Saving Seafood

Sea Grant workshops train the future of the fisheries industry

May 4, 2026 — In an era when the commercial fisheries industry is growing more concerned about the graying of the fleet, Alaska Sea Grant workshops are attracting a new generation of harvesters.

“Our beginning commercial fisherman training encompasses a lot of training programs,” said Gabe Dunham, Marine Advisory Program (MAP) leader and fisheries specialist for Alaska Sea Grant in Juneau. “The skipper apprenticeship program is taught in Bristol Bay to help youths there become skippers,” he said.

A crew training workshop for late middle school and high school students in Hoonah, on the northeastern shore of Chichagof Island in Southeast Alaska, was offered in April in collaboration with the Hoonah Indian Association, as was one in Metlakatla, an Indian reserve within Southeast Alaska’s Inside Passage. Another is scheduled for May 7, plus more crew training on June 8 in Petersburg, on the northern tip of Mitkof Island, also within the Inside Passage.

MAP instructors offer a combination of lectures and skills training ranging from knot tying and line splicing to mechanical skills. Participants learn how to make an electrical connection, tighten nuts and bolts, and identify four different chemicals commonly found on fishing vessels. A navigation activity teaches U.S. Coast Guard rules of the road for those operating on coastal waters.

The following was released by the National Fishermen

Retail prices for 2026 Alaska salmon are still a wild card

May 1, 2026 — Given an Alaska Department of Fish and Game 2026 harvest prediction of 125.5 million salmon, down 36 percent from 197.4 million a year ago, forecasts on retail prices still remain a wild card.

The forecast for 56 million pink, 49.7 million sockeye, 17.2 million chum and 2.4 million coho compares with 2025 forecasts of 120 million pink, 52.7 million sockeye, 21.7 million chum and 2.7 million coho salmon.

While rumors are out there that salmon prices will rise because of the increased cost of fuel, nothing is settled yet, said Tito Marquez, manager at 10th & M Seafoods, a popular Anchorage seafood shop.

“We are still waiting to see how the season plays out for Alaska and Russia,” said Simon Marks, a research analyst at McKinley Research Group in Juneau, Alaska. “We usually get information on Russian pinks much later in the year.”

Current fisheries articles don’t suggest that dramatic changes are said Gunnar Knapp, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Alaska Anchorage Institute of Social and Economic Research. While hardly definitive, it is an indication that nothing is going on that is either hugely positive or negative news, he said.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

NOAA researchers use genetic tools to improve understanding of Alaska’s Pacific cod stocks

May 1, 2026 — NOAA researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Alaska BioMap have been working on identifying genetic stocks of Pacific cod in Alaska to build a cost-effective genetic database full of assessments.

Breaking the population into four stocks – Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska, Aleutian Islands, and Pacific Coast – the assessment found that none of the four have been or are subject to overfishing threats, as measured by estimating the spawning biomass, or the number of females able to reproduce, according to a release by NOAA.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Alaska officials welcome federal funding for seven port improvement projects

May 1, 2026 — The U.S. state of Alaska has secured more than USD 115.4 million (EUR 98.4 million) in federal grants to improve its ports through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP).

The money granted will fund seven projects statewide in Alaska, with a release from the office of Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy noting the projects span Alaskan coastal communities from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta to Southeast Alaska.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Higher temperatures spur Alaska’s invasive pike to eat more, a bad sign for salmon

April 30, 2026 — Invasive northern pike have wreaked havoc in Southcentral Alaska rivers and lakes. Introduced illegally in the 1950s, they have been devouring juvenile salmon and other native species.

Now a University of Alaska Fairbanks study warns that matters could get even worse.

As temperatures rise in waterways, invasive pike eat more, said the study, published in the journal Biological Invasions. And as temperatures continue to rise, that trend will continue, the study said. Based on expected temperature trends, invasive northern pike will eat 6% to 12% more by the end of the century, the study said.

“We expect there will be significant warming in the future, and the amount of fish that pike consume is going to increase with it,” Benjamin Rich, who led the study while earning a master’s degree at UAF’s College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, said in a statement released by the university.

