Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Alaska congressional delegation steps up efforts to shut down U.S. imports of Russian seafood processed in China

December 19, 2023 — At the Yantai Sanko Fisheries shore plant in China’s Shandong Province, workers cut pollock into trim fillets. The company website touts “perfect quality” from a plant complex with easy access to international shipping lines.

The vast majority of pollock that moves through China’s seafood processing industry comes from Russia, which is prohibited by the Biden administration’s March 2022 sanctions from exporting seafood directly to the United States. But Russian-caught fish labeled as a product of China has continued to pour into U.S. markets, helping to tank what had been record-high prices for the North Pacific trawl fleet that catches pollock off Alaska.

For more than a year, Alaska seafood industry officials have called for expanding the sanctions to cover any Russian seafood processed in China or any other country. In recent weeks, Alaska’s congressional delegation has stepped up efforts to try to make that happen.

Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, has repeatedly asked Treasury Department officials for a new ruling that would reinterpret the sanctions imposed in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine to cover all Russia-caught seafood, no matter where it was processed. Rep. Mary Peltola took a lead role in putting together a letter, signed by 38 members of Congress, sent Thursday to President Joe Biden. It asks for the closure of the “loophole” that allows Russian seafood processed in China to be imported into the United States “in defiance of U.S. sanctions.”

If the Treasury Department does not act, Sullivan says he’s planning another attempt to pass legislation that would require the Biden administration to end these imports. He would try to move a bill through the Senate through a unanimous consent vote, a tactic he tried unsuccessfully in June.

“I have been having a tough time getting this over the goal line. We’ve been working this nonstop,” Sullivan said. “Stay tuned.”

This campaign to clamp down on Russian-caught imports has gained momentum from an investigation by The Outlaw Ocean Project — a journalism nonprofit — into the Chinese seafood industry. The reporting, published by The New Yorker in October, found evidence that Yantai Sanko and nine other seafood companies have used the forced labor of more than 1,000 Uyghurs and other largely Muslim minorities from the Xinjiang region in northwest China.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

Sea temperatures’ impact on salmon species explored in 2023 Arctic Report Card

December 18, 2023 — In December 2006, I sat in a similar carpeted room in this city and listened to scientists talk about an Alaska-size chunk of sea ice that was no longer floating on the northern oceans compared to previous years.

That meant that the “refrigerator of the northern hemisphere” was much less powerful than it had been in recent decades, said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. That failing fridge is part of the reason our world has become warmer.

This week, scientists here at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union rolled out their 18th version of the Arctic Report Card, a series of essays and data about environmental changes on top of the world put together by people at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and featuring the work of many Alaska scientists.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

NOAA Fisheries Releases 2023 Ecosystem Status Reports for Alaska

December 18, 2023 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries has released the 2023 Ecosystem Status Reports for the eastern Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands, and Gulf of Alaska. These synthesis reports provide current conditions and trends over time for key oceanographic, biological, and ecological indicators in three Alaska marine ecosystems.

These foundational data and information reports support federal commercial fish and crab fisheries management. Each year, scientists and fishery managers at NOAA, other U.S. federal and state agencies, academic institutions, tribes, and nonprofits, contribute to the reports.

For close to three decades, fishery managers have relied on these reports to better understand how commercial fish and crab populations are being affected by changes in the marine environment.

“Warming at rates four times faster than the rest of the ocean, Alaska’s Arctic ecosystems are a bellwether for climate change. Now more than ever having ecosystem and climate-related data and information is essential to support adaptive resource management and resilient commercial, recreational and subsistence fisheries, and rural and coastal communities,” said Robert Foy, director, Alaska Fisheries Science Center.

This year, data from these reports provided broad, contextual ecosystem information for 45 stock assessments and specifically informed 16 stock-level risk assessments.

2023 Highlights Across Alaska

Looking across the three ecosystems this year, there are several notable indicators amidst continued variability in many marine conditions.

  • Ocean temperatures in both the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea have cooled relative to the recent marine heatwave conditions while the Aleutians remained warmer than average
  • Pacific ocean perch continue to be dominant groundfish in the Aleutian Islands, replacing pollock and Atka mackerel in the ecosystem while the Gulf of Alaska ecosystem is now characterized by increased populations of Pacific ocean perch and sablefish and reduced populations of Pacific cod, Pacific halibut, and arrowtooth flounder
  • There were some positive signs for Pacific cod recruitment in the Gulf of Alaska even though adult population abundance remains low
  • Notable indicators of ecosystem health and potential threats to wildlife and human health: Harmful algal blooms are becoming more prevalent in the northern Bering Sea and paralytic shellfish toxins in sampled blue mussels from four Aleutian Islands communities were 47 times above the regulatory limit

Limited availability of Alaska red king crab gives it dominant market position

December 17, 2023 — This year’s quota for Alaska’s Bristol Bay commercial red king crab season was smaller than usual, but fishermen are reaping the reward of high demand in the lead-up to the holidays.

More than 99 percent of the 2.1-milllion-pound quota has already been caught by 31 vessels, according to KUCB. Alaska Department of Fish and Game Area Management Biologist Ethan Nichols said while the total allowable catch was less than half of the 2018-2019 season, it was still welcomed by the region’s fishermen. Bristol Bay struggled with a financially difficult salmon season this past summer, the Bering Sea snow crab fishery remains closed for a second straight year, and Southeast Alaska’s red and blue king crab fisheries have been closed since 2017.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Alaska salmon woes, extreme precipitation, tundra shrub growth part of Arctic transformation

December 14, 2023– The collapses of Western Alaska salmon runs have been among the most consequential climate change impacts in the rapidly warming Arctic over the past two years, according to an annual report assembled by a federal agency.

The 2023 Arctic Report Card, released on Dec. 12 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), includes a special chapter on Alaska salmon among its updates to sea ice, air temperature, and permafrost conditions in a region of the world that is warming up to four times as fast as the global average.

Western Alaska salmon runs provide a “particularly clear picture” of how ocean warming affects ecosystems, said Daniel Schindler, a University of Washington fisheries expert who was a contributing Arctic Report Card author.

Climate change in Alaska is not simply something expected in the future, said Schindler, who spoke Dec. 12 at a news conference held at the American Geophysical Union’s annual gathering in San Francisco, California.

“It’s happening now. It’s been happening for decades. Whether you’re talking about fish or people or birds, there are real impacts that we need to deal with right now,” Schindler said.

Rick Thoman, of the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), delivered a similar message at the news conference.

“As Alaskans, as people of the Arctic, we are living this change every day. We have no choice, no choice at all, other than to work with what is happening,” said Thoman, one of the Arctic Report Card editors.

Read the full article at KYUK

Federal fisheries managers hold Bering Sea pollock quota steady

December 14, 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 (NPFMC) moved to keep the total allowable catch (TAC) 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 NPFMC 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 KYUK

Trident Seafoods planning sale of Alaska plants, announces layoffs

December 13, 2023 — Trident Seafoods announced 12 December it plans to sell off a significant portion of its assets in Alaska and to trim its workforce by 10 percent.

The Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.-based vertically integrated seafood harvesting and processing firm, which has around 9,000 employees globally, said it will aim to divest itself of its Alaskan assets in Kodiak, Ketchikan, Petersburg, and False Pass, as well as the South Naknek Diamond NN cannery facility and its support facilities in Chignik.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Commercial fishermen need more support for substance abuse and fatigue, lawmakers say

December 12, 2023 — A federal program that protects the health and wellbeing of commercial fishermen should be expanded to include substance use disorder and worker fatigue, a group of lawmakers from New England and Alaska said.

The lawmakers want to expand a federal commercial fishing occupational safety program that funds research and training. The program is designed to help the nation’s fishermen with the often hazardous conditions they face at sea.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who is one of the lawmakers pushing for the change, said expanding the program would help fishermen access more safety training and mental health resources. Collins and the lawmakers introduced the proposal late last week.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

USDA buying more pollock, awards walleye contract

December 12, 2023 — After a significant pollock purchase of USD 1.75 million (EUR 1.6 million) in November, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is seeking to buy more wild Alaska pollock with a deadline to receive bids of 13 December.

Simultaneously, the agency awarded a significant walleye contract worth more than USD 1.4 million (EUR 1.3 million).

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Environmental and tribal groups add support to lawsuit calling federal fisheries management into question

December 12, 2023 — Five environmental and tribal organizations have signed their support onto a lawsuit against federal fisheries managers. The suit alleges that the National Marine Fisheries Service has violated environmental policies by using outdated data to guide the way it regulates the trawling industry in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Chain fisheries. This includes the Alaska pollock fishery, responsible for the vast majority of salmon bycatch in the region.

“There’s so many factors as to why salmon declines are where they’re at right now in our rivers,” said Laureli Ivanoff, the executive director of Native Peoples Action, one of the supporting organizations. “We know it’s not just the pollock industry. However, if the analysis and if the environmental impact statement that they use for analysis and for decision-making was updated, there would be a more complete picture of what’s happening in the ocean to base their decisions on.”

The lawsuit calls into question the use of environmental impact statements dating back to 2004 and 2007. It was originally brought in April by the Association of Village Council Presidents (AVCP) and Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC), tribal non-profit organizations that together represent the vast majority of communities hit hardest by salmon crashes in Western Alaska. The groups are being represented by the national environmentalist law organization Earthjustice.

In early December 2023, five Alaska Native and fisheries conservation organizations: Native Peoples Action, Ocean Conservancy, the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, SalmonState, and the Alaska Marine Conservation Council, filed what is known as an amicus brief on the same side as the original two plaintiffs. It is a way for parties with a stake in the outcome of a lawsuit to offer additional information that courts may consider before ruling.

Read the full article at KYUK