Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Nushagak king action plan boosts sockeye escapement to conserve chinooks

July 1, 2023 — Every year, the state sets a range of projected sockeye salmon that will ideally evade a fisherman’s net bound for upstream spawning grounds in order to sustain the fishery. Often, kings are swimming hidden among the surging sockeye, like needles in a writhing, riverine haystack. In the hopes that more king salmon may survive to see the lakes upstream, Sands also explained that the Nushagak King action plan widens the season’s total escapement goal range by 15% of the forecasted run. They’re called optimal escapement goals and they mean that if the sustainable escapement goal was 900,000, the optimal goal adds a little over one million fish on top.

“Instead of fishing to control the sockeye escapement down to 900,000 on the Nushagak, we’re fishing less, which means we’re allowing for more sockeye passage, but also more king passage. It’s trying to strike this balance of how many sockeye we’re willing to forego harvesting to try and protect kings,” said Sands.

Daniel Schindler is a professor in the University of Washington’s Alaska Salmon Program, and is part of the research team monitoring the Nushagak runs – which have been under biologists observation since the 1950s. According to Schindler, the declining king populations are not specific to the Nushagak but until the cause for the dwindling species can be determined, something has to be done.

“We know that king salmon are suffering throughout the range. And the action plan is one attempt to reduce interceptions of Nushagak kings in the commercial fishery, so that more of them can make it into the watershed to spawn. And the hope is that more abundance in the watersheds may lead to some recovery in the populations,” he said. “So how this one plays out is anyone’s bet. But the reality is management has to try something because kings are lower now than they have been in a long time.”

Read the full article at KYUK

Appeals court keeps Southeast Alaska salmon troll fishery for July

July 1, 2023 — Federal judges in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals laid to rest threats of closing this year’s Southeast salmon troll fishery – at least for now.

As the final days of June ticked toward the traditional July 1 opening for Pacific Salmon Treaty chinook salmon many in the fleet didn’t know whether to ready their boats for the season or start beating the streets for alternative work. The decision breathes new hope for a fleet that feared that politics rather than sound scientific studies dictate the future of their fishery.

“We’re very relieved that the Ninth Circuit honored our request for a stay,” says Amy Daugherty, executive director of Alaska Trollers Association in Juneau. “Not only has it kept the fishermen from going crazy at the docks if they had been tied up for the season, but they now are starting to believe in the judicial system.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALAKSA: “Stuffed” pots reported in middle of Alaska’s Bering Sea Dungeness crab season

July 1, 2023 — The Dungeness crab season in the eastern Bering Sea in the U.S. state of Alaska is reportedly going well as officials report crab pots “stuffed” with crab.

Historically, Alaska’s Dungeness crab fishery has been relatively small, and largely overshadowed by the red king crab fishery. In 2004, for example, harvesters caught 12.5 million pounds of red king crab worth USD 105 million (EUR 96 million), versus 3.2 million pounds, of Dungeness crab worth USD 11 million (EUR 10 million), according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

U.S. senators propose new fish labeling, enhanced ocean research and more economic tools

June 29, 2023 — A new bill introduced by Alaska’s U.S. senators would set up a new consumer-focused label for wild seafood. It’s among several bills eyed by Congress that could affect fishing in Alaska.

Under the bill introduced last week, there would be a program to voluntarily label qualified products as “Wild USA Seafood,” a tool that Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Sen. Dan Sullivan, both Republicans, said would serve consumers who already have a strong preference for those products.

“Consumers want to know where their food comes from—and by creating a specific label allowing wild seafood, like Alaskan salmon caught in Bristol Bay, wild kelp harvested in Southeast, or pollock caught in the Bering Sea, the option to be labeled as ‘Wild USA Seafood,’ we’re ensuring consumers know they are purchasing the highest-quality seafood from the best-managed fisheries in the world.” Murkowski said in a statement.

There have been persistent problems with mislabeled and sometimes even illegal seafood reaching U.S. markets. For salmon from Alaska, where finfish farming is prohibited by state law, mislabeling has been a particular problem. Past investigations by the nonprofit Oceana and others revealed that farm-raised Atlantic salmon is frequently sold incorrectly as wild salmon.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

Southeast troll fishermen help study a warming ocean: ‘Fishermen are natural scientists’

June 29, 2023 — Eric Jordan’s life on the ocean began more than 70 years ago, when his parents started taking him out on the family’s troller. At 73, Jordan still fishes regularly. But he says a lot has changed in the waters of Southeast Alaska.

