Saving Seafood

SENATORS MARKEY, SULLIVAN INTRODUCE BIPARTISAN LEGISLATION TO PROTECT PHYSICAL AND BEHAVIORAL HEALTH IN COMMERCIAL FISHING INDUSTRY

December 5, 2023 — The following was released by the office of Senator Ed Markey:

Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) introduced the Fishing Industry Safety, Health, and Wellness Improvement (FISH Wellness) Act, bipartisan legislation that would build upon the success of the Commercial Fishing Occupational Safety Research & Training Program to better address the range of occupational safety and health risks facing fishermen in this highly strenuous and dangerous industry, including worker fatigue and substance use disorder. This legislation would also increase the authorized funding for the program and make these research and training grants more accessible on every coast by eliminating the match requirement.

“Every day, our fishermen are faced with demanding and dangerous working conditions that take both a physical and mental toll, all while they work to bring food to the tables of families across the country,” said Senator Markey. “The FISH Wellness Act will provide much needed funding to ensure that fishermen are getting the information and resources they need to stay safe and healthy on the job.”

“Fishermen contend with extreme weather, long distances and periods away from shore and family, and often strenuous working conditions—factors that contribute to the industry being consistently ranked among the most dangerous in the country,” said Senator Sullivan. “I’m glad to introduce the FISH Wellness Act with Senator Markey, which would expand job safety training opportunities to support our fishermen as they sustainably harvest a world-class renewable resource and strengthen our coastal economies.”

Read the full release at the office of Senator Ed Markey

Bottom-trawl gear to blame for most of this year’s fishery-related killer whale deaths, NOAA says

December 5, 2023 — A federal investigation into the unusually large number of Bering Sea and Aleutian killer whales found dead this summer determined that most but not all of the deaths were killed by entanglement in fishing gear.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center on Friday released some details about the deaths in the Bering Sea and Aleutians, which had spurred sharp criticism of seafood trawling practices.

Of the nine killer whales that were found ensnared in bottom-trawling gear, six were killed by those entanglements but two others were already dead before they were netted, the investigation found. The other whale was seriously injured by the gear entanglement but escaped alive, the agency said.

In addition to the nine whales found in bottom-trawl gear, there were two other cases of dead killer whales found entangled in other types of fishing gear.

Read the full story at the Alaska Beacon

Study points to concurrent marine heat waves as culprit in Western Alaska chum declines

December 5, 2023 — Successive marine heat waves appear to have doomed much of the chum salmon swimming in the ocean waters off Alaska in the past year and probably account for the scarcities that have strained communities along Western Alaska rivers in recent years, a newly published study found.

In the much-higher water temperatures that lingered in the 2014-19 period, juvenile chum salmon metabolism was super-charged, meaning they needed more food, said the study, by scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. But the food that was available was of low quality — things like jellyfish instead of the fat-packed krill and other prey they normally eat, the study said.

That means for the juvenile salmon trying to survive their first year at sea, “there’s not much gas in the tank,” said the study’s lead author, Ed Farley, manager of NOAA Fisheries’ Alaska Ecosystem Monitoring and Assessment Program.

Juvenile chum salmon that swam from spawning areas in the rivers suffered what was essentially a double hit, said Farley, who works in the NOAA Fisheries Auke Bay Laboratories in Juneau. They encountered one extreme heat wave in their critical first summer when they were in the northern Bering Sea and then, when they entered their wintering grounds in the Gulf of Alaska, swam into the tail end of another extreme heat wave, he said.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Large Whale Entanglement Response a Success Thanks to Metlakatla Indian Community Team

November 30, 2023 — The following was released as NOAA Fisheries:

The call came in to NOAA’s Alaska Marine Mammal Stranding Network 24-hour hotline the morning of July 19. A whale-watching company near Ketchikan had spotted a humpback whale entangled in line and dragging unmarked buoys. NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement in Ketchikan responded,  verified the whale’s location in Blank Inlet on the south side of Gravina Island, and monitored the entangled whale. The NOAA Large Whale Entanglement Response Program at the Alaska Regional Office in Juneau reached out to the Metlakatla Indian Community Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW).

“When we receive a report of an entangled whale, we immediately start thinking about the trained and authorized responders who are closest to the location,” said NOAA Alaska Large Whale Entanglement Response Coordinator Sadie Wright.

In this case, the Metlakatla Indian Community had done a lot to be prepared to safely respond to entangled whales. Metlakatla’s DFW had seen a need years ago to have responders in their community trained to use specialized equipment to disentangle whales. “They emphasize personal safety, and work hard to help whales while keeping their team and their community safe,” Wright said.

The Metlakatla team had participated in NOAA Large Whale Entanglement Response program trainings in the past and had recently participated in a refresher training. Wright said, “We knew they were a terrific team who had the right skills and right equipment.”

The group of trained and authorized large whale entanglement responders at the Metlakatla DFW was perfectly positioned to assist the entangled humpback whale in Blank Inlet.

Dustin Winter, DFW Director, coordinated his team, including Kevyn McKeehan, Spencer Guthrie, and Gabe Nathen, for the entanglement response. They met NOAA’s Law Enforcement team at the whale’s location. They were able to gather underwater video that showed the whale was caught through the mouth by a thick line, and dragging unmarked buoys behind it.

