Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Bering Sea crab pots drop as season opens

October 16, 2020 — Bering Sea crabbers are dropping pots for king crab, snow crab and bairdi Tanner when the fisheries get underway today, Oct. 15.

As expected, the catch was reduced for red king crab taken in the eastern Bering Sea waters of Bristol Bay — just 2.6 million pounds is a 30 percent drop from the 3.8 million pounds taken last season.

“We’ve heard from scientists in the past that there has not been good recruitment into that fishery for over a decade,” said Jamie Goen, executive director of the trade group Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, which represents harvesters.

For the first time since 2018, there will be a bairdi Tanner crab opener with a catch of 2.3 million pounds.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Seattle researchers aim to stop the spread of COVID-19 infections in Alaskan fishing industry

October 15, 2020 — As Washington-based fishing companies are heading to Alaska in the coming days and weeks, thousands of their employees will be participating in a project aimed at early detection and control of COVID-19 infections.

With close quarters and crew members sharing cabins, fishing ships are ripe for spreading the disease. This summer, American Seafoods, a leading processor in the North Pacific and Bering Sea, had COVID outbreaks on three of its massive trawlers and some of its workers received care at a tiny clinic in Unalaska.

“Alaska is at high risk of an infected workforce impacting small, mostly Native communities with little resources to deal with an outbreak,” said Joshua Berger, maritime director for the state’s Department of Commerce.

Read the full story at MSN

Halibut survey success: Pacific scientists make goals despite covid restrictions

October 14, 2020 — A “resounding success” is how scientists summed up this summer’s Pacific halibut survey, despite it being shortened and scaled down a bit because of covid constraints.

The so-called fishery-independent setline survey uses standardized methods to track population trends in the Pacific halibut stock, which ranges from the U.S. West Coast to British Columbia and the far reaches of the Bering Sea.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

ALASKA: Pollock: Season surges as fish sticks 
rule the covid marketplace

October 9, 2020 — Alaska pollock trawlers were well on track to catch their TAC for the year, and increased demand for seafood during the covid-19 pandemic threw some optimistic twists into market dynamics.

The TAC for the Bering Sea had been set at 1.425 million metric tons, with another 19,000 metric tons coming out of the Aleutian Islands harvest area. While the Aleutian Islands TAC has remained unchanged in recent years, those for the Bering Sea have been nudging upward from 1.345 million metric tons in 2018 and 1.397 million metric tons of last year.  

The TAC for the Gulf of Alaska, meanwhile, has also risen slightly from last year’s 112,000 metric tons with 115,930 metric tons for this year, and trawlers in August continued plugging away on their C-season allotments.

The A-season for pollock trawling in the Bering Sea began on Jan. 20 and ended on April 30, with nearly all four sectors (inshore, catcher-processor, mothership, and CDQ groups) catching their allotted percentages of the TAC.

As of August, the four trawl sectors were scattered about the Bering Sea and mopping up quotas for the B-season, which began on June 10 and ends on Oct. 31.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Alaska pollock, groundfish sector demands ‘non-negotiable’ military protection after run-ins with Russian warships

October 6, 2020 — The At-Sea Processors Association (APA) says US military protection of the Bering Sea groundfish fleets should be “non-negotiable” after a spate of incidents involving Russian military vessels in the US Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the Bering Sea in August and September.

Recent confrontations initiated by Russian warships and warplanes against US-flagged fishing vessels operating lawfully within the US EEZ have caused fishing boat captains and their crews to fear for their safety, disrupting the business operations of fishing companies at a critical point in a very important fishing season, Stephanie Madsen, executive director of the At-sea Processors Association wrote in a prepared statement for a US Senate hearing, which was postponed at the last minute.

Read the full story at IntraFish

Russian pollock fishery enters MSC assessment

September 30, 2020 — The following was released by the Marine Stewardship Council:

The Western Bering Sea Pollock fishery in the Pollock Catchers Association (PCA) in the Navarinsky area of the Bering Sea is being assessed to the Marine Stewardship Council’s (MSC) Fisheries Standard by Lloyd’s Register.

The independent assessor will assess stocks of pollock in the West Bering Sea, the environmental impact of mid-water trawling, and the effectiveness of the fishery’s management system. The assessment is expected to conclude in June 2021.

The PCA’s mid-water trawl pollock fishery in the Sea of Okhotsk is already certified to the MSC Standard. It achieved this in September 2013 and was successfully re-certificated in 2018, demonstrating its commitment to sustainability and well-managed fishing operations. The certified fishery represents 43% of all Russian Pollock catch, leaving 57% of Russian catch not MSC certified.

MSC’s Program Development Director, Camiel Derichs said: “I’m delighted that the Pollock Catchers Association’s West Bering sea pollock fishery has now entered MSC assessment, driving the proportion of Russian pollock fisheries engaged in the MSC program to new highs. The improvements the PCA has worked on with other stakeholders in Russia over several years now gives the fishery confidence to be publicly assessed against the MSC standards by an accredited third partly team of experts. We wish PCA all the best during the independent assessment process.”

About The Pollock Catchers Association 

The Pollock Catchers Association (PCA) was established in 2006 and is one of the largest associations in the Russian fishing industry. It includes 26 companies employing more than 12,000 people and has 90 fishing and processing vessels. It catches roughly 1.6 million tonnes of fish and seafood per year.

