Saving Seafood

Red king crab surveying update has Bering Sea fishermen hopeful

April 18, 2023 — A collaborative survey project began mid-March, funded primarily by NOAA Fisheries, and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG), with help from the Bering Sea Fisheries Research Foundation (BSFRF), and the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers trade organization (ABSC). These organizations got two boats back out surveying for 25 days.

This surveying effort will inform spatial management decisions and the possible red king crab season openings as early as the fall. Over a dozen vessels were eager to get back to work, and the two randomly selected were the F/V Summer Bay and F/V Silver Spray.

National Fisherman was able to interview Gabriel Prout of the F/V Silver Spray. Gabriel provided us with the insider scoop from a fisherman’s point of view.

The last two Eastern Bering Sea trawl surveys indicated a continuing decline in Alaska red king crabs in the 2021 and 2022 fall seasons, with female levels falling below the threshold to close the fishery.

More specifically, the surveys showed a continuing low abundance of mature females, while the male king crab has shown some stability. Researchers say the fishery will not open again until the stock levels of females increase enough for it not to be a concern.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Record-low quota caught as Bering Sea Tanner crab season wraps up

April 18, 2023 — The fishing season has ended for Bering Sea Tanner crab. Crabbers caught the record-low quota of 2 million pounds just before the end of March.

Seventeen vessels went out for tanner across the fishery’s east and west districts, said Ethan Nichols, the assistant area management biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Unalaska.

“Some boats caught their quota in the fall. Some caught it in the spring,” Nichols said. “Overall, the fishery performance was pretty good.”

Nichols said the average size of the crab caught was smaller than in seasons past. That could be because buyers agreed to accept crab they would’ve previously turned away.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

Proposed Bering Sea marine sanctuary draws pushback from fishing industry

April 18, 2023 — A proposed marine sanctuary in the Pribilof Islands has drawn major pushback from the commercial fishing industry, ever since the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration accepted the nomination last June.

The Aleut Community of St. Paul — the tribal government for the Pribilof Island community of around 500 people — says the sanctuary designation would give it greater authority to protect the region’s vast ecosystems and resources, including rich fishing grounds and habitat for the federally protected northern fur seal.

The national marine sanctuary would be named Alaĝum Kanuux̂, or Heart of the Ocean — and if approved, it would be the first of its kind in Alaska, possibly creating a new precedent for resource management in the state.

Lauren Divine is the director for the tribe’s ecosystem conservation office. She said the sanctuary designation would make the tribe a co-manager for the region’s resources, which are currently managed by the State of Alaska and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

“That co-management aspect is really important because it’s a step towards self determination, sovereignty,” Divine said in an interview. “It really speaks to going back to Indigenous stewardship of lands and waters, which have operated successfully and sustainably since time immemorial.”

Divine also said the sanctuary would act as a spotlight, bringing tourism, research, and education dollars to the region.

Read the full article at KYUK

ALASKA: ADF&G predicts weak pink salmon harvest, tightens Chinook harvest restrictions

April 17, 2023 — Southeast Alaska’s pink salmon run is predicted to be weak this summer. The region’s commercial harvest is expected to increase by just five percent this year compared to last year, according to a report from the Alaska Department of Fish & Game released earlier this month. But it’s forecast to be more than a 60% drop from the last odd-year harvest in 2021 – pink salmon runs in Southeast peak in odd years and fall in even years.

The 2023 pink salmon harvest is predicted to be around 19 million fish, with a probable range of between 12 and 19 million. That’s what the department classifies as a weak run. It’s nowhere near Southeast’s record harvest of 2013, which saw more than 89 million pink salmon.

The estimate comes mostly from analysis of juvenile pink salmon abundance indicators collected by researchers in Southeast in previous years.

Read the full article at KSTK

ALASKA: Alaska to Study Fishing in Protected Arctic Waters

April 17, 2o23 — The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) has said that it is preparing for an eventual end to the longstanding moratorium on commercial fishing in U.S. Arctic waters.

Speaking last month during the Arctic Encounter Symposium held in Anchorage, Alaska, ADF&G Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang said his department is seeking $1 million in state funds and another $2 million in federal funds to work on research aimed at understanding sustainable fishing in the Arctic, in the event it happens there.

“As fish stocks move north around the circumpolar north – and fishing fleets from other countries follow them – Alaska should not be left out. We see opportunities for our coastal communities to develop fisheries. And we certainly do not want to be left onshore while Russia and other countries go out and fish those waters,” said Vincent-Lang, according to the Alaska Beacon.

