Saving Seafood

Adak, Groundfish Trawlers at Odds on P-Cod Processing

December 18, 2019 — Pacific cod stocks hard hit by warming ocean temperatures are becoming a focal point at federal fisheries meetings, where harvesting sectors and processors fight over who gets to catch and process this versatile vitamin and protein packed white fish.

Stock assessments in the fall of 2019 put the population of P-cod in the Gulf of Alaska below the federal threshold that allows for commercial harvest, for the benefit of endangered Steller sea lions who rely on them as a food source.

The Gulf cod fishery was cancelled. The Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands TAC was cut from 24,319,000 metric tons in 2019 to 22,000 metric tons for 2020.

The lower quota is intensifying the race for fish, and a fight between the trawlers and the community of Adak, Alaska, over where that fish will be processed.

At the heart of the battle is Amendment 113 to the fishery management plan for BSAI groundfish. This amendment set aside a portion of the Aleutian Islands cod fishery TAC for harvest by vessels directed fishing for Aleutian Islands Pacific cod and delivering their catch for processing to a shoreside processor located on land in Adak. The 5,000 metric tons P-cod harvest set-aside was designed to provide the opportunity for vessels, Aleutian Islands shore plants and communities where Aleutian Islands shore plants are located to benefit from the P-cod fishery.

Read the full story at Alaska Native News

Climate Change Hitting Top U.S. Fishery in the Arctic: NOAA

December 11, 2019 — Climate change is causing chaos in the Bering Sea, home to one of America’s largest fisheries, an example of how rising temperatures can rapidly change ecosystems important to the economy, U.S. federal government scientists said in a report on Tuesday.

Rising temperatures in the Arctic have led to decreases in sea ice, record warm temperatures at the bottom of the Bering Sea and the northward migration of fish species such as Pacific cod, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, said in its 2019 Arctic Report Card.

While the changes are widespread in the Arctic, the effect on wildlife is acute in the eastern shelf of the Bering Sea, which yields more than 40% of the annual U.S. fish and shellfish catch.

“The changes going on have the potential to influence the kinds of fish products you have available to you, whether that’s fish sticks in the grocery store or shellfish at a restaurant,” said Rick Thoman, a meteorologist in Alaska and one of the report’s authors.

Read the full story at The New York Times

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

US Pacific cod TAC set to drop below Russia’s next year, 2021 reduction also likely

December 3, 2019 — The total allowable catch (TAC) for US Pacific cod will drop again in 2020 and beyond, as Russia increases its TAC way past the Alaskans and also has now Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) for a large chunk of its fishery.

Alaska’s Pacific cod biomass is down considerably in 2020 and will drop further in 2021, according to the draft stock assessment and fisheries evaluation (SAFE) report on stocks in the eastern Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, which will be discussed Monday at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) meeting, held from Dec. 2-10, 2019, at the Hilton Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska.

At the end of the meeting, TACs for Pacific cod, pollock and other species will be recommended to the government. According to historical catch data, the last time Russia had a higher Pacific cod catch than the US and Canada was 1987, when it was 175,271t compared to 150,591t.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

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

ALASKA: Northern Bering Sea trawl survey shows fisheries in flux

November 19, 2019 — Norton Sound red king crab are moving, Arctic cod numbers have dropped significantly and Pacific cod are continuing to increase as the Northern Bering Sea ecosystem undergoes drastic change. That’s all according to preliminary results from a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration trawl survey this summer in the Northern Bering Sea (NBS).

Before Lyle Britt even began leading the NOAA Fisheries’ study of the NBS in September, he anticipated seeing more warm water fish in a region that stretches from Nunivak Island north to the Bering Strait.

“We can tell that the ecosystem is very much in flux up here,” Britt said. “We’re seeing expansion of ranges of some fish and invertebrates, and we’re seeing the retraction of others. Now how permanent or ephemeral those are, I think is still in question.”

As an example of a species that’s expanding its range based on what was discovered in the 2010 baseline survey of the Northern Bering Sea, Britt points to Pacific cod.

