Saving Seafood

For Alaska sockeye salmon, record highs in Bristol Bay, record lows nearly everywhere else

July 10, 2018 — Sockeye salmon catches often add up to half of the value of Alaska’s total salmon fishery, and the so-called reds dominate the season’s early fisheries starting in mid-May.

But sockeye catches so far range from record-setting highs at Bristol Bay to record lows nearly everywhere else.

For example, the Copper River sockeye harvest of just 26,000 is the lowest in 50 years. At Kodiak, just 212,000 sockeyes were taken through July 6, making it the weakest harvest in 38 years. Sockeye fishing at Yakutat has been closed due to the lowest returns in 50 years; likewise, fishermen at Chignik also have yet to see an opener.

Sockeye harvest levels at Cook Inlet and the Alaska Peninsula also are running well below average.

Fishery scientists suspect the downturns are due to the warmest sea-surface temperatures ever recorded running from 2014-2016, which likely depleted food sources before the sockeyes returned from the ocean this year as adults.

Read the full story at Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Copper River harvest includes salmon passing through

June 25, 2018 — A visitor to the seafood department of a major Anchorage retail shop stared with surprise at the neatly wrapped fillet marked as fresh Copper River sockeye salmon.

Was it really a Copper River sockeye?

Seafood suppliers for the store can trace the fish back to where it was caught, but where that fish is really from, what river it was born in, is a more complex question.

If sockeye salmon are anything like Chinook salmon, not all fish caught in the Copper River District originated from natal streams within the Copper River; it’s likely that some fish are just passing through on their way to natal streams elsewhere and were nabbed in the harvest.

“We know from work done with Chinook salmon, that while most of the fish captured in the Copper River district originate from the Copper River, a smaller fraction originates from all over the place,” said Chris Habicht, lab director and principal geneticist at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Anchorage.  “These non-local fish are coming back to their natal streams, but their migratory paths take them through the district.”

“Just because a Chinook salmon originated from a non-Copper River drainage does not preclude it from being legitimately captured in the Copper River District,” he said.

Read the full story at The Cordoba Times

ALASKA: Copper River crash will cost commercial fishermen millions

June 21, 2o18 — Copper River sockeye fishermen are facing historic low returns this year, prompting some commercial fisherman to target other species elsewhere in Prince William Sound, and leaving others waiting onshore in what is usually a profitable fishery to the tune of $15 million or more in ex-vessel value.

Through mid-June, the commercial Copper River District drift gillnet fishery had landed just less than 26,000 sockeye salmon and a little more than 7,000 kings during three mid-May fishing periods. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game had expected a harvest this summer of nearly 1 million sockeye in the district, and about 13,000 kings. As the harvest stands now, it’s the second-lowest in the past 50 years.

The Copper River fish typically fetch a premium price as the first of the season, and this year was no exception, with prices as high as $75 per pound for kings at the Pike’s Place market in Seattle after the May 17 season-opening period.

But the district hasn’t re-opened after the first three periods because the sockeye returns are so poor, so the final value is likely to be far lower than the $20 million-plus the fishery often nets.

ADFG Area Management Biologist Jeremy Botz said it would take a significant improvement for the fishery to re-open.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

ALASKA: The ‘blob’ impacts salmon numbers, stopping fishing on Copper River

June 15, 2018 — The Alaska Department of Fish and Game issued an emergency order Wednesday closing the personal-use and sport fishing for Copper River sockeye around Chitina until further notice.

The closure goes into effect on Monday, June 18th. Commercial fishing stopped on May 28th, and next week the department will determine how the low numbers will effect subsistence fishing.

Area management biologist, Mark Somerville calls the move “unprecedented.”

“It’s the second lowest on record basically in the last 50 years, pretty much since statehood,” Somerville said. “And there’s lots of different reason for it.”

Somerville says a mass of warm temperatures in the Gulf of Alaska and need for more food by the fish are to blame. “That’s the ‘blob’ thing,” Somerville said.

As of June 10, the Copper River weir shows that 154,866 reds have passed the counter since May 18. In the same period last year, 320,484 sockeye had swum up the river.

Alaska is famous for it’s Copper River salmon exports. Mega PR blitz signal the start of the season including Alaska Airlines flying the first fish to Seattle where eager chefs await it with outstretched arms.

The fish glistens with hard-earned fat, after swimming and eating across thousands of miles, from birth in the snow-fed waters of Alaskan rivers to the chilly sea.

Read the full story at KTUU

ALASKA: Dismal Copper River salmon run prompts ‘unprecedented’ shutdown of dipnetting at Chitina

June 14, 2018 — The state is taking the historic action of shutting down Copper River dipnetting at the popular, physically demanding sites around Chitina.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game issued an emergency order Wednesday closing the personal-use fishery until further notice as of Monday.

The state decision comes amid dismal returns of the river’s famed sockeye salmon, usually plentiful enough to fuel not only personal-use and subsistence fisheries but also commercial catches to supply markets and restaurants around the Lower 48.

Biologists blame the “Blob”: a large mass of unusually warm water that lurked in the Gulf of Alaska from 2014 through 2016 when young sockeye returning now swam out to feed.

For the commercial fishery at the Copper River’s mouth, this year’s sockeye catch is the second lowest it’s been in 50 years, after Fish and Game shut down that fishery in late May.

State fish biologists say otherwise there might not be enough sockeye swimming back up the Copper River to spawn and keep the run going strong.

Read the full story at Anchorage Daily News