Saving Seafood

Size of Alaska’s Western Aleutian Island Passes Larger than Previously Thought

December 15, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

There are thousands of small islands that comprise Alaska’s Aleutian Island chain, but only a few dozen significant passes among those islands. These passes are important bottlenecks for water exchange among the North Pacific, Gulf of Alaska, and the Bering Sea. However, until now there has been limited detail on estimates of pass location, size, shape, length, and depth.

“Flow estimates have been based on rough pass size estimates from over 50 years ago,” said Mark Zimmermann, fisheries biologist from the Alaska Fisheries Science Center. “We have updated information for eastern, western and central passes along the Aleutian Island chain. This new information will help oceanographers and ecologists better quantify impacts of water flow on Alaska marine ecosystems and better understand environmental and ecological changes that are taking place.”

Two new NOAA Fisheries’ studies provide more detail on the size and extent of the passes and the shoreline around the Aleutian Islands.

One study showed that all of the western-most Aleutian passes, from Kavalga to Semichi, are larger (18 to 71 percent) than previously reported. The last study was conducted for this area in the 1960s. This includes Amchitka Pass (+23 percent), the largest in the Aleutians.

The other study focused on the easternmost pass, False Pass, which posed a particular challenge for co-author Zimmermann. False Pass is unusual: it’s the only Aleutian pass that directly connects the shallow shelves of the western Gulf of Alaska and eastern Bering Sea. It is also the only pass with constricted southern and northern openings. We found this pass to have a single northern inlet to the Bering Sea—however, until recently it had two. This conflicts with current navigational charts, depicting two inlets to the Bering Sea now, compared to just one on the older charts (1926–1943).

“Our analysis of eastern pass sizes compared to the results of the 1960s study generated mixed results,” said Zimmermann. “In some cases, our pass size estimates were larger while in other cases they were smaller than previous estimates.”

In 2005, NOAA scientists updated information on some of the eastern and central passes. When Zimmermann looked at the two eastern passes from that study, he found that they were actually larger than previously thought. He also found that five central Aleutian passes were smaller than reported. The earlier study did not examine western pass sizes. The new studies include much more detailed information about the seafloor and shoreline that was not available at the time of the earlier analyses. As a result, they will be a great new resource for oceanographers and ecologists studying marine systems.

Read the full release here

NOAA cancels Alaskan research surveys citing COVID-19

May 26, 2020 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has canceled five of the six large-scale research surveys scheduled to take place in the waters off Alaska this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an NOAA press release.

The release cited the unique challenges and uncertainties posed by the coronavirus crisis, which have resulted in the cancellation of the Aleutian Islands bottom-trawl survey, the eastern Bering Sea bottom-trawl survey, the northern Bering Sea bottom-trawl survey, the Bering Sea pollock acoustics survey, and the fall ecosystem survey. The Alaska longline survey will go ahead as planned.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

The Salmon Sisters of Alaska are Fighting for a Healthy, Sustainable Fish Future

January 15, 2020 — The remote Aleutian Islands are a group of 14 large volcanic islands and 55 smaller islands, mostly belonging to the state of Alaska, known for challenging weather and strong winds. But that has never stopped sisters Claire Neaton (pictured at right, above) and Emma Privat (at left), 29 and 28 respectively, from fishing for halibut and salmon in the archipelago’s waters.

Neaton and Privat are commercial fishermen who grew up on an off-the-grid homestead in this remote region. In 2012, the pair founded Salmon Sisters, a seafood and apparel company that is gaining national recognition and helping feed hungry Alaskans via the Give Fish Project. (Like many female fish harvesters, they choose the term fishermen to describe themselves.)

The sisters fish for salmon, cod, and halibut alongside their family members, including their father who still fishes during the summer months. Currently, the family has four boats with crews of up to five people.

Alaska produces more wild seafood than all the other states combined—and its strict conservation practices and pristine marine waters set it apart on the global market, according to a 2017 report by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. The state has written sustainable fishing practices into its constitution, and many entities—fishermen, scientists, conservationists, and government organizations—collaborate to make sure fish are caught by methods that maintain fish stocks and minimize harm to the plants and animals in the marine environment.

