Saving Seafood

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

 

ALASKA: Alaska aquaculture is growing quickly, but faces roadblocks

March 20, 2024 — Aquaculture is a new, but rapidly growing industry in Alaska. That’s according to a recent report from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries) on the state of Alaska’s water-based farming.

James Currie is an Alaska Sea Grant fellow who authored the February report. He said it’s meant to provide an approachable overview for curious non-experts.

“So there have been steady increases over preceding years in our production of oysters and seaweed,” Currie said. “And it’s a really exciting time for the aquaculture industry overall, just in terms of we’re receiving more applications on average year by year.”

Read the full article at KRBD

ALASKA: Amid salmon crash, Alaska’s Yukon River residents say a new pact with Canada leaves them behind

March 19, 2024 — This reporting was supported by a Carnegie Foundation Fellowship.

Writers Olivia Ebertz and Bathsheba Demuth boated more than 1,000 miles up and down the Yukon River last summer, hearing the stories and perspective of residents and Tribal leaders along the way.

ALONG THE YUKON RIVER — The midsummer air is hot after a long day of sun and stillness in the middle river village of Grayling, and the cutbanks seem to slouch closer toward the Yukon River below. Rachel Freireich says her mother moved here permanently from the Athabaskan village of Holikachuk, up a nearby tributary, in the 1960s to be closer to schools and salmon eddies.

“They came over with steamboats every summer to fish the salmon,” said Freireich, a resident of Grayling her entire 43 years.

In summers while she was growing up, Freireich says the village was a ghost town.

“The whole community would become kind of abandoned, because everybody would bring their whole families out and they went to the fish camp. Everybody was busy,” she said.

But in the summer of 2023, fish camps are empty. The few boats in the lower river are mostly in a search party looking for a missing person. From the mouth of the Yukon at the Bering Sea to the river’s headwaters in Canada, no one is fishing — the consequence of the second-lowest king salmon run on record. The worst was just a year prior, a grim milestone in the wake of decades of ebbing runs that have robbed Indigenous residents of both traditions and nourishment.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

Controversial mine project sues over EPA veto

March 18, 2024 — In a statement Friday, the Pebble Partnership alleged the EPA’s veto was issued before the completion of the permitting process.

Rather than waiting for the Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE) permitting process to conclude, the EPA made its decision under a provision of the Clean Water Act that allows it to restrict mining activity in the Bristol Bay watershed.

The bay contains the world’s single largest sockeye salmon fishery.

Read the full article at The Hill

ALASKA: Trident Seafoods Confirms Sale of Petersburg Facilities To E.C. Phillips & Son

March 18, 2024 — A second buyer of one of Trident Seafoods’ four plants for sale has been named. The seafood giant announced Friday that it has reached an agreement to sell its processing plant, bunkhouse, galley and two housing units in Petersburg, Alaska, to E.C. Phillips & Son Inc.

E.C. Phillips & Son currently operates year-round out of Ketchikan and Craig, Alaska. Trident’s sale of their Petersburg facilities to E.C. Phillips & Son is expected to close in April.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

ALASKA: Alaska processors make their moves after market tumult

March 14, 2024 — Big changes are afoot in Alaska’s seafood processing sector.

In December 2023, Trident Seafoods announced it planned to sell its Alaskan assets in Kodiak, Ketchikan, Petersburg, and False Pass, as well as its South Naknek cannery and its support facilities in Chignik. Trident Seafoods CEO Joe Bundrant said the moves were being made to “position the company to fund the reinvestments necessary to continue to lead in the Alaska seafood industry.”

The announcement came just a few months after Trident – a vertically integrated seafood harvesting and processing company whose motto is “Anchored in Alaska” – announced it was delaying the development and construction of a processing plant in Unalaska, Alaska, that was supposed to replace an aging plant in Akutan, citing an overall collapse of the seafood market as the reason for the delay.

Bundrant said Trident’s strategy “reflects the realities facing U.S. seafood producers in global markets.”

“Across many species, the combination of declining demand, excess supply, and foreign competition has driven prices down, squeezed margins, and displaced U.S. producers from markets that they developed over decades,” he said. “In this global business environment, Trident is betting that it can remain competitive by attracting customers who value the sustainability, quality, and integrity of wild Alaska seafood while also aggressively reducing costs and improving productivity.”

Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute Food Aid Program and Development Director Bruce Schactler said Trident’s announcement heralded a crisis “years in the making.” He called Trident’s announcement “a wake-up call” for the state.

Read the full article at National Fisherman