Saving Seafood

Alaska: A Tough Break for Alaska Fishermen: Pacific Halibut Catches Likely to Drop Next Year

December 5, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — It’s going to be a tough year for many Alaska fishermen.

After announcements of a massive drop in cod stocks, the industry learned last week that Pacific halibut catches are likely to drop by 20 percent next year, and the declines could continue for several years.

That could bring the coastwide catch for 2018, meaning from Oregon to British Columbia to the Bering Sea, to about 31 million pounds.

Scientists at the International Pacific Halibut Commission interim meeting in Seattle revealed that survey results showed halibut numbers were down 23 percent from last summer, and the total biomass (weight) dropped 10 percent. The surveys are done each year from May through September at nearly 1,500 stations from Oregon to the far reaches of the Bering Sea.

The biggest drop stems from a lack of younger fish entering the halibut fishery. Stewart said the 9- to 18-year-old year classes that have been sustaining the recent halibut fishery are not being followed up by younger fish.

“In 2018, and especially projecting out to 2019, we are moving out of a fishery that is dominated by those relatively good recruitments starting in 1999 and extending to 2005. We see an increasing number of relatively poor recruitments stemming from at least 2009 and 2010,” he said.

Although they are not factoring them into their halibut catch computations, scientists for the first time are looking closely at environmental and habitat conditions, as well as trends in other fisheries.

Stewart said warmer waters starting in 2007 appear to correspond to the lower halibut year classes. Most relevant to the drop in halibut recruitment in recent years, as with Pacific cod, are the effects of “the blob.”

“Especially through 2015 to 2016 we saw that warmer water extending even to deeper shelf waters in the Gulf of Alaska,” he said. “We’ve seen a big increase the last several years in pyrosomes, which are these nasty gelatinous zooplankton, well documented sea bird die offs and whale strandings. So some abnormal things are going on in the Gulf.”

The IPHC does not always follow the recommendations of its scientists. Final decisions will be made at the annual meeting Jan. 22-26 in Portland, Oregon.

Sport halibut hike

While commercial halibut catches are set to drop, charter operators will see an increase.

A Recreational Quota Entity program was approved by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council that will allow halibut catch shares to be purchased and held in a common pool for charter operators to draw from as needed.

Under the plan, the RQE can hold 10 percent of the total commercial quota pool in Southeast Alaska and 12 percent from the Southcentral region, making it the single largest halibut-holding entity in the North Pacific.

The program would be phased in over 10 years with transfers of 1 percent and 1.2 percent from each region, respectively.

It is unclear where the RQE will get the estimated $25 million needed to buy halibut shares. Some have suggested a self-funding option such as a halibut stamp, similar to king salmon, or a voluntary tax.

The RQE program is strongly opposed by commercial fishermen. In written comments, the Halibut Coalition’s Tom Gemmell stated that the RQE “undermines the goal of maintaining an owner operated fleet, and will force fishermen to compete for quota against a subsidized entity.”

Linda Behnken, director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, said charter effort has remained relatively constant or increased despite catch conservation measures.

“Charter operators claim their clients need more harvesting opportunity despite low abundance, ignoring the obvious need for all sectors to conserve during times of low abundance,” Behnken said.

Longtime fisheries advocate Clem Tillion called RQEs the “death of a small boat, owner operated fishery” adding “Holland America and Carnival Cruise lines will buy the quota and hired hands will fish it, and the small boat fleet out of villages is gone.”

The RQE plan is set to begin next year.

Gender on the agenda

Recognizing the roles of women in the seafood industry and making them more visible is the goal of the new group International Association for Women in the Seafood Industry (WSI) and input is being gathered from around the world.

The nonprofit, launched a year ago, was created by seafood and gender issues specialists to highlight imbalances in the industry, to shed light on women’s real participation and to promote greater diversity and inclusiveness.