Read the full story at Civil Eats

Scientists, Fishermen Team Up to Track Cod in Alaska’s Outermost Aleutian Islands

January 9, 2020 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Last winter scientists and Alaskan fishermen agreed to launch a pilot study to develop methods for tagging cod on active commercial fishing vessels in the Aleutian Island.

Satellite tags had never been used on Pacific cod. No one had recorded seasonal movements of cod in the Aleutian Islands. This was the first time industry, scientists, and the fishing community all took part in the research.

Read the full story at Seafood News

ALASKA: GCI applies to bring fiber optic to Aleutian communities

December 27, 2019 — GCI has applied to bring broadband communications to communities along the Aleutian chain.

The proposed project would bring fiber optic cable from Kodiak to Unalaska, spanning approximately 428 miles.

Dan Boyette, Vice President and General Manager of GCI, said getting the financing arranged and support from the business community for this project has proved to be a challenge.

“We’ve been working on the business case to bring fiber optic services to Unalaska along with all the communities on the southern side of the Alaska Peninsula and the Eastern Aleutians for a couple years,” Boyette said. “So that cable would originate in Kodiak and terminate in Unalaska and make stops in a total of 11 communities.”

The fiber optic cable would be loaded onto a ship that’s specifically constructed to do undersea fiber optic installations, and would be laid over 428 discontiguous miles on state-owned, Department of Mining, Land, and Water-managed tide and submerged lands, according to Boyette.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Adak, Groundfish Trawlers at Odds on P-Cod Processing

December 18, 2019 — Pacific cod stocks hard hit by warming ocean temperatures are becoming a focal point at federal fisheries meetings, where harvesting sectors and processors fight over who gets to catch and process this versatile vitamin and protein packed white fish.

Stock assessments in the fall of 2019 put the population of P-cod in the Gulf of Alaska below the federal threshold that allows for commercial harvest, for the benefit of endangered Steller sea lions who rely on them as a food source.

The Gulf cod fishery was cancelled. The Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands TAC was cut from 24,319,000 metric tons in 2019 to 22,000 metric tons for 2020.

The lower quota is intensifying the race for fish, and a fight between the trawlers and the community of Adak, Alaska, over where that fish will be processed.

At the heart of the battle is Amendment 113 to the fishery management plan for BSAI groundfish. This amendment set aside a portion of the Aleutian Islands cod fishery TAC for harvest by vessels directed fishing for Aleutian Islands Pacific cod and delivering their catch for processing to a shoreside processor located on land in Adak. The 5,000 metric tons P-cod harvest set-aside was designed to provide the opportunity for vessels, Aleutian Islands shore plants and communities where Aleutian Islands shore plants are located to benefit from the P-cod fishery.

Read the full story at Alaska Native News

US Pacific cod TAC set to drop below Russia’s next year, 2021 reduction also likely

December 3, 2019 — The total allowable catch (TAC) for US Pacific cod will drop again in 2020 and beyond, as Russia increases its TAC way past the Alaskans and also has now Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) for a large chunk of its fishery.

Alaska’s Pacific cod biomass is down considerably in 2020 and will drop further in 2021, according to the draft stock assessment and fisheries evaluation (SAFE) report on stocks in the eastern Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, which will be discussed Monday at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) meeting, held from Dec. 2-10, 2019, at the Hilton Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska.

At the end of the meeting, TACs for Pacific cod, pollock and other species will be recommended to the government. According to historical catch data, the last time Russia had a higher Pacific cod catch than the US and Canada was 1987, when it was 175,271t compared to 150,591t.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

ALASKA: Warmer Bering Sea may benefit an Alaskan flatfish

November 27, 2019 — While the repercussions of climate change are complex and many impacts are unknown, newly published research suggests that one winner in a shifting environment is Alaska’s Northern rock sole.

The Northern rock sole is a flatfish that is commercially harvested, although it is fished significantly less than Pollock and Pacific cod.

Females grow up to 27 inches, while makes grow up to around 19 inches. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council set the acceptable biological catch for the fish in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands at 143,000 metric tons for 2020, yet in 2018 only 60% of the total allowable catch was harvested.

Research by NOAA Fisheries biologists suggest that the fish have higher reproductive success in warmer years, meaning that a higher percentage of eggs laid will grow to become part of the catch-able population.

The investigation started after surveys of juvenile showed dramatically different results in the same location.

