Saving Seafood

Scientists in Alaska are tracking fish by DNA

January 7, 2019 — Have you ever thought about testing your DNA through companies like 23andMe or Ancestry.com?

Geneticists here in Alaska are using that same technology on fish, but they’re not looking for their ancestors. Instead, they’re using it to trace back where marine species are born and where they’re caught.

The administrative headquarters for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game off of Raspberry Road in Anchorage is best known as an office building, but tucked inside is one of the most advanced genetics labs on the Pacific Rim.

“We have one instrument in particular that is the same instrument that is used by 23andMe and Ancestry.com,” said lab supervisor Heather Hoyt.

But unlike those organizations, its not human DNA that Hoyt and her team are testing. They’re focused mainly on fish.

Read the full story at KTVA

ALASKA: NPFMC advisory panel proposes 33,000t hike in Bering Sea pollock TAC, 7,000t drop in cod

December 7, 2018 — The advisory panel to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) voted in favor of a 33,000-metric-ton increase in the eastern Bering Sea pollock total allowable catch (TAC), as well as a 7,000 drop in the Pacific cod TAC.

This draft TAC sheet will then go to the vote at the NPFMC meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday. The supply outlook comes with prices for cod and pollock set firm.

According to an Undercurrent News source, the advisory committee is recommending a pollock TAC of 1.397 million metric tons for 2019, up from 1.364m in 2018. The panel also recommended a Pacific cod TAC of 181,000t, down from 188,136t in 2018. For Pacific cod in the Aleutian Islands, the panel voted in favor of a TAC of 20,600t.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Why did Ballot Measure 1 get crushed? Opponents outspent backers – by a lot – but other factors were also at play.

November 14, 2018 — The business-backed group Stand for Alaska poured more than $10 million into the campaign against Ballot Measure 1, eclipsing spending by the competition in one of the costliest campaigns ever seen in Alaska.

The Stand for Salmon forces, which raised less than $3 million to support the measure, pointed to the financial disadvantage as a key reason their side lost heavily Tuesday.

“We couldn’t overcome their messaging and misinformation,” said Stephanie Quinn-Davidson, a measure sponsor, as election results streamed in Tuesday night.

But campaign observers said the defeat didn’t necessarily turn on money, a view shared by Stand for Alaska’s political consultant, who said the opposition group didn’t spread lies.

The eight-page measure would have rewritten state law, setting new regulations for activity affecting salmon habitat.

The measure won in just six of 40 House districts — downtowns Juneau and Anchorage, and Southwest Alaska. It lost by nearly a 2-to-1 margin, receiving 85,553 yes votes, and 148,130 no votes, as of Friday.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

 

NOAA marks second annual whale count

September 21, 2018 — Citizen scientists of all ages turned out on Sept. 15 to help NOAA Fisheries count endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales and learn more about the importance of healthy marine habitat.

The second annual beluga whales count drew over 2,000 people to 14 scientist-manned viewing stations along Cook Inlet from Homer to the Matanuska-Susitna Valley in the morning and the afternoon beluga festival at the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage.

Both events were free and open to the public as part of NOAA Fisheries’ effort to increase public awareness and stewardship of Cook Inlet belugas, who were listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 2008.

Participating educators at the zoo included Rick Rowland, land and natural resources manager for the Tyonek Native Corp., who said the corporation’s presence there was to remind people that there is still an interest in subsistence hunting, but that won’t happen again until the beluga population increases. The tribe decided 14 years ago to cease those subsistence hunts because of the low population of whales, Rowland said. More research is needed to determine why the population is so low and what needs to be done to assure recovery, he said.

Read the full story at The Cordova Times

 

North Pacific Research Board Seeks Nominations for Fishing Industry Seat

March 8, 2018 — The following was released by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The North Pacific Research Board is accepting nominations and self-nominations for the FISHING INDUSTRY SEAT on the BOARD until Friday, April 6, 2018. For more information, please visit this link:

BOARD Fishing Industry Seat Nominations

Our mailing address is:

North Pacific Fishery Management Council

605 W 4th Ste 306

Anchorage, AK  99501

Alaska: Bering Sea cod conflict brewing between on and offshore buyers

December 21, 2017 — “Cod Alley” is getting crowded, and some fishermen want to limit the boats in the narrow congested fishing area in the Bering Sea.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is looking at changes, including restricting flatfish factory trawlers from buying cod offshore.

The Pacific Seafood Processors Association is pushing for restrictions on factory trawlers to protect its members’ shore plants in Unalaska, Akutan, King Cove and Sand Point.

According to the PSPA’s Nicole Kimball, seven factory trawlers bought cod from 17 catcher boats in 2017, up from just one factory trawler that traditionally participated in prior years. The Amendment 80 factory trawlers act as motherships, processing but not catching the Pacific cod.

“The share delivered to motherships increased from 3.3 percent in 2016 to 12.7 percent in 2017, while shoreside processors had a reciprocal decline. This is a meaningful shift. At this point it is open-ended, and there is nothing to prevent future growth in this activity,” Kimball testified at the council’s December meeting in Anchorage.

Local government representatives shared the shoreplants’ concerns, citing a loss of tax revenues needed for schools and other services. On a smaller scale, it’s reminiscent of the inshore-offshore battle in the pollock fishery about 20 years ago.

“This is a big deal,” said Unalaska Mayor Frank Kelty. “It looks like we’ve got trouble coming down the road again.”

Cod is Unalaska’s second-most important product, behind pollock, he said.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

 

Supreme Court says no to hearing UCIDA case

October 3, 2017 — The lawsuit over whether the federal government or the state should manage Cook Inlet’s salmon fisheries won’t get its day in the U.S. Supreme Court after all.

Supreme Court justices on Monday denied the state of Alaska’s petition to hear a case in which the Kenai Peninsula-based fishing trade group the United Cook Inlet Drift Association challenged the North Pacific Fishery Management Council’s decision to confer management of the salmon fishery to the state.

Because most of the fishery takes place more than 3 miles from shore, it is within federal jurisdiction and is subject to management and oversight by a federal Fishery Management Plan. In 2012, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council passed an amendment removing fisheries in Cook Inlet, Prince William Sound and the Alaska Peninsula and placing them entirely under state management. UCIDA sued over the decision in 2013, saying the state’s management authority doesn’t comply with the Magnuson-Stevens Fisher Conservation and Management Act.

Though the U.S. District Court for Alaska initially ruled in the state’s favor, a panel of three federal judges on the Ninth Circuit Court in Anchorage reversed the district court’s decision and ruled that the fishery did require a fishery management plan. Saying the state’s management was adequate for the fishery, the state petitioned the Supreme Court to review the Ninth Circuit Court’s decision.

UCIDA president Dave Martin said he wasn’t surprised by the Supreme Court’s decision. The organization’s line has been the same all along, he said — state management has not met the Magnuson-Stevens Act standard for sustainability and optimum yield, with state management plans leaving salmon unharvested and exceeding escapement goals on Cook Inlet freshwater systems.

Read the full story at the Peninsula Clarion

Researchers want to know why beluga whales haven’t recovered

September 29, 2017 — ANCHORAGE, Alaska — New research aims to find out why highly endangered beluga whales in Alaska’s Cook Inlet have failed to recover despite protective measures.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has awarded more than $1.3 million to the state for three years of research involving the white whales.

“While we know what we believe caused the initial decline, we’re not sure what’s causing the population to remain suppressed,” said Mandy Keogh, a wildlife physiologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

A population of 1,300 belugas dwindled steadily through the 1980s and early ‘90s.

The decline accelerated when Alaska Natives harvested nearly half the remaining 650 whales between 1994 and 1998. Subsistence hunting ended in 1999 but the population remains at only about 340 animals.

Cook Inlet belugas are one of five beluga populations in U.S. waters. Cook Inlet, named for British explorer Capt. James Cook, stretches 180 miles (290 kilometers) from Anchorage to the Gulf of Alaska.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Washington Post

Congressmen hear pitches on how to open up Alaska’s natural resources

August 18, 2017 — Alaska Rep. Don Young has spent the week guiding some of his fellow Republican members of Congress around some of Alaska’s natural resources, and the group said they’re ready to act to make drilling and mining more accessible in Alaska.

Young and four other members of the congressional Western Caucus joined with representatives of oil, gas, timber, fish, Alaska Native corporations and other industries in Anchorage on Thursday to discuss just what Congress could do to encourage more production in Alaska.

The industry representatives and Republican lawmakers agreed on the overall plan: Get the federal government out of the way. For the lawmakers, that meant naming names of troublesome bureaucrats.

The industry groups spoke of reforming regulatory programs and paring back the power of agencies and environmental groups.

Young convened the group at the Dena’ina Center downtown after travels to the North Slope to check out facilities run by ConocoPhillips and BP, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Pump Station No. 1, start of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.

The group also visited the Fort Knox Gold Mine outside of Fairbanks. Afterward, some of them headed south for a fishing trip this weekend.

Read the full story at the Alaska Dispatch News

NPFMC April 2017 Agenda

March 7, 2017 — The following was released by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The Council will begin meeting the week of April 3, 2017 at the Hilton Hotel in Anchorage, AK.

The AGENDA and SCHEDULE are now available. Documents will be posted through links on the Agenda. The deadline for public comments is 5:00 pm (AST) Tuesday, March 28, 2017.

Submit comments to npfmc.comments@noaa.gov.