One in two seafood workers is a woman, WSI claims, yet they are over-represented in low-skilled, low-paying positions and account for less than 10 percent of company directors and a mere 1 percent of CEOs.

“There is a gender imbalance,” said Marie Catherine Monfort, WSI president and co-founder.

Monfort, who is based in Paris, has been working in the seafood industry for several decades, both as an economist and a seafood marketing analyst.

“I noticed that in most meetings I was surrounded by men, and I could only see men speaking in most conversations. Women were very numerous in this industry, but not very visible. They are not taken into account by the policy makers and by employers as well. That was the main motivation,” she said in a phone conversation.

To gather more perceptions on women’s roles in the industry, WSI launched a first of its kind survey in September at a World Seafood Congress in Iceland.

It went so well, she said, that WSI decided to translate the survey into French, English and Spanish and expand it to the entire world.

“The questions center around what is the position of women in your company, and what is your opinion of the situation of women in the industry. Are there areas where things could be improved, or maybe some feel there is no need for any improvement,” Monfort said, adding that responses by both sexes are welcomed.

“It is very important to also collect men’s opinions, and it will be interesting to see if men and women have the same or differing opinions,” she said. “The results will help us cultivate a better future with equal opportunities and increase awareness of women’s roles in the seafood industry. The more we are, the stronger we will be.”

The “Gender on the Agenda” survey is open through December, and results will be available by early March. Contact Monfort at contact@wsi-asso.org with questions.

Crab wrap

The Bristol Bay red king crab season wrapped up after about five weeks, and by all accounts, it was uneventful.

“Fishermen were seeing about what we expected from the survey, with a little bit slower fishing and pockets of crab without real wide distribution,” said Miranda Westphal, area management biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Dutch Harbor.

The red king crab catch quota this year of 6.6 million pounds was down 22 percent from last season, and the lowest catch since 1996.

The crab was “big and nice,” said Jake Jacobsen, director of the Inter-Cooperative Exchange, a harvester group that catches 70 percent of the Bering Sea crab quota.

There’s no word yet on price, and Jacobsen said negotiations will likely continue into January. Red king crab averaged $10.89 per pound to fishermen last year, the highest price ever. Jacobsen said the price is likely to be lower this year.

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

 

Alaska: As council looks to public for Cook Inlet salmon plan, UCIDA stays wary

November 30, 2017 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is looking for input from Cook Inlet fishermen on how it should develop a management plan for the area’s salmon fisheries.

The federal council, which regulates fisheries in the federal waters between 3 and 200 nautical miles offshore, is currently working on an amendment to the fishery management plan for Cook Inlet’s salmon fisheries. The process is likely to take multiple years of meetings and the council members decided to form a Salmon Committee that includes stakeholders in the fishery to keep the public in the loop on it.

Specifically, the council members are looking for ideas from the public on how the committee will work, according an announcement sent out Tuesday. That can include any fishermen on the salmon stocks of Cook Inlet.

“To develop a scope of work for the Salmon Committee, the council is soliciting written proposals from the public to help the council identify specific, required, conservation and management measures for the Salmon Committee to evaluate relevant to the development of options for a fishery management plan amendment,” the announcement states.

Read the full story at the Peninsula Clarion

 

Bristol Bay red king crab quota caught

November 24, 2017 — The Bristol Bay red king crab season finished up last week when the entire allowable catch was harvested.

“The Bristol Bay Red King Crab fishery went fairly well,” said Miranda Westphal, the area management biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Dutch Harbor. “A little slower than we would like to have seen, but they wrapped up with a total catch of 6.59 million pounds. So they caught all of the catch that was available for the season.”

Before the season opened on October 15, ADF&G and the National Marine Fisheries Service completed an analysis of the 2017 NMFS trawl survey results for Bristol Bay red king crab.

Read the full story at KDLG

 

ALASKA: Bering Sea Pollock and Cod in Good Shape But Could Be Moving North

November 17, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The North Pacific Fisheries Management Council’s Groundfish Plan Team recommended an allowable biological catch (ABC) for 2018 of Pacific cod in the Eastern Bering Sea of 172,000 mt down from this year’s ABC of 239,000 mt.

The actual catch limits will be determined by the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council in early December.

Reasons for the downturn in ABC were:

* a 46% drop from 2016 to 2017 in the EBS shelf trawl survey abundance, or numbers of fish — the biggest drop in history.

* A 37% drop in EBS biomass (weight) from 2016 to 2017 — also the biggest in history.

There is good news for P-cod elsewhere near the Bering Sea, though. In the Aleutians, which supports a much smaller P-cod fishery, survey biomass is on a general upward trend — 15% each year since 2012.

There, the recommended ABC for this year increased to 22,700 mt from last year’s 21,500 mt.

And in the northern Bering Sea — there is serious consideration that stocks of P-cod and pollock that would normally be in the EBS may be spending more time during the summer in the northern areas.

The Northern Bering Sea survey indices show the relative change in biomass there from 2010 to 2017 as an increase of 907%. Relative change in abundance (numbers of fish) during that time is up 1421%. NBS biomass in 2017 is equal to 83% of the biomass change in the Eastern Bering Sea.

The Plan Team posed a question at the end of the presentation: “Given that the cause of the decline in EBS survey biomass is unknown, but that one plausible hypothesis is that a substantial portion of the biomass simply moved to the NBS survey area while remaining part of the same spawning population as the fish in the EBS survey area, does the given model impose drastic reductions in ABC that have a significant probability of later being shown to have been unnecessary?”

As of November 4 the catch of PCod in BSAI was 186,800 mt.

Pollock changes ahead

Pollock stocks look healthy enough for the Plan Team to recommend an ABC at 2.592 million mt in 2018 and 2.467 million mt in 2019. This reflects slight decrease in biomass from the ABC previously set for 2017 of 2.8 million mt, with a forecasted 2.9 million mt for 2018.

The current TAC for pollock in BSAI is 1.345 million mt. a slight increase over 2016’s TAC of 1.34 million mt.

The key factors scientists are looking at for Bering Sea pollock are:

* A potential decline described as being “expected, quite quickly”

* Is there a shift in distribution? The ecosystem survey in the northern Bering Sea this summer found increases in pollock.

* There are relatively few one-year-old pollock in the 2017 trawl survey.

* Future catches near current levels will require more effort.

The presentation noted “..the ability to catch the same amount as in 2017 through to 2020 will require about 35% more effort with a decline in spawning biomass of about 28% compared to the current level (based on expected average recruitment).”

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

ALASKA: Seafood jobs in 2016 mirrored decline in harvests

November 15, 2017 — Fewer men and women went out fishing in Alaska last year, in a familiar cycle that reflects the vagaries of Mother Nature.

A focus on commercial fishing in the November Economic Trends by the Alaska Department of Labor shows that the number of boots on deck fell by 5 percent in 2016 to about 7,860 harvesters, driven by the huge shortfall in pink salmon returns and big declines in crab quotas.

Fishing for salmon, which accounts for the majority of Alaska’s fishing jobs, fell by 6.4 percent statewide in 2016, a loss of 323 workers.

The only Alaska region to show gains in fishing jobs last year was Southcentral, which includes the Prince William Sound and Cook Inlet fisheries, as well as fishing boats out of Homer, Seward and Kenai. All of the region’s fisheries added jobs in 2016, even salmon, scoring the state’s second-highest total employment at 1,661 harvesters.

Southeast Alaska had the state’s largest slice of fishing jobs in 2016 at 29 percent, or 2,275 fishermen. But that reflects a decline for the third straight year. The Panhandle’s harvesting employment dipped 0.8 percent in 2015 and then 2.3 percent in 2016, declining by 53 jobs.

Fishing jobs at Kodiak fell by 8.5 percent in 2016, erasing the job gains of the few prior years. That reflected a poor salmon season, where fishing jobs dropped 14 percent, combined with slight drops in fishing for pollock, cod and other whitefish.

Bristol Bay, where fishing jobs rely almost entirely on salmon, took the hardest hit last year. The 1,276 permits fished reflect a loss of 133 fishing jobs, or 9.5 percent.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

 

Cape fishermen reap benefits of monitoring program

November 13, 2017 — CAPE COD, Mass. — With fleets on the West Coast and in Alaska, members of the East Coast swordfishing and herring fleets and 20 New England groundfishermen all using cameras to record their fishing, the technology is gaining ground as a fisheries management tool, including off Cape Cod.

This year, Cape fishermen — pioneers of the movement in New England — working with the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance, along with members of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, are set to reap some unexpected benefits for their willingness to play guinea pig: greater access to Atlantic bluefin tuna, one of the most valuable fish in the sea.

This was the second year the fishing activity of Mike Russo and his crew was recorded by cameras as voluntary participants in a program to replace costly human fishery observers. Instead of occasionally carrying an observer — at-sea-monitors are only required on 16 percent of all groundfish trips — Russo and other local fishermen volunteered for electronic monitoring on 100 percent of their trips.

“It’s proving that we are responsible stewards of the ocean, that we are fishing in a responsible way within the laws set out for us,” said Nick Muto, who fishes out of Harwich and Chatham and carries three of the cameras on his vessel.

A 2016 report by The Nature Conservancy showed that in 2015, 92 percent of videos were good enough for technicians to get catch and discard data and weight and length estimates, up from 23 percent in 2013, as crews and researchers learned to work with the system. Christopher McGuire, marine program manager for the conservancy, expects the development of video recognition software that will automate data gathering is imminent and will greatly reduce the cost of electronic monitoring.

Read the full story at Cape Cod Times

North Pacific Council Weighs in on MSA Reauthorization Bills

November 8, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — In response to a request from Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan, the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council reviewed three bills related to the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, comparing them to the current law and practices used to manage the nation’s largest fisheries.

“The North Pacific Council believes that the current MSA already provides a very successful framework for sustainable fisheries management, and major changes are not necessary at this time,” wrote NPFMC chair Dan Hull.

“Nevertheless, we also recognize the potential benefits of increased flexibility in some circumstances, and amending the Act to provide for such flexibility could provide all the regional councils additional opportunities to optimize their fishery management programs, with appropriate cautionary notes and limitations.

“In order for the Council to provide for the continued conservation of our resources, any changes to the law providing additional flexibility must continue to ensure that fundamental conservation and management tenets based on sound science are upheld, and should not create incentives or justifications to overlook them,” Hull wrote.

Allowing more flexibility in fisheries management, particularly when stocks in a rebuilding phase, is a hot-button issue with many stakeholders, not just in the North Pacific but nationwide. Proponents of adding more flexibility to any new legislation say the current law is too protective of the resource at a cost to the fishery. They urge more flexibility so that each management council can optimize yield without jeopardizing the resource.

“Regarding potential changes and increased flexibility for stock rebuilding plans, the NPFMC believes that further flexibility, would appropriately increase the ability to maximize harvest opportunities while still effecting rebuilding of fish stocks,” noted Hull, referring to HR 200, the bill introduced by Alaska Congressman Don Young.

“The arbitrary 10-year requirement may constrain the Councils management flexibility with overly restrictive management measures, with unnecessary, negative economic impacts, with little or no conservation gain,” Hull wrote.

Another controversal issue is using annual catch limits (ACLs) to manage stocks, something opponents have said needlessly restricts a fishery. Hull defended the importance of ACLs as a foundational part of fisheries management.

“Annual catch limits (ACLs) have been used in the North Pacific for over 30 years, and such limits are a cornerstone of sustainable fisheries management. We also believe there are situations where some flexibility in the establishment of ACLs is warranted, particularly in the case of data poor stocks.

