Saving Seafood

North Pacific council hears renewed demands on bycatch

December 22, 2022 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council met in Anchorage during the second week in December. Among items on its agenda the panel was to deliberate on action steps to mitigate the incidental take of chum and chinook salmon, red king crab, opilio crab and other species that come up in the tows of pollock trawlers.

Many from Kuskokwim and Yukon River villages, the crabbing industry and those representing other interests had hoped the council would take immediate action to close down trawling in vast areas of the Bering Sea.

That didn’t happen.

“The council has decided to protect the status quo and allow the trawl fleets to continue catching and discarding prohibited species such as chum salmon, chinook salmon and crab while entire western Alaska runs and crab stocks are in collapse,” says Lindsey Bloom, a campaign strategist, with SalmonState, in Juneau.  “This is a total failure in fisheries management.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Alaska crab fishery collapse seen as warning about Bering Sea transformation

December 20, 2022 — Less than five years ago, prospects appeared bright for Bering Sea crabbers. Stocks were abundant and healthy, federal biologists said, and prices were near all-time highs.

Now two dominant crab harvests have been canceled for lack of a catch. For the first time, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in October canceled the 2022-2023 harvest of Bering Sea snow crab, and it also announced the second consecutive year of closure for another important harvest, that of Bristol Bay red king crab.

What has happened between then and now? A sustained marine heat wave that prevented ice formation in the Bering Sea for two winters, thus vastly altering ocean conditions and seafood species’ health.

“We lost billions of snow crab in a matter of months,” said Bob Foy, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center, at a public forum held Dec. 12 at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. “We don’t have a smoking gun, if you will. We don’t have one particular event that impacted the snow crab — except the heat wave.”

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

Crabbers, fishermen seek US aid after disaster declaration

December 19, 2022 — The U.S. Department of Commerce’s disaster declaration for certain salmon and crab fisheries in Washington and Alaska opens the door for financial relief as part of an omnibus spending bill being negotiated by U.S. lawmakers.

The declaration Friday covers Bristol Bay king crab harvests suspended for two years, and the snow crab harvest that will be canceled for the first time in 2023. Also covered are 2021 salmon harvests from Alaska’s Kuskokwim River and 2019 and 2020 Washington salmon fisheries, The Seattle Times reported.

ALASKA: Federal government declares disasters for Alaska fisheries

December 19, 2022 — The U.S. Commerce Department on Friday announced a series of fishery disaster declarations in Alaska dating back to 2020, a key step toward securing federal disaster assistance.

Now that Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has made the determination, the fisheries are eligible to receive disaster assistance from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, if Congress appropriates the necessary funds.

The announcement comes months after Alaska officials canceled this year’s Bering Sea king and snow crab fishing seasons due to dramatically diminishing populations, with impacts rippling across the industry and Alaska communities.

“These are not only devastating to Alaska’s fishing and seafood industry and Alaskan families, but Alaska’s economy as a whole,” Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski said in a statement.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News 

ALASKA: Alaska board sets new Bristol Bay net rules

December 16, 2022 — The Alaska Board of Fisheries snuffed out proposals that would have limited the length of towlines between Bristol Bay drift vessels and their nets to 100 feet, opting instead to set the maximum towline length to 600 feet at its December meeting. But the board extended the distance that set gill nets can fish offshore in Bristol Bay.

The panel also voted down proposals that would have done away with permit stacking on drift vessels as it wrapped up its meetings for 2022.

In all, 62 proposals had been submitted for consideration in December, some of which saw no action and others which pertained to sport fishing or subsistence harvest regulations in Bristol Bay.

