Saving Seafood

Bering Sea Pacific cod move north as survey sees fewer fish in east

October 10, 2018 — As was the case recently with pollock in Alaska’s southeastern Bering Sea, US government scientists found a surprising result when they surveyed Pacific cod stocks this summer: a large number of fish apparently moved north.

Staff at the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Alaska Fisheries Science Center are in the process of developing stock assessments that the North Pacific Fishery Management Council will use in making allowable biological catch (ABC) and total allowable catch (TAC) levels for Pacific cod in the Bering Sea for 2019.

However, one key input that will figure into the model that NOAA is making to estimate the Pacific cod biomass — the results of the 2018 southeastern Bering Sea bottom trawl survey — has declined significantly.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

ALASKA: Alaska snow crab TAC increased by 47%

October 5, 2018 — The harvesters of snow crab in Alaska’s Bering Sea have received the good news they anticipated just days before their next season is set to begin. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) has set their total allowable catch at 12,620 metric tons, a 47% increase over the 8,600t TAC permitted in the 2017/18 season.

The season begins Oct. 15 and closes on May 15 or May 31, depending on the subdistrict.

There was much optimism about the coming TAC for snow crabs (Chionoecetes opilio) given the stock assessments delivered roughly a week ago to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, as reported by Undercurrent News.  A survey had shown a biomass of 198,400t of mature male snow crabs, a 136% increase over the 84,000t found in 2017. That’s the largest it’s been since 1998, the Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation (SAFE) report noted. Also, there are 165,000t of females, up 55% from the 106,800t found in 2017.

The SAFE report also noted earlier high estimates of recruitment.

The new TAC is much better news than the TAC that ADF&G delivered before the 2017/18 season, which represented a decrease of 12% over the 2016/17 season (9,800t), and the 2016/17 season TAC, which was half of what was allowed during the 2015-16 season.

The new TAC breaks down this way: 24.8 million lbs for the individual fishing quota; and 2.8 million lbs for the community development quota.

“A higher quota for snow crab this year could have significant market implications,” said the Pacific Seafood Processors Association in a statement about the new TAC.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Alaska snow crab stock assessment bodes well for coming TAC

September 27, 2018 — The US state of Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) could announce catch limits for its Bering Sea crab fisheries as soon as next Tuesday. And, based on the latest stock assessments delivered to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC), the snow crab harvest looks to be a big improvement.

But catch limits for red king and Tanner crabs aren’t likely to be so great.

ADF&G staff have been meeting this week via teleconference to discuss the recommendations contained in the 43-page “Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation (SAFE) Report for the King and Tanner Crab Fisheries of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Regions”. The paper, which addresses the health of 10 different Alaskan crab stocks, was compiled by the NPFMC’s 14-person crab plan team, a group that includes a combination of federal and state agency officials as well as some academics.

The NPFMC is set to begin meeting early next week in Anchorage, Alaska, where its Science and Statistical Committee (SSC), a similarly composed group, will make its recommendations, which can be expected to closely follow those of the SAFE report, Mark Stichert, ADF&G’s regional shellfish management coordinator, told Undercurrent News.

It’s unusual for the NPFMC to disagree with its SSC, though it will also likely hear from an industry panel, he said.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Alaska crab report: King and tanner crab stocks drop as snow crab rebounds

September 27, 2018 — It was a mix of good but mostly bad news for Bering Sea crabbers at this month’s North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting. The results from the summer trawl surveys showed “substantial” drops in numbers of king and tanner crab. Conversely, the snow crab stock appears to be on a big rebound.

The news was presented last week in the annual Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation Report for the North Pacific council.

For red king crab in Bristol Bay, numbers of mature males dropped more than 40 percent from last year, and mature females were down 54 percent. Even worse, the survey continued to show no sign of younger red king crab coming into the fishery.

“We haven’t seen recruitment in years,” said Bob Foy, director of the NMFS lab at Kodiak and leader of the council’s crab plan team.

In the report, the team noted that “it feels that the rather unusual environmental conditions in the eastern Bering Sea this year (e.g., elevated bottom temperatures, lack of a cold pool) and the model’s poor fit to the 2018 survey data increase the uncertainty associated with this stock and warrant additional precaution.”

The red king crab catch last year at Bristol Bay was 6.6 million pounds, a 20 percent drop from 2017.

For tanner crab, the number of mature females dictates the fate of a fishery and those numbers declined 70 percent in the eastern fishing district, continuing a trend over several years.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Fishing industry at odds with environmentalists over changes to U.S. fishing laws

July 30, 2018 — Fishermen and environmentalists are at odds over a suite of changes to U.S. fishing laws that was approved by the House of Representatives, and the proposal faces a new hurdle in the Senate.

The House passed changes to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, a 42-year-old set of rules designed to protect fisheries from over-harvest, on July 11, largely along party lines. Environmental groups have derided the changes as antithetical to the purpose of the act, which many fishermen and conservationists credit with saving seafood stocks such as New England sea scallops and Bering Sea snow crab.

Supporters of the House bill and several commercial and recreational fishing groups have said the changes merely provide managers with flexibility and refocus the Magnuson-Stevens Act on sound science.

The big question is whether a bill will also pass the Senate before the midterm election. No bill has been proposed yet, and the election could bring changes that make it more difficult for such a bill to pass.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Los Angeles Times

 

Alaska crabbers gearing up for fall Bering Sea fisheries

July 20, 2018 — Boats are already signing up to participate in fall Bering Sea crab fisheries that begin October 1. Meanwhile, many crabbers are still awaiting word on what their pay outs are for last season.

Prior to the crab fisheries changing from “come one, come all” to a catch share form of management in 2005 prices were set before boats headed out, said Jake Jacobsen, director of the Inter-Cooperative Exchange which negotiates prices for most of the fleet.

“Since then the price is based on the historical division of revenues and there is a formula that is applied to sales. It takes a long time for sales to be completed to the point where we know or can predict what the final wholesale prices will be, and then we can apply the formula to it,” he explained.

Prices to fishermen were down a bit from last year but historically very high, Jacobsen said. For snow crab and bairdi Tanners, which typically are hauled up after the start of each year, prices were just settled and won’t be made public for another week.

“Most of the snow crab and bairdi prices were over $4 a pound, so that’s very good,” he hinted.

According to processor data, last season’s average snow crab price was $4.07 a pound; Tanner crab averaged $3.33. For golden king crab, fishermen averaged $5.51 per pound.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

With grocery supplies dwindling on remote Alaska island, the government opened seal harvest early

July 16, 2018 –Federal managers in June agreed to the early harvest on St. George, which is more than 200 miles from the mainland.

The decision came after a request by the tribal government, which said members needed the meat because the island’s store was running out of food, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service. Flights to the island are often canceled amid bad weather and because of what airlines say is a poorly-positioned runway.

“I don’t know how many times I’ve called ACE to say, ‘Hey, where are our groceries? Why can’t we get them?’” Mayor Pat Pletnikoff said, referring to the cargo airline that serves the island. “It happens on a regular basis.”

About 60 people live on St. George, Pletnikoff said. Passenger planes only come twice a week, and frequent flight cancellations can make it hard for residents to keep fresh food around.

One thing that’s not in short supply on the island? Meat.

St. George and nearby St. Paul both host massive populations of northern fur seals in summer and fall — about 500,000 between the two. It’s about half the world’s population, said Mike Williams, who works with the fisheries service.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Should a community’s population be a factor to set fish quotas in western Alaska?

July 5, 2018 — Rep. Don Young is trying again to renew the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

The nation’s fundamental federal fisheries law hasn’t been reauthorized since 2006. Young’s bill would allow more flexibility for regional fisheries management councils, but for villages near the mouth of the Kuskokwim River it is notable for what’s not included.

Since the 1990s, towns and villages along the western Alaska coast, from Norton Sound to the Aleutians, have had a stake in the lucrative Bering Sea fisheries, through the Community Development Quota program. The communities, divided into six CDQ groups, are allocated a portion of the fishing quota, which they can fish themselves or lease to the fishing industry.

By most measures, the program has been a success. In total, the six CDQ groups have amassed more than a billion dollars in cash and assets. The larger groups spend more than $30 million a year to help their regions, with service programs, job training, scholarships and local employment.

But the largest group, called Coastal Villages Region Fund, says it’s getting a raw deal. The group is known as CVRF and serves the Kuskokwim Delta, including villages from Scammon Bay to Platinum. More than 9,000 people live in that area, amounting to 35 percent of the total CDQ beneficiary population. However, they say they are allocated just 15 percent of the fish in the CDQ program.

Art Severance, corporate counsel for CVRF, said other groups have far fewer people and get the same or even more fish.

Read the full story at KTOO

ALASKA: Jellyfish Numbers Rising in Bering Sea; Scientists Studying Potential Impacts

June 29, 2018 –Jellyfish have been a natural part of the Bering Sea ecosystem for decades, but in recent years, their population numbers in the region have dramatically increased. Now, a research team funded by the National Science Foundation is in Nome to find out what the cause and implications might be.

“There are certainly fish that do feed on jellyfish: some of the salmon do, some other fish. But in this part of the world, not this many fish feed on jellyfish.”

That’s Mary Beth Decker, a research scientist from Yale University who is part of a three-person research team sailing to Slime Bank in the southern Bering Sea this week, north of the Alaska Peninsula. As she noted, there are minimal benefits from having jellyfish around. Not only do few types of fish eat them, but these species aren’t exactly edible for humans, either.

When it comes to potential consequences of having more jellyfish, though, Decker says that’s a different story.

“And we know that they have impacts on the ecosystem, because they feed on things that fish eat. For example, they’ll eat small crustaceans, zoo plankton, that are prey for other seabirds and marine mammals. And also fish, both young fish and some older fish, like herring, as well.”

According to Decker, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has been recording jellyfish numbers in the Bering Sea for the last 40 years using their trawls. The populations have fluctuated up and down throughout that period for multiple species of jellies, including larger ones like Pacific Sea Nettle, but Decker also points out there are smaller types that are harder to see or even catch in trawl nets.

That’s why Joanna Chierici, a teacher from New Jersey, is onboard this research voyage, to educate and reach out to groups about the types and numbers of jellyfish present in the Bering Sea.

Read the full story at KNOM

ALASKA: Coastal Villages study renews fight over CDQ quota allocations

June 21, 2018 — A new study reaffirms that large and long-standing inequities still exist in a federal program aimed at improving the economic situation in Western Alaska.

Coastal Villages Region Fund commissioned the report conducted by the Seattle-based research firm Community Attributes Inc., which concludes the fisheries allocations in the Community Development Quota Program prevent the groups representing the poorest regions in Western Alaska from fully achieving their mission.

Coastal Villages is the CDQ group for 20 villages on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, which is one of the most economically depressed regions not only of Alaska, but the country as well.

The Western Alaska CDQ Economic Needs Report notes that Coastal Villages serves 35 percent of the population meant to benefit from the program, yet has access to just 24 percent of the pollock, about 18 percent of the crab and 17 percent of the Pacific cod quota dedicated to the CDQ Program.

Those fisheries quotas are allocated amongst the six CDQ groups that cover residents within 50 miles of the Bering Sea coast in an area starting north of Nome on the Seward Peninsula south and west through Bristol Bay and out the Aleutian chain.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce