Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Invasive green crabs reach Alaska, threatening fisheries

November 9, 2024 — The invasive European Green Crabs that have wreaked havoc on clam fisheries in Maine and the West Coast have now reached Alaska, where they could threaten subsistence, personal use, and commercial fisheries, including salmon.

“I worry about the salmonids,” says Tammy Davis, Invasive Species Program coordinator at the Alaska Dept. of Fish & Game (ADF&G). “I don’t have any evidence that they are competing for food at certain life stages, but the green crabs tear up the eelgrass that provides vital habitat for juvenile salmon and their prey, and in an already stressed ecosystem, having another stressor can affect the whole food web.”

So far, the green crabs are far less abundant than they are in Washington State, but Davis notes that Southeast Alaska has the kind of real estate green crabs like. “In Southeast Alaska, we have an estimated 19,000 miles of coastline and much of it is suitable habitat for green crabs.” She adds that many of the islands and passages of the Southeast archipelago have estuaries with eelgrass meadows protected from heavy surf, providing food and protection for green crabs.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola will be absent from House floor to prepare fish for winter storage

November 5, 2024 — Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Alaska) will not be in attendance for House votes this week, so she can prepare fish for her family.

“This week, Representative Peltola will be in the state putting up fish with family to fill freezers for the winter. Mary’s family—as well as her late husband’s family—relies in part on her for subsistence duties,” her office said in a statement.

“Representative Peltola will submit publicly available statements to the Congressional record reflecting how she would have voted if present,” the statement added.

Read the full article at The Hill

AI boosts Alaska pollock assessments, supporting fisheries

November 4, 2024 — Machine learning helps create more accurate Alaska pollock assessments. Fisheries managers rely on accurate stock assessments to keep industries viable and protect resources. The researchers who generate those assessments rely not only on data generated by scientists and fishermen but also on their own capacity to analyze it. According to Dr. James Thorson at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, AI and machine learning have helped improve the species distribution models (SDMs) used in generating stock assessments.

“We often use a type of machine learning called Gaussian Process Models to develop these species distribution models,” says Thorson. “The Gaussian Process Models are good at determining how many fish are in a particular area, but also why the fish are there. It can use information like temperature and bottom type.”

Read the full article at National Fisherman

ALASKA: Pollock trawl closure sends economic ripples across Kodiak as fishermen adapt

November 1, 2024 — Cole Hockema has been fishing since he was a teenager growing up in Oregon. For 12 years now he’s been trawling for pollock in the Gulf of Alaska, but today he’s sitting at home with his young daughters in Kodiak.

“We had lots of projects and stuff scheduled that we wanted to do at the end of the year and now we have a lot of time to do those, but we’re putting those on hold now until next year just because of a lack of money,” Hockema explained.

Hockema captains the Pacific Storm, a 100-foot trawler based out of Kodiak, which his father owns. The vast majority of the Central Gulf of Alaska trawl fleet is made up of local boats like his.

According to the trade group Alaska Groundfish Data Bank, 19 boats were fishing in the Central Gulf of Alaska when the pollock fishery closed on Sept. 25. 15 of those are homeported in Kodiak.

Normally, fishermen like Hockema would be out on the water until early November, when the Gulf of Alaska’s pollock B season typically closes. But this fall season ended just three weeks into fishing, when two vessels incidentally hauled in approximately 2,000 Chinook salmon, which exceeded the fishery’s annual bycatch limit. Hockema said the Pacific Storm was offloading its catch on Sunday, Sept. 22 when they first got the news about the bycatch and he knew the fleet would need to stop fishing immediately.

Bycatch from the trawl fleet has caught a lot of negative attention over the years, especially as king salmon runs decline across the state.

Since the closure, the Central Gulf of Alaska trawl fleet has separated out into a few camps – some are trying to switch into rockfish and or flatfish to make up lost revenue, others are doing a couple trips for Pacific cod, and a few like Hockema are done fishing for the year.

“Yeah we just can’t invest in nicer, better gear to go get this one [Pacific] cod trip,” Hockema said. “And then we just don’t want to take the risk of going backwards out there, messing up gear, ripping up gear, costing us more money.”

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Adjudicator rejects conservationists’ concerns, recommends MSC recertification of Alaska salmon

October 31, 2024 — An independent adjudicator in Canada has recommended the Alaska salmon fishery be recertified as sustainable under the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) Fishery Standard, rejecting objections raised by two conservation groups.

“This decision is disappointing and very misleading,” SkeenaWild Conservation Trust Fisheries Biologist Kaitlin Yehle said in a statement. “This is a fishery that does not adhere to internationally recognized best practices with respect to handling and release of bycatch species, basic catch monitoring and data collection, and is intercepting millions of south-migrating salmon from populations of conservation concern yet is marketed to consumers as ‘sustainable.’”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: US House candidates debate Alaskan fisheries management

October 30, 2024 — Candidates for the sole U.S. House of Representatives seat up for election in Alaska were able to make their positions on the state’s struggling seafood industry heard during the 2024 Alaska Fisheries Debate, hosted by the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce.

Incumbent U.S. Representative Mary Peltola (D-Alaska) touted her record on providing support to the state’s commercial fishing sector while pointing to the bills she has sponsored as a path forward for the industry.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Pink salmon collapse in Homer spurs call for disaster relief

October 30, 2024 — The City of Homer recently sent a formal request to Alaska’s Governor, urging the state to declare a fishery disaster for the pink salmon season. The city council’s request highlights the far-reaching economic impacts of the poor 2023 harvest, which has left commercial fishermen and their families struggling to recover from the financial shortfall. With many relying on pink salmon as a significant portion of their livelihood, Homer joins other Alaskan communities in calling for state and federal disaster relief to offset losses.

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G), pink salmon, also known as “humpies,” are a critical part of the state’s commercial fishing industry. They are valued not only for their economic role but also for their ecological importance. These fish typically follow a two-year life cycle, returning to Alaskan rivers in odd-numbered years. However, variability in ocean conditions, freshwater survival, and rising temperatures have introduced uncertainty in population forecasts. In 2023, runs across the Gulf of Alaska underperformed, with fewer fish returning than predicted, leaving fishermen in financial jeopardy.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

ALASKA: Alaska fishing industry sees nearly 7,000 job cuts

October 25, 2024 — The Alaska fishing industry, long regarded as an economic engine and cultural cornerstone, is grappling with steep financial losses and structural challenges. A recent Alaska Seafood Snapshot economic report by NOAA Fisheries underscores the scale of the crisis, showing that the state’s seafood sector has been hit with nearly 7,000 lost jobs, shrinking profitability, and a $1.8 billion decline in revenues between 2022 and 2023.

The report is based on ex-vessel landings, processed products, and wholesale revenue data through 2022, alongside statistical projections for 2023. Analysts also spoke with fishermen, processors, and community members to better capture the social impacts of the downturn. While this report focuses on the commercial fishing sector, NOAA noted that future studies may explore the broader effects on recreational and subsistence fisheries.

As Robert Foy, director of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center stated in a press release, “The social and economic ramifications of Alaska’s losses have reverberated down the West Coast and across the country.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: Red king crab harvest looking ‘very good’ so far for Bristol Bay fleet

October 24, 2024 — The Bering Sea’s biggest and most lucrative crab fisheries opened last week, and so far, fishing is looking good.

“Fishing has been very good for the [Bristol Bay red king crab] fleet this season and the crab delivered so far has been of high quality — new shell, large size, good meat-fill,” said Alaska Department of Fish and Game Area Management Biologist Ethan Nichols.

As of Wednesday afternoon, about 29% of the total allowable catch (TAC), for the Bristol Bay red king crab fishery had been harvested, according to Nichols. He said so far, reports from captains and from observer catch reports show signs of productive fishing.

Nichols said 14 vessels had landed about 680,000 pounds of king crab. The average weight is 6.84 pounds, and the catch rate is 35 legal males per pot. Both of those numbers are up slightly from last year.

The state set the harvest level at about 2.3 million pounds earlier this month, just 7% more than last year’s cap. The fishery was shut down for the two years prior, due to low abundance.

Former Unalaska mayor and fisheries advisor Frank Kelty said recent surveys show that king crab stocks are looking better this year, but the fishery still has room to grow.

“This fishery is still in a depressed state,” Kelty said. “But you know, we saw improvement in some of the mature males and the six-and-a-half legal size crab, but still not a big surge in the juveniles and pre-recruits moving into the fishery yet.”

Read the full article at KYUK

ALASKA: Alaska lost almost 7,000 fishing-related jobs over 2022-2023

October 23, 2024 — The fishing industry in Alaska has been hit hard in recent years, but a recent economic report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries agency (NOAA Fisheries), shows that Alaska has lost almost 7,000 jobs in the fishing industry.

The report comes after concerned seafood industry members saw a downturn in profit in 2023 and requested NOAA Fisheries to conduct an independent analysis.

NOAA Fisheries said they compiled data from fishing boats, processors, and international trade databases for both state and federal fisheries in Alaska.

The report estimates the Alaska seafood industry suffered a $1.8 billion loss between 2022 and 2023, and the industry saw a 50% decline in profitability between 2021 and 2023.

Read the full article at Alaska News Service