Bristol Bay Archives - Page 45 of 45

Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers Announce Updated Seafood Watch Recommendations for King and Snow Crab in Alaska

March 2, 2016 — The following was released by the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers:

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch® program has just released new and updated assessments on King and Snow crab from Alaska. Bristol Bay Red King (Paralithoides camtschaticus) crab from the Eastern Bering Sea has been elevated to a “Best Choice” by Seafood Watch. With this updated recommendation, all of the major crab fisheries in the Eastern Bering Sea, including two species of Snow crab (Chionoecetes opilio and C. bairdi) and Blue King crab from St. Matthews Island (P. platypus) meet Seafood Watch’s “Best Choice” standard.

The updated Seafood Watch recommendations maintain the “Avoid” status for all crab fisheries in the Russian portion of the Bering Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the Northern Sea of Japan. These “Avoid” listings reflect the fact that stocks are at critically low levels as a result of rampant illegal fishing and highly ineffective management.

“With these updated recommendations the Seafood Watch program is just confirming what we have known for years. King and Snow crab from Alaska is clearly the ‘Best Choice’ if you care about the health of the oceans and wish to support sustainable fisheries. We hope that consumers, retailers, and those in the food service industry will use these recommendations to make informed purchasing decisions and demand King and Snow crab from Alaska,” said Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers Science & Policy Analyst Ruth Christiansen.

View a PDF of the release

Alaskans own dwindling number of Alaska fishing permits

January 15, 2016 — Fishing issues will take a back seat to budget cutting when the Alaska Legislature convenes Jan. 19, but two early fish bills (and one holdover) are getting attention already.

One new measure aims to stop the migration of commercial fishing permits out of Alaska.

Forty years ago at Bristol Bay, 36 percent of the more than nearly 2,000 permits were held by locals and 64 percent by nonresidents. By 2013, the numbers were 19 percent local and 81 percent nonresident. Similar trends, by varying degrees, are happening in other regions as well.

Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, D-Sitka, said he intends to introduce a bill that would establish a permit bank to reverse the outmigration trend.

The bank would buy nonresident permits and lease them to young fishermen who otherwise could not afford them. It would offer several types of fishing permits (Alaska has 65) that would be proportional and reflective of regional fisheries. A permit bank would not cost the state any money, he said, because it would fall to local communities to raise the money.

Read the full story at Alaska Dispatch News

It’s been a roller coaster season for salmon

August 21, 2015 — Fishermen say it will be a stretch for total catch to reach forecasted 221 million fish

Alaska’s salmon season so far has been characterized by ups and downs, and it will be a stretch for the total catch to make the forecasted 221 million fish.

“It just depends on how these late returning pink salmon at Prince William Sound perform, and whether or not pinks pick up at Southeast.

It’s possible, but we would still have to harvest around 30 million more salmon,” mused Forrest Bowers, Deputy Director of the state’s Commercial Fisheries Division.

One of the biggest fish stories of the season, of course, was the surprising double runs of sockeye salmon (reds) to Bristol Bay. As soon as a slow going first run petered out and the fishery was declared a bust, a surge of late reds caught everyone by surprise and pushed the catch to nearly 36 million fish.

Alaska’s sockeye salmon fishery sometimes accounts for almost two-thirds of the value of the total salmon harvest. A statewide tally of 51.5 million by August 14 makes it unlikely the sockeye harvest will reach the projected take of 58.8 million fish.

Read the full story at the Arctic Sounder

Bristol Bay Sockeye Run Either Late or Over-estimated: Stay Tuned

SEAFOODNEWS.COM By Peggy Parker — July 6, 2015 — All eyes are on Bristol Bay today as fishermen and processors look for a surge in sockeye landings marking the peak of the run today or at the latest, tomorrow. That peak did not come on the traditional day of July 4.

Cumulative landings as of yesterday totaled 8.5 million fish, short by more than half for this time in a six-week season with a forecast of 37.6 million reds.

That means the run is either late, will come in this week in a compressed fashion, or was significantly over estimated. Over the weekend some processors said the travel time from Port Moller, which is still showing a strong return, is longer than anticipated and the bulk of the run may be as much as 4-5 days late.

If so, today and tomorrow’s landings will be critical indicators.

The implications of a drastically reduced run will have impacts throughout the world’s salmon markets, as Bristol Bay is the largest supplier of wild salmon in the world.

Dr. Scott Raborn of the Bristol Bay Science and Research Institute studies the Port Moller test fishery, used as a precursor to Bristol Bay return sizes and timing.

“The migration this year has been very odd,” Raborn reports. “By now, the run will have to be (1) several days late to come in at the pre-season forecast and/or (2) be very compressed.

“The first possibility would mean our estimates of travel times [from Port Moller to each Bristol Bay river system] are 3-4 days longer than we thought, and/or there is considerable strength left at Port Moller. The second could occur if fish are milling outside the districts causing a pooling effect. The rate of compression would be determined by how long it takes to “drain the pool”, which would be anyone’s guess,” Raborn says.

“However, at this point we must consider the possibility of a smaller run,” he adds.

Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game ordered openings in the three largest districts for this morning and afternoon.

The first began at 2 a.m. for Egigik setnetters, an eight-hour opening followed by a second eight-hour opening from 3:15 – 11:15 p.m. Gillnetters began fishing at 6 a.m. today, closing at 10 a.m. and opening again from 3:30 p.m. until 10:30 p.m. today.

Total harvest in Egigik has been 2.8 million fish with escapement at 834,000 sockeye, just above the lower forecasted range. Forecasted total harvest for that river system is 10.64 million sockeyes with 1.4 million escapement.

The second district to fish today is Ugashik, a 10-hour period from 12:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Cumulative harvest is 930,000 fish in the Ugashik District with escapement at 250,000, just over 25% of expected escapement of 940,000. Forecasted harvest for Ugashik this year was 2.61 million sockeyes.

Finally, The Naknek-Kvichak District will open for a 4-hour period from 4 p.m. until 8 p.m.

Pre-season forecasts for the Naknek/Kvichak district was 18.03 million sockeyes with an escapement of 9.71 million. Cumulative totals as of July 4 are 1.94 million sockeye harvest and 1.28 million reds escapement.

ADF&G will make another announcement at noon Alaska time today regarding the Egegik and Ugashik districts, and a 3 p.m. announcement on the Naknek/Kvichak fishery.

This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews, a subscription site. It has been reprinted with permission.