Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Small Bering Sea red crab quota fills fast; starvation theory in opilio disappearance

December 31, 2023 — The Bering Sea fleet fished on a total allowable catch (TAC) quota of 2.15 million pounds of red king crab in October. Though the regulatory season runs until Jan. 15, the 2023-2024 fishery just lasted until Nov. 18, with 31 vessels delivering nearly all the quota.

Weighing in at an average 6.6 pounds each, the crabs were a bit larger this year than the average 6.11 pounds during the 2020-2021 fishery.

Biomass estimates from National Marine Fisheries Service trawl surveys conducted last summer put the crab population above the threshold to set a quota and warranted the season this year. The fishery had been closed since the 2020-2021 season. Ex-vessel prices averaged $8 per pound.

“Overall, most vessels reported good fishing and did not have trouble catching this year’s small quota,” says Ethan Nichols, area management biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Dutch Harbor.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: Ecosystem reports show continuing effects of warming in Alaska’s marine waters

December 28, 2023 — The waters off Alaska’s Aleutian Islands registered the warmest winter temperatures in over a century, part of a decade-long period of warming, according to a report issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The record-high temperatures in the western and central Aleutians moderated later in the year but warmer-than-normal conditions persisted for the rest of the year throughout the waters around the 1,100 mile chain extending from southwestern Alaska, according to the 2023 NOAA Fisheries Ecosystem Status report for the region.

The Aleutians report is one of three annual ecosystem status reports issued by NOAA Fisheries for marine areas of Alaska. The reports, compiled by large teams of scientists, were released earlier this month and presented to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, the panel that sets regulated commercial fishing in federal waters off Alaska.

Read the full article at KTOO

ALASKA: Some U.S. seafood importers opposed restrictions on Russian fish, Alaska senator says

December 28, 2023 — A 10-year loophole that allowed Russia to export seafood to the U.S. and undercut Alaska harvesters and processors has finally been closed, but the effort faced opposition within the U.S. from seafood importers who wanted access to cheap Russian fish.

Russia has flooded world markets with crab, cod, pollock and salmon to detriment of Alaskan harvesters and seafood companies, and coastal communities, Sen. Dan Sullivan said in a Dec. 31 briefing for reporters.

A U.S. Treasury Department order banning seafood harvested in Russia or by Russian vessels, even if the product is exported to a third country for processing and then reexported to the U.S. went into effect Dec. 23, Sullivan said.

China and Russia have the worst environmental and sustainability policies in the world with harvesting and processing while Alaska has the best, Sullivan said.

On top of that, China employs forced labor in its processing plants, usually from the repressed Uighur minority, the senator said.

Read the full article at the Frontiersman

Alaska fishers, consumers likely to see higher seafood prices due to expanded Russian products ban

December 26, 2023 — Seafood prices may see an increase both for fishers and consumers due to new import restrictions on Russian products imposed in an executive order by President Joe Biden on Friday, but top Alaska political leaders and many industry officials praised the policy as beneficial to regions with fisheries statewide.

The executive order expands sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine to include products that are caught in Russia and processed in China, closing what advocates for the restriction called a loophole Russia was exploiting after a general ban on seafood from that country was imposed by the U.S. in 2022. Biden’s order also affects alcohol and “non-industrial diamonds.”

In the simplest practical terms, it means there will be fewer seafood products available — thus both likely expanding Alaska’s share of the market, while affecting availability and prices for consumers.

Read the full article at Juneau Empire

ALASKA: Fishermen and community leaders react to Trident announcement to sell a third of its Alaska plants

December 24, 2023 — Gerry Cobban Knagin is a commercial fisherman. She and her family have fished around Kodiak and sold their harvest to Trident Seafoods, one of the largest seafood processors in the country, on and off for decades.

But on Dec. 12, the company announced it’s selling off about a third of its Alaska processing plants, including their year-round facility in Kodiak. She said the announcement was a huge shock for almost everyone on the island.

“Speaking with [Trident] management, there wasn’t any heads up for anyone,” Knagin said. “And they decided, according to management, that they wanted full transparency so that the fleet would know.”

Trident Seafoods has a huge footprint in Kodiak – the processing plant is one of the biggest buildings in the city’s downtown and can process more than a million pounds of pollock a day.

The company has been a part of the community for half a century and employs between 100 and 300 people, depending on what fishery they’re processing. That doesn’t even include all of the fishermen who run independent businesses that sell fish to them, like Knagin.

But now, all of those people are left questioning their job security.

The archipelago’s Tanner crab season starts next month but Knagin said she’s dismayed that there seems to be little commitment from the company for upcoming fishing seasons.

“They [Trident] will be buying Tanners, and they will be buying for the A season of Pollock – they cannot expand on anything else past that,” she said. “So, we are salmon fishermen, and they cannot guarantee that they will be available for us to buy our salmon.”

Alexis Telfer, with Trident’s corporate communications, declined to verify if they will be buying Tanner crabs or salmon next summer, and refused to comment further. She said they’re focused on supporting their employees, fishermen, and partners at this time.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Southeast chinook stocks expected to be low again in ’24

December 24, 2023 — It’s likely to be another weak year for king salmon returns to the major river systems of Southeast Alaska in 2024.

The Alaska Department of Fish & Game issued its 2024 Southeast Alaska Chinook Salmon forecasts on Monday (12-18-23).

