Saving Seafood

Alan Parks: I’m against Alaska House Bill 52. Here’s why

January 26, 2022 — Rep. Sarah Vance’s Bill HB 52 is irresponsible, anti-commercial fishing, anti-community and presented with false and misleading statements.

HB 52 is about removing approximately 123 acres of land from Kachemak Bay State Park that the Tutka Bay Lagoon Hatchery sits on. And basically, handing the land over to the contractor of thirty years, Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association.

For 38 years, my income primarily came from commercial fishing, we raised a family on fish. I’m not against commercial fishing, or salmon hatcheries, but I am against HB 52 which makes me pro-commercial fishing and pro-community.

Rep. Vance is charging ahead with HB 52 without basic financial information from CIAA, no business plan, profit and loss statement, nothing but a wink and nod.

Read the full opinion piece at the Juneau Empire

What happens when wild salmon interbreed with hatchery fish?

March 21, 2019 — A research project by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game looking at chum and pink salmon runs in Southeast Alaska and Prince William Sound is expanding to help biologists understand the interplay between wild runs and hatchery strays. There is concern that hatchery fish could alter the genetics of wild populations, posing a threat to their survival.

Homer-based Fish and Game biologists Glenn Hollowell and Ted Otis started tracking hatchery fish found in wild streams around Kachemak Bay in 2014. That was around the time when Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association’s Tutka Bay Lagoon Hatchery reopened after several years.

They wanted to examine how well the hatchery pink salmon homed back to the Kachemak Bay facility, but they found something strange: salmon from other hatcheries.

“When we initially started doing this, we were not anticipating finding any Prince William Sound fish in our samples whatsoever. It was just not something we even considered,” Hollowell explained. “We were very surprised to find that a number of our streams had very significant, double-digit numbers (of Prince William Sound hatchery fish) in 2014.”

The Prince William Sound pinks keep showing up each year, and just the idea that hatchery pinks could stray so far has heated up a dispute over the potential harm on wild runs — namely, whether they could alter the genetics of wild populations in a way that would threaten their survival rate.

Read the full story at KTOO

ALASKA: Hatchery debate wages on as research continues

July 13, 2018 — A conflict is intensifying over hatcheries in Prince William Sound.

For the second time this year, Alaska’s Board of Fisheries will weigh an emergency petition to block a Solomon Gulch Hatchery from increasing its production.

This is the latest skirmish in a battle over whether pink salmon hatcheries are causing more harm than good.

“This is the incubation room in here, and what we’re having here is stacks of incubators,” Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association executive director Gary Fandrei said, pointing toward stacks of incubators that look like the drawers to a really large tool chest. “We actually have a total of 359 incubators that we have available to us in here.”

Fandrei gives a tour of the Tutka Bay Lagoon Hatchery near Homer.

The facility will harvest up to 125 million pink salmon eggs this summer. Depending on survival, most of those eggs will hatch in the fall.

Like other pink salmon hatcheries, the one at Tutka Bay has attracted scrutiny in the past couple of years over growing environmental concerns.

Read the full story at KTOO