Saving Seafood

Alaska Cod Fishery Closes And Industry Braces For Ripple Effect

December 9, 2019 — In an unprecedented response to historically low numbers of Pacific cod, the federal cod fishery in the Gulf of Alaska is closing for the 2020 season.

The decision, announced Friday, came as little surprise, but it’s the first time the fishery has closed due to concerns over low stock.

“We’re on the knife’s edge of this over-fished status,” North Pacific Fishery Management Council member Nicole Kimball said during talks in Anchorage.

It’s not over-fishing to blame for the die-off, but rather, climate change.

Warming ocean temperatures linked to climate change have wreaked havoc on a number of Alaska’s fisheries in recent years, decimating stocks and jeopardizing the livelihoods of fishermen and locals alike who rely on the industry.

A stock assessment this fall put Gulf cod populations at a historic low, with “next to no” new eggs, according to Steven Barbeaux, a research biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who authored the report. At their current numbers, cod are below the federal threshold that protects them as a food source for endangered steller sea lions. Once below that line, the total allowable catch goes to zero. In other words, the fishery shuts down.

Read the full story at New England Public Radio

ALASKA: US Gulf of Alaska cod harvesters running out of time

November 29, 2019 — The North Pacific Marine Fisheries Council is reviewing the state of the Pacific cod population in the Gulf of Alaska and most likely will announce that the fishery is being shut down in just a few weeks, advises Alaska Public Media in a recent article.

The cod, a major driver of Kodiak, Alaska’s winter economy, are now below the federal threshold that protects cod as a food source for endangered Stellar sea lions, and don’t look ready to bounce back any time soon.

From their last peak in 2014, at 113,830 metric tons, the level of mature, spawning cod have lost more than half their number in the gulf, according to stock assessment data noted by the news service. The fishery had 46,080t in 2017.

The article blames the beginning of the decline heavily on the emergence of “the blob,” a massive marine heatwave across the Pacific that caused surface ocean temperatures to rise 4 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit between 2014 and 2016.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Pacific halibut scientist warns of lower yields over next three years

November 27, 2019 — Expect lower halibut catches on the Pacific Coast of North America in 2020 and beyond, based on the presentation given Monday at the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC) meeting, in Seattle, Washington, by lead scientist Ian Stewart.

Based on a report by Alaska Fish Radio, Stewart — who was summarizing the outlook for commercial halibut fisheries from Northern California, in the US, and British Columbia, Canada, to the Bering Sea of Alaska — said:

“In short, the model survey trends as you’ve seen from the previous presentations are down both in numbers and weight per unit of effort. And what we’ve seen from the commercial fishery’s CPUE (catch per unit of effort) is we have mixed trends, however relatively flat at the coast-wide levels with some brighter spots and some not so good spots across the coast.”

Stewart said the central Gulf of Alaska (Area 3A) showed the biggest decreases in all measures based, but added that the spawning biomass of the coastwide Pacific halibut stock decreased from 2018 to 2019, as previously predicted.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

ALASKA: Pink salmon disaster relief payments delayed

November 27, 2019 — Federal relief payments to permit holders who participated in the disastrous 2016 Gulf of Alaska pink salmon fishery have hit another snag, and now won’t be forthcoming until March.

News of the payment delay, which was slated to be within six to eight weeks of the Oct. 31 deadline for skipper applications for relief reached Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, on Nov. 15.

Permit holders can now expect to receive their disbursements six to eight weeks after the Jan. 31 deadline, she said.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is in the process of updating information on the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission website to explain the situation and post a new timeline. Permit holders should keep an eye out on psmfc.org for changes.

According to AD&G, the delay was needed because it became apparent to the agency that there was very consistent underreporting by the skippers of crew in certain fisheries.  Additionally, only 65 percent of permit holder applications were returned to the PSMFC, the interstate compact agency named to administer these disaster funds.