Of the 11 chinook stocks in the region, only the Chilkat River is expected to have an adequate number of chinook returning to spawn. Nevertheless, this number – known as escapement – is still in the middle of the range, and could be lower depending on how many fish are harvested before they get to the river.

The Alaska Department of Fish & Game has adopted action plans to try and limit the catch of king salmon bound for Southeast Rivers, but some are always intercepted.

However, ADF&G assessment biologist Philip Richards says overharvest is probably not the problem.

Read the full article at KCAW

As salmon disappear, a battle over Alaska Native fishing rights heats up

December 24, 2o23 — When salmon all but vanished from western Alaska in 2021, thousands of people in the region faced disaster. Rural families lost a critical food source. Commercial fisherfolk found themselves without a major stream of income. And Alaska Native children stopped learning how to catch, cut, dry, and smoke fish — a tradition passed down since the time of their ancestors.

Behind the scenes, the salmon shortage has also inflamed a long-simmering legal fight among Native stakeholders, the Biden administration, and the state over who gets to fish on Alaska’s vast federal lands.

At the heart of the dispute is a provision in a 1980 federal law called the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which gives rural Alaskans priority over urban residents to fish and hunt on federal lands. Most rural families are Indigenous, so the law is considered by some lawyers and advocates as key to protecting the rights of Alaska Natives. State officials, however, believe the law has been misconstrued to infringe on the state’s rights by giving federal regulators authority over fisheries that belong to Alaskans.

Now, a lawsuit alleges the state has overstepped its reach. Federal officials argue that state regulators tried to usurp control of fishing along the Kuskokwim River in western Alaska, where salmon make up about half of all food produced in the region. The suit, originally filed in 2022 by the Biden administration against the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, escalated this fall when the state’s lawyers effectively called for the end of federal oversight of fishing across much of Alaska. Indigenous leaders say the state’s actions threaten Alaska Native people statewide.

Read the full article at the Grist

ALASKA: Trident Seafoods announces plan to streamline, modernize operations

December 21, 2023 — Trident Seafoods, a corporate giant among North American seafood processors, is looking for potential buyers for four of its shoreside plants in Alaska as part of a restructuring plan announced on Tuesday from its headquarters in Seattle.

Such bold action is necessary to deliver fair value to fleet, communities and all stakeholders into the future, said Joe Bundrant, CEO of the company built by his father, Chuck Bundrant, starting more than 50 years ago with a single fishing vessel.

Bundrant said he remains confident overall of the Alaska seafood industry and Trident’s role in it. He acknowledged these significant changes and said the company is focused on treating its impacted employees and communities with the respect and compassion they deserve.

“Embracing these changes and operating a more streamlined company will allow us to reinvest in the communities, people, processes, and assets that enable us to continue our mission of responsibly sharing wild Alaska seafood with the world,” he said.

Read the full article at the Cordova Times

NOAA’s 2023 Arctic Report Card highlights human-caused warming

December 20, 2023 — NOAA’s 2023 Arctic Report Card includes new information confirming that human-caused warming of the air, ocean and land is having a broad range impact across the Arctic region, which is warming faster than other parts of the world.

The overriding message from the 2023 report is that now is the time for action, said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad. NOAA and its federal partners have ramped up their collaboration with state, tribal and local communities to help improve climate resilience. At the same time, Spinrad said, the United States and the global community need to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions driving these changes.

NOAA’s annual Arctic Report Card, now in its 18th year, includes the work of 82 authors from 13 countries.

It includes a section called “Vital Signs” which updates physical and biological changes, chapters on emerging issues, and a special report on the 2023 summer of extreme wildfires.

One new chapter in the report focuses on salmon species that are vital to the heath, cultures and food security of many Indigenous communities as well as to commercial fishing economies. The chapter notes that in 2021 and 2022 sockeye salmon reached record-high abundances in Bristol Bay, while Chinook and chum salmon that are fished along the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers fell to record-low abundance. Declining fisheries have continued into the current year, resulting in harvest closures.

Read the full article at the Cordova Times

ALASKA: Federal fisheries managers hold Bering Sea pollock quota steady

December 20, 2023 — The total amount of pollock allowed to be scooped up by trawlers in the Bering Sea will stay the same in 2024. In its Dec. 9 meeting in Anchorage, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council moved to keep the total allowable catch for pollock at its current level of 1.3 million metric tons, a move that has generated criticism from conservationists, tribes and the trawling industry alike.

Alaska’s pollock fishery is responsible for the vast majority of salmon bycatch in the region. And amid alarming declines in returns of multiple species of salmon to Western Alaska rivers, the pollock trawl fishery has faced increasing criticism for its perceived role driving the crisis. But federal fisheries managers and the trawling industry pushed back, asserting that the claims are unfounded.

Trade organizations representing the trawl industry said during testimony at the council meeting that the decision to hold the pollock quota steady is misguided.

Stephanie Madsen, executive director of the At-Sea Processors Association, told the council the move could lead to missed opportunities to harvest increased numbers of mature pollock in the Bering Sea.

“We can’t bank them like some fish species. They will age out of the system and they will be not available to the fishery,” Madsen said.

Madsen also told the council that the industry request for a modest increase to the pollock quota, which was ultimately denied, was already a compromise.

“I would just remind you that the Russian fishery in the Sea of Okhotsk and the Western Bering Sea take more pollock than our Eastern Bering Sea pollock,” Madsen said. “So a 20,000 metric ton increase in the Eastern Bering Sea is likely to have very little impact on a global situation.”

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media