Saving Seafood

ALASKA: BOF declines to lower hatchery production levels

March 13, 2024 — A proposal to lower hatchery production to its 2000 level went down in defeat at the Alaska Board of Fisheries meeting on Monday, March 4 in a 1-6 vote, after the majority of the board concluded that hatchery raised salmon were not causing undue harm to wild stocks.

The decision came after extensive testimony, mostly from fishing industry activists opposed to Proposal 43, which was offered by the Fairbanks Advisory Committee to the Board of Fisheries.

The board also took testimony at its Lower Cook Inlet meeting in Homer Nov. 26 through Dec. 1, but postponed any action until its Upper Cook Inlet meeting, from Feb. 23 through March 5 in Anchorage.

Stan Zuray, of Tanana, the only board member to vote for the proposal, said the effects of the state producing commercial opportunity for hatchery fisheries has made for great opportunity for commercial fisheries, while at the same time destroying significant subsistence and commercial economy and opportunities for village communities and processors in places like the Yukon River drainage. What is needed, said Zuray, is an open, continuing, independent review of research into the impact of hatchery salmon on wild stocks.

“Since my first hatchery meeting here in Anchorage in 2000, there has been a systematic unwillingness to do that,” he said.

Zuray has served for many years as chair of his local ADF&G advisory committee and as secretary of the Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association.

Read the full article at The Cordova Times

Regional council opposes further regulations in Bristol Bay savings area

March 12, 2024 — At their February meeting, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council decided not to move forward with the request to close the Bristol Bay red king crab 4000-square nautical mile saving area to all commercial fishing. The council investigated the effectiveness of closing this eastern Bering Sea section to commercial trawl, pot, and longline fishing. However, they advised that they will not tighten regulations in this area.

The savings box was established in 1996 as a haven for red king crabs. However, other fishing, such as midwater/ pelagic trawlers, pot fishing, and longlining, is allowed in the area. According to the AFDG Status of King Crab Stocks, the area is closed to bottom trawling. The year after the saving box was established, the mature male red king crab stock increased from 8.5 million to 10.5 million.

According to KUCB, at this meeting, the Council also evaluated a pot gear closure of a large section in the eastern portion of Bristol Bay, known as Area 512, to address drops in the Bristol Bay red king crab stock. Trawling has also previously been prohibited in that area.

Read the full article at The National Fisherman

ALASKA: Leading Alaska legislators propose task force to help rescue a seafood industry ‘in a tailspin’

March 11, 2024 — Russian fish flooding global markets and other economic forces beyond the state’s border have created dire conditions for Alaska’s seafood industry.

Now key legislators are seeking to establish a task force to come up with some responses to the low prices, lost market share, lost jobs and lost income being suffered by fishermen, fishing companies and fishing-related communities.

The measure, Senate Concurrent Resolution 10, was introduced on March 1 and is sponsored by the Senate Finance Committee.

“Alaska’s seafood industry is in a tailspin from facing unprecedented challenges,” said the measure’s sponsor statement issued by the committee’s co-chairs: Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka; Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel; and Sen. Donny Olson, D-Golovin. The measure is also being promoted by Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak.

The industry’s troubles caused a loss to Alaska’s economy of more than $2 billion in 2023, the sponsor statement says.

The resolution got its first hearing on Thursday in the committee that introduced it.

Read the full article at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Board of Fisheries passes new Kenai king salmon plan

March 11, 2024 — New management policies for Kenai River king salmon mean that sockeye bag limits in the river are up, and commercial setnet fishing is likely to be closed for the foreseeable future.

Kenai River late run king salmon are now officially designated a stock of concern, which means a host of changes in the management plan. The Alaska Board of Fisheries finalized the designation at its meeting in Anchorage on March 1, and as part of it, revised the management plan for the fishery to help conserve more of the fish.

King salmon in general have been in trouble across coastal Alaska. The Kenai River run of kings has been declining for more than a decade, with increasing restrictions on sportfishing and commercial fishing in the area. Commercial setnet fishermen, who fish off the beach on the east side of Cook Inlet, were closed entirely in 2023, while sportfishing for kings was entirely closed because of low returns. The management plan, which the Alaska Department of Fish and Game uses to determine what regulations to set on the run, provided a number of tools to conserve the run, but the numbers of fish returning have continued to decline.

At its October 2023 meeting, the board reviewed the Stock of Concern designation for the late run, which covers July and August in the Kenai River. At its March meeting, the board decided how to change the management plan to help rebuild the run over time.

