Saving Seafood

OPINION: Loopholes allow some trawlers to drag bottom, harming Alaska fisheries

October 3, 2024 — Most people would agree: a bottom trawler is a trawler that drags the ocean bottom.

Apparently, to those who make the rules, it’s more complicated than that.

Trawlers that drag the bottom between 40% and 100% of the time, depending on vessel type, are currently allowed to trawl in sensitive areas closed, for conservation, to both bottom trawlers and directed fishermen such as crabbers. In the process, these trawlers destroy the ocean floor, molting crab, and the slow-growing cold-water coral habitat essential for healthy ocean ecosystems, halibut populations and crab populations.

The hangup? The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which is tasked with regulating trawlers and their impact on communities but whose voting members are mostly trawl industry representatives, does not define bottom-dragging trawlers as trawlers that drag the bottom. Instead, these particular trawlers are defined as midwater, or “pelagic” trawlers, since while their net may drag bottom, the mouth of their nets hovers above the ocean floor.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

US government allocates USD 40 million in financial relief for Alaska’s Bering Sea snow crab fishery

October 1, 2024 — The U.S. Department of Commerce has allocated USD 40 million (EUR 36 million) in financial relief to fishers and businesses impacted by the 2023/2024 Alaska Bering Sea snow crab fishery.

“As climate change continues to have severe impacts on the fisheries and ecosystems that are vital to Alaska’s economy, the Department of Commerce remains committed to providing disaster relief across the state,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo said. “This funding will help Alaskans recover from the Bering Sea Snow Crab Fishery disaster, support the community’s efforts to prevent future disasters, and keep jobs, recreation and cultural connections thriving.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Federal permit for massive Alaska gold mine fails in court challenge

October 1, 2024 — A federal judge on Monday ruled that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Land Management should have considered a far more catastrophic spill of chemical tailings before approving the Donlin Gold Project in Alaska.

Chief U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason agreed with a group of Native American communities, who challenged a final environmental impact statement that the two federal agencies prepared and that only looked at the possibility of a failure involving 0.5% of the total capacity of the 2,351-acre tailings storage facility to be constructed as part of the mining operation.

“The court finds that federal defendants violated [the National Environmental Policy Act] by failing to consider a larger tailings spill and by characterizing a catastrophic spill as a ‘worst case’ and declining to assess such a scenario on that basis,” Gleason wrote. “A spill of more than 0.5% of the tailings volume is reasonably foreseeable because a person of ordinary prudence would take one into account in reaching a decision.”

The judge didn’t agree that the final environmental impact statement fell short in evaluating the project’s potential impact on human health or the impact of river barges on rainbow smelt subsistence fisheries, as the plaintiffs argued, but agreed with them that it violated the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act by not considering the possible impact of a larger tailings spill on subsistence resources.

Read the full article at the Courthouse News Service

‘It’s still crisis mode’: Will Bering Sea snow crabbing season be canceled for third straight year?

September 30, 2024 — As the Pacific Northwest’s crabbing crisis continues, scientists are still working to determine if this year’s snow crabbing season will be canceled for a third straight year. 

“The reality of the situation is that until we see more recruitment into that large male size class that the fishery targets, it seems in conversations that the industry is preparing for closure,” said Erin Fedewa, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Fedewa studies the species and collects population data that will eventually help determine the quantity crabbers can catch annually. However, the last five years have brought quite a few changes.

In 2019, there were record-high snow crabs in the Bering Sea and industry-wide optimism. In 2020, the annual survey was canceled, so no one knew the status of the crabs. Then, when Fedewa and her team returned to count the population in 2021, millions of crabs seemingly vanished.

What caused the swift decline?

Scientists at NOAA have since identified the main reason for the collapse as “an ecological shift from Arctic to sub-Arctic conditions in the southeastern Bering Sea due to human-caused climate change.”

It was discovered that the warmer water temperatures didn’t immediately kill the crabs, but when the waters got too warm, their metabolism increased. There wasn’t enough food to keep up with their caloric demand.

In addition to temperature changes, the team at NOAA noted other factors that indicate a shift from an Arctic to a sub-Arctic regime. They found a decline in sea ice and an increase in snow crab predators, a disease known to kill snow crabs, and areas of spring algal blooms.

The study also confirmed scientists’ initial beliefs that the population decline was not due to overfishing as the level of mortality was too high.

Read the full article at ABC 10

ALASKA: NOAA Fisheries Releases 2024 Alaska Aquaculture Accomplishments Report

September 30, 2024 — In 2024, the NOAA Alaska Regional Office and the Alaska Fisheries Science Center continued supporting Alaska’s aquaculture industry.

Aquaculture, the process of growing organisms in the ocean, is a relatively young commercial industry that is poised for rapid growth in Alaska. Alaska’s aquaculture industry consists of seaweed and invertebrate farming, with oysters, mussels, sugar, ribbon, and bull kelp being the primary species grown in the state. The NOAA Fisheries Alaska Region Aquaculture Program engaged in projects to support the sustainable development of Alaska’s aquaculture industry. They are outlined in NOAA’s 2024 Aquaculture Accomplishments Report.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries 

ALASKA: After years-long delay, Alaska receives USD 277 million in fishery disasters relief

September 30, 2024 – NOAA Fisheries has announced it will be providing USD 277 million (EUR 248 million) in financial relief in response to several fishery disasters.

“I’m glad to see this significant batch of federal relief dollars finally being distributed to our hardworking fishermen and coastal communities,” U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) said. “These Alaskans should never have had to wait this long to see this relief processed – a frustration I raised with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and NOAA Fisheries Director Janet Coit on numerous occasions in recent months.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Judge in Alaska sets aside critical habitat designation for threatened bearded, ringed seals

September 30, 2024 — A judge in Alaska has set aside a federal agency’s action designating an area the size of Texas as critical habitat for two species of threatened Arctic Alaska seals.

U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason last week found the National Marine Fisheries Service did not explain why the entire 174-million-acre (70-million-hectare) area was “indispensable” to the recovery of the ringed and bearded seal populations. Gleason said the agency “abused its discretion” by not considering any protected areas to exclude or how other nations are conserving both seal populations, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

She vacated the critical habitat designation, which included waters extending from St. Matthew Island in the Bering Sea to the edge of Canadian waters in the Arctic, and sent the matter back to the agency for further work.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Alaska prevails in challenge to critical habitat designation for threatened seals

September 28, 2024 — It’s back to the drawing board for the federal agency tasked with designating critical habitat for ringed and bearded seals in Alaska after a federal judge sided on Thursday with the state, which said the agency overreached in the protections.

In 2022, the National Marine Fisheries Service designated over 160 million acres of water spanning from the Alaska shoreline to the international dateline in much of the Bering Sea, as well as the shelf of the Beaufort Sea and all of the Chukchi Sea, as critical habitat for the seals.

Alaska sued the agency and the Center for Biological Diversity which intervened in the case, in early 2023, describing the designation as unprecedented and accusing the agency of violating environmental laws.

U.S. District Judge Sharon L. Gleason agreed with the state that the National Marine Fisheries Service didn’t act in accordance with the Endangered Species Act when making the designations.

“Simply because NMFS is unable to identify a less extensive, specific geographic location for breeding or molting does not explain why the 160-million-plus-acre areas it identified as critical habitat are ‘necessary’ or ‘indispensable,’” the Barack Obama appointee wrote of ensuring the seals’ survival and recovery.

The service listed both subspecies of seals — the Arctic ringed seals and the Beringia distinct population segment of bearded seals — as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2012. The listing granted the seals more protections, including the designation of critical habitat.

Read the full article at Courthouse News Service

Tribal groups, seeking restrictions on Alaska’s Bering Sea trawlers, get day in court

September 27, 2024 — U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason heard oral arguments Thursday in a lawsuit filed by two of Alaska’s largest tribal groups against federal managers of the state’s groundfish trawl fisheries.

The Association of Village Council Presidents and the Tanana Chiefs Conference claim the federal government has failed to adjust trawling rules in the Bering Sea and off the Aleutian Islands to compensate for the ongoing salmon crisis on Alaska’s Interior rivers.

Victory by the plaintiffs could lead to new restrictions on the world’s largest trawl fishery. If plaintiffs lose, the status quo is likely to continue.

On Thursday, Gleason asked plaintiffs whether they’re seeking a halt to trawl fishing in the Bering Sea.

No, the plaintiffs said.

Read the full article at Alaska Beacon

ALASKA: SE Alaska Seafood Economy Struggles Amid Expanding Tourism, Retail Trade, and Government

September 27, 2024 — The Southeast Alaska Economic Summit and 66th Annual Meeting, ending today in Ketchikan, offered sobering YOY numbers on the seafood sector earlier this month.

Seafood processing job losses led the sectors that saw YOY drops in July 2024, down 300 compared to losses of 120 in state government, 100 in retail trade, 70 in health care, and 50 in transportation. Meanwhile, job numbers were up in construction and tourism (300 new jobs each this year), while increases were seen in government and financial/professional services.

Statewide job losses are seen along coastal communities across south-central Alaska with a modest overall rise in SE Alaska of 1.2%, while job increases were seen in the north (4.5%), Alaska’s Interior (2.9%), and in the Anchorage area (3%.) Overall job numbers dropped 3.7% YOY in Southwest Alaska, and 1.6% YOY in the Gulf Coast.

In April 2024, 440 Southeast Alaska business owners and top managers from 25 communities responded to Southeast Conference’s Business Climate Survey.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com