Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Strong harvests, more oversight marked 2016 groundfish fisheries

January 23, 2017 — Last year was a good year overall for groundfish fisheries in the region.

With a few standout harvests and favorable proposals with the Board of Fisheries, managers are feeling optimistic heading into the new year.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game oversees several groundfish fisheries within the Cook Inlet Management Area, which extends outside of Kachemak Bay to the north Gulf coast.

“These fisheries include Pacific cod, sablefish, a directed pelagic shelf rockfish fishery, lingcod, and a small commissioner’s permit Pollock fishery,” said Jan Rumble, Fish and Game area groundfish management biologist.

Pacific cod stood out in 2016 as it was open all year long for pot and jig gear in either a parallel or state waters fishery, Rumble said.

Despite the extended opening, the state waters fishery only reached 83 percent of its guideline harvest level, or GHL.

Read the full story at KTOO

Comment Federal judge tosses another fisheries management rule

December 9th, 2016 — Federal judges keep smacking down the North Pacific Fishery Management Council’s decisions.

For the second time in the last three months, a federal court has overturned a management decision made by the North Pacific council and enacted by the National Marine Fisheries Service, or NMFS. The United States District Court of Washington overturned a 2011 decision relating to halibut quota shares harvested by hired skippers on Nov. 16.

Federal courts have overturned several council decisions in recent years. In September, a the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the council’s 2011 decision to remove Cook Inlet, Prince William Sound and Alaska Peninsula salmon fisheries from federal oversight.

In this case, the North Pacific council made a decision in 2011 regarding which halibut quota holders can use a hired skipper instead of being required to be on board the vessel. Due to the court’s ruling, NOAA will have to open that group back up after limiting it in 2011.

Julie Speegle, the NMFS Alaska Region spokesperson, said the agency will change the impacted halibut fishermen’s quota shares to reflect the court’s ruling and that the council itself will review the issue.

Read the full story at the Juneau Empire 

VOICES OF ALASKA: Alaskans must unite to protect salmon

November 25, 2016 — As commercial, sport and personal use fishermen, we often have passionate disagreements about decisions that must be made regarding the management of our salmon. But today we are uniting as residents of our Nation’s last great salmon state by asking the Alaska Board of Fisheries to take action to protect the fish that is so intimately tied to our identity, culture and economy.

Whether it’s making a living by set netting for wild salmon in Cook Inlet, feeling the thrill of a silver salmon leaping at the end of your line, or experiencing the satisfaction of filling your freezer with salmon that will feed your family all winter; salmon are an essential part of life for so many of us in Alaska.

Unfortunately the primary law that is designed to protect the rivers and streams which salmon rely on hasn’t been updated since statehood and leaves our salmon resource — and the jobs, culture, food, recreation and economic activity it creates – at risk. If we do not take the opportunity now to update this law, we stand to repeat the mistakes that have decimated salmon runs throughout the rest of the country and lose one of the top reasons Alaska is such a special place to call home.

This law is known as “Title 16,” and is Alaska’s fish habitat permitting law. Currently, the law contains only two sentences guiding how decisions are made on development projects that could harm salmon habitat. These projects include proposals like Pebble Mine and Chuitna Coal, where a company proposes strip mining through nearly 14 miles of wild salmon stream.

Read the full op-ed at the Peninsula Clarion

Cook Inlet Fishermen Tell N. Pacific Council They Have Lost Faith in Alaska’s Salmon Management

October 18th, 2016 — Concerned fishermen gathered at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council’s October meeting in Anchorage to discuss a recent federal court decision that turns control of salmon fisheries in Cook Inlet, Prince William Sound and the Alaska Peninsula over to state management.

Though stakeholders brought their suggestions, the council did not direct its staff to any action related to the subject of a salmon FMP. Instead, the council reiterated that the decision will be remanded back to the lower court where it could either be appealed or produce a directive for the council to write a salmon FMP.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council governs federal fisheries, which take place from three to 200 miles offshore.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Southern fisheries earn win in federal court

September 26th, 2016 — A federal appeals court has ruled in favor of a state commercial fishing organization that challenged a decision to move several southern Alaska salmon fisheries from federal to state management.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday overturned the decision by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. The ruling means the case will go back to U.S. Alaska District Court and that federal fisheries policymakers will have to work with state managers on a new management plan, The Alaska Journal of Commerce reported.

The United Cook Inlet Drift Association sued over the council’s 2011 decision to remove Cook Inlet, Prince William Sound and Alaska Peninsula salmon fisheries from the federal fisheries management plan. The 2013 suit was initially rejected by District Court Judge Timothy Burgess. But the group appealed, arguing that the state’s plan doesn’t adhere to the same high standards as federal rules.

Federal fisheries management plans must be in line with the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which require fisheries managers to consider optimum yield, best available science, equitable allocations and community health among other factors.

The Cook Inlet group called the appeals court ruling a win for Alaska’s fishermen and the health of the resource.

 

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Juneau Empire 

KARL JOHNSTONE: Federal management of Cook Inlet fisheries would be a step back

May 11, 2016 — Were U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens alive today, he would be shocked to discover Alaska commercial fishermen (see commentary by United Cook Inlet Drift Association President Dave Martin, published by Alaska Dispatch News April 24) want to use the federal legislation he co-authored — the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act — to bring federal overreach to Cook Inlet only miles from the state’s largest city.

The now 40-year-old act booted foreign fishermen out of the 200-mile fisheries zone of the Alaska coast and led to the restoration of depleted fisheries, as detailed in a commentary published by ADN April 12. But the feds continue to struggle with how to manage bycatch in what are now domestic offshore fisheries.

Alaska salmon managers, on the other hand, have been successfully dealing with bycatch problems since statehood. Sometimes facing threats from commercial fishermen, they cleaned up mixed-stock fisheries that had decimated salmon stocks throughout the northern Panhandle.

In Cook Inlet, they wrote the book on best management for mixed-stock, mixed-species management that weighs commercial and noncommercial fishing interests. The reason the feds elected to delegate to the state all authority for salmon management, not only in Cook Inlet but also on the Alaska Peninsula and Prince William Sound, is not what Martin claims, not as some desire to dodge a role in moderating the inevitable fish wars that surround commercial, subsistence, personal use and sport allocations. The reason the feds took themselves out of the picture is they realize the state is already doing a better job than they could do.

Read the full opinion piece at Alaska Dispatch News

Upcoming hearings could change Alaska’s salmon fisheries forever

August 9, 2015 — Two hearings this month could change the face of Alaska’s salmon fisheries forever.

On August 21, the Department of Natural Resources will hear both sides on competing claims to water rights for salmon streams at Upper Cook Inlet’s Chuitna River or to a proposed coal mine. If DNR opts for the mine, the decision would set a state precedent.

“It would be the first time in Alaska’s state history that we would allow an Outside corporation to mine completely through a salmon stream,” said Bob Shavelson, a director at Cook Inlet Keeper. “And the sole purpose is to ship coal to China. It is really a very dangerous precedent, because if they can do it here in Cook Inlet they will be able to do it anywhere in the state.”

Cook Inlet Keeper, along with the Chuitna Citizens Coalition and Alaska Center for the Environment, requested the hearing. They want to protect spawning tributaries of the salmon-rich Chuitna; PacRim Coal of Delaware and Texas wants to dewater the streams and dig Alaska’s largest coal mine.

DNR Water Resources Chief Dave Schade agreed that the decision is precedent setting, and it comes down to “saying yes to one applicant, and no to the other.”

The hearing is scheduled for August 21 at the US Federal Building Annex in Anchorage. Testimony is limited to participants in the case and no public comments are scheduled to be taken. A decision by DNR is expected on or before October 9.

Following the water rights hearing will be oral arguments before the Alaska Supreme Court on August 26 on the setnet ban proposed for Cook Inlet and five other “urban, non-subsistence” Alaska regions.

Read the full story from Sit News