The main issue in Cook Inlet is the complex web of different user types and how they affect the kings making their way upriver. The Kenai River is one of the most heavily fished systems in Alaska, with drift gillnetters fishing in Cook Inlet, setnetters fishing the beaches up and down the Kenai Peninsula, personal use dipnetters fishing the mouth of the Kenai in July, and sportfishermen lining nearly all 87 miles of the Kenai River. Most of them target sockeye salmon, but kings are coming back during the same time, and are inevitably caught as well.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Trident Seafoods says it’s close on deals to sell three of its Alaska processing facilities

March 11, 2024 — Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.-based Trident Seafoods is “entering the final stages” on sales of three of its seafood-processing facilities in Alaska.

In December 2023, Trident announced it was divesting from its plants in Kodiak, Ketchikan, Petersburg, and False Pass, as well as the South Naknek Diamond NN cannery facility and its support facilities in Chignik, as part of a comprehensive, strategic restructuring initiative.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

King salmon populations are dying, simultaneously affecting orcas and local Alaskan communities

March 2, 2024 — Tad Fujioka always had great problem-solving skills. After studying and working as an engineer, he left the field 14 years ago to become a troll fisherman based in Sitka, Alaska.

“If you’re good at solving problems in one environment, that translates directly to another environment,” he told ABC News, adding that there are other benefits to the job. “I love the freedom to follow my instincts, I don’t have to report to a boss, I love being out on the water in a beautiful country.”

Today he’s the chairman of the Seafood Producers Cooperative in Sitka, Alaska, and supports his family by troll fishing on his 31-foot boat, the Sakura. One of the most important types of fish he reels in is king salmon — the largest and most expensive species of salmon in the Pacific.

Read the full article at ABC News

ALASKA: Fishermen voice opposition to electronic monitoring bill

February 29, 2024 — Alaska fishermen and industry representatives have been concerned with the cost of electronic monitoring. Senate Bill 209 put in place would allow the Board of Fisheries in AK to require electronic monitoring within state fisheries. Gov. Mike Dunleavy introduced the bills last month, making it possible to use electronic monitoring instead of mandatory observers aboard fishing vessels.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game would manage the program. According to KFSK, commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang told the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee that the bill is meant to create another tool for fisheries enforcement.

“I think the question comes down to right now, the only tool that the board has, when they’re concerned about a fishery, and the potential for some violation occurring in that fishery, is to put an observer on board. They don’t have any other options. I think adding this tool to the toolbox gives the board another option.” Vincent-Lang shared.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Murkowski calls proposed endangered listing for Alaska king salmon ‘wrongheaded’

February 28, 2024 — U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski believes an effort by a Washington-state conservation group to put Alaska king salmon on the federal endangered-species list is misguided.

The Wild Fish Conservancy filed a petition with NOAA Fisheries in January, but Murkowski says the organization has missed the mark.

“They are attempting to utilize a very legitimate law, the Endangered Species Act, for what I would consider to be a very wrongheaded purpose,” Murkowski said by phone. “And that is to basically stop our wild fisheries.”

Murkowski says Alaska’s fisheries are under threat from several sources, including environmental pressure from climate change and warming oceans, and economic pressure from Russia’s oversupply of traditional seafood markets. And there’s also ongoing litigation by the Wild Fish Conservancy itself, which sued NOAA Fisheries in 2020 to shut down the commercial troll fishery for kings in Southeast Alaska.

That tactic has yet to succeed, so Murkowski is not surprised that the Wild Fish Conservancy is trying another.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Do Alaska Kelp Farms Provide Habitat for Native Species?

February 28, 2024 — Marine aquaculture, or mariculture, provides economic opportunities for coastal communities in Alaska through the farming of shellfish and seaweed. NOAA Fisheries continues to support Alaska’s growing aquaculture industry through policy and permitting, providing access to capital, and research.

This new video highlights one of our newest aquaculture research collaborations. This research is being conducted by the Alaska Fisheries Science Center’s Kodiak Laboratory and Alaska Ocean Farms, an aquaculture company based in Kodiak. The project is spearheaded by NOAA’s Dr. Alix Laferriere and Alaska Ocean Farms manager Alf Pryor. It’s investigating whether seaweed farms provide habitat for native Alaskan marine species.

In early 2023, Dr. Laferriere launched a research project that would determine how a seaweed farm might provide habitat and shelter for local fish species. It compared the fish species present within Pryor’s farm to the fish species diversity in natural kelp beds. To do this, she is collecting fish and looking for environmental DNA found in the water. She has deployed a network of underwater cameras in the farmed kelp bed and in a nearby natural kelp bed. She’s tracking the number and species of fish that pass through both environments.

The video dives into the methods that Dr. Laferriere is using to track species diversity. It discusses the importance of the collaboration between the aquaculture industry and researchers to ask industry-driven questions about aquaculture. This is an essential tool for future aquaculture industry development in Alaska.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries