Saving Seafood

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

Alaska pollock quota to remain flat in 2024, despite industry push for higher catch

December 11, 2o23 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which oversees the quota of the Alaskan pollock industry, decided to maintain the same quota for the species in 2024 at its recent meeting on 9 December – despite industry calls for a higher catch.

The council’s latest meeting decided that the total allowable catch (TAC) of pollock for the Eastern Bering Sea would be 1.3 million metric tons (MT), the same quota that it had last year. The flat quota is in spite of increases in biomass, which has increased the allowable biological catch (ABC) to 2.31 million MT – up from 1.9 million MT last year.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Biden administration could wade into lawsuit over Southeast Alaska tribal fishing rights

December 8, 2023 — The Biden administration could jump into a high-profile lawsuit involving a Southeast Alaska Native community that’s fighting with Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration about its fishing rights.

The U.S. Department of Justice said in a filing late Tuesday that it’s considering submitting a friend-of-the-court brief in the dispute between the state and the Metlakatla Indian Community, a tribal government.

The three-year-old Metlakatla lawsuit, filed by the tribal government against Dunleavy’s administration, centers on the extent of fishing rights granted to the community’s members.

The Justice Department didn’t say which side it would take in the suit.

But the Biden administration has already filed a lawsuit against the state that it says is aimed at protecting the rights of rural subsistence fishermen in Southwest Alaska. And its filing Tuesday describes the federal government as having a stake in the Metlakatla lawsuit because it is the “trustee of the community’s federally reserved tribal fishing rights, with a general trust responsibility to preserve and protect those rights.”

Read the full story at the Alaska Beacon

More Alaska groups join salmon bycatch lawsuit

December 8, 2023 — Alaska Native and fisheries conservation organizations have gone to federal court in support of a lawsuit challenging how the National Marine Fisheries Service manages North Pacific trawl fisheries.

The amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief is a response to the lawsuit brought by the Association of Village Council Presidents, Tanana Chiefs Conference, and city officials of Bethel, Alaska, against federal fisheries managers. The lawsuit alleges that NMFS has “violated the National Environmental Policy Act by authorizing large-scale industrial fishing companies to catch billions of pounds of fish without appropriately considering the impacts in light of rapid environmental changes, ongoing species collapses, and closures on in-river salmon fisheries,” according to the supporters.

The new brief was filed by the groups Native Peoples Action, Ocean Conservancy, Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, SalmonState and Alaska Marine Conservation Council in United States District Court in Alaska.

It’s the latest legal maneuver in the ongoing fight between the trawler fleet and other advocacy groups over salmon bycatch and environmental effects.

“If successful, the litigation could lead to better consideration of the impacts of industrial fishing and precautionary measures designed to minimize bycatch and killing of species like salmon, herring, crab and halibut,” according to a joint statement by SalmonState and the allied groups.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Study shows connection between recent marine heatwaves and Western Alaska chum salmon declines

December 6, 2023 — For newly hatched Western Alaska chum salmon, there is no time to waste when it comes to making their way to the open ocean. The tiny fry begin their journey from their natal streams just days or weeks after being born. When they finally reach the Bering Sea, sometime from mid-June to mid-July, their priority becomes consuming marine prey and building the energy reserves that will carry them through their first winter. Throughout their years in the ocean, the Western Alaska chum will travel extensively between the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska.

Unfortunately, simultaneous warming trends in the Bering Sea and the gulf appear to have come as a double whammy for Western Alaska’s juvenile chum salmon. A new study by scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game shows a possible link between a period of exceptionally warm ocean temperatures and chum crashes seen across Western Alaska.

“Loss of sea ice is having an impact on various ecosystems. And so with warming we’re seeing a change in the food web,” said Ed Farley, lead author of the study and head of NOAA Fisheries Ecosystem Monitoring and Assessment Program. “That food web is less energetic. It’s poorer-quality prey. And it’s impacting juvenile salmon, especially juvenile chum salmon in the northern Bering Sea. It’s impacting their fitness prior to winter.”

By “poorer-quality prey,” Farley primarily means jellyfish, also known as cnidaria. Jellyfish have been shown to proliferate when ocean temperatures warm.

“There are more cnidaria in the ecosystem of the Northern Bering Sea during warm years, but there was significantly more during this most recent anomalously warm period,” Farley said.

Read the full story at KYUK