“One year we went in this area between Nunivak Island and Cape Newenham offshore and we found very high densities of the animals. We estimated that there were billions and that was in 2003 – a warm year,” said Dan Cooper, a research fisheries biologist with NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center.

He said it’s the opposite in cold years.

Read the full story at KTUU

Federal managers extend comment period for humpback whale critical habitat decision

November 25, 2019 — A comment period over designating critical habitat for some of the humpback whales that swim off Alaska’s coastline is being extended by the federal government.

Coastal waters from southern California to the Aleutian Islands could be listed as habitat critical to sustaining three distinct populations of humpback whales. The move by the National Marine Fisheries Service could require future consultation for activities that are permitted, funded or carried out by a federal agency.

“Critical habitat really affects federal actions,” NMFS endangered species act national listing coordinator Lisa Manning explained.  “It’s not something that affects everything that takes place within those areas that everyone’s seeing on the map. The regulatory effect of critical habitat is it requires federal action agencies to make sure their actions don’t adversely affect or destroy the critical habitat.”

Those activities could include vessel traffic, aquaculture, clean water permitting, in-water construction, alternative energy development and work permitted by the U.S. Forest Service on the Tongass National Forest. Manning says there are also indirect impacts possible that the agency has analyzed in documents available on the agency’s website. For instance, the agency’s analysis states the designation may impact how the state of Alaska manages commercial fisheries for herring, a food for the whales.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: City of Adak Asks Court for One-Year Stay to Keep Plant Open for Cod A Season

November 19, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Last week the city of Adak asked a federal court to stay their order from last March — until January 1, 2021 — so the city’s only processing plant can operate during the Pacific cod season next year.

The March 2019 court decision agreed with plaintiffs representing the Bering Sea bottom trawl fleets that target flatfish, mackerel and cod, that Amendment 113, setting a 5,000 mt cod set-aside for remote villages in the Aleutian Islands, was not compliant with the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

The court vacated Amendment 113 and instructed the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council to work on an amendment that would comply with the legislation in specific areas.

The Council took up the issue, beginning an arduous process of analysis, developing alternatives, and public comment that will take at least another 18 months.

Meanwhile, representatives of the Adak plant, central to the economy of the 350-resident community, began an ambitious effort to find a pathway that would allow the set-aside to continue while the Council worked on corrections to a new amendment. But their efforts fell short, whether it was a plea for emergency action or language in new federal legislation for a temporary fix, last summer.

Even though the Council asked industry sectors to work together for a solution that could keep the Adak plant viable, there was no longer any authority providing a separate allocation for Adak, and little incentive to find an industry-based workaround.

In addition, all fleets targeting Pacific cod in the Bering Sea and the Aleutian Islands were well aware of the recent situation for cod stocks. Recent scientific assessments indicate the biomass is increasing in the northern Bering Sea and decreasing in traditional areas. Was the biomass moving north? How fast? Could the fish be crossing over to Russian waters? The ‘race for fish’ nature of the BSAI fishery made even the previously acceptable 5,000 mt set-aside — now vacated and available to anyone — more valuable than it was a few years ago.

Last Wednesday’s Memorandum in Support of Defendant-Intervenors’ Motion for Limited Relief From Judgment and Indicative Ruling included declarations of support from Adak as well as the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Golden Harvest plant owner Jason Ogilvie, the Adak School District, and other private enterprises that rely on the winter operations of the plant.

City Manager Lyle Lockett noted that without continuous operation of its sole fish processing plant, Adak will see cascading economic impacts causing irrepairable harm to the community, including the city stopping subsidies to the school district, the medical clinic, the library, the gymnasium, and the community center.
“Shutting down the City Hall building would force all of these services to scramble to find a new location on the island, perhaps in private residences, which would be disruptive and likely expensive for Adak’s residents,” according to the memorandum.

Adak’s only school serves 19 students, 13 whose parents are employed directly or indirectly through the Adak plant. If enrollment drops to 10 or less, the state of Alaska’s subsidies stops and the school shuts down.

Both the crab and cod fleets that deliver to Adak would have no option other than Dutch Harbor to deliver their catch to — a 450-mile one-way trip.

The request asks the court to respond by January 10, 2020, ten days before the A season begins next year.  The motion supporting the stay was filed while the original decision is under appeal, and would be subject to that ruling if it came before.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.