Previous regulations permitted tow lines of unlimited length between drift boats and their nets. Numerous proposals in this most recent meeting cycle specified a limit of 100 feet with the reasoning that shallow draft boats in recent years have adopted the tactic of setting nets with their shoreward ends in the mud on a falling tide. The long towlines enable the boats to hover offshore while the nets load up with salmon that swim in the first few inches of water when the tide turns to the flood.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: Bristol Bay forecast indicates solid run with majority big fish

December 16, 2022 — Bristol Bay last season was complete madness. The final count on sockeye, including numbers from Area M on the South Peninsula, came in at over 82 million fish. And even more impressive, said University of Washington fisheries biologist and Bristol Bay savant Daniel Schindler, was the harvest.

“Obviously the total run was phenomenal, but the catch was even more incredible. To be able to catch and handle over 60 million fish is hard to believe,” Schindler said recently.

Just a few years ago a catch of 60 million fish was not even in the conversation. In fact, the total run in Bristol Bay eclipsed 60 million for the first time in 2018, and last year’s harvest was 170 percent above the average harvest since 1962.

The abundance is a boon for the industry, but it also comes with complications and a certain amount of chaos. Fishermen were taxed to the limit while processors, already struggling with labor shortages, faced logistical challenges from the massive number of fish. On the marketing end, the industry is now tasked with moving a far larger pack than normal.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: Alaska Bycatch Review Task Force final report: more rules and research are needed

December 14, 2022 — Created in 2021 to review bycatch issues impacting salmon, crab and halibut in Alaska, the Alaska Bycatch Review Task Force delivered its final report to Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy in December.

“It’s imperative that the state’s fisheries are managed in a way that ensures their success for future generations,” said Dunleavy when the Alaska Bycatch Review Task Force was formed in November 2021 to help better understand unintended bycatch of high value fishery resources in State and federal waters.

The final report is now published, and it recommends, among many other things, the introduction of measures as the firm cap of chum salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery and 10 percent observer coverage, for a period of three years, on non-pelagic trawl vessels in the Gulf of Alaska.

Read the full Article the National Fisherman

With hope and frustration, Bristol Bay awaits the EPA’s final verdict on Pebble

December 14, 2022 — The Environmental Protection Agency has recommended a ban on mining activities in the area around the Pebble deposit. People across Bristol Bay are now waiting for a final decision on the future of the controversial copper and gold prospect.

“I think it sends a real strong message that the science is there; that it’s going to have unacceptable adverse effects on our watershed,” said Gayla Hoseth, the second chief of the Curyung Tribal Council and the natural resources director for the Bristol Bay Native Association.

Hoseth welcomes the move. She said those opposed to the mine have wanted this decision for a long time.

The EPA wants to prohibit the discharge of mining materials in the North and South Fork Koktuli River watersheds, as proposed in Pebble’s permit application. The agency cites its authority under the Clean Water Act to do so. It would extend that prohibition to any future proposals to develop a mine at the Pebble deposit that could result in a similar loss of aquatic resources. The action would effectively kill the mine.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NOAA Fisheries seeking comments on plan for abundance-based management of halibut

December 12, 2022 — NOAA Fisheries is seeking public comment on a proposed rule that would implement Amendment 123 to the Fishery Management Plan for Groundfish of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI) management area.

If approved, the proposed rule would put into place abundance-based management of Amendment 80 trawl sector prohibited species catch limit for Pacific halibut.

Amendment 80’s sector is a fleet of nearly 20 trawl catcher-processor vessels that target Pacific cod, Pacific Ocean perch, Atka mackerel, and Rock, Yellowfin, and Flathead, solely in the Bering Sea.

Read the full article at KINY

ALASKA: Alaska tribes join with Lower 48 allies to seek protections from impacts of Canadian mines

December 12, 2022 — A delegation of tribal representatives from Alaska, Washington state, Montana and Idaho traveled to Washington, D.C., this week for meetings on Wednesday that pushed for action to regulate downstream effects of mines in British Columbia.

The meetings Tuesday and Wednesday were with Biden administration officials and officials at the Canadian embassy, said a statement from the National Wildlife Federation.

Chalyee Éesh Richard Peterson, president of the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, has a representative attending the meetings.

Read the full article at KINY