The UAF study found that over the past decade, northern pike of all age classes ate more as waters warmed. The increase was most dramatic in year-old pike, which upped their intake by about 63% over the period.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Alaskan officials renew calls for better transboundary salmon protections

April 29, 2026 — Officials in the U.S. state of Alaska are again asking for better protections for salmon in the state’s transboundary rivers.

Data compiled by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI) shows that salmon traveling from Canada into Southeast Alaska yield harvests of millions of salmon, valued at over USD 225 million (EUR 192.6 million) and making up roughly one-third of all North Pacific salmon runs.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Board of Fish proposal would sub seines for setnets in commercial Cook Inlet fishery

April 29, 2026 — Alaska’s Board of Fisheries is considering a major change to the type of gear Cook Inlet’s east-side setnet fishermen can use when king salmon runs are poor. The group will take up a proposal Friday that would replace setnets with beach seines in the fishery’s management plan.

Fishermen would only be allowed to fish with beach seines when the state forecasts a run of at least 14,250 large king salmon. Currently, fishermen are allowed to use setnets when that threshold is met.

The proposed pivot to beach seines might seem like an abrupt about-face. But a small group of setnetters have been experimenting with beach seines for years now. Armed with an experimental permit from the state, a Kenai couple deployed custom seines on their setnet site to see if the gear could harvest commercial levels of sockeye salmon without killing king salmon.

Setnets catch when fish swim into and get their gills caught on the net’s mesh diamonds. That means caught fish are usually dead by the time they’re hauled onto the beach. Seine nets have smaller diamonds, though. They billow with the tide and scoop fish onto the beach – alive.

Read the full article at KDLL

ALASKA: Yukon River Chinook salmon face steep decline amid disease surge and environmental challenges

April 28, 2026 — Yukon River Chinook salmon are headed for another dismal year, according to preliminary estimates predicting the 2026 run will remain near historic lows ahead of April’s official forecast.

Fisheries managers estimate approximately 25,000 Canadian-origin Chinook will return this year, according to Zachary Liller, Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Arctic, Yukon and Kuskokwim region research coordinator.

That would mirror the poor runs of 2024 and 2025—a devastating decline from historical averages exceeding 100,000 fish annually.

The Joint Technical Committee—made up of Alaskan and Canadian researchers and management biologists—will present its official 2026 forecast to the Yukon River Panel at its April spring meeting.

Read the full article at KTUU

In court, Pebble developer says 27 salmon stand in the massive mine’s way

April 23, 2026 —  No mining proposal in recent Alaska history has generated more concern for the state’s salmon runs than the Pebble project.

The huge copper and gold deposit extends into multiple salmon-bearing watersheds, and sits upstream from Alaska’s most lucrative salmon fishery.

But now, in a new court filing, Pebble’s developer says just a tiny number of salmon are blocking the mine’s construction — 27 fish, to be exact, and all one species.

Federal regulators, who halted the project in 2023, are “preserving” 27 coho salmon “at the cost of $800 billion” in minerals, lawyers for Pebble Limited Partnership wrote in a recent brief filed in Alaska’s federal district court.

The remarkably specific fish figure aligns with the number of spawning salmon counted years ago in a stream directly within the proposed mine site.

Read the full article at the Northern Journal

ALASKA: Metlakatla’s commercial fishing rights represent ‘alternate reality’ that tribe hopes to expand

April 22, 2026 — Access to commercial fishing looks a lot different in Metlakatla compared to other coastal Alaska Native communities.

At the southern tip of the Panhandle on Annette Island, Metlakatla sits on the state’s only Native reservation. Because of that, tribal members have the exclusive right to fish in a zone that extends out 3,000 feet around the island. And Metlakatla hopes to expand the reach of its fishing rights, as a lawsuit makes its way through court.

Other Alaska tribes gave up huge chunks of traditional lands in exchange for money and property to form corporations under the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

Not long after, the state implemented a fisheries management system known as “limited entry,” which limits the number of commercial fishing permits in specific areas. Over time, permits have gradually been lost from Alaska’s coastal Native communities due to economic and other forces.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media