Saving Seafood

Canadian Government Invests in Research Assessing Impact of Oil on Pacific Salmon

December 17, 2020 — The Government of Canada announced on Tuesday $349,948 in funding will be provided to the University of Guelph for a “two-year research project to evaluate how Coho salmon, in the early stages of life, are impacted when exposed to diluted bitumen (dilbit) – a crude oil found in natural oil sands deposits that is mixed with a lighter diluent.”

The Honourable Bernadette Jordan, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard announced the funding and explained that the research builds on previous University of Guelph projects looking at impacts dilbit exposure has on salmon.

Read the full story at Seafood News

PFMC: Southern Oregon/Northern California Coast Coho Workgroup to host online meeting January 5, 2021

December 7, 2020 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The Pacific Fishery Management Council’s Southern Oregon/Northern California Coast (SONCC) Coho Workgroup will host an online meeting that is open to the public.  The meeting will be held Tuesday, January 5, 2021 from 9 a.m., Pacific Standard Time, until 5 p.m., or until business for the day has been completed.

Please see the SONCC Workgroup online meeting notice on the Council’s website for purpose and participation details.

For further information:

  • Please contact Pacific Fishery Management Council staff Mike Burner at 503-820-2414; toll-free 1-866-806-7204.

NOAA Veterans Corps: Progress By The Numbers

November 12, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The NOAA Veterans Corps provides opportunities for military veterans to build their skills and work experience contributing to habitat and fisheries restoration projects.

Through strong partnerships, the year-long paid training program for veterans includes marine and freshwater restoration for native fish and other natural resources. Participants also conduct research and monitoring to track the progress of fish restoration projects and fish populations. These efforts are helping different threatened and endangered species recover, including:

Here are a few key metrics to help understand the NOAA Veterans Corps partnerships impact.

  • 8 years: Established in California in 2012, NOAA Veterans Corps partnerships have grown ever since.
  • 3 states: We now have veterans corps partnerships in California, Oregon and Washington. Each state has a unique experience for veterans, with different levels of field, research and community outreach opportunities to help prepare them for longer-term careers in resource management.
  • 22 partners: Throughout those states, we’re working with partners to help shape the unique veterans corps experiences.
  • 50+ veterans: In 2020, we have 14 veterans participating, and more than 50 have participated since the partnerships started in 2012. Many of these veterans furthered their education and gotten jobs in state and tribal natural resource agencies. A recent Washington participant even got hired to work at NOAA!

Read the full release here

ALASKA: 2020 Salmon harvest in Southeast less than half of previous year’s

November 10, 2020 — Southeast Alaska’s salmon harvest was less than half of last year’s haul. That’s according to a preliminary report from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game released on Monday.

Commercial fishermen in Southeast harvested just over 14.3 million salmon across the five species this year — almost 5 million chum salmon, 8 million pinks and 1.1 million coho. For sockeye, the harvest was about 373,000 and 200,000 Chinook.

That’s a drop in harvest for every species except Chinook — also known as king salmon — which increased by a few thousand fish this year. In other words, Southeast’s total salmon harvest was 19 million fewer fish than last year.

The preliminary ex-vessel value of Southeast’s 2020 salmon fishery was just over $50 million dollars. That’s less than half of 2019’s estimated value, and the third consecutive year that Southeast’s value paid to fishermen has dropped.

Read the full story at KSTK

ALASKA: Disaster Declaration for SE Fisheries Sought

October 6, 2020 — Five Southeast legislators are calling on Gov. Dunleavy to seek a federal fisheries disaster declaration for Southeast because of poor harvests and low prices.

“Reports from the Southeast commercial fishing fleets indicate a dismal year for salmon returns in the region. There has also been a significant drop in prices fishermen get from processors. This, paired with reduced economic opportunity caused by COVID-19, has led many of our communities to request declarations of economic disaster,” the legislators said in a letter to the governor.

Read the full story at Seafood News

New Videos Put Restitution to Work for Imperiled Coho Salmon

October 2, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Coho salmon once supported a wealth of tribal, commercial, and recreational fisheries along the West Coast. Today some populations of the swift silvery fish are nearing extinction. The good news? We can reverse that decline, as biologists and others demonstrate in a new video series that offers hope for California’s endangered fish and wildlife species.

The video series was produced in collaboration with state and federal fish and wildlife agencies with a community service payment made by a real estate development company. The company pleaded guilty in 2016 in a federal criminal case involving the endangered California tiger salamander. In a separate but related case, the owner of the development company agreed to protect a 107-acre ranch in Contra Costa County that provides habitat for endangered species.

The Saving Species Together video series and a supporting website highlight collaborative efforts to recover endangered species including:

  • California tiger salamander
  • San Joaquin kit fox
  • Western snowy plover
  • Southern Oregon/Northern California Coast coho salmon

“When we collaborate, we can make very real progress in protecting these species,” said Bob Pagliuco, a NOAA Fisheries habitat restoration specialist. He worked with Humboldt Redwood Company and Trout Unlimited to build an off-channel pond for juvenile coho in the Eel River Watershed. The coho salmon video tells how a supportive landowner helped return fish to their historic habitat. “The educational campaign launched by these videos is a way to help the public understand how habitat destruction affects species and how we can protect habitats to save these species.”

Read the full release here

Southern Oregon/Northern California Coast Coho Technical Workgroup to hold online meeting August 6-7, 2020

July 8, 2020 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The online meeting will be held Thursday, August 6 through Friday, August 7, 2020; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Pacific Daylight Time each day.  The meeting times are an estimate; the meeting will adjourn when business for the day is complete.

Please see the SONCC Workgroup online meeting notice on the Council’s website for purpose and participation details.

For further information:

  • Please contact Pacific Fishery Management Council staff officer Robin Ehlke at 503-820-2410; toll-free 1-866-806-7204

Alaska’s 2020 salmon catch expected to be down 36% after a big 2019 season

April 22, 2020 — Alaska’s total salmon catch for 2020 is projected to be down 36 percent from last year’s haul of 207 million fish, the eighth largest on record that was valued at nearly $658 million at the docks.

In the Run Forecasts and Harvest Projections and Review of the 2019 Season just released by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, managers are calling for a harvest of just under 133 million salmon across Alaska. The decline is driven by a much lower forecast for those hard-to-predict pink salmon of just over 60 million fish, down nearly 53 percent.

Here are the salmon harvest forecasts and outlooks for most Alaska regions:

A catch of 4.2 million coho salmon is projected this year, a 300,000 fish increase. For chums, a catch of 19.5 million would be a drop of 100,000 fish.

For sockeye salmon, a harvest forecast of just over 48 million compares to 55.5 million reds taken in Alaska last year, or a drop of 13.3 percent.

A run of nearly 50 million sockeyes is expected to surge into Bristol Bay’s nine river systems, 6 percent higher than the 10 year average. That should produce a catch of 37 million reds, down from nearly 42 million last year.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Endangered coho salmon preservation an upstream battle in California

March 13, 2020 — The endangered coho salmon of Tomales Bay, north of San Francisco, are getting assistance from a stream restoration effort that could help rescue them from near-extinction locally.

Through the project, fish ecologists hope they can restore habitat to rebuild decimated populations of the historic fish, which once was a staple of indigenous diets and later California commercial fishing.

Central California coast coho salmon formerly were plentiful on the West Coast, but the population has shrunk so low that the fish is listed as endangered in California, Oregon and Washington under the federal Endangered Species Act. It is now illegal to catch coho salmon in California. Cohos are not protected in Alaska.

The fishes’ spawning grounds are becoming hard to find. Unlike Chinook salmon, which lay eggs in rushing rivers, coho prefer small streams.

Read the full story at UPI