy, but critics have charged that workers have been exploited by employers and work in conditions that offer no cultural experience of the United States.

The previous August,  J-1 visa workers laboring at a Hershey’s chocolate factory in Pennsylvania staged a boisterous protest over poor conditions, leading to front-page headlines in the New York Times.

The State Department had begun to investigate their sponsor, the nonprofit Council for Educational Travel USA. The group, known as CETUSA, was one of the leading companies placing J-1 workers in the U.S., including many in Alaska seafood jobs.

Read the full story at the Alaska Dispatch News

Cook Inlet Fishermen Tell N. Pacific Council They Have Lost Faith in Alaska’s Salmon Management

October 18th, 2016 — Concerned fishermen gathered at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council’s October meeting in Anchorage to discuss a recent federal court decision that turns control of salmon fisheries in Cook Inlet, Prince William Sound and the Alaska Peninsula over to state management.

Though stakeholders brought their suggestions, the council did not direct its staff to any action related to the subject of a salmon FMP. Instead, the council reiterated that the decision will be remanded back to the lower court where it could either be appealed or produce a directive for the council to write a salmon FMP.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council governs federal fisheries, which take place from three to 200 miles offshore.

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

Alaska Senate candidates meet to debate fisheries issues

October 13th, 2016 — U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski cast herself as a champion for Alaska’s fishing industry Wednesday, while independent Margaret Stock questioned the pace of progress by Alaska’s congressional delegation on several issues during a Senate debate in Kodiak.

The fisheries-focused debate, which was broadcast on public radio, also featured Democrat Ray Metcalfe and independent Breck Craig.

Libertarian candidate Joe Miller was absent, on a swing through southeast Alaska instead, according to his campaign. Miller spokesman Randy DeSoto has said Miller plans to visit Kodiak later.

Murkowski, a Republican, defended her record, including in drawing State Department attention to concerns raised by conservationists and fishermen about the impact of Canadian mining activity on waters that flow across the border into southeast Alaska. She said headway is being made but it’s been difficult because the State Department hasn’t seen the issue as warranting urgent attention.

Stock suggested that more could be done. Some of those concerned about the mining activity have urged the involvement of an international commission. Requests for the commission’s involvement must come from the national governments.

The delegation has raised that issue. The State Department, in a recent response to a delegation letter, said it planned to broach options for addressing the concerns with Canadian officials later this month. Murkowski called that “somewhat assuring.”