Saving Seafood

By plane, boat and man basket, COVID-19 vaccines flow to Alaska’s Aleutian seafood workers

March 30, 2021 — Thousands of Alaska seafood workers are getting vaccinated for COVID-19 three months after outbreaks swept through Aleutian plants, shuttering some just as the lucrative Bering Sea fishing season began.

The effort is taking different forms, ranging from clinics in Sand Point to a one-day mass event in the Unalaska gym and aboard Dutch Harbor boats that vaccinated about 1,500 plant workers and deep-sea fishermen.

Probably the most only-in-Alaska method involved Eastern Aleutian Tribes community health aide Joe McMillan, who on Thursday clambered into a small man basket suspended in the air to swing aboard two large processing vessels and vaccinate more than a hundred people on each.

The doses now going into seafood worker arms are coming from a federal allocation provided to Eastern Aleutian Tribes rather than from state supplies of vaccine.

They came via a Biden administration plan to expand vaccine availability to community health centers in underserved communities. The Eastern Aleutian Tribes is one of just two tribal entities in Alaska participating in that program as of March 22.

The tribal health organization has probably given out 2,500 shots in the past week and 4,000 since January, according to CEO Paul Mueller, who described one chartered flight Wednesday to deliver food and vaccine that skipped from Nelson Lagoon to Cold Bay, False Pass, Sand Point, Dutch Harbor and King Cove.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: With Fishing Slowed By Pandemic, Bering Sea Crabbers Push For Extended Season

March 29, 2021 — A group of Bering Sea crabbers say the pandemic has slowed their fishing season, and they want more time to catch their quota before the state shuts down their season next week.

But the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has denied their request for an extension, citing low population numbers and an upcoming mating season.

For the few boats fishing bairdi crab this year, there could be a lot at stake if they don’t have time to catch their full quota.

“I’m thinking they don’t quite understand what we’re going through out here,” said Oystein Lone, captain of the 98-foot crab boat Pacific Sounder, which is based out of Dutch Harbor.

Until recently, Lone’s been fishing in the Bering Sea for snow crab, also known as opilio. But right now, he and his five-person crew have switched to fishing for a different type of crab called bairdi, which is also known as tanner crab.

Both bairdi and snow crab seasons open in October. But Lone recently switched to fishing for bairdi because that season is nearly over — even though as of Wednesday, only 46% of the total quota had been caught.

Read the full story at KUCB

ALASKA: Bering Sea Island’s Gas Shortage Forces Crabbers South To Refuel, Disrupting Their Fishing

March 22, 2021 — The COVID-19 pandemic has already disrupted Alaska’s winter Bering Sea fishing seasons, closing plants and adding quarantine-related complications for crews.

Now, some boats are contending with a shortage of fuel at a key island port, leaving them with less time to catch their quota.

The Bering Sea community of St. Paul, one of the Pribilof Islands, announced the gas ration late last month after bad weather canceled the arrival of a fuel barge, and fishermen say it’s forcing them into days-long detours for refueling.

“I seem to remember we had some rations, years back, but it was nothing like this,” Oystein Lone, the captain of a 98-foot crab boat, said in an interview over a satellite phone.

Read the full story at KUCB

Water Clarity Study Sheds Light on Bering Sea Change

March 18, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

In 2004, Alaska Fisheries Science Center biologists began attaching light sensors to Bering Sea survey bottom trawls to evaluate the effects of light on fish catchability. Fifteen years later, researchers looked at this unique dataset in a new light to reveal much more about the dynamic Bering Sea ecosystem.

NOAA Fisheries scientists collaborated with our partners to develop an automated process to translate these data into the first long time series of subsurface water clarity for the eastern Bering Sea.

“Until now, there was very little long term information on subsurface water clarity in the Bering Sea,”  said Sean Rohan, the NOAA Fisheries Alaska Fisheries Science Center biologist who led the study. “Working with the annual surveys provided unprecedented spatial coverage and resolution over a span of 15 years.”

Their approach provides a tool that expands possibilities for research in other regions. Their findings reveal patterns and trends in water clarity over depth and time that enhance our understanding of recent and future changes in the Bering Sea.

Read the full release here

In the Aleutians, climate change and ocean acidification impacts add to legacies of past exploitation

March 2, 2021 — In the waters around the Aleutian Islands, the 1,200-mile chain that arcs across the southern edge of the Bering Sea from Alaska to Kamchatka, modern climate change has layered atop a centuries-old legacy of human assaults to send combined impacts cascading through the marine ecosystem.

Evidence is in the once-colorful corals that have nurtured schools of fish supporting some of the world’s largest commercial seafood harvests. Under the clear waters is a pale world that signals a habitat in a tailspin.

The pale-pink scene shows the slow death of cold-water coral reefs that used to be buffered by the kelp, said Doug Rasher, a marine ecologist with the Maine-based Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science. “We’re passing the tipping point where these reefs have persisted and been able to survive,” said Rasher, who led a study of the coral ecosystem’s downward spiral.

The reefs are dying because they are being attacked by an exploding population of sea urchins. Having mowed down the surrounding kelp forest, the urchins are consuming the algae that the reefs produce to build their structures. The urchin population is booming because the sea otters that used to eat them have disappeared.

