Saving Seafood

Expedition planned to better understand Gulf of Alaska salmon stocks

November 27, 2018 — Richard Beamish, a scientist recently retired from Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, is planning an expedition across the Gulf of Alaska to better understand changes in salmon stocks.

Beamish, who is being financially supported by fish farm operators, said that scientists do not fully comprehend the rising and falling of wild salmon stocks. Beamish said the contract for the expedition had not yet been signed but that funding for his proposal had been recently secured. Beamish declined to specifically name which salmon farmers were backing the project.

“We still don’t know the mechanisms that allow us to accurately forecast salmon,” Beamish said during an aquaculture industry conference in Campbell River, British Columbia, Canada.

Beamish proposes a group of scientist trawl for salmon in the Gulf of Alaska and take and use DNA samples to determine the salmon’s origin, allowing them to estimate their abundance in the region.

“No one has ever done this in the Gulf of Alaska, where the bulk of our salmon are in the winter,” he said.

Because the study would involve a huge area of ocean which is vital to British Columbia salmon stocks, the project has the support of the Canadian government as well as other governments. Beamish indicated that a teams of scientists from nations including South Korea, Japan, Russia, The United States, and Canada would be involved. A Russian vessel would be used for the survey, at a cost of USD 900,000, (EUR 785,719) he said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Alaska Pollock Spawning Season May be Earlier Under Climate Change

November 16, 2018 — A new study using an unprecedented 32-year data series reveals that spawning time of Alaska pollock– target of the Nation’s biggest fishery– varied by as much as three weeks over the past three decades in the Gulf of Alaska. The new study found clear evidence that the changes were driven by both climate and fishing.

Changes in spawn timing have major ecological and management implications. Timing is critical to survival of newly hatched fish as it determines the conditions they encounter. Many marine fish, like pollock, are adapted to spawn in time for offspring to meet the rapid increase of their plankton prey in spring. If they arrive too early, there may not be enough food; if they arrive too late, the young fish will have less time to grow and will be small compared to their predators and competitors.

Because most mortality happens during the first few weeks of life for pollock, changes in spawn timing that affect larval survival can strongly affect recruitment success–how many fish are available to the fishery two or three years later.

“To effectively monitor and manage pollock populations, managers need to understand what causes changes in spawn timing. With ongoing warming of the world’s oceans,we need to know how changing climate conditions interact with other processes, like harvesting, to influence spawning time,” says Lauren Rogers, the NOAA Fisheries biologist who led the study.

Toward that end, Rogers’ team investigated how pollock spawn timing has shifted over warm and cool periods and large shifts in age structure in the Gulf of Alaska.

“The strength of our study is comprehensive information from an amazing 32-year time series of larval fish size, age, and abundance, validated with maturation data from spawning females, and combined with at-sea process studies, laboratory experiments, and age readings. Using these resources, we were able to test for effects of climate and age structure on both mean spawn timing and duration, and forecast spawn timing under different scenarios of warming and fishing mortality,” Rogers says.

The Study Produced Two Major Findings

Warmer Temperatures Mean Earlier and Longer Spawning–To a Point

Climate clearly drives variation in spawn timing of walleye pollock, with warmer temperatures leading to an earlier and longer spawning period. However, above a threshold temperature, increased warming had no additional effect on spawn timing.

“Because temperatures are projected to be consistently above that threshold with ongoing ocean warming, our results suggest that pollock spawn timing will become more stable in the future,” says Rogers.

Older, Bigger Mothers Spawn Earlier and Over a Longer Duration

An older spawning population started spawning earlier and over a longer duration than a population of predominantly young spawners, highlighting the importance of older mothers.

This is where fishing comes in: harvesting leads to a younger, smaller population over time. In general, increased mortality reduces the mean age of a population, and this effect is strengthened if older individuals are targeted through size selective harvesting. Besides direct effects of harvesting on age structure, fishing may cause evolutionary change by selecting for reproductive maturation at an earlier age or smaller size.

“Our models suggest that changes in pollock age structure associated with sustainable fishing can shift the mean spawning date to 7 days later and shorten the spawning season by 9 days compared to an unfished population, independent of climate conditions.” says Rogers.

That shift could cause young fish to arrive out of sync with their food in two ways: by decoupling the arrival of first feeding fish larvae from temperature-driven changes in plankton production; and by reducing the window over which young fish are delivered into the ecosystem, thus increasing the risk of mismatch with plankton production.

As age of the spawning population increases, spawning begins earlier (a). Warmer temperatures mean earlier spawning to a point around 4 ℃; above that temperature, spawning time levels out (b).

As age of the spawning population increases, spawning begins earlier (a). Warmer temperatures mean earlier spawning to a point around 4 ℃; above that temperature, spawning time levels out (b).

Spawn Timing and the Future

“Our models suggest that climate change will lead to an earlier, stabilized spawning season in the future.” Rogers says. “What we don’t know is how that will affect synchrony of first-feeding larvae with production of their zooplankton prey in spring.”

Rogers hopes future research will answer that question. “We are looking at ways to evaluate match-mismatch with prey by comparing prey and larval fish production.” She also hopes to develop the model into a practical forecasting tool. “If we could use climate and age composition data to predict spawn timing 3-4 months ahead, the forecast could be used to make sure surveys are optimally timed to coincide with peak spawning periods.”

Lack of ice in Bering Sea casts uncertainty over future of Alaska fish stocks

November 14, 2018 — Last winter, something unprecedented happened in Alaska. For the first time on record, there was no sea ice in the northern Bering Sea, and biologists are now scrambling to figure out how that will affect scores of area fisheries – from crab to salmon to rockfish to various pelagic stocks – in the coming years.

Because there are few fisheries in the northern Bering Sea, historically it has not been subject to as much surveying as the southeastern Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska. But the boundary between the north and south – set at around 60 degrees north – is for research purposes, and stocks migrate freely over that boundary.

According to Diana Stram, a fisheries analyst and management plan coordinator at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council for the past 16 years, warming waters have highlighted the increasing connectivity between the two sides of the boundary.

“We’ve had the warm blob in the Gulf of Alaska, which caused the huge Gulf cod decline, in addition to the extremely warm waters this year in the Bering Sea, and that has caused a lot of species to move north. So we’re seeing these warm water masses pushing fish north and meanwhile increasing metabolic demands in fish and causing higher mortality,” Stram told SeafoodSource.

When fish like cod and pollock head north, it’s the sea ice that pushes them back down, Stram said. Without that ice, biologists are left in the dark, unsure where stocks end up.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Alaska’s Seafood Industry Faces the Blob

November 5, 2018 — Challenging statewide salmon harvests have dominated head­lines, with record-high sockeye production in Bristol Bay being the state’s primary saving grace. However, salmon are not the only fish in the sea keeping the state’s fisheries afloat, with many fishermen relying on groundfish, herring, and miscellaneous shellfish to make ends meet. Some fishermen use alternative fisheries as a way to balance their portfolios, while others focus entirely on a single target species ranging from Dungeness crab to sablefish. “In a typical year, Alaska’s most valuable fisheries [measured by value of harvest] include salmon, pollock, Pacific cod, crab, halibut, and black cod,” says Garrett Evridge, an economist with McDowell Group, an Alaska-based research firm.

In 2017, salmon was the most valuable fish group. Harvest of all five salmon species totaled more than $781 million in ex-vessel value, the amount paid to fishermen for their catch. However, Evridge notes that 2018 has been a disappointing year for many salmon fisheries, a statewide concern.

“Salmon across the state have come in weaker than forecast, particularly in the North Gulf of Alaska,” says Bert Lewis, the Central Region supervisor of the Division of Commercial Fisheries for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG). “In the region I work, we saw some of the lowest returns of sockeye salmon in recent history with the exception of Bristol Bay, where we had the biggest run on record.”

The sockeye salmon harvest is estimated to be 37 percent of the recent ten-year average, making it the smallest since 1975—all other smaller harvests date back to the 1800s.

The “blob”—a warm water anomaly that washed into the Gulf of Alaska in 2015—is thought to be the culprit. With most sockeye salmon spending three years in the ocean, those returning this year initially swam out into warmer waters, which researchers speculate disrupted the food webs that support the salmon, decreasing their survivorship and resulting in poor returns this year.

“That concept is supported by the record return we saw in Bristol Bay, with close to 65 million sockeye returning that, in 2015, came out into the Bering Sea, which did not have this warm-water anomaly,” Lewis says.

However, poor harvests weren’t limited to sockeye: Chinook, chum, and pink numbers all came in low.

“In the Southeast, total salmon harvest will be about 30 percent of the recent ten-year average, due primarily to poor pink salmon run, since pink salmon usually make up most of the harvest,” says Steve Heinl, a regional research biologist for ADFG in Southeast.

“Pink salmon harvest is 19 percent of the recent ten-year average and the smallest since 1976,” Heinl says. “Pink harvest will be less than half of the harvest in 2016 [18.4 million fish], which spurred a formal declaration of disaster.”

Levels are well below ADFG’s forecast of 23 million pink salmon, though only slightly below the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast of 10 million to 23 million.

As of late August, chum salmon harvest to date was 69 percent of the recent ten-year average; Chinook harvest was at 30 percent of recent ten-year average; and coho harvest was on track to be lowest in thirty years, says Heinl.

Though state numbers are low, harvest success varied dramatically among systems. In Southeast, there were excellent Sockeye runs at Chilkoot Lake and Redoubt Lake, which stood in stark contrast to poor runs in places such as Situk River, where the fishery was closed for most of the season.

Read the full story at Alaska Business

 

Alaska salmon hatchery critics call for decreased caps

October 5, 2018 — Salmon that begin their lives in Alaska hatcheries often save the day for thousands of fishermen when returns of wild stocks are a bust. This year was a prime example, when pinks and chums that originated in hatcheries made up for record shortfalls for fishing towns in the Gulf of Alaska.

“This year Kodiak hatchery fish added more than $6 million for fishermen, and also for sport fish, subsistence and personal use fisheries,” said Tina Fairbanks, director of the Kodiak Regional Aquaculture Association, in testimony to the Kodiak Island Borough after one of the Island’s poorest salmon seasons.

But Alaska’s hatchery program, which has operated since the early 1970s, is under assault by critics who claim the fish are jeopardizing survival of wild stocks.

A Kenai sportfishing group said in statements to the state Board of Fisheries that “massive releases of pinks from Prince William Sound hatcheries threaten wild sockeye and Chinook salmon” bound for their region. An individual from Fairbanks is calling for a decreased cap on how many pink salmon some hatcheries are allowed to release to the ocean each year.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

ALASKA: Heavy nets, and wallets, for Bristol Bay and Norton Sound fishermen

September 28, 2018 — Despite poor salmon runs dominating the news across the Gulf of Alaska, fishermen in Bristol Bay and western Alaska brought home heavy nets and wallets this year.

Salmon runs in Bristol Bay and Norton Sound arrived in force and smashed records — again. It’s the second year in a row that runs have come in exceptionally large in the two areas.

Bristol Bay measured an inshore run of 62.3 million sockeye, the largest run since 1893 and more than 69 percent greater than the 20-year average run of 36.9 million. It’s the fourth year in a row that Bristol Bay inshore runs have topped 50 million, and this year came in far above the preseason forecast of 51.3 million fish.

Set and drift gillnet fishermen brought in a total harvest of 41.3 million, the second-highest harvest on record, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s year-end season summary for the area. On top of that, prices stayed significantly higher than usual as the supply flooded the market, bringing in a record ex-vessel value for the area as well— more than double what fishermen have made in the history of the fishery.

The preliminary ex-vessel value of $281 million is more than 242 percent above the 20-year average of $116 million, and 39 percent above the previous record of $202 million, set in 1990.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Permit holders, processing workers included in pink salmon disaster money draft plan

September 10, 2018 — Under a draft plan released this summer, commercial fishermen in Southeast Alaska would get only a small portion of the $56.3 million appropriated by Congress to address a pink salmon disaster in 2016.

However, those who worked at seafood processing plants that year could be in line for some of the money as well.

A year and a half ago, the U.S. Commerce Secretary declared the 2016 pink season across the Gulf of Alaska a fishery failure due to unusual ocean and climate conditions. The state of Alaska and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have come up with a draft spending plan for how to allocate the money to fishermen, processors, municipalities and researchers.

The money will be paid out by an agency called the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission.

Sebastian O’Kelly is a lobbyist in the nation’s capital. His clients include the Petersburg borough and that commission. O’Kelly briefed the Petersburg borough assembly on the spending plan Monday.

“I wanna talk a little bit about the allocation and the break out and the criteria that will be used in distributing the relief because you will have fishermen, processors and the borough itself as active participants and recipients of this funding,” O’Kelly said.

Read the full story at KTOO

Alaska: Pink salmon harvest below forecast, slightly up from 2016

August 31, 2018 — Though pink salmon harvests are ahead of what they were in 2016, the last comparable run-size year, they are still significantly below the forecast level.

As of Aug. 28, Alaska’s commercial pink salmon harvest was 38.2 million fish, about 4 percent ahead of the harvest in 2016. Pink salmon have a two-year life cycle, with large runs in even years and smaller runs on odd-numbered years, so the harvests are compared on every other year as compared to year-over-year like other species. Two years ago, the pink salmon runs returned so small that the U.S. Secretary of Commerce declared a fishery disaster on the Gulf of Alaska pink salmon fisheries.

The total harvest so far is slightly more than half of the forecasted 69.7 million fish for this season. Cook Inlet’s fishermen have harvested about 965,000 pinks, significantly more than the 465,000 in 2016. The vast majority of those — about 838,815 pinks — have been harvested in Lower Cook Inlet, largely the southern district bays around the lower edge of the Kenai Peninsula south of Kachemak Bay. The Port Graham Section alone has harvested 345,648 and the Tutka Bay Special Harvest Area has harvested 269,165, both of which have pink salmon hatcheries nearby.

Pink salmon harvest varies in other areas of the state. Kodiak’s harvest of pinks so far is behind the forecast but significantly better than in the 2016 disaster year. The Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Islands and Bristol Bay are both behind both their forecasts and the 2016 harvest. Southeast’s pink salmon is about 67 percent below its normal even-year harvest, with about 7.3 million pinks harvested so far compared to the 18.4 million harvested in 2016.

Read the full story at the Peninsula Clarion    

 

Researchers are seeing young cod return to the Gulf of Alaska

August 15, 2018 — Tiny cod fish are reappearing around Kodiak.

Researchers aim to find out if it is a blip, or a sign that the stock is recovering after warming waters caused the stocks to crash.

Alaska’s seafood industry was shocked last fall when the annual surveys showed cod stocks in the Gulf of Alaska had plummeted by 80 percent to the lowest levels ever seen. Prior surveys indicated large year classes of cod starting in 2012 were expected to produce good fishing for six or more years. But a so-called warm blob of water depleted food supplies and wiped out that recruitment.

“That warm water was sitting in the gulf for three years starting in 2014 and it was different than other years in that it went really deep and it also lasted throughout the winter. You can deplete the food source pretty rapidly when the entire ecosystem is ramped up in those warm temperatures,” explained Steven Barbeaux with the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle.

This summer researchers at Kodiak saw the first signs of potential recovery with beach seine catches of tiny first year cod that are born offshore and drift as larvae into coastal grassy areas in July and August.

“A lot can happen in that first year of life that we would like to learn more about to predict whether or not these year classes are actually going to survive,” said Ben Laurel, a fisheries research biologist with the AFSC based in Newport, Ore., whose specialty is early survival of cold water commercial fish species.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

International effort will study salmon populations deep in the Gulf of Alaska

August 6, 2018 –Alaskans will celebrate Alaska Wild Salmon Day on Aug. 10, but plans also are underway for a much bigger celebration: the International Year of the Salmon set to officially begin in 2019.

The theme is “Salmon and people in a changing world,” and a key focus will be a winter salmon study in the deepest regions of the Gulf of Alaska.

Both are sponsored in part by the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission, which for 25 years has promoted research collaboration among scientists in its five member countries – Canada, Russia, Japan, Korea and the U.S.

“The main inspiration for development of this project is our awareness of the challenges salmon meet in the open ocean related to the climate and in the coastal areas,” said Dr. Vladimir Radchenko, commission director and one of the world’s leading salmon scientists.

A primary goal of Year of the Salmon is to get more people involved in protecting salmon and “coastal societies.” The aim of the Gulf project, Radchenko said, is to better understand the ocean phase of the salmon’s life cycle. Doing so would improve knowledge to help forecast salmon abundance and carrying capacity of the North Pacific.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News