“I was out there, the last two weekends at the Derby weigh station, seeing things that are truly dystopian. The lack of birds, the lack of fish,” Jordan said. “Those of us who are out there on the water, we are seeing the changes. And I’ll tell you it’s pretty spooky.”

Jordan started his own operation in 1978, trolling for coho and chinook salmon across Southeast Alaska and catching hundreds of fish a day. But today, the marine environment seems less abundant. Most species of Southeast salmon have had record low harvests in recent years, and the devastation from “the Blob” — a Pacific heat wave that caused massive die-offs of marine species — lingers.

Scientists expect a future with warmer oceans and more marine heat waves. But there’s a lack of data to explain how climate change is shaping Southeast fisheries. Now, two new citizen science projects from Alaska Sea Grant and the Alaska Trollers Association will help longtime troll fishermen like Jordan take the lead to gather data about how the waters they depend on are changing.

Read the full article at KTOO

ALASKA: With prices low, many fishermen are skipping Southeast’s Dungeness crab season

June 27, 2023 — The Southeast Alaska Dungeness crab fishery opened on June 15. But roughly a quarter of the fleet in Petersburg is skipping the season. That’s partly because many of them are expecting low prices.

Two days before crabbing started, Petersburg fisherman Paul Menish was in the cabin of his boat, the Hi Nikki, speculating on crab prices.

“Sounds like prices aren’t going to be as low as we were quoted three weeks ago,” said Menish. “Now, it’s just rumors, but that the prices will be for Dungeness, will be in north at two dollars. Which isn’t a good price but better than three weeks ago.”

It turns out Menish was right.

When he sold his first load to OBI Seafoods in Petersburg, he said he got $2.10 a pound. That’s 50 cents lower than the starting price last summer.

Kevin Timm is the fleet manager at OBI Seafoods in Petersburg. He said the problem is that there’s still a lot of Dungeness crab left over from last year. He said it’s expensive and customers just aren’t buying it.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Crab pots ‘absolutely stuffed’ as Bering Sea Dungeness fishery breaks records

June 27, 2023 — While many Bering Sea crab populations are in freefall, Dungeness crab is breaking records in regions that hardly used to see them.

The North Peninsula District in the eastern Bering Sea opened as a commercial Dungeness fishery in the early ‘90s. In those early days, it was common for just one or two boats to fish there — many seasons, there were none.

The numbers increased modestly over the ensuing decades — but that growth has recently become exponential.

“The pots that we’re seeing coming out of this fishery are absolutely stuffed with crab,” said Ethan Nichols, who works for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. “Like, you don’t even know how many crabs can fit in a pot.”

Nichols is Fish and Game’s assistant area manager for groundfish and shellfish in Dutch Harbor. He said the fishery boomed last year and became the largest Dungeness crab fishery in Alaska — bringing in 35% of the state’s total Dungeness landings.

Read the full article at KTOO

Murkowski, Sullivan introduce bill to create “Wild USA Seafood” label for domestic-caught seafood

June 27, 2023 — Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, both Republican U.S. senators from Alaska, have introduced a bill to establish a “Wild USA Seafood” label for all seafood caught in U.S. waters.

The senators said the bill, the “Wild USA Seafood Act of 2023,” will help the U.S. domestic seafood industry promote its wild-caught seafood – including fish, crustaceans, and aquatic plants harvested in U.S. waters.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: ‘Alaska’s secret wild salmon prices hurt everybody,’ fisheries journalist says

June 27, 2023 — An opinion piece entitled “Alaska’s secret wild salmon prices hurt everybody,” written by a prominent fisheries journalist, is calling into question the transparency of how much Alaskan salmon fishermen get paid for their catch.

John Fiorillo is the executive editor of Intrafish, a global news bureau covering seafood, commercial fisheries and aquaculture industries worldwide. He argues that the secretive nature of price setting in Alaska salmon fisheries strains the relationship between fishermen and processors, and puts everyone on precarious financial footing — and it’s high time for a change.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Alaska Gov. Dunleavy again vetoes research project on salmon bycatch

June 26, 2023 — Among the projects Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed from the state budget on Monday was salmon research to help determine the causes of the chinook and chum crisis in Western Alaska.

Dunleavy vetoed $513,000 for research on the origins of salmon caught by accident in the Bering Sea pollock fishery, as well as the origin of salmon intercepted by fishermen off the Alaska Peninsula in what’s known as “Area M.” Dunleavy vetoed the project last year, too.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News