Saving Seafood

ALASKA: More than 70 million sockeye salmon expected in Bristol Bay next year, potentially busting this year’s record

December 8, 2021 — If the forecasts are close to accurate, this year’s Bristol Bay sockeye run won’t be a record for long.

Biology teams with University of Washington and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game both expect more than 70 million sockeye to return to Bristol Bay for the first time in recorded history.

Daniel Schindler, a biologist with UW’s Alaska Salmon Program, said multiple factors in the university’s record run forecast bolster its credibility. For one, all of the Bay’s nine large river systems are predicted to do very well, rather than just one or two forecasted to have outsized sockeye returns. The fact that the 2022 run will be on the heels of an inshore run of approximately 66.1 million sockeye — the all-time record — which provides researchers more to go on as well, according to Schindler.

Both the UW and Fish and Game forecasts are a weighted average of several models that use what are known as sibling relationships to formulate predictions, largely based on how many salmon of certain age classes returned in prior years.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

 

On the Water in Alaska, Where Salmon Fishing Dreams Live On

April 19, 2021 — My camera lens is pressed against the window of the small floatplane as it flies below a thick ceiling of clouds. The mist clings to the hillsides of a temperate rainforest that descend steeply to the rocky coastline of southeast Alaska.

The plane banks, and a tiny village comes into view. A scattering of houses are built on stilts on the water’s edge. We circle and I see fishing boats tied up next to a large dock and a floating post office. The pilot throttles down and the pontoons skim across the glassy water inside the bay. We taxi to the public dock and I step out in front of the Point Baker general store.

Life along the Alaska coast is economically and culturally dependent on fishing. Each summer, millions of salmon — after maturing in the ocean — begin their journey back to the rivers in which they were spawned. Fishermen, along with whales, eagles and bears, share in the abundance.

Alaska is home to five species of Pacific salmon. These fish are anadromous; they begin their lives in freshwater rivers and lakes and eventually make their way down rivers and into the ocean. Depending on the species, salmon may spend between about one and seven years in the ocean before beginning their journey home to the freshwater where they were born.

The ability of salmon to find their way home is one of nature’s greatest miracles. Among other navigational aids, salmon can detect a single drop of water from its home stream mixed in 250 gallons of saltwater.

Read the full story at The New York Times

Washington state salmon report offers warning to Alaska

February 17, 2021 — A report on Washington state’s dwindling wild salmon populations offers a warning to Alaska, where several stocks have registered concerning declines over the past years.

Washington’s 2020 State of the Salmon in Watersheds report chronicled a bleak panorama, with 14 of the state’s species listed as endangered. While conversation efforts have succeeded in revitalizing some salmon runs in Washington, the report said fish stocks in the Pacific Northwest face an uphill battle.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ALASKA: At Pacific Marine Expo, Pebble worries dominate discussion

December 5, 2019 — Over 500 vendors exhibited at the 2019 Pacific Marine Expo in Seattle in late November. For commercial fishermen, processors and small businesses, it’s the place to be.

The expo was winding down on Saturday morning. But Naknek fisherman Reba Temple was causing a stir with her unusual get-up, made of the mesh netting that salmon tenders use to collect a catch.

“It’s made out of scraps of brailer material. So there’s grommets and mesh brailer material and black straps, and it’s a ballgown,” she said.

Temple said the expo is a great place to catch up with the people and the products in the industry.

“Everyone’s here, you can talk to your processors, you can talk to your friends, see hydraulic pumps cut open so you actually know how they work,” she said.

Stickers and signs saying NO PEBBLE MINE adorned booths, as they have for the past decade. The mine would tap large copper and gold deposits near the headwaters of two major river systems in Bristol Bay. And as the Trump administration breathes new life into the project, many people here are worried.

“Nothing in the world has zero risk — especially when you have a mine of this size with the existing data that show very definitively that there will be impacts,” said Daniel Schindler, director of the University of Washington’s Alaska Salmon Program.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Study on salmon ear stones cited by EPA in Pebble draft EIS comments

July 9, 2019 — On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency released its formal comment on the draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Pebble Mine.

The 100-page release pointed to a bevy of environmental studies that highlight potential harm to land, water and animals in the Bristol Bay region — consequences that the EPA claims were not fully considered in the draft EIS from the Army Corps of Engineers.

One of those studies focused on the growth and development of young salmon in a region with the largest wild sockeye run in the world.

One of the study’s co-authors, Daniel Schindler, said his findings show that the waters where young sockeye and Chinook salmon grow and develop can shift from year to year. Essentially, even rivers and streams that don’t serve as homes for young fish now, may do just that in the future.

