Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Chinook bycatch shuts down pollock fishery in Central Gulf of Alaska

October 8, 2024 — Commercial fishing for pollock in the Central Gulf of Alaska came to a halt on Sept. 25, leaving 50,000 tons of the whitefish in the water, when shut down by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to prevent exceeding the limit on Chinook salmon prohibited species catch (PSC). The action taken by Jon M. Kurland, regional administrator for the Alaska Region of NMFS, came after the captain of one of 19 trawlers fishing for pollock in the Central Gulf pulled up a net with an estimated 2,000 Chinook salmon.

The Chinook prohibited species catch in this pollock trawl fisheries is 18,316 Chinook salmon. As of Sept. 27, NMFS data indicated the PSC estimate for Chinook salmon in the central Gulf pollock fishery at 19,665 fish. In last week’s incident, the captain immediately notified the partner trawler he was fishing with and they both notified the Alaska Groundfish Data Bank of the bycatch. Both are local vessels based in Kodiak.

Total PSC estimates are calculated using verified information collected by observers.

“This was unprecedented,” said Julie Bonney, owner and executive director of the Alaska Groundfish Data Bank. “Over the last 20 years, there has never been that much prohibit species salmon taken in one tow of the trawlers fishing in the Central Gulf for pollock.”

Measures taken by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to minimize bycatch worked —but the cost to fishermen, processors and the city of Kodiak will be in the millions of dollars, Bonney said. The 19 trawlers had caught just 18,000 tons of pollock.

Closing down the fishery left 50,000 tons of pollock in the ocean, which will impact jobs of commercial fishing crews, processing company workers, and myriad businesses that are engaged with the fishing industry. Bonney said she even got a call from a Kodiak man whose company services vending machines in the processing facilities in Kodiak.

Read the full article at The Cordova Times

With dams gone, Klamath salmon start long road to recovery

October 4, 2024 — Salmon watchers in the Pacific Northwest are warning it could take at least a decade for fish in the Lower Klamath River to recover following the nation’s largest-ever dam removal.

The breaching of four hydroelectric dams restored more than 400 miles of free-flowing waterway to the region and came after decades of negotiations among a host of parties, including tribal nations, states, the federal government, a power company and nonprofits.

Months of aggressive demolition allowed the Klamath River to return to its main channel for the first time in more than a century in August, as work continued through Wednesday to remove hydropower facilities and other remaining infrastructure.

Read the full article at E&E News

West Coast Chinook Salmon Get a New Genetic Reference Database

September 28, 2024 — NOAA scientists have upgraded a crucial tool for Chinook salmon conservation. This genetic reference tool allows researchers to pinpoint the river system individual fish come from, enabling more precise management and protection of threatened and endangered populations.

“It’s like giving every fish a unique genetic fingerprint,” says Donald Van Doornik, a NOAA Fisheries fish biologist and lead author of a new paper describing the work in the North American Journal of Fisheries Management. “We can use this fingerprint to figure out where that fish came from by comparing it to other fish’s DNA.”

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries 

ALASKA: Two Kodiak trawlers caught 2,000 king salmon. Now, a whole fishery is closed.

September 27, 2024 — Federal managers shut down a major Alaska fishery Wednesday after two Kodiak-based boats targeting whitefish caught some 2,000 king salmon — an unintentional harvest that drew near-instant condemnation from advocates who want better protections for the struggling species.

The Kodiak-based trawl fleet has caught just over one-fourth of its seasonal quota of pollock — a whitefish that’s typically processed into items like fish sticks, fish pies and surimi, the paste used to make fake crab.

But about 20 boats will now be forced to end their season weeks before its Nov. 1 closure, with hundreds of jobs at shore-based processing plants also in jeopardy, to make sure the fleet doesn’t exceed its yearly cap on its unintentional king salmon harvest — some 18,000 fish.

“From a community perspective, it’s huge,” said Julie Bonney, who runs a trade group, the Alaska Groundfish Data Bank, that represents the trawlers and processing companies. “Nobody’s happy about the closure, but they understand the reason.”

The incident is sure to draw more scrutiny on the issue of bycatch — the industry term for the unintended harvest, typically of salmon or halibut, by boats targeting other species.

Tribal advocates and conservation groups, for the past several years, have been making increasingly urgent pleas to managers to crack down on bycatch by trawl vessels, which can scoop up salmon in the nets they drag through the water targeting pollock and other lower-value species.

Those groups’ focus has largely been on bycatch by pollock trawlers in the Bering Sea.

The salmon caught Sunday were harvested using the same type of nets used by trawlers in the Bering Sea, but in a different area of the ocean, the central Gulf of Alaska.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

Appeals court upholds Alaska salmon fishery operations

August 20, 2024 — A federal appeals court ruled Friday that an Alaska salmon fishery can continue operation despite environmentalists’ concerns about its affect on killer whale populations.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court decision that had threatened to halt fishing at Alaska’s Southeast troll salmon fishery. Wild Fish Conservancy, a conservationist group based in Washington state, sued to stop fishery operations in 2020 on the grounds that fishing for Chinook salmon was depleting a primary food source for endangered Southern Resident killer whales.