Indigenous Scientists on St. Paul Island, Alaska Work To Protect Marine Mammals

November 30, 2023 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

For Native American Heritage Month, NOAA Fisheries celebrates the Indigenous scientists who help make our work in marine mammal conservation possible. The Tribal Government of the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island conducts high-level science and management of their marine resources. They work independently and in partnership with NOAA through a formal co-management agreement authorized by the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

St. Paul is a small community of about 400 people located in the Pribilof Islands, 300 miles from mainland Alaska in the Bering Sea. Unangan—which means “The People of the Sea”— live on St. Paul, and neighboring St. George. Russian fur traders captured their ancestors from the Aleutian Islands and relocated them to the Pribilof Islands in the 1700s. They were enslaved there for the commercial fur harvest of laaqudan (the Unangam tunuu word for northern fur seals, pronounced “lah-koo-thawn”). Their deep cultural connection to and subsistence reliance upon laaqudan and other marine mammals, such as qawan (Steller sea lions, “ka-wahn”), has persisted for millennia and remains strong to this day.

 

ALASKA: Pink salmon catch up 43 percent in Alaska, with average season predicted for 2024

November 30, 2023 — Entering an off year, Alaska’s pink salmon fishery is forecasted to have an average-sized harvest in 2024.

Alaskan fishermen caught 152.4 million pink salmon in the 2023 season, valued at USD 113.7 million (EUR 103.5 million), far above the prediction of 122 million fish. According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G), due to the species’ two-year life cycle, the coming season will see a lower harvest of around 19 million fish – about average, it said in its 2024 pink salmon forecast for Southeast Alaska.

Read the full article SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Search continues for the missing after landslide leaves 3 dead in Alaska fishing community

November 25, 2023 — Searchers with heat-sensing drones and a cadaver-dog kept up the search Wednesday for three people missing in a landslide that barreled down a mountain and slammed into homes in a remote Alaska fishing community, leaving three confirmed dead.

Monday night’s slide churned up the earth from near the top of the mountain down to the ocean, tearing down a wide swath of evergreen trees and burying a highway in the island community of Wrangell, about 155 miles (250 kilometers) south of Juneau. Rescue crews found the body of a girl in an initial search Monday night and the bodies of two adults late Tuesday.

Around 54 homes are cut off from town by the landslide, and roughly 35 to 45 people have chosen to stay in that area, interim borough manager Mason Villarma said. Boats are being used to provide supplies, including food, fuel and water, and prescription medications, to those residents. Given the geography of the island — with the town at the northern point and houses along a 13-mile (20.9-kilometer) stretch of paved road — currently “the ocean is our only access to those residences,” he said.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

ALASKA: 3 dead and 3 missing after landslide rips through remote Alaska fishing community

November 23, 2023 — Three people were killed and three were missing after a landslide barreled down a heavily forested, rain-soaked mountainside and smashed into homes in a remote fishing community in southeast Alaska.

The slide — estimated to be 450 feet (137 meters) wide — occurred about 9 p.m. Monday during a significant rain and windstorm near Wrangell, an island community of 2,000 people some 155 miles (250 kilometers) south of the state capital of Juneau.

Rescue crews found the body of a girl in an initial search and late Tuesday the bodies of two adults were found by a drone operator. Searchers used a cadaver-sniffing dog and heat-sensing drones to search for two children and one adult unaccounted for after the disaster, while the Coast Guard and other vessels looked along a waterfront littered with rocks, trees and mud.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

ALASKA: Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers Receive Vital Support from Community

November 18, 2023 — Grundens threw quite the Cappy Hours at this year’s Pacific Marine Expo (PME) on Wednesday and Thursday of the show. They offered beer, hats, and a Yeti cooler filled with both Grundens and Yeti swag throughout all three days of the expo. Though the beer and hats were free, they were accepting donations to raise money for the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers (ABSC). PME generously matched the funds raised during both the Cappy Hours and Grundens x Yeti Raffle. They ended up raising $2,860, which comes to a grand total of $5,720 for Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers.

ABSC is a non-profit organization seeking to provide economic stability to the crab industry and Alaska’s coastal communities, promote safety at sea, and produce premier crab products for American and global customers. They have been actively involved in all aspects of crab fishery research, sound management, and marketing. They are tireless advocates for the Alaska Bering Sea crab fisheries and continue to make positive impacts on the fishing fleets and families that depend on these fisheries for their livelihoods.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: Scientists say warming seas helped cause Alaska’s snow crab crash

November 18, 2023 — When scientists estimated that more than 10 billion snow crab had disappeared from the Eastern Bering Sea between 2018 and 2021, industry stakeholders and fisheries scientists had several ideas about where they’d gone.

Some thought bycatch, disease, cannibalism, or crab fishing, while others believed it could be predation from other sea animals like Pacific cod.

But now, scientists say they’ve distinguished the most likely cause for the disappearance. The culprit is a marine heatwave between 2018 and 2019, according to a new study authored by a group of scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Mike Litzow is a co-author of the study and the director for NOAA’s Kodiak lab. He said starvation mediated by increased temperatures caused the collapse.

“Really the crab were not able to get the food they needed,” Litzow said. “They were just outstripping the resources that were available to them.” 

According to Litzow and his fellow researchers, the crab faced a number of compounding factors: First, higher temperatures meant increased metabolism so they needed more food; on top of that, there was less space for the crab to forage that food; and finally, the crab were just smaller than usual.

Researchers took data from the many possible hypotheses for the disappearance and they examined it alongside the data they have on the collapse. They examined possible mortality from a range of sources, including directed fishing from the snow crab industry as well as bitter crab syndrome — a fatal disease among crustaceans caused by parasites — and trawl bycatch.

“The take-home message is really that none of those other proposed mechanisms explains the collapse with the data we have,” Litzow said.

He said it’s tough to know what the collapse from increased ocean temperatures could mean for other species, but it’s safe to say we’ll probably see more marine heatwaves like this, and they’re likely to be bigger and more frequent, as the world continues warming.

Read the full article at KYUK