Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Silver Bay Seafoods taking over Peter Pan Seafoods’ Alaska operations

April 6, 2024 — Silver Bay Seafoods has acquired Peter Pan Seafoods’ seafood processing facility in Valdez, Alaska, U.S.A. and will operate its other Alaska plans in 2024.

The agreement, announced 4 April, will see Silver Bay operate Peter Pan’s Port Moller and Dillingham facilities for the 2024 season, and then acquire them after the season ends. With Peter Pan’s closure of its King Cove plant in January 2024 and no announcement that it will reopen by summer, the company will effectively have no physical plant remaining in the state of Alaska. Additionally, it has agreed to transfer the licensing for its Demmings, Humpty Dumpty, and Double Q canned salmon brands to Silver Bay.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Judge rules for the feds in a lawsuit against the state of Alaska over subsistence fishing rights

April 1, 2024 — The federal government has won a permanent injunction against the state of Alaska in a case important to subsistence fishing rights.

U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason ruled Friday that state fisheries managers can’t allow salmon fishing on a long stretch of the Kuskokwim River if their orders conflict with federal management decisions aimed at protecting fish for subsistence use.

The dispute arose in 2021, a drastically low chinook salmon year. The Federal Subsistence Board and other federal officials sharply curtailed salmon fishing on 180 miles of the Kuskokwim, where it winds through the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta National Wildlife Refuge. They closed that section of river to non-subsistence harvests. They also limited subsistence fishing to local rural residents and imposed restrictions on when they could fish and what gear they could use.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

Red king crab hatchery study provides glimmers of hope for Alaska

March 28, 2024 — A new study that found releasing Alaska red king crab as early as possible after they are reared in a hatchery may improve young crab survival and save operational costs has crab harvesters hopeful.

The study, conducted by scientists from the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, showed the best time to release hatchery-reared red king crab is right after they transition from free-swimming planktonic larvae to bottom-dwelling juveniles.

“Red king crab is likely a good candidate for stock enhancement,” the scientists said in their report.

US federal fisheries agency NOAA, universities, state and tribal governments and others are also examining the feasibility of a red king crab hatchery program through the Alaska King Crabs Research, Rehabilitation, and Biology (AKCRRAB) program.

“The next step to effective stock enhancement is developing strategies that maximize post-release survival,” said Chris Long, lead author and research fishery biologist at the agency’s Kodiak Laboratory.

“It’s really exciting,” Jamie Goen, executive director for Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, told IntraFish of the hatchery work. “AKCRRAB and all of its partners has done the research and proof of concept that crab enhancement is possible. Now it’s time to test incrementally scaling it up to see if it could help struggling red king crab populations.”

Read the full article at IntraFish

ALASKA: Alaska Pollock Fishery Alliance formed to create “more balanced conversation” around Alaska’s pollock trawl fishery

March 28, 2024 — The Alaska Pollock Fishery Alliance (APFA) was created on 7 March to provide unified industry representation of Alaska’s pollock trawl fishery in public forums.

APFA will have the goal of emphasizing the industry’s commitment to a science-based management approach and to sustainable harvesting of Alaska pollock.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: A new nominee to the Bering Sea fisheries management council would tip its balance toward tribes and away from trawlers

March 27, 2024 — Tribal and environmental advocates calling for a crackdown on salmon and halibut bycatch are set to gain a new ally on the federal council that manages Alaska’s lucrative Bering Sea fisheries.

Washington Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee last week nominated Becca Robbins Gisclair, an attorney and conservation advocate, to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.

If U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo accepts Inslee’s recommendation, Gisclair, senior director of Arctic programs at the environmental advocacy group Ocean Conservancy, would assume one of the council’s 11 voting positions.

She would replace Anne Vanderhoeven, a previous choice of Inslee’s who works at Seattle-based Arctic Storm Management Group. Arctic Storm’s parent company owns vessels that participate in the trawl industry, which sometimes accidentally scoop up salmon in their nets while they’re trying to catch pollock, a whitefish that goes into fish sandwiches sold by McDonald’s and other companies.

Inslee’s choice comes amid an intense fight at the council about tighter regulation of bycatch, and after what advocates described as a last-minute flurry of lobbying in an effort to convince Inslee to pick an ally of one side or the other in that dispute.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Federal courts face another Groundhog Day in the Pebble mine saga

March 26, 2024 — It’s Groundhog Day all over again in the federal court system over the fate of a proposed copper, gold and molybdenum mine in an area of Southwest Alaska abutting the Bristol Bay watershed.

A Canadian mining company intent on building a copper, gold and molybdenum mine abutting the Bristol Bay watershed, having spent increasing millions of dollars in defense of a project, maintains that their project will provide hundreds of jobs and boost regional and state economies, all in harmony with the world’s largest run of wild sockeye salmon.

Opponents of the project reiterate it’s a mistake for Northern Dynasty Minerals and the state of Alaska to continue to pursue development of what could be the largest open pit mine in North America near headwaters of Bristol Bay’s wild sockeye salmon fishery, the largest sockeye salmon run in the world. These sockeyes, says the Bristol Bay Native Corp., support a commercial fishery that provides over $2 billion in economic value annually and more than 15,000 jobs, and Pebble is the wrong mine in the wrong place.

Read the full article at The Cordova Times

ALASKA: CERAWEEK-Alaska’s governor calls on Biden to update mine permit process

March 21, 2024 — Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy called on President Joe Biden on Wednesday to update and streamline the U.S. mine permitting process in order to boost domestic production of critical minerals and reduce dependence on foreign nations.

The push echoes calls from the mining industry for clarity on how permits can be obtained for mines that produce copper, lithium and other energy transition minerals. Executives have long complained the U.S. process can be complex, expensive and opaque due in part to a federal mining law enacted in 1872.

“Our message to the Biden administration is, ‘Do everything you can to do everything here in America. Get your permitting processes streamlined,'” Dunleavy told Reuters on the sidelines of the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston.

It is “somewhat nonsensical,” the governor said, that Biden has pushed for greater adoption of electric vehicles – which require far more critical minerals to build than internal combustion engines – but has blocked Northern Dynasty’s Pebble copper and gold mining project.

Read the full article at Yahoo Finance

ALASKA: Back in town for Cama-i, Rep. Mary Peltola is still thinking about fish

March 21, 2024 — Alaska’s sole congressional representative, Mary Peltola, returned home to Bethel for the Cama-i Dance Festival held March 15 through March 17. While she was in town, she sat down with KYUK’s Sage Smiley to discuss infrastructure, fish, and why she’s running for re-election. A full transcript of the interview is below. It has been edited lightly for clarity and flow.

KYUK (Sage Smiley): Thank you so much for joining us here today, Rep. Peltola, we’re really excited that you stopped by KYUK.

Rep. Mary Peltola: It’s always good to be home, Sage, and it’s always fun to come back to KYUK.

KYUK: So you’re back for Cama-i primarily, right? How is it to be back?

Peltola: It’s wonderful. It’s so bright and sunny, and I love home this time of year when the days are getting longer and you can feel the birds are going to be coming back soon, breakup is on the horizon. Manaq season is a fun time to come home when everybody’s ice fishing, and yuraqing, and dog sled mushing so you can tell people are out and about more. Cabin fever has definitely set in and we’re just enjoying being outdoors now.

KYUK: What’s your favorite part of Cama-i?

Peltola: I love the craft fair. I love watching the young kids, many elementary schools have their students yuraq. And I think it’s really great to see how vibrant our culture is. You know, for a lot of Native American cultures, Alaska Native cultures, we feel that they’re, you know, on the decline or out of our grasp. I think the anthropological term is moribund; languages that are no longer spoken. And in the [Yukon-Kuskokwim (Y-K)] Delta and Alaska, Yup’ik is the fastest growing language after English. So it really is a testament to our survival and how we are still thriving.

Read the full article at KYUK

Boosting wild red king crab populations through hatcheries

March 21, 2024 — Anew study found that releasing red king crabs as early as possible after they are reared in a hatchery may improve young crab survival and save operational costs. Researchers at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center have noted that the optimal time to release hatchery-raised red king crabs is immediately following their transition from freely swimming planktonic larvae to settling as bottom-dwelling juveniles.

The red king crab was one of Alaska’s most important commercial and subsistence fisheries. In the 1960s, it was especially commercially important around Kodiak. However, the stock crashed in the late 1970s. Researchers believe the crash was a combination of climatic shifts, changes in the food web structure, recruitment failure, and overfishing.

According to NOAA Fisheries and the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, the commercial fishery has been closed since 1983, and the Kodiak stock still has not recovered. Due to the lack of recovery, the consideration of stock enhancements has grown through the release of hatchery-reared juveniles to bolster the wild population.

The Alaska King Crabs Research Rehabilitation and Biology program (AKCRRAB) was formed by NOAA Fisheries, commercial hatcheries and fishing groups, university groups, and State and Tribal governments. As an Alaska Sea Grant partnership and conducted by a research program coalition of state, federal, and stakeholder groups’ views to examine the region’s long-term economic development and sustainability.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman