Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Scientists will collect data on Unalaska’s salmon at new weir this summer

June 13, 2024 — The Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the Qawalangin Tribe were unable to get funding to count fish and collect data this summer at Unalaska’s McLees Lake, where the community harvests a large majority of its subsistence sockeye salmon.

But the organizations will be installing a brand new weir and counting salmon for the first time at Iliuliuk Creek.

Annie Brewster, a fisheries biologist with ADF&G, said they will be counting the number of pinks and reds that make it up the creek and into Unalaska Lake.

“We’re expecting to get around 6500 pink salmon and around 500 sockeye salmon,” Brewster said.

Those numbers are based on past foot and drone surveys, which don’t provide reliable data because the lake is so cloudy, according to Brewster.

“That system has so much erosion, it’s hard to see salmon for those surveys, so those numbers are up in the air,” she said.

The banks of the lake are eroding quickly, causing the muddiness of the water, which has also been polluted from World War II activity.

“There is still a lot of solid waste from the war,” Brewster said. “There were suspected chemical barrel dumps during the war into the lake.”

ADF&G weir technicians won’t just be counting salmon. They’ll also be collecting data on the limnology of the area — that’s the water quality and zooplankton.

“That provides us with information on the rearing capacity of the lake,” Brewster explained. “So at what capacity can the lake raise baby salmon and what amounts? What’s the number of salmon eggs that can be laid in beds and gravel nests in the lake and grow up to be mature salmon that will return to the stream?”

Read the full article at KYUK

ALASKA: A petition to put king salmon on the endangered species list is raising alarm across Alaska

June 12, 2024 — The federal government is considering a request that would grant Gulf of Alaska king salmon Endangered Species Act protections. The National Marine Fisheries Service recently found that the petition by the Washington-based conservation group Wild Fish Conservancy, which said that the species are under threat, warrants further scientific review. It’s just the first major step in a longer regulatory process, but many say it could have far-reaching implications.

Mark Roberts is docked in Petersburg, getting his fishing boat ready for the July 1 king salmon opener. He’s painting the exterior of the Cape Cross, his 46 foot long wooden troll boat that was built in 1948.

Roberts took a break from fishing for several months, because he just had one of his heart valves replaced. But he said he’s pushing through the pain this summer, because it would be financially impossible for him to sit out a whole season.

“Because of my heart situation… Well, I paid for it. I got to do twice the work this year. But, you know, I’m putting it back together. I just need sunshine!” Roberts said, gesturing towards the rainy sky over Petersburg.

Roberts has fished in the Gulf of Alaska for about 30 years. But he came very close to skipping the whole summer season last year, when the Wild Fish Conservancy sued the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to halt commercial trolling for kings in Southeast Alaska. The conservation group, which is based in Washington State, argued that a closure would protect a declining population of killer whales near Seattle. The Ninth Circuit Federal Appeals Court issued a stay on the lawsuit, keeping the fishery open.

Read the full article at KFSK

ALASKA: Climate change disruptions to Alaska marine fisheries scrutinized at Kodiak workshop

June 12, 2024 — In the marine waters off Alaska’s coast, climate change is triggering disruptions that can be dramatic and sudden. For fishery officials, that presents a quandary: How can that be suitably addressed by a fishery management system that is legally required to be cautious and deliberate and for which policy changes can take several years to carry out?

That was the question presented at a two-day climate scenarios workshop held Wednesday and Thursday in Kodiak by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. The workshop was in conjunction with the council’s June meeting.

There were repeated calls among workshop participants — fishers, fishery managers, scientists and others involved in the Alaska seafood industry — for more extensive and frequent federal data collection. But there were also calls for the way data is collected to change.

Surveys used to set seafood harvests in the federal waters of the Bering Sea, around the Aleutiansand in theGulf of Alaska are conducted by the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries service.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Rough Seas Ahead for Seafood Processing

June 11, 2024 — Not too long ago, Alaska’s salmon fishery was at a high. The record for the largest salmon run was set in 2018, and again in 2021, and again in 2022. It wasn’t just Bristol Bay; across Western Alaska, sockeye and pink salmon populations reached historic levels between 2021 and 2022, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

But all good things must come to an end.

The sockeye salmon run in Bristol Bay is forecast to be millions of fish short of the 2023 season, although the run is still supposed to be above the ten-year average, according to the Alaska Department of Fish & Game.

That’s not the only place in the state that will see lower numbers. A weak pink salmon run on Kodiak Island drove OBI Seafoods to close its seafood processing plant in Larsen Bay, according to CEO John Hanrahan. However, the company will keep its plant in the City of Kodiak open.

Read the full article at Alaska Business

ALASKA: Rep. Mary Peltola on proposing 2 trawling bills, depressed salmon runs, and the Donlin mine project

June 11, 2024 — Alaska’s at-large United States House Rep. Mary Peltola spoke with KYUK’s Sage Smiley on morning show “Coffee at KYUK” about two bills she recently proposed meant to regulate the trawl industry and reduce bycatch. She also talked about what she’s hearing about fisheries on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta and her recent amicus brief in support of the Donlin Gold mine development.

Read a rough transcript of the conversation below, which has been lightly edited for clarity and flow:

KYUK (Sage Smiley): Thank you so much for joining me for “Coffee at KYUK,” Rep. Peltola.

Rep. Mary Peltola: Thank you for having me Sage. It’s good to be back on KYUK.

KYUK: So we’re here today, first and foremost, to talk about the two fisheries bills that you recently proposed in the U.S. House. Can you tell us about those bills and what they’re meant to do?

Peltola: Yes, I have two bills that that we have submitted. Honestly, I don’t expect them to have much traction this Congress. The 118th Congress has not been productive. I think we were record-breaking in this very limited number of bills passed last session. And I think we’re on track to be another kind of record-setting year for a limited number of bills passing, but I think it’s important that I introduced these bills to get as much support as I can now and really teeing it up for the 119th Congress.

The first bill is called the Bottom Trawl Clarity Act. And what this bill does is it limits bottom trawling and vulnerable ocean by first mandating that each of the fisheries management councils, there’s eight of them across the U.S., including the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, which oversees Alaskan waters. So it mandates at each of these councils that permits the use of any of the bottom trawl gear, it requires them to define the term “substantial” versus the term “limited bottom contact.” I think that words have a lot of meaning, and defining words is a very important step in in fisheries management. The second thing the Bottom Trawl Clarity Act does is it requires a designation of bottom trawl zones, and it limits areas where gear can scrape the sea floor and where that’s allowed.

The second piece of legislation is called the Bycatch Reduction and Mitigation Act. And this really is helping Alaskan fishermen who have been working for years now to reduce bycatch. And the two things it does is it authorizes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Bycatch Reduction and Engineering program; it appropriates $10 million to that program for five years. Right now, that program has been funded at about $3 million a year, and it just is not putting in the kind of resources that fishermen have really needed to curb bycatch. It also establishes the Bycatch Mitigation Assistance Funds, which will be administered by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and used to help fishermen and fishing vessels purchase new gear or technology to reduce bycatch, such as camera systems and lights, and salmon excluders. And it also allows for philanthropists to donate to that Bycatch Mitigation Assistance Fund. I think there are a lot of wealthy donors who are interested in ocean health who want to help. And so this is a way to give wealthy donors a chance to help on bycatch as well. And these have both been very, very well received. I do want to note that just the fact that I was elected to Congress almost two years ago really had industry sit up and take notice, and on their own they have reduced chum bycatch by 50%. And this is really encouraging to me, because it shows that there is the will, on behalf of a number of the harvesters, to reduce their bycatch, and it shows that it can be done and that we can always be doing better.

Read the full transcipt at KYUK

ALASKA: Yukon River communities continue to balance conservation and survival in fifth year of near total salmon fishing closures

June 10, 2024 — As the 2024 Yukon River salmon season kicks off, there will once again be little to no opportunity for communities along the Western Alaska river to harvest any actual salmon.

One small exception is summer chum. If the run hits half a million fish, residents of the lower reaches of the Yukon may have the chance to take to the river with dipnets and other non-traditional gear for a brief window like they did in 2023.

But as Holly Carroll, the Yukon River subsistence fishery manager for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service noted in April, these types of opportunities may not be worth the effort for many along the river.

“Who’s going to spend nine bucks a gallon to go out fishing with a dipnet?” Carroll asked. “It might take them four or five hours to get seven chums. Whereas if they had been given their six-inch gillnet, they put it out for a minute, minute and a half, and they’re done. They’ll have 100. Then they’ll spend the next couple of days cutting and smoking, and they’re done for the season.”

While communities cannot count on these types of heavily restricted opportunities to meet their subsistence needs in 2024, one thing they can count on is a total closure of chinook salmon fishing for the next seven years. Carroll said that the recently signed Alaska-Canada agreement was overdue.

“For me as the federal manager, I see this as the bold step that needed to be taken. We’re just not seeing the returns off those runs that we would have liked. I really felt that it was time,” Carroll said. “I also think we really needed to listen to our tribal stakeholders who have been telling us for years that this annual approach is not a great way to manage.”

Read the full article at KYUK

NOAA finds Alaska Chinook salmon may need to be ESA-listed

June 10, 2024 — A preliminary review by NOAA Fisheries found that Alaska Chinook salmon may need to be listed as threatened or endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA).

“This is an encouraging first step in what we hope will be a listing of Southeast Alaska Chinook under the Endangered Species Act,” Wild Fish Conservancy Senior Ecologist Nick Gayeski said. “Listing should provide the many at-risk Chinook populations in this region stronger protection from harm in the near term and initiate the development of scientifically credible recovery plans.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Commercial drift fishing outlook published by Fish and Game ahead of opening

June 6, 2024 — Local commercial drift gillnet fisheries open later this month, and an outlook for the fishery published by the State Department of Fish and Game on Monday says around 5.7 million sockeye are expected to return to Upper Cook Inlet, with 3.7 million of those fish available for harvest across all user groups.

The document says that drift gillnet vessels cannot participate in both state fisheries and federal fisheries on the same day, specifically citing the Cook Inlet exclusive economic zone, which is newly under federal management this year. This year, commercial fisheries are expected to open June 20 by regulation or June 19 by emergency order.

Drift gillnet openings will be Monday and Thursday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and the recently passed Kenai River Late-Run King Salmon Stock of Concern Management Plan closes all drift gillnet fishing within 2 miles of the Kenai Peninsula shoreline.

Read the full article at Homer News