Read the full story at The Cordoba Times

ALASKA: Payments For 2016 Pink Salmon Fishery Disaster Delayed

November 21, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Fishermen who were expecting payments from the 2016 Gulf of Alaska pink salmon fishery disaster relief in December will have to wait until March to receive their checks, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Many Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission permit holder applicants misreported their crew percentages or did not list any crew at all, said Karla Bush, the Fish and Game federal fisheries coordinator.

The Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission will delay payments until after the crew member application deadline on Jan. 31.

“I know participants were expecting checks to come six to eight weeks after the Oct. 31 deadline. That’s now going to be pushed back,” Bush said.

The Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission is an interstate agency that helps resource agencies and the fishing industry manage fisheries resources. Member states include Alaska, California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

After crew members send in their applications, Fish and Game will match crew members to the permit holders they work for. Payments will be sent to permit holders and crew at the same time, Bush said.

Payments to crew will be deducted from the permit holder’s total disaster payment based on the crew shares provided in the permit holder’s application.

The amount each permit holder received was calculated by averaging the value of pink salmon caught in even years from 2006 to 2014, minus the value of fish caught in 2016.

However, fishermen were concerned that the payment calculation did not take into account the unique circumstances in the fishing industry.

For example, some fishermen switched from a lower volume gear type to a higher volume gear type. Others had a partial catch history instead of a full or no catch history, causing their payments to be substantially less than others who fished alongside them, according to a letter written by Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak.

To address such issues and review calculations, an appeal process was put in place. Friday was the deadline to appeal.

These payments are part of the $53.8 million approved by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in July to restore losses caused by a poor 2016 salmon season in the Gulf of Alaska. The areas receiving funds are Kodiak, Prince William Sound, Chignik, Lower Cook Inlet, South Alaska Peninsula, Southeast Alaska and Yakutat.

Fishery permit holders and crew will receive $31 million, fish processors will receive $17.7, municipalities will receive $2.4 million and $3.63 million will go to research.

The payments to municipalities will be based on losses of fish taxes, Bush said.

Calculations for municipality payments are not yet available because NOAA is working the office of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget on the approval process.

Municipalities will use the funds for specific projects related to the pink salmon fishery such as projects that support the pink salmon fishing fleet.

“The people at NOAA grants are trying to work with the office of OMB in the White House to see at what level the projects need to be approved,” Bush said. “OMB wants to approve the list of projects that each municipality will put forward themselves. We know that that will cause some additional delays, so we hope those will be approved by Pacific States or NOAA grants and not have to be forwarded all the way to the highest level.”

Fish and Game is also waiting on fishery tax information from the Alaska Department of Revenue as a basis to calculate the payments, Bush said.

The tax information is vital before calculating the payment amount, because the Department of Revenue does a “split between the cities and boroughs and so I would expect the city of Kodiak and the Kodiak Island Borough would be getting a share of those moneys,” Bush said.

To expedite future fisheries disaster funding, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., chairman of the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, sponsored legislation that would reform NOAA’s Fishery Resource Disaster Relief program of the National Marine Fisheries Service to expedite relief for fishermen during fishery disasters.

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

ALASKA: Increase in observer fees has people in the fishing industry questioning how their dollars are being spent

November 11, 2019 — In Kodiak’s Dog Bay harbor Jake Everich is puttering around the galley of his trawler, the Alaskan. He bought his boat in March to fish for rockfish and pollock around the Gulf of Alaska. It’s just under 75 feet — a relatively small operation.

Everich is among the fishermen affected by a recent decision from the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to increase observer fees from 1.25 to 1.65 percent of their catch value. When he sits down at the little galley table with his cup of coffee, he doesn’t seem worried the fee hike will put him under.

“I would say for my own business, no, it’s not that tight that,” he said. “You know, 0.4 percent isn’t gonna put me into bankruptcy.”

He’s clear that he doesn’t speak for all vessel owners when he says that. In an average season Everich’s gross is about half a million dollars, so the bump to observer fees means an extra $20,000 out of his profit margin.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Genetic studies confirm Alaska cod stocks pushing north

October 25, 2019 — Biologists were shocked in 2017 when they found that the numbers of Pacific cod had risen exponentially in the northern Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska. Now, researchers at NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center have used genetic testing to prove that those fish, enabled by warming waters and a lack of sea ice, have moved north from the southeastern Bering Sea.

Surveys as recent as the 1970’s revealed “trace amounts” of cod in the northern Bering Sea, according to a brief released by NOAA. Major Alaska cod fisheries in the past decades have operated in the southeastern Bering Sea, the Aleutian Islands, and the Gulf of Alaska, which meant management biologists conducted only sporadic bottom trawl surveys in the north.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Efforts underway to streamline fisheries disaster relief

October 23, 2019 — With an increasing number of fisheries disaster requests coming from all over the United States, members of Congress and the federal government are looking for ways to improve the relief process.

Summer 2018 brought disappointing results for many fishermen across Alaska, particularly for sockeye salmon fishermen in the central Gulf of Alaska, but only two fisheries were officially granted federal disaster declarations: the 2018 Chignik sockeye salmon run and the 2018 Pacific cod fishery. While many other fishermen at least got a few fish to fill their wallets, Chignik fishermen had virtually no season, and Gulf of Alaska Pacific cod fishermen saw their total allowable catch reduced by 80 percent from 2017 because of low abundance.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced a dozen commercial fishery disaster declarations Sept. 25 for the 2018 calendar year. Congress appropriated $165 million for fisheries disaster relief, to be allocated according to the losses in revenue for the selected fisheries.

It’s the second time in recent years there have been disastrously poor returns to some fisheries. In 2016, the failed pink salmon run across the Gulf of Alaska left many fishermen holding empty nets, particularly in Kodiak and Prince William Sound, resulting in a disaster declaration in 2017 and eventually $56 million in relief funds for stakeholders.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

A fish mystery solved using genetic testing

October 17, 2019 — The population of cod in the Northern Bering Sea has increased immensely since 2010, and scientists are using fish DNA to find out why.

Think of it like a genetic ancestry test, but for fish.

Until recently, pacific cod were rarely found in the Northern Bering Sea. A 2010 survey showed cod made up only three percent of the entire fish population. That’s been changing, fast.

A survey in the summer of 2017 showed that number shot up 900 percent.

Ingrid Spies is a research fisheries biologist who led the way on this research to determine whether the population spike is evidence of a growing population or of an existing population migrating from elsewhere?

One thought was that cod could have migrated from Russia or the Gulf of Alaska, where they observed cod numbers decline significantly in 2017. Scientists were able to come to a conclusive answer to the question using genetic testing.

Read the full story at KTUU

New Seafloor Maps Reveal Habitat Sculpted by Ancient Glaciers

September 24, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

New seafloor maps show for the first time the course of ancient ice masses. They show how they shaped essential habitat for the western Gulf of Alaska’s abundant fish, seabirds, and marine mammals.

Scientists wove together historical and modern data—from century-old hand-drawn charts to modern multibeam surveys. They created a highly detailed view of the seafloor and its geological features. The results will help scientists better understand the habitat requirements of many species and the oceanographic processes that influence their success.

The western Gulf of Alaska is both ecologically and economically important. Shelikof Strait, a major feature of the region, holds special importance as spawning ground for the Gulf’s biggest stock of walleye pollock. Together with other Alaska pollock stocks, they are the target of the world’s largest fishery. Shelikof Strait is also home to rare species like the mysterious Pacific sleeper shark. Within the Gulf of Alaska bottom trawl survey area, almost half of all sleeper shark occurrences are in Shelikof Strait.

Despite its importance, until now much of the western Gulf of Alaska had not been mapped in sufficient detail to describe the geological features of this vital habitat. To create and analyze new maps, NOAA Fisheries and U.S. Geological Survey scientists teamed up to bring together geographical and geological expertise.

Read the full release here