November 12, 2018 — The heart of Alaska’s most prolific salmon fishery, Bristol Bay, is projected to see a return of 40 million sockeye in 2019, under the 10-year average of 44m sockeye, biologists at the Alaska Department of Fish & Game (ADF&G) predicted.
The return — a range of 27.9m to 52.5m sockeye has been estimated — would still be larger than the 55-year average of 34.2m sockeye, the agency said.
November 8, 2018 — By a significant margin, Alaska voters defeated Ballot Measure 1, commonly known as the Stand for Salmon initiative.
The controversial measure was aimed at increasing protections for Alaska’s most iconic fish. It would have significantly toughened the environmental permitting process for large developments impacting salmon habitat.
The outcome was celebrated by a key figure pressing ahead on another controversial issue: the CEO of the Pebble Limited Partnership.
Pebble CEO Tom Collier said even though his company’s mine proposal wasn’t always at the forefront of the debate, the salmon habitat initiative was, in some ways, all about Pebble.
“It was clear that this initiative was aimed at trying to stop Pebble and to stop any other major significant resource development project in Alaska,” Collier said in an interview Wednesday.
Pebble’s push to develop a copper mine in the Bristol Bay region faces fierce resistance from groups who say it endangers the salmon fishery there, and many of those same groups supported Ballot Measure 1. But Pebble kept a relatively low profile leading up to the election. Although it contributed money to Stand for Alaska – Vote No on 1, the campaign against the initiative, it didn’t play much of a role in the opposition’s messaging.
But Collier said had Ballot Measure 1 passed, it would have posed hurdles for Pebble, both in getting permits and in seeking a new financial partner (the company lost a potential major investor earlier this year.) Collier said with the initiative’s defeat, he’s more confident about the Pebble’s prospects.
November 7, 2018 — Values for Alaska salmon permits have remained stagnant all year, except for two regions, and costs for halibut quota shares have plummeted.
For salmon permits, an off-kilter fishery that came in 30 percent below an already grim harvest forecast kept a downward press on permit values. The preseason projection called for a salmon catch of 147 million this year; the total take was closer to 114 million.
“All of these salmon fisheries in the Gulf, both gillnet and seine permits, had a lousy year. And we see that in the lackluster permit market,” said Doug Bowen of marine brokerage Alaska Boats and Permits in Homer.
Farther west, Bristol Bay — with its back-to-back record breakers — is an exception and permit prices there reflect increased buying interest. A scan of multiple broker listings show Bristol Bay drift gillnet permits at $165,000 compared to the $145,000 range before the fishing season.
Salmon fishermen at Bristol Bay pocketed a record $280 million at the docks, not including postseason bonuses, on a catch of 35 million sockeyes.
Read the full story at Anchorage Daily News
November 5, 2018 — Challenging statewide salmon harvests have dominated headlines, with record-high sockeye production in Bristol Bay being the state’s primary saving grace. However, salmon are not the only fish in the sea keeping the state’s fisheries afloat, with many fishermen relying on groundfish, herring, and miscellaneous shellfish to make ends meet. Some fishermen use alternative fisheries as a way to balance their portfolios, while others focus entirely on a single target species ranging from Dungeness crab to sablefish. “In a typical year, Alaska’s most valuable fisheries [measured by value of harvest] include salmon, pollock, Pacific cod, crab, halibut, and black cod,” says Garrett Evridge, an economist with McDowell Group, an Alaska-based research firm.
In 2017, salmon was the most valuable fish group. Harvest of all five salmon species totaled more than $781 million in ex-vessel value, the amount paid to fishermen for their catch. However, Evridge notes that 2018 has been a disappointing year for many salmon fisheries, a statewide concern.
“Salmon across the state have come in weaker than forecast, particularly in the North Gulf of Alaska,” says Bert Lewis, the Central Region supervisor of the Division of Commercial Fisheries for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG). “In the region I work, we saw some of the lowest returns of sockeye salmon in recent history with the exception of Bristol Bay, where we had the biggest run on record.”
The sockeye salmon harvest is estimated to be 37 percent of the recent ten-year average, making it the smallest since 1975—all other smaller harvests date back to the 1800s.
The “blob”—a warm water anomaly that washed into the Gulf of Alaska in 2015—is thought to be the culprit. With most sockeye salmon spending three years in the ocean, those returning this year initially swam out into warmer waters, which researchers speculate disrupted the food webs that support the salmon, decreasing their survivorship and resulting in poor returns this year.
“That concept is supported by the record return we saw in Bristol Bay, with close to 65 million sockeye returning that, in 2015, came out into the Bering Sea, which did not have this warm-water anomaly,” Lewis says.
However, poor harvests weren’t limited to sockeye: Chinook, chum, and pink numbers all came in low.
“In the Southeast, total salmon harvest will be about 30 percent of the recent ten-year average, due primarily to poor pink salmon run, since pink salmon usually make up most of the harvest,” says Steve Heinl, a regional research biologist for ADFG in Southeast.
“Pink salmon harvest is 19 percent of the recent ten-year average and the smallest since 1976,” Heinl says. “Pink harvest will be less than half of the harvest in 2016 [18.4 million fish], which spurred a formal declaration of disaster.”
Levels are well below ADFG’s forecast of 23 million pink salmon, though only slightly below the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast of 10 million to 23 million.
As of late August, chum salmon harvest to date was 69 percent of the recent ten-year average; Chinook harvest was at 30 percent of recent ten-year average; and coho harvest was on track to be lowest in thirty years, says Heinl.