The Conservancy argued that NOAA Fisheries, which oversees the troll salmon fishery, violated the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act while drafting a 2019 biological opinion about fishing’s impact on the endangered killer whales. U.S. District Judge Richard Jones sided with the conservationists and ordered the fishery to be at least temporarily shuttered in May 2023, but a stay by the 9th Circuit kept the fishery open.

Read the full article at E&E News

US appeals court allows Alaska fishery to remain open

August 19, 2024 — A federal appeals court on Friday reversed a judge’s decision that would have effectively shuttered an Alaska salmon fishery, a result environmentalists sought in order to protect endangered whales and threatened wild Chinook salmon populations.

A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held, opens new tab that a judge in Seattle last year abused his discretion by vacating a key authorization issued by the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Services for the fishery’s summer and winter Chinook salmon harvests.

U.S. District Judge Richard Jones at the urging of the Wild Fish Conservancy had in May 2023 vacated part of a so-called incidental take statement the fisheries service issued in 2019 that authorized the commercial Chinook salmon troll fishery in southeast Alaska.

He did so after finding it violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to adequately provide a plan to mitigate impacts from commercial fishing on threatened wild Chinook salmon and endangered southern resident orca that depend on them for food off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and Canada.

Read the full article at Reuters

Alaska Trollers Association gets legal victory, awaits updated NMFS king salmon biological opinion

August 19, 2024 — The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has handed a victory to the Alaska Trollers Association (ATA) by reversing a lower court’s ruling that found commercial chinook salmon fishing in Southeast Alaska endangered southern resident killer whales.

In May 2023, at the bequest of the environmental nonprofit Wild Fish Conservancy, a U.S. federal judge ruled the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) must remake its management plan for king salmon, finding NFMS did not adequately analyze the fishery’s impact on the southern resident killer whale population in the U.S. state of Washington.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

World’s Biggest Dam Removal Project to Open 420 Miles of Salmon Habitat in Klamath River This Fall

July 25, 2024 — For the first time since 1918, an astonishing 420 miles of salmon habitat in the Klamath River watershed in California and Oregon will be fully connected by September. This results from the world’s largest dam removal effort, the Klamath River Renewal Project. The amount of habitat opened up on the Klamath is equivalent to the distance between Portland, Maine, and Philadelphia-a journey through seven states.

PacifiCorp, the previous owner, agreed to remove the aging dams after they determined removal would be less expensive than upgrading to current environmental standards. The dams had been used for power generation, not water storage. The Copco No. 2 Dam on the Klamath was removed last year. The deconstruction of the Iron Gate, Copco No. 1, and JC Boyle dams is underway and running ahead of schedule.

“I think in September, we may have some Chinook salmon and steelhead moseying upstream and checking things out for the first time in over 60 years,” says Bob Pagliuco, NOAA marine habitat resource specialist. “Based on what I’ve seen and what I know these fish can do, I think they will start occupying these habitats immediately. There won’t be any great numbers at first, but within several generations-10 to 15 years-new populations will be established.”

There’s more good news for Klamath salmon and steelhead. NOAA’s Office of Habitat Conservation recommends an $18 million award to the Yurok Tribe to restore and reconnect cold-water tributaries that will open to migratory fish after dam removal. Another roughly $1.9 million award is recommended to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to begin evaluating options for improving fish passage at Keno Dam. The Keno Dam sits upstream of the dams currently being removed. Nearly 350 miles of additional salmon habitat lie upstream. Both awards are funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act.

“The Yurok people are extremely happy to be witnessing the beginning of the Klamath River’s rebirth,” says Yurok Tribe Fisheries Department Director Barry McCovey. “The dams caused a tremendous amount of damage to the Klamath over the last century. Through the decommissioning project and holistic restoration, we are confident that we will see the Klamath’s salmon, steelhead, and Pacific lamprey runs recover.”

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

9th Circuit hears appeals in Southeast Alaska king salmon troll fishery lawsuit

July 23, 2024 — On Thursday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard cases for and against a lower court ruling that threatened to halt Southeast Alaska’s troll fishery for king or chinook salmon. Although there’s no decision yet, a panel of judges expressed sympathy for the coastal communities that could be hurt by the order.

With an opener the first week of July, Southeast Alaska trollers already got to fish for kings this summer. But the future of their fall season is in the balance at a courtroom over a thousand miles south, in San Francisco, California.

The Alaska Trollers Association, the State of Alaska, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — or NOAA — and other entities appealed a lower court ruling that found NOAA broke the law by letting Southeast trollers catch too many kings — to the detriment of a population of endangered killer whales.

The Washington District Court order would have effectively stopped Southeast trollers from fishing for kings. But the case is now on hold in the appeals process and in the hands of judges Mark Bennett, Anthony Johnstone, and Milan Smith Jr.

Attorney Laura Wolff, who represents the State of Alaska, argued that keeping Southeast king trollers off the water wouldn’t only injure the region’s economy. She said it could demolish an entire way of life.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media