PCA members primarily fish for pollock (Theragra chalcogramma / Gadus chalcogrammus) in the Far Eastern seas. PCA enterprises reports it has 63% of the pollock catch (about 1.1 million tonnes in 2019) in Russia, which is about 32% of the catch around the world.

The Bering Sea is the second most significant fishing area for pollock in Russia, after the Sea of Okhotsk. Pollock harvesting is allowed year-round in the Bering Sea, except during the spring spawning period when fisheries are closed. The total allowable catch (TAC) of pollock in the West Bering Sea has been set at roughly 390,000 tonnes for 2020.

The fishery has carried out research on the impacts of marine mammals, and this year will include research on the impact on birds. The PCA fishery has also invested in a project to modernise fishing gears and if successful, fisheries may be able to become even more selective and avoid unwanted catch from the target stocks.

Warming conditions are making northern Bering Sea more friendly for pink salmon

September 22, 2020 — Pink salmon, the most plentiful and cheapest of Alaska’s five salmon species, are finding more hospitable habitat in the warming northern Bering Sea, a new study finds.

There is a clear link between warming temperatures at Nome and better juvenile salmon productivity in rivers that flow into the northern Bering Sea, said the study, published in the journal Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography.

Pink salmon, a species more associated with waters off Alaska’s southern coast, appear to be among those boreal species working their way into more northern waters in response to climate change.

Pink salmon’s short life cycle makes their population more adaptable to these changes in environmental conditions, according to the study. Other salmon species spend up to seven years at sea before returning to freshwater to spawn, but pink salmon have a total life cycle of only two years — counting their time in both saltwater and freshwater — and that relatively quick turnaround gives more chances for succeeding generations to shift their migration patterns.

“Pink salmon are definitely good at straying,” said lead author Ed Farley of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “They definitely want to go seek out other habitat.”

Read the full story at Arctic Today

ALASKA: Pandemic restrictions create uncertainties for Bering Sea crab fleet

September 16, 2020 — Bering Sea crabbers will soon know how much they can pull up in their pots for the season that opens Oct. 15.

This week the Crab Plan Team, advisers to state and federal fishery managers who jointly manage the fisheries, will review stock assessments and other science used to set the catches for Bristol Bay red king crab, Tanners and snow crab.

Normally, the biggest driver would be data from the annual summer trawl surveys that have tracked the stocks for decades. But this year, the surveys were called off due to the coronavirus, and that has crabbers worried.

“There are certainly some added uncertainties,” said Jamie Goen, executive director of the trade group Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, which represents harvesters.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management Strengthens Resilience to Climate Change

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

Ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) has been applied in Alaska for decades with great success. Alaska’s valuable commercial fisheries are among the most productive and sustainable in the world. However, current EBFM policies were not designed to address climate change.

A new study evaluates the future performance of EBFM in the eastern Bering Sea. The innovative experiment projects that EBFM can forestall climate-driven collapse of key Alaska fisheries better than other management policies. This management approach considers the impacts on fish stock productivity from environmental variables, such as changing ocean conditions, and socio-economic factors. It can help fishery managers and fishermen in planning for the future.

“Ecosystem-based management doesn’t just help fish, it helps fishing communities. It is the best strategy we have to provide harvest stability in the coming years. It buys time for Alaska fisheries and fishing communities to prepare and adapt. EBFM is going to be a vital tool for us under climate change,” said Kirstin Holsman, biologist at NOAA Fisheries’ Alaska Fisheries Science Center. “But no matter how effective management is, by mid-century—maybe sooner—Alaska fisheries may reach a tipping point of rapid decline in the eastern Bering Sea if climate change continues on the current trajectory and fish and fisheries are not able to adapt to these changing conditions. To guarantee long-term success, we need to couple EBFM with global climate change mitigation.”

Read the full release here

The David And Goliath Story Playing Out In Alaska’s Fisheries

September 14, 2020 — One day in April 1991, a large fishing boat sliced through the cobalt waters of the North Pacific, not far from Sitka, Alaska, on its way to the Bering Sea. For some reason, perhaps to make sure its gear was in order, the boat dropped its weighted trawling net, dragging it across the ocean floor. As the boat drifted by, thousands of pounds of rockfish got scooped up in the mesh. Just like that, the local rockfish season was over.

“Outraged.” That is how Linda Behnken, a Sitka-based fisherman and director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, described her reaction to news of the trawler’s nets rising from the ocean full of strangled or struggling fish, leaving the area’s fishing territory depleted. “It was a major catalyzing event.”

Facing the loss of a resource that had supported generations of fishing families, Behnken and the local community set out to protect the pristine waters of Southeast Alaska from the ravages of industrial fishing and banish trawling boats that drag wide nets to indiscriminately collect fish. A David to industrial fishing’s Goliath, Behnken was told to give up, that the cards were stacked against her. It took years of lobbying and rallying local support, but with the passage of the Southeast Alaska Trawl Closure in 1998, she had helped enact what at that time was the world’s largest ban on trawling, protecting 70,000 square miles of ocean habitat.

“The trawling ban is the reason we still have healthy small-scale fisheries in Southeast Alaska,” she said.

In the decades since, as the global fishing industry has consolidated into fewer, larger corporate fleets and environmental changes have threatened the ocean’s resources, Alaska’s Southeastern panhandle has emerged as a bastion for sustainable, small-scale fishing.

Read the full story at the Huffington Post