“Consideration of the economic needs of fishing communities is critical in the ACL setting process, and while the current MSA allows for such consideration, we recognize the desire for a more explicit allowance for these considerations.

“We must be careful however, not to jeopardize long term fisheries sustainability, and associated community vitality and resiliency, for the sake of short term preservation of all economic activity associated with a fishery,” he wrote.

“Accounting for uncertainty, articulating policies for acceptable risk, and establishing the necessary precautionary buffers, are all explicit outcomes of the ACL process, and we believe that the [Scientific and Statistical Committees] SSCs are the appropriate gatekeepers to establish the upper limits of ‘safe’ fishing mortality. This limit, which is established as the Acceptable Biological Catch (ABC) level, appears to be consistent with the provisions of H.R.200,” Hull added.

Speaking to Rep. Garrett Grave’s (R-LA) S. 1520 Modernizing Recreational Fishing Management Act of 2017, Hull noted that “alternative measures” may not meet the standard in the current MSA.

“The bill provides the councils authority to use alternative measures in recreational fisheries including extraction rates, fishing mortality targets, harvest control rules, or traditional or cultural practices.

“The NPFMC notes that it is unclear if alternative fishery management measures replace the requirement for ACLs. Nevertheless, fisheries managed under alternative measures should be accountable to the conservation and management provisions of the MSA, including prevention of overfishing. ACL’s serve as the primary conservation measure for fish stocks in the North Pacific, and have effectively prevented overharvesting in our fisheries. The NPFMC also notes that traditional or cultural practices are not normally considered as recreational fisheries,” Hull wrote.

Hull also addressed the section in the bill related to rebuilding overfished stocks that would mandate a rebuilding term to be “as short as possible” but in any case not to exceed ten years.

“The NPFMC believes that the arbitrary 10-year time period can be harmful to resource users and fishing communities if it prohibits even limited fishing activity under a scientifically sound rebuilding plan. Replacing the term ‘possible’ with ‘practicable’ provides the councils with more flexibility to incorporate the needs of fishing communities in maintaining economic stability during a rebuilding period,” Hull wrote.

The NPFMC took issue with sections of Rep. Jared Huffman’s Discussion Draft (also called “Strengthening Fishing Communities Through Improving Science, Increasing Flexibility, and Modernizing Fisheries Management Act”) in certain areas, while agreeing with others.

But a section requiring an assessment of conflict of interest of council members, triggered a lengthy comment on problems the NPFMC have faced and a solution they’ve offered to NMFS.

The current MSA conflict of interest language leaves a standard for recusal of a council member up for interpretation. The recusal provision in the current law requires full economic disclosure but also that an affected individual not be allowed to vote on council decisions that would have a significant and predictable effect on a member’s financial interest.

“The MSA language left the issues of significant and predictable effect open for interpretation, so NMFS developed a regulation that set a 10% threshold for a significant effect, which is the basis for determining whether a recusal is required,” explained Hull.

“The primary problem is the way in which NOAA calculates a member’s financial interests in determining whether the 10% thresholds are exceeded. The NOAA and NMFS policy is to attribute all fishing activities of a company — even partially owned by an associated company — in calculating an individual Council member’s interests. The North Pacific Council believes that this attribution policy is inconsistent with the intent of the conflict of interest statute and regulations.

“The following example helps to explain this issue: Joe Councilman works for Fishing Company A, which owns 50% of Fishing Company B, which in turn owns 3% of Fishing Company C. NOAA uses ALL harvesting and processing activity by ALL three of these companies in determining whether Joe Councilman exceeds any of the 10% thresholds,” Hull explained.

“The North Pacific Council believes that this is an unfair and illogical interpretation of the recusal regulations, and results in unintended recusals of Council members. The North Pacific Council believes that NOAA should use only the amount of harvesting or processing activity equivalent to the Council member’s percentage of ownership,” Hull continued.

“Using this proportional share approach, NOAA GC would use 100% of the harvesting and processing activity of Fishing Company A, 50% of the harvesting and processing activity of Fishing Company B, and 1.5% of the harvesting and processing activity of Fishing Company C to determine whether Joe Councilman exceeds any of the thresholds.

“At our request, NOAA and NMFS revisited the attribution policy, but to date, have declined to make changes,” Hull wrote.

Finally, on behalf of the NPFMC, Hull asked that any new legislation:

• Avoids across the board mandates which could negatively affect one region in order to address a problem in another region.

• Allows flexibility in achieving conservation objectives, but be specific enough to avoid lengthy, complex implementing regulations or ‘guidelines’.

• Is in the form of intended outcomes, rather than prescriptive management or scientific parameters.

• Avoids unrealistic/expensive analytical mandates relative to implementing fishery closures or other management actions.

• Avoids constraints that limit the flexibility of Councils and NMFS to respond to changing climates and shifting ecosystems.

• Avoids unfunded mandates.

• Prioritizes the reservation and enhancement of stock assessments and surveys among the highest when considering any changes to the Act.

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

 

Alaska tops nation in total fishing volume for 20th year

November 8, 2017 — The annual report detailing national and regional economic impacts of U.S. fisheries totaled $9.6 billion in value in 2016 with Alaska as usual producing more than the rest of the nation combined.

Alaska produced 58 percent of all landings and for the 20th straight year brought in the highest volume, according to the 2016 Fisheries of the United States report by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The top spot for all ports in the nation went to Dutch Harbor, which brought in 770 million pounds with Alaska pollock accounting for 89 percent of that volume. Dutch Harbor also produced the second-highest value in the nation at $198 million, behind New Bedford, Mass, which reeled in 77 percent of its overall catch in sea scallops to account for its No. 1 spot in the nation at $327 million in value.

The Aleutians, where Trident Seafoods operates the largest processing plant in the nation on Akutan, was the second-ranked port by landings in the nation with 508 million pounds for $105 million. Kodiak was ranked No. 4 in landings with 417 million pounds and a value of $109 million.

The report on landings of Alaska pollock, 3.4 billion pounds, increased from 2015 numbers. That fishery brought in 336.2 million pounds more than the previous five-year average.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

 

Cod numbers in the Gulf of Alaska fall dramatically

November 7, 2017 — JUNEAU, Alaska — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which regulates groundfish in Alaska and other federal fisheries, received some shocking news last month.

Pacific cod stocks in the Gulf of Alaska may have declined as much as 70 percent over the past two years.

The estimate is a preliminary figure, but it leaves plenty of questions about the future of cod fishing in Gulf of Alaska.

The first question that comes to mind when you hear the number of Pacific cod in the Gulf dropped by about two-thirds is what happened?

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fisheries division’s Steven Barbeaux has been trying to answer that question. Barbeaux said the issue likely started with warmer water moving into the Gulf in 2014 and sticking around for the next three years.

“We had what the oceanographers and the news media have been calling the blob, which is this warm water that was sitting in the Gulf for those three years,” Barbeaux said. “It was different from other years in that it went really deep, but it also lasted throughout the winter.”

Read the full story at KTOO

NPFMC December 2017 Agenda

November 7, 2017 — The following was released by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council meets the week of December 4-12, 2017 in Anchorage, Alaska

The meetings are held at the Hilton Hotel, 500 W. 3rd Avenue. The AGENDA and SCHEDULE are now available. The list of Review Documents that will be available prior to the meeting is also posted to the Agenda.

Submit comments to npfmc.comments@noaa.gov by 5:00 pm (AST) November 30, 2017

  • Hilton Hotel offers discounted room rate to attendees. Click here for room block discount.
  • Book through Alaska Airlines to receive travel discounts to the meetings. 
  • Hilton Wifi Passord: summertime on Hilton_Conference.
  • Listen Online: Meeting will be broadcast live beginning December 6, 2017.