If the funding is approved, the scientific research will identify stocks north of the Bering Strait that are capable of being developed into commercial fisheries. Thereafter, ADF&G will draft a fishery management plan, determining participants and possibly allocating shares by communities.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

Alaska tribal groups sue federal fisheries managers, seeking action on salmon crisis

April 12, 2023 — Two of Alaska’s largest tribal groups have sued the federal government, alleging federal regulators are mismanaging Alaska’s billion-dollar pollock and cod fishery amid an ongoing salmon crisis in central and southwestern Alaska.

The Association of Village Council Presidents, which includes 56 tribes in the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta, and the Tanana Chiefs Conference, which includes 42 tribes in Interior Alaska, filed suit Friday in U.S. District Court against the National Marine Fisheries Service and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

Yukon-Kuskokwim tribes go to court over Bering Sea groundfish

April 12, 2023 — Alaska tribal leaders from the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers regions filed a federal lawsuit Monday against the National Marine Fisheries Service, seeking a new review of groundfish catch limits in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands.

Years of restricted chinook and chum salmon seasons have resulted from salmon bycatch in the pollock trawl fishery, contends the lawsuit by the Association of Village Council Presidents and Tanana Chiefs Conference, now represented in court by the nonprofit environmental law group Earthjustice.

The lawsuit claims NMFS “relied on outdated environmental studies and failed to consider monumental ecosystem-wide changes that have occurred in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands ecosystems over the last two decades.”

Subsistence fishing in the Yukon and Kuskokwim regions has been cut back over years. Tribal advocates who say salmon bycatch is a major factor are pressuring NMFS and the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to put more restrictions on bycatch in the pollock trawl fishery.

Since at least 2007, western Alaska chinook salmon stocks have been in decline, followed by collapses in chum and coho salmon stocks over the last three years, the lawsuit says.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: Western Alaska chum bycatch limits are moving forward — slowly

April 12, 2023 — Proposals to limit chum salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea are moving ahead, but slowly. After reviewing recommendations over the weekend, the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council asked for further analysis to help develop possible chum bycatch limits or additional regulations on the Bering Sea pollock industry.

It’s a small step in a slow federal fishery management process.

Supporters of bycatch limits say reducing the accidental catch of chum and chinook salmon in the Bering Sea could help improve runs along the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers, which have seen record-low returns in recent years. But the pollock industry is pushing back.

Mellisa Johnson is government affairs and policy director for the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim Tribal Consortium and a member of the council’s advisory panel. She said while the council is moving in the right direction, the motion doesn’t immediately address villages along the Yukon and Kuskokwim that have been hit hardest by the chum and chinook crash.

“Indigenous people … have provided testimony [that] they have not been able to fish for three years,” she said. “There’s a high possibility that they may not be able to fish with 2023 being the fourth year.”

Salmon is central to life in Western Alaska. Residents, environmentalists and other pro-subsistence advocates spent hours testifying in favor of bycatch limits last week, describing the devastating impacts to food security and Indigenous culture without it.

“Hopefully there’s enough other salmon species runs that will work to accommodate the food security issues, but it’s really hard to say … that [Western Alaskans are] going to get their needs met,” Johnson said. “More than likely, that’s not going to happen.”

The Western Alaska salmon crash is likely driven by a number of factors, including climate change. It’s not certain new bycatch limits would improve the runs, since only about 10% of chum intercepted in the Bering Sea are headed for Western Alaska, according to genetic studies.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: SalmonState releases statment regarding testimonies to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council

April 12, 2023 — After days of testimony and comments from hundreds of Alaskans over the course of its week-long April meeting, SalmonState views that the North Pacific Fishery Management Council has failed to meaningfully address the issue of the pollock trawl fleet’s bycatch of chum salmon, king salmon, herring, halibut, snow crab, Bristol Bay red king crab, and many other species.

SalmonState claims that instead of recognizing the need to manage Alaska’s oceans as an ecosystem and accepting its own Salmon Bycatch Committee (SBC) and Advisory Panel’s (AP) recommendations for a range of measures to reduce chum salmon bycatch, the Council threw out the guidance of the advisory boards they charged with developing this very proposal and assigned the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to start again from square one in proposing a cap. They say this decision postpones any meaningful action for this fishing season at the very least.

Read the full article at KINY

ALASKA: Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute aiming efforts at growing Southeast Asia, Latin America markets

April 12, 2023 — Facing higher tariffs and an unfriendly trading atmosphere, China is no longer a viable market for seafood from the U.S. state of Alaska. So the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, the promotional board for Alaska seafood, is turning to Southeast Asia and Latin America as alternative options.

In late March, ASMI Global Marketing and Strategy Senior Director Hannah Lindoff told the Alaska House Fisheries Committee her organization has opened a regional office in Bangkok, Thailand, initiated a marketing campaign in Southeast Asia, and expanded its Brazil marketing program to cover the entirety of Latin America.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource