July 20, 2023 — Commercial fishermen in the Bristol Bay region are voicing their displeasure against recent prices of sockeye salmon.
According to fisherman Cheyne Blough, the price of sockeye salmon hovered around $1.20-$1.50 per pound, but as of recently, the price dropped to 50 cents.
July 19, 2023 — This summer is a colder, rainier, and buggier season in Bristol Bay, and across Alaska. Meanwhile, last week the world faced four straight days of the hottest temperatures on record, marking Earth’s extreme warming.
The biggest challenge of climate change for Bristol Bay salmon isn’t necessarily warming temperatures right now. It is the variability, said Bill Templin, Chief Salmon Fisheries Scientist for Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
“You know, climate change isn’t just directional. It’s not just that things are warming, it’s also that there’s greater variability in the systems,” he said.
Templin believes these cold, wet, stormy summers are a product of climate change too.
“There can be a wider swing of hot and cold or dryness, drought, flooding, excessive water in the systems,” said Templin. “That variability makes it hard for an organism to adapt to the changes which can lead to reduced productivity from systems that are otherwise healthy, with healthy habitats and low fishing pressures.”
What does that mean for salmon?
There’s some good news. Starting in freshwater, where salmon return to spawn and remain the first year of life, Bristol Bay’s deep lakes provide a natural buffer to temperature changes.
“So it seems like the lakes are really this big buffering mechanism,” said fisheries ecologist and researcher Daniel Schindler with the University of Washington’s Alaska Salmon Program. That’s critical for the salmon’s success.
Freshwater lakes are deep and stratified, meaning temperatures of the water are warmer at the surface going down to cooler at the bottom. Salmon can dive deep and escape warmer surface temperatures. According to Schindler, that means they can return to spawn earlier if ocean temperatures are too warm, like the birth ward at the hospital.
July 19, 2023 — Bristol Bay processors lowballed fishermen with ex-vessel prices of 50 cents on July 17, and the fleet wasn’t happy about it.
As the season unfolded in early July the fleet began fishing on an “open ticket,” meaning that prices hadn’t yet been announced by major processors. When major processors came out with the announcement of a base price of 50 cents some members in the fleet proposed a friendly protest near Naknek. The protest has been staged for July 20, but the looming question is whether thousands of fishermen could band together with enough solidarity and force processors to nudge up the prices.
“There are too many variables out here,” says Harry Moore, a lifelong drift fisherman who was raised on the beach at Naknek. “The fish came in later this year and didn’t really hit until last week (July 10). “It was slow developing; so there are a lot of guys trying to make it up fishing the run on the back end. Then you’ve got guys who’ve got quite a few fish already, and their attitude is just to grind it out and put in a few more pounds.”
July 16, 2023 — The peak of Bristol Bay’s sockeye salmon run has past, and indications are the total catch will be lower than predicted.
Across Alaska, 42.3 million salmon of all types had been landed as of 13 July, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. In Bristol Bay, ADF&G forecasted a run of 51 million sockeye in the Bristol Bay watershed in 2023, which would have made it one of the best years ever in the bay. But initial catch figures are coming up short of projections.
July 10, 2023 — The Curyung Tribe and Net Your Problem, a recycling company based in Seattle, view old fishing nets as a resource. They are collecting mesh from nets to transport to a facility where processors will convert the material into new items. The Tribe’s environmental coordinator, Desi Bond, says this work keeps Dillingham beautiful and helps preserve the land.
“The biggest thing is how we can continue to teach our children about subsistence and how we can take care of our land. And this is one really important way,” Bond says.
Fishing nets take hundreds of years to break down and release microplastics as they do. Nicole Baker, who owns Net Your Problem, estimates nearly 100,000 pounds of fish net waste is thrown away in Bristol Bay each year.
“So that’s between Naknek, Dillingham and Togiak. And if you think about the landfills, they’re not going to be able to be filled up forever. They have a limited lifespan,” Baker says.
July 10, 2023 — Uncertainty continues to cloud the 2023 sockeye salmon season in Bristol Bay, Alaska, U.S.A., as the fishery heads toward what has historically been its peak period.
Fishing in one of the world’s most-productive sockeye salmon fishing grounds began on 1 June, but fishers are frustrated that processors have yet to disclose the price they intend to pay for this year’s catch.
May 15, 2023 — Bristol Bay fishermen harvested a record-breaking 60 million sockeye last summer, flooding the market with a surplus of salmon.
Early this month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture agreed to help with the glut by purchasing $119.5 million of canned and fileted Alaska sockeye and Pacific groundfish. It’s a win for the state’s marketing branch, which had some help from Alaska’s congressional delegation. But the purchase won’t totally clear out the storehouses and shelves.
“As far as, you know, fixing the problem of such a giant harvest from last year, it’s not going to fix anything,” said Bruce Schactler, the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute’s global food aid director. “But it’s certainly going to help in a big way — in a really big way.”
Schactler said ASMI asked the USDA to buy Alaska seafood for their food assistance programs last fall, when they knew there would be surplus.
“It kind of got stalled, for whatever reason,” he said. “So we asked the three members of our congressional delegation to provide some encouragement to hurry this along. And that was clearly successful.”
May 1, 2023 — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will reconsider certain aspects of the Pebble company’s permit application to build a large gold and copper mine at the headwaters of Bristol Bay. The 81-page report comes just three months after the Environmental Protection Agency vetoed the mine in a separate process.
“It’s a bit surprising and a bit confusing,” said Dennis McLerran, who worked as the regional EPA administrator during the Obama administration.
The EPA in January determined that the mine would have “unacceptable adverse effects on salmon fishery areas.” Using its powers under the Clean Water Act, it essentially vetoed the mine plan, and any future plan that would have a similar impact on the same waterways. Many opponents of the project hailed that as the final blow.
McLerran said the EPA decision nullifies any permit the Army Corps could issue.
April 24, 2023 — Bristol Bay should see relatively strong sockeye runs this summer, though they’re not expected to be near last year’s record-breaking run and harvest.
Around 50 million sockeye are forecasted to return to the bay, according to the state’s forecast for the 2023 fishing season. The total escapement is projected to reach 13 million with around 37 million fish available to harvest.
That’s a good deal lower than last year, and it’s also lower than the average over the last 10 years. But looking a little further back, this summer’s run is still expected to be 40% above the bay’s long-term average.
The University of Washington produced its own forecast for Bristol Bay’s 2023 season.
The strength of the salmon returns varies across river systems, and the Nushagak District, on the west side of the bay, has seen some of the biggest sockeye runs and highest harvests in recent years.
“I think the reason why we’re getting these big runs in the Nushagak is because the warmer winters allow for a longer growing season,” said Tim Sands, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s management biologist for the area, at a recent presentation in Dillingham. “So there’s just that extra growing period where there’s more food for them to eat. And they get a little bit bigger. And as they’re bigger going out to the ocean. They’re more competitive and they survive at a little higher rate.”
In the 2023 commercial fishing outlook, the department also raised concerns about fishermen under-reporting of king salmon harvests and said tenders should expect to be boarded and checked for undocumented king salmon.
Here’s a rundown of this summer’s forecasts and regulations by district.
April 6, 2023 — Global warming has swollen salmon runs in Bristol Bay, Alaska, U.S.A., with record-breaking harvests in recent years.
Bristol Bay’s salmon runs will likely remain robust as Alaskan waters get hotter, according to University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences Professor Daniel Schindler.