Saving Seafood

Bering Sea crabbers and communities are struggling with Alaska’s snow crab decline

April 21, 2022 — Bering Sea crabbers and communities in the region are struggling with a steep decline in snow crab this year, likely the result of climate change.

That caused the crab fleet to push farther north than usual and forced places like St. Paul to consider major budget shortfalls, because the Pribilof Island city depends on taxes from fish and crab processing.

The snow crab crash and its impacts are the subject of a recent reporting collaboration between the Seattle Times, the Anchorage Daily News and the Pulitzer Center’s Connected Coastlines reporting initiative.

As part of the “Into the Ice” series, Seattle Times reporter Hal Bernton and ADN photographer Loren Holmes spent two weeks in January aboard a crab boat called the Pinnacle, one of the biggest in the fleet at 137 feet.

Read the full story at KTOO

A Russian seafood ban will drive up prices, but it’s too soon to say if Alaska fishermen will benefit

March 14, 2022 — President Joe Biden on Friday ordered a national ban on some imports from Russia, including seafood. It’s a move intended to punish that country for its invasion of Ukraine, but the ban has ripple effects that could wash ashore in Alaska.

Russian seafood competes with Alaska products for shelf space and consumer attention, particularly pollock and crab. Officials here said Friday’s announcement could benefit the Alaska fishing industry.

But the effects may be limited to a few key sectors — the major Seattle-based trawlers that haul up millions of pounds of pollock, largely for export, and hard-hit Bering Sea crab fishermen. There will be some effect on salmon fishermen, experts say, but the embargo’s impact is less clear in that industry.

“It’s a big deal for crab,” said Jamie Goen, executive director of Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers. The group represents about 350 members, including 60 boats in Alaska’s crab fleet.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Alaska fisherman’s photos could be first visual evidence of North Pacific right whales in the Bering Sea in winter

February 17, 2022 — Josh Trosvig is the captain of the Cerulean, a 58-foot boat currently fishing for cod in the Bering Sea, about 80 miles northeast of Unalaska.

On a sunny day earlier this month, while he was waiting for the tide to change, he said he spotted something that looked like a large tote bobbing on the surface of the water, about 300 feet from his boat.

It turned out to be a group of whales.

But not just any whales.

“I’ve seen a lot of whales — thousands, tens of thousands in my 35 years of fishing out here,” Trosvig said. “But this was unique. I’ve never seen whales feed like that.”

Trosvig didn’t know it at the time, but the whales he was watching were North Pacific right whales. They’re critically endangered. And scientists say Trosvig is likely the first person to take photos and video of the whales feeding in the Bering Sea in the winter.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

AK: Southeast crabbers are expecting one of their best seasons ever

February 8, 2022 — Frigid February fishing in Alaska features crabbing from the Panhandle to the Bering Sea, followed in March by halibut, black cod and herring.

Crabbers throughout Southeast will drop pots for Tanners on Feb. 11, and they’re expecting one of the best seasons ever. Fishery managers said they are seeing “historically high levels” of Tanner crab, with good recruitment coming up from behind.

The catch limit won’t be set until the fishery is underway, but last year’s take was 1.27 million pounds (504,369 crabs), with crabs weighing 2.5 pounds on average. Crabbers know they will fetch historically high prices based on the recent payout for westward region Tanners.

Prices to fishermen at Kodiak, Chignik and the South Peninsula reached a jaw-dropping  $8.50/lb for the weeklong fishery that ended in late January and produced 1.8 million pounds of good-looking crab.

Back at Southeast, crabbers also can concurrently pull up golden king crabs starting Feb. 11. The harvest limit is 75,300 pounds, up from 61,000 pound last year. The crabs weigh 5 to 8 pounds on average and last year paid out at $11.55/lb at the Southeast docks.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

 

AK Bering Sea snow crab: Still on hold

February 7, 2022 — What’s the plan for Alaska’s Bering Sea snow crab fishery? As it turns out, we may not know until June.

An unexpected and precipitous drop in the snow crab (Chionoecetes opilio) estimated biomass resulted in an official “overfished” designation from NMFS on Oct. 19, 2021. The designation was not unexpected, given the 2021 stock assessment. The path forward, however, is as clear as Bering Sea chop in a February storm.

“What we do know is that snow crab is a variable stock where highs and lows are not unexpected. What is different is the magnitude of the high and quickly falling to a historic low,” Jamie Goen, executive director of the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, told National Fisherman. “We’re hopeful seeing some crab out there this season and look forward to working with the federal and state managers through the rebuilding plan process to help bring snow crab stocks back to higher levels.”

The 2021 stock assessment, which was presented to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council in October, reported that the minimum threshold for the biomass of mature male opilios is 76,700 metric tons, and the most recent assessment estimated it at 50,600 metric tons — a historic low.

“A large year class recruited to the survey gear in 2015 and was tracked until 2018 and 2019,” the assessment report says. “But it appears to have since disappeared from the eastern Bering Sea shelf before reaching commercial size.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

NMFS refuses emergency action on Bering Sea salmon bycatch

February 7, 2022 — A request by Alaskan Native groups for NMFS emergency action on salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery has been denied by the agency, saying the petition in effect asks for closure of the fishery, and would not address recent salmon run failures in western Alaska.

