Saving Seafood

Alaska fishermen: Sea otter comeback is eating into profits

May 18, 2018 — ANCHORAGE, Alaska —  Northern sea otters, once hunted to the brink of extinction along Alaska’s Panhandle, have made a spectacular comeback by gobbling some of the state’s finest seafood – and fishermen are not happy about the competition.

Sea otters dive for red sea urchins, geoduck clams, sea cucumbers – delicacies in Asia markets – plus prized Dungeness crab. They then carry their meals to the surface and float on their backs as they eat, sometimes using rocks to crack open clams and crab. The furry marine mammals, which grow as large as 100 pounds (45 kilograms), eat the equivalent of a quarter of their weight each day.

Phil Doherty, head of the Southeast Alaska Regional Dive Fisheries Association, is working to save the livelihood of 200 southeast Alaska fishermen and a $10 million industry but faces an uphill struggle against an opponent that looks like a cuddly plush toy.

Fishermen have watched their harvest shrink as sea otters spread and colonize, Doherty said. Divers once annually harvested 6 million pounds (2.7 million kilograms) of red sea urchins. The recent quota has been less than 1 million pounds (454,000 kilograms).

“We’ve seen a multimillion-dollar fishery in sea urchins pretty much go away,” he said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at WPXI

 

Alaska: Board of Fisheries to begin meeting with crabs, shrimp, clams and squid regulations

January 11, 2018 — The Alaska Board of Fisheries will meet for the next two weeks to decide on fishing regulations for the Southeast and Yakutat regions.

Unlike most years, the Alaska Board of Fisheries is joining both the shellfish and finfish hearings together for a two-week-long meeting in Sitka.

While finfish, such as king salmon, account for a majority of the meeting, the board will start with proposals on shellfish.

The board will consider a proposal regarding Dungeness crab seasons in Southeast.

Proposal 235 would repeal a management plan that’s been in place since 2000. The current plan sets the summer and fall seasons based on catch from the first two weeks of each season.

Last year, that meant the seasons were reduced by half. The proposal would set both seasons at two-months each.

“This seems like a good plan to update the fishery due to the loss of are due to sea otters,” said Joel Randrup, vice chair of Petersburg’s Fish and Game Advisory committee.

Committee chair Max Worhatch recommended the proposal to the Board of Fisheries.

The Petersburg committee voted in support of this proposal, as did Wrangell’s Advisory committee.

“If you have a two-month season, and if you only take the males and only 6-and-a-half inches you still leave enough breeding males on the ground to replenish the population,” said Wrangell chair Chris Guggenbickler.

Guggenbickler said sea mammals, mostly otters, are eating the crabs, reducing the stock. And regulations have responded by limiting areas to crabbers.

Read the full story at KTOO Public Media