Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Bristol Bay fishermen faced ‘more stagger than swagger’ this season

September 4, 2024 — Even though the final days of the sockeye salmon season in Bristol Bay hadn’t yet been fished, fishermen felt a mood swing reminiscent of last season in terms of what went into their wallets. To some, the prospects of fishing the Bay each season may come down to crunching out the cost of maintaining the commercial fishing lifestyle.

“I have a headline for this year’s Bristol Bay season,” texted a fishermanwho was running his boat toward the yard for dry dock storage. “More stagger than swagger as fishermen leave Bristol Bay.”

Last year it was the gut punch of low ex-vessel prices. This season’s base prices of 8o cents per pound among brick-and-mortar processors was slightly higher than last year’s 50 cents, and some of them bumped prices to $1.40 per pound for late fish in hopes of putting up a bigger pack. But for all sectors of the industry, the harvest volume just wasn’t there.

The total run forecast for the Bay in 2024 had been set at 39 million, which was down from the 10-year average by about a third. Of that 39 million, the harvest projections had been set at 25 million. This season’s harvest (preliminary) came in above the projections at 31.5 million.

As for the harvest breakdowns by district, the fabled Nushagak District hit 11.9 million. The Naknek-Kvichak District produced 9.1 million. Egegik came in at 5.1 million, with Ugashik District kicking in another 4.3 million fish.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Alaska lawmakers praise appeals court ruling allowing Southeast Chinook fishery to continue

August 30, 2024 — The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a lower court’s attempt to close Chinook salmon fishing in Southeast Alaska, drawing praise from Alaskan lawmakers who called the ruling a welcome legal victory for Alaska fishermen.

“Although we’re not home yet, the most important thing right now is that Southeast Alaska’s troll fishery can continue,” U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said. “This is a critical industry for Southeast Alaska that has minimal impact on the ecosystem, and the congressional delegation, state, tribal groups, and local environmental groups are all united in their advocacy to allow the fishery to resume.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

 

ALASKA: As Ketchikan Residents Take Stock After Fatal Landslide, Geologists Assess Stability

August 28, 2024 — The day after a landslide tore down a slope above downtown Ketchikan, killing a city worker and injuring three other people, officials warned shaken locals and thousands of cruise ship visitors to avoid the area.

The landslide hit around 4 p.m. Sunday, and a mandatory evacuation order remained in place for homes on several streets near the waterfront. One of the injured people was treated and released, while two others were admitted Sunday to Ketchikan Medical Center.

Read the full article at Seafoodnew.com

ALASKA: Petersburg Borough Assembly rebukes petition to put Gulf of Alaska king salmon on Endangered Species List

August 28, 2024 — Petersburg’s Borough Assembly voted unanimously to write a letter opposing a move to add Gulf of Alaska king salmon to the Endangered Species List.

In June, the National Marine Fisheries Service found that a petition to list Gulf king salmon as endangered warrants further scientific review. The Washington-based conservation group, Wild Fish Conservancy, authored the petition. The Fisheries Service’s finding is just the first major step in a longer regulatory process, but many say it could have far-reaching implications for Alaska’s fishing industry and coastal communities.

Read the full article at KFSK

Salmon will soon swim freely in the Klamath River for first time in a century once dams are removed

August 28, 2024 — For the first time in more than a century, salmon will soon have free passage along the Klamath River and its tributaries — a major watershed near the California-Oregon border — as the largest dam removal project in U.S. history nears completion.

Crews will use excavators this week to breach rock dams that have been diverting water upstream of two dams that were already almost completely removed, Iron Gate and Copco No. 1. The work will allow the river to flow freely in its historic channel, giving salmon a passageway to key swaths of habitat just in time for the fall Chinook, or king salmon, spawning season.

Read the full article at The Associated Press

NOAA study links massive Bering Sea snow crab loss to climate change

August 23, 2024 — Scientists had previously linked the crash of the Bering Sea snow crab population in recent years to warming ocean waters. But a new study released Wednesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration deepens the connection between human-caused climate change and the die-off.

Snow crabs are well suited for Arctic conditions. But Mike Litzow — the lead author of the report, which was published in the journal “Nature Climate Change” — said the southeastern Bering Sea is changing to more sub-Arctic conditions through a process called borealization. St. Matthew Island to the south, nothing north of 60 degrees’ latitude is included in the southeastern Bering Sea. It’s a process that’s also happening in terrestrial ecosystems in Alaska.

Read the full article at KMXT

Scientists have more evidence to explain why billions of crabs vanished around Alaska

August 21, 2024 — Fishermen and scientists were alarmed when billions of crabs vanished from the Bering Sea near Alaska in 2022. It wasn’t overfishing, scientists explained — it was likely the shockingly warm water that sent the crabs’ metabolism into overdrive and starved them to death.

But their horrific demise appears to be just one impact of the massive transition unfolding in the region, scientists reported in a new study released Wednesday: Parts of the Bering Sea are literally becoming less Arctic.

Read the full article at CNN

Lawsuit claims fishery managers have failed to adequately protect Alaska’s coral gardens

August 21, 2024 — Until about 20 years ago, little was known about the abundance of colorful cold-water corals that line sections of the seafloor around Alaska.

Now an environmental group has gone to court to try to compel better protections for those once-secret gardens.

The lawsuit, filed Monday by Oceana in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, accused federal fishery managers of neglecting to safeguard Gulf of Alaska corals, and the sponges that are often found with them, from damages wreaked by bottom trawling.

Bottom trawling is a practice that harvests fish with nets pulled across the seafloor.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service “ignored important obligations” to protect the Gulf of Alaska’s seafloor, under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, the lawsuit said.

Read the full article at the Alaska Beacon

ALASKA: Down year for Alaska salmon fishery may spell end of some Alaska seafood businesses

August 21, 2024 — Salmon catch totals and fish sizes have been disappointing thus far in the U.S. state of Alaska’s summer season, potentially accelerating the ongoing shakeout taking place in Alaska’s seafood sector.

Around 87 million salmon have been caught in Alaska this summer, far short of the 230.2 million salmon harvested in 2023 and tracking well below the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) forecast of 135.7 million fish by season’s end. While part of that has to do with the two-year cycle of pink salmon returns in Alaska, catches for every salmon species in Alaska are down this year.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Southeast Alaska fishermen qualify for federal salmon disaster relief. The deadline to apply is fast approaching.

August 20, 2024 — The first deadline for Southeast Alaska fishermen to apply for relief funding from the abysmal 2020 salmon season is this Saturday, August 24.

A federal fishery disaster was declared for fisheries in the state with extraordinarily low returns.. The U.S. Department of Commerce at the time attributed those low runs to a series of marine heatwaves in the 2010’s and in 2022, the federal agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration gave the state of Alaska about $56 million for those losses.

Read the full article at KRBD