“Certain parts of the habitat do well in some years,” Schindler said. “And other parts of the habitat do better in other years. So it’s really the intact nature of the whole Nushagak watershed that produces such reliable returns to the fishery.”

Read the full story at KTOO

ALASKA: Opposition to Pebble Strong at Anchorage USACE Hearing

April 19, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — At the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers hearing in Anchorage yesterday, there wasn’t enough time to hear everyone who had to speak. Dozens of people remained to testify as the hearing closed. Two-thirds of the public comments given were opposed to the Pebble mine plan and the Draft Environmental Impact Statement.

A press conference prior to the hearing brought Bristol Bay tribes, lodge owners, salmon ecologists, fishermen and other scientists together to call for a better process.

“Bristol Bay residents are outraged that we have been dealing with Pebble for more than a decade. We are sick and tired of the greed and the lies,” said Gayla Hoseth, second chief of the Curyung Tribal Council and director of natural resources for the Bristol Bay Native Association.

“Yet we are here again to comment on an inadequate draft EIS based on Pebble’s incomplete application to build a mine in our pristine environment, because we want to protect this last wild salmon run on earth as it exists today, for this generation and for future generations,” she said.

Dr. Daniel Schindler, professor of Aquatic and Fishery Science at the University of Washington, agreed with Hoseth.

“The reality is, if you put garbage into [an EIS] process, you get garbage out of a process. And what we’re looking at here with the Draft EIS is one that distinctly underestimates risks to fish, to water, and to people. It is junk. The draft EIS should be thrown out. It makes some critical assumptions that basically make it an illegitimate assessment of risks to fish and water and people in Bristol Bay.”

Melanie Brown, a fourth generation Naknek River setnetter, was angry with the way members of the fishing industry have been treated by Pebble and the Corps of Engineers.

”They come in there with nothing to lose, selling a fantasy that we can dig a giant acid-generating pit upstream of some of the most prolific salmon habitat in the world and somehow the fish will be better for it,” Brown said.

“Rushing forward and disregarding the real and thoughtful concerns of those of us with everything to lose is not how the public process should be handled. Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay are proud to join thousands of Alaskans who have come out time and time again to save Bristol Bay from this ridiculous proposal.”

Earlier this month, Pebble Partnership admitted to financing a lawsuit brought by six fishermen against the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association, an association of which each plaintiff is a member.

BBRSDA’s most recent response to the suit called it a “desperate attempt to muzzle a fishermen’s organization during the Pebble mine’s public comment period, which ends on May 30. Most importantly, the projects in question fall within our statutory purposes and advance our mission of maximizing the value of the Bristol Bay fishery.”

The post on the BBRSDA’s website noted that Mike Heatwole, a spokesman for Pebble, said the mining developer agreed to fund the lawsuit because the fishermen have limited funds.

“Ironically, the complaint alleges that BBRSDA’s actions related to the Pebble Mine negatively impacts the plaintiffs, when in fact we strongly believe it benefits their fishing businesses,” the post reads.

“We’d like people to understand that the BBRSDA is more than just seafood advertising. We were created as a Development association, not just a Marketing association or an Advertising non-profit.

“Our primary purpose is the promotion of regional seafood products and like our namesake, the word ‘promote’ has a broad definition: ‘to contribute to the growth or prosperity of.’ We undertake a variety of activities that fit within our statutory purposes and collectively function to raise the value of the fishery.

“Scrutinizing plans for an enormous open-pit mine at the headwaters of this fishery, which could seriously damage the marketability and abundance of this fishery, clearly seeks to protect this fishery’s prosperity. We are also very concerned the mine will cause reputational damage to the fishery, undermining our substantial ongoing investment in branding and marketing Bristol Bay sockeye,” the group said.

This year’s harvest for sockeye salmon at Bristol Bay is projected to be 28 million fish. Noting the current value of Bristol Bay salmon, the association acknowledged what is behind it.

“Investments made by fishermen, processors, and the BBRSDA in marketing, quality, and sustainability are paying off and meeting the mission of maximizing fishery value. The value of Bristol Bay sockeye averaged $156 million from 2012-2016, but exceeded $270 million in each of the past two years,” the group wrote on the BBRSDA website.

“This is the most valuable wild salmon fishery in the world. It has a terrific opportunity to occupy a large, premium niche in the global salmon market, and we are working to realize that future. The Pebble Mine seriously threatens this fishery’s bright future,” they concluded.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.