Climate change also weakens the corals. Warmer waters make the urchins grow faster, requiring them to eat more. Rasher’s study examined the algae’s microscopic growth layers and found that urchin foraging increased by up to 60 percent since preindustrial times.

Adding to the assault is ocean acidification, to which the Bering Sea is especially vulnerable. The shallow Bering, with its relatively cold waters, abundant sea life and wide seasonal fluctuations, is naturally primed to hold carbon. And carbon emitted by fossil-fuel burning is absorbed from the atmosphere into the water, lowering pH levels and threatening calcium-building life forms — not just the coral reefs, but shellfish such as crabs, as well the tiny creatures such as pteropods that make up the diet of fish like salmon.

Read the full story at Arctic Today

Trident Seafoods resumes operations at Aleutian plant in Alaska after monthlong COVID-19 shutdown

February 23, 2021 — The massive and remote Trident Seafoods plant at Akutan resumed some processing Friday, nearly a month after a fast-spreading coronavirus outbreak forced the company to halt operations.

The Alaska plant, perched at the edge of the Bering Sea near the tiny village of about 100 people, is the largest seafood processing facility in North America. Four COVID-19 cases first reported by the company in mid-January quickly expanded in close quarters. Ultimately, more than 40% of 706 workers tested positive.

Now there are two positive cases at the plant, a company spokesman said Monday. Those workers are isolated on site.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Alaska herring stocks on the rise, but fleet is not finding the right-sized fish

February 16, 2021 — Just two seiners and one gillnetter participated in the 2020 herring season in Togiak, Alaska. With a guideline harvest of 38,749 metric tons (MT), it is believed those that participated did well, though exact harvest data will remain confidential due to rules allowing the participants not to report catch data with fewer than five vessels partaking in the harvest.

Elsewhere in Alaska, the Sitka sac roe fishery struck out last year after managers and the industry decided the fishery should remain closed for its second year in a row. The predominance of herring recruiting into the fishery have been three-year-olds. With weights of about 90 grams per fish, buyers aren’t interested in the tiny egg skeins for salted roe markets in Japan.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Alaska fisheries: pollock and crab rule the winter

February 10, 2021 — Freezing February weather doesn’t keep Alaskans off the fishing grounds from Southeast to Norton Sound.

In the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, boats are pulling in pollock, cod, flounders and other groundfish.

More than 3 billion pounds of pollock will come out of the Bering Sea this year, and another 250 million pounds from the gulf.

Prince William Sound also has a winter pollock fishery that will produce nearly 5 million pounds.

Many Alaska crab fisheries are underway or soon to be.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

NOAA Fisheries to Hold Public Hearings on Proposed Critical Habitat for Ringed and Bearded Seals

February 1, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Public comments accepted through March 9, 2021

NOAA Fisheries will hold three public hearings on proposed rules to designate critical habitat in U.S. waters off the coast of Alaska for Arctic ringed seals and the Beringia distinct population segment of bearded seals under the Endangered Species Act.

NOAA Fisheries opened a 60-day public comment period on the proposed rules when they were published in the Federal Register on January 8, 2021. The proposed critical habitat in the northern Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort seas provides sea ice conditions that are essential for ringed and bearded seal pupping, nursing, basking, and molting, as well as primary prey resources to support these seals. For bearded seals, the proposed critical habitat also provides acoustic conditions that allow for effective communication for breeding purposes.

Read more.

Partners Provide Critical Support in Unprecedented Year for Alaska Research and Fisheries Management

January 29, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Each year, NOAA Fisheries scientists compile information from a variety of sources to produce and update annual indicators of ecosystem status in the Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska and Aleutian Islands. Data and information are provided by federal, state, academic, non-government organizations, private companies, and local community partners across Alaska. Collected data complement NOAA Fisheries’ own research.

However, in 2020 several key NOAA research surveys were cancelled. Collaboration, increased engagement by community and research partners, and creative thinking on the part of some NOAA scientists helped fill critical information gaps. As a result, the annual Ecosystem Status Reports still could be produced.

“Around 143 individuals contributed to the three Ecosystem Status Reports we produced this year,” said Elizabeth Sidden, editor of the Eastern Bering Sea Ecosystem Status Report and a scientist at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center. “The success of this continuing effort to provide valuable ecosystem context to better understand factors contributing to fish stock fluctuations hinges on these partnerships. We couldn’t do this without the help of fellow researchers and local communities along with our staff contributions.”

One example of the kind of information provided by partners this year in all regions is seabird data. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (U.S. FWS) was unable to conduct field research due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. Coastal community members, tribal governments, and state and university partners provided information on seabird dynamics for the Bering Sea region. U.S. FWS biologists then synthesized that data. In the Gulf of Alaska, they provided opportunistic observations that were incorporated into the Ecosystem Status Report along with other information from non-profits, The Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST) and U.S. Geological Survey.  Seabird biology and ecology are bellwethers of environmental change, which is one of the reasons they are important ecosystem indicators.

NOAA scientists also identified other sources of information to develop ecosystem indicators in 2020.  For instance, they used satellite data to measure sea surface temperatures in the Bering Sea since they weren’t able to collect these data during annual research surveys. They also were able to process and analyze data collected from previous years of surveys.

Read the full release here