Though state numbers are low, harvest success varied dramatically among systems. In Southeast, there were excellent Sockeye runs at Chilkoot Lake and Redoubt Lake, which stood in stark contrast to poor runs in places such as Situk River, where the fishery was closed for most of the season.
Read the full story at Alaska Business
October 31, 2018 — The city council in Seattle, Washington, has passed a resolution urging the US federal government to protect the Bristol Bay, Alaska, area from the proposed Pebble Mine development.
In the resolution, the council stressed the importance of the industry the Bristol Bay commercial fishing industry brings to the state of Washington’s economy, including sportfishing-related tourism.
Sockeye salmon from Bristol Bay is served in restaurants throughout Washington and is estimated to support roughly 3,100 jobs as well as contribute $550 million to the state’s economy.
“Guests specifically come to Sand Point Grill for our salmon,” said Travis Rosenthal, owner of the Seattle-based Sand Point Grill restaurant and board member of the Seattle Restaurant Alliance, in a press released jointly issued by the SRA and also the Businesses for Bristol Bay (BBB) coalition. “Building a mine of this size in Bristol Bay could be detrimental to such a fragile, special ecosystem. Not to mention other impacts such as keeping Seattle-based fishermen employed and salmon on the plates of Sand Point Grill diners.”
Read the full story at Undercurrent News
October 26, 2018 — Commercial salmon fishing on the Alaskan Peninsula, Aleutian Islands and the Atka-Amlia Islands this year was a far cry from the 2017 season, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) confirms in a summary of the harvest numbers published Oct. 24.
Commercial harvesters in the region caught 3.7 million sockeye salmon, 48% fewer than the 7.1m caught in 2017, according to ADF&G. There were also far fewer pinks (805,639 in 2018 vs. 21.8m in 2017) and chum (1.2m vs. 2.0m in 2017) caught.
October 18, 2018 — Opinions on the salmon habitat initiative officially dubbed Ballot Measure 1 are about as diverse as Alaska’s fisheries.
About the only thing uniform in the environmental policy debate is the resource development industry’s collective opposition to it.
Nearly, but not all, of the 12 Alaska Native regional corporations oppose it; Bristol Bay Native Corp. has maintained a neutral position on the voter initiative for most of 2018 after CEO Jason Metrokin originally said the company was against it.
Commonly known as the Stand for Salmon initiative, Ballot Measure 1 is seen by many as a way to stop the controversial Pebble mine in Western Alaska, which BBNC has long and vigorously opposed.
The initiative seeks to overhaul Title 16, the Department of Fish and Game’s statutory directive on how to evaluate development projects in salmon habitat.
Current law directs the Fish and Game commissioner to issue a development permit as long as a project provides “proper protection of fish and game.”
The sponsors contend that is far too vague and an update is needed to just define what “proper protection” means.
The initiative would, among other things, establish two tiers of development permits that could be issued by the Department of Fish and Game.
“Minor” habitat permits could be issued quickly and generally for projects deemed to have an insignificant impact on salmon waters.
“Major” permits would be required for larger projects such as mines, dams and anything determined to potentially have a significant impact on salmon-bearing water.
October 10, 2018 — It is official; 2018 was the largest sockeye salmon run to Bristol Bay on record, and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has records dating back to 1893. The 2018 Bristol Bay Season Summary, which ADF&G released in September, reiterates the records this year’s run broke. To start with, the total run to Bristol Bay this summer was 62.3 million sockeye. That is 21 percent above the preseason forecast of 51.3 million fish.
The Nushagak District set a new record for the largest single district sockeye salmon harvest at 24.1 million sockeye, accounting for more than half the reds harvested in the bay this summer.
The Togiak District also set a record for sockeye return to its district. Tim Sands, ADF&G area management biologist for the Togiak and Nushagak districts noted that the length of the run rather than a concentrated peak drove up those numbers.
He said, “It started picking up early in July. It still wasn’t anything exceptional, it just kind of went on and on and on with good catches,” adding that he thought catch and escapement in the district could have been even higher, but mid-August storms curtailed fishing and the counting towers stopped counting, according to their seasonal schedule in early August.
The exvessel value also broke a record – $281 million for all salmon species. That is almost two and a half times the 20 year average. Sockeye brought an average $1.26 per pound base price.The total harvest across all five districts was 41.3 million sockeye, the second largest harvest in the fishery’s history.
September 28, 2018 — Despite poor salmon runs dominating the news across the Gulf of Alaska, fishermen in Bristol Bay and western Alaska brought home heavy nets and wallets this year.
Salmon runs in Bristol Bay and Norton Sound arrived in force and smashed records — again. It’s the second year in a row that runs have come in exceptionally large in the two areas.
Bristol Bay measured an inshore run of 62.3 million sockeye, the largest run since 1893 and more than 69 percent greater than the 20-year average run of 36.9 million. It’s the fourth year in a row that Bristol Bay inshore runs have topped 50 million, and this year came in far above the preseason forecast of 51.3 million fish.
Set and drift gillnet fishermen brought in a total harvest of 41.3 million, the second-highest harvest on record, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s year-end season summary for the area. On top of that, prices stayed significantly higher than usual as the supply flooded the market, bringing in a record ex-vessel value for the area as well— more than double what fishermen have made in the history of the fishery.
The preliminary ex-vessel value of $281 million is more than 242 percent above the 20-year average of $116 million, and 39 percent above the previous record of $202 million, set in 1990.
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.