The request was submitted on Dec. 21 by Kawerak, Inc., the Association of Village Council Presidents, the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island, and the Bering Sea Elders Group.

“It effectively asked Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo to close the Bering Sea pollock fishery in 2022,” according to a statement from NMFS announcing the decision. “The petitioners also asked for Tribal consultation with Western and Interior Alaska Tribes to develop long-term measures to reduce chum salmon bycatch, which NOAA Fisheries is currently undertaking.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Alaska community fishing groups buy pollock assets with Maruha Nichiro

February 3, 2022 — Two Alaska Community Development Quota groups partnered with Japanese-owned Maruha Nichiro in the purchase of inshore pollock quota, vessels and processing capacity from Evening Star Fisheries and Cooke-owned Icicle Seafoods.

On Feb. 1, Alaska’s Norton Sound Economic Development Corp. and Coastal Villages Region Fund announced an expansion of their partnership with Maruha Nichiro to catch and process Bering Sea pollock quota.

The Coastal Villages Region Fund and Norton Sound Economic Development Corp. investment accounts for 75 percent ownership of the fishing assets, while Maruha Capital Investment is a 25 percent stakeholder (a limitation on foreign ownership of fishing vessels or companies that own fishing vessels, stipulated by the American Fisheries Act). That purchase includes nine fishing vessels from Evening Star Fisheries and four percent of Bering Sea pollock quota. The fleet, which includes the recently rebuilt F/V Progress, can operate in both the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

NOAA Fisheries Denies Petition For Emergency Action on Bering Sea Salmon Bycatch

February 2, 2022 — Four days after the Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo approved eight fisheries in Alaska for official disaster determinations, including the 2020 Kuskokwim River salmon fishery and the 2020 and 2021 Yukon River salmon fisheries, NOAA Fisheries Assistant Administrator Janet Coit denied a petition for emergency action to lower the number of salmon caught incidentally in the Bering Sea.

The petitioners — the Association of Village Council Presidents, the Bering Sea Elders Group, Kawerak, Inc., the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, representing over 118 Alaska Tribes — saw significant salmon declines both years. The Yukon was particularly hard hit: the fishery had its lowest runs ever last summer. The commercial fishery remained closed. Yukon River families were not allowed to fish for subsistence salmon.

Th petition asked Raimondo for emergency action to eliminate Chinook salmon bycatch and set a cap on chum salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock trawl fishery in the 2022 season.

Coits letter of denial reached them a few days after news of the fishery disaster approvals was reported, opening the door for relief funds. Responding to the disaster declaration, which was requested by Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy, the state’s Congressional delegation issued a joint written statement that the federal funds could help compensate “crews, seafood processors, and research initiatives in the impacted regions.”

Read the full story at Seafood News

Alaskan Indigenous leaders fear impacts on salmon streams by mining project

January 27, 2022 — For Indigenous tribes living in Alaska’s remote Yukon-Kuskokwim region, southwest of the state, the future is bleak and uncertain. Tribal councils worry that plans to construct a 6,474-hectare (15,990 acres) open-pit gold mine near the Kuskokwim River watershed will have grave impacts on salmon habitats, their traditional ways of life and their health.

“This development could possibly destroy our livelihood, rivers and sea mammals that we depend on,” said Fred Phillips, representative of the Indigenous Village of Kwigillingok tribal council. According to him, tribes are not willing to take the risk.

The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (YKD) drainage is part of a rich biome encompassing coastal wetlands, tundra and mountains that supports the subsistence lifestyle of three distinct Alaskan Native groups; The Yup’ik, Cup’ik and Athabascan. To access the remote region, one needs to go by boat when the Kuskokwim River is flowing, or truck, snow machine and four-wheeler when the river is frozen.

Draining into the Bering Sea to the west, the Kuskokwim River, and many of its tributaries, are designated as Essential Fish Habitat (EFH), under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act for Pacific Salmon. This is a legislation that manages marine fisheries in US waters.

The sprawling river is a vital source of food for the 38 communities that reside alongside it, serving as a running ground for the chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta), coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch), pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) and sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka). Given the remoteness of the region, the communities rely on subsistence fishing. Salmon makes up more than 50 percent of the tribe’s annual diet.

Read the full story at Mongabay

 

Tribal groups petition federal government to eliminate or limit Bering Sea salmon bycatch

January 27, 2022 — In their latest bid to halt or limit chinook and chum salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea, tribal organizations in Western Alaska have signed onto a petition calling on the federal government to take action.

The petition asks the U.S. Department of Commerce to eliminate chinook salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea completely and to put a cap on chum salmon bycatch. It does not specify an acceptable limit for chum bycatch.

The tribal groups signing the petition mostly represent areas of Alaska where salmon runs have crashed or declined dramatically in recent years. They include the Kuskokwim River Inter-tribal Fish Commission, the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, the Association of Village Council Presidents, Kawerak, Inc., the Bering Sea Elders Group and the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island.

“The recent crashes of Chinook. And now the chum on the Kuskokwim River is pretty evident that we need to take emergency action on this issue,” said Mike Williams Sr., chair of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. “I think we need to begin to take drastic measures.”

Read the full story at KTOO