“Between 2010 and 2017 there was about a 900% increase in the amount of Pacific cod we saw in the Northern Bering Sea region, based on that biomass or total weight estimate,” he said. “That number sounds really dramatic in part because there were so few in 2010 and now there are some. That number increased between 2017 and 2019 by about 30%, so it’s continued to go up.”

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: City of Adak Asks Court for One-Year Stay to Keep Plant Open for Cod A Season

November 19, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Last week the city of Adak asked a federal court to stay their order from last March — until January 1, 2021 — so the city’s only processing plant can operate during the Pacific cod season next year.

The March 2019 court decision agreed with plaintiffs representing the Bering Sea bottom trawl fleets that target flatfish, mackerel and cod, that Amendment 113, setting a 5,000 mt cod set-aside for remote villages in the Aleutian Islands, was not compliant with the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

The court vacated Amendment 113 and instructed the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council to work on an amendment that would comply with the legislation in specific areas.

The Council took up the issue, beginning an arduous process of analysis, developing alternatives, and public comment that will take at least another 18 months.

Meanwhile, representatives of the Adak plant, central to the economy of the 350-resident community, began an ambitious effort to find a pathway that would allow the set-aside to continue while the Council worked on corrections to a new amendment. But their efforts fell short, whether it was a plea for emergency action or language in new federal legislation for a temporary fix, last summer.

Even though the Council asked industry sectors to work together for a solution that could keep the Adak plant viable, there was no longer any authority providing a separate allocation for Adak, and little incentive to find an industry-based workaround.

In addition, all fleets targeting Pacific cod in the Bering Sea and the Aleutian Islands were well aware of the recent situation for cod stocks. Recent scientific assessments indicate the biomass is increasing in the northern Bering Sea and decreasing in traditional areas. Was the biomass moving north? How fast? Could the fish be crossing over to Russian waters? The ‘race for fish’ nature of the BSAI fishery made even the previously acceptable 5,000 mt set-aside — now vacated and available to anyone — more valuable than it was a few years ago.

Last Wednesday’s Memorandum in Support of Defendant-Intervenors’ Motion for Limited Relief From Judgment and Indicative Ruling included declarations of support from Adak as well as the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Golden Harvest plant owner Jason Ogilvie, the Adak School District, and other private enterprises that rely on the winter operations of the plant.

City Manager Lyle Lockett noted that without continuous operation of its sole fish processing plant, Adak will see cascading economic impacts causing irrepairable harm to the community, including the city stopping subsidies to the school district, the medical clinic, the library, the gymnasium, and the community center.
“Shutting down the City Hall building would force all of these services to scramble to find a new location on the island, perhaps in private residences, which would be disruptive and likely expensive for Adak’s residents,” according to the memorandum.

Adak’s only school serves 19 students, 13 whose parents are employed directly or indirectly through the Adak plant. If enrollment drops to 10 or less, the state of Alaska’s subsidies stops and the school shuts down.

Both the crab and cod fleets that deliver to Adak would have no option other than Dutch Harbor to deliver their catch to — a 450-mile one-way trip.

The request asks the court to respond by January 10, 2020, ten days before the A season begins next year.  The motion supporting the stay was filed while the original decision is under appeal, and would be subject to that ruling if it came before.

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

Genetic Evidence Points to Rapid, Large-Scale Northward Shift of Pacific Cod During Recent Climate Changes

October 10, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

New genetic research suggests that unprecedented summer abundances of Pacific cod in the northern Bering Sea were due to escalating movement from their core habitat under recent warm conditions.

Until recently, Pacific cod were rarely encountered in the northern Bering Sea. Fishery surveys in the 1970s reported “trace amounts” of cod there. A 2010 Alaska Fisheries Science Center survey estimated that the entire northern population amounted to about 3% of the large southeastern Bering Sea stock that supported a valuable commercial fishery.

Then in 2017, the summer survey recorded dramatically higher abundances in the north: a 900-fold increase since 2010. In the same year, southeastern Bering Sea abundances were down 37% from 2016. Strikingly, the increase in the north nearly matched the decrease in the southeastern Bering Sea.

A 2018 survey revealed an even more remarkable shift: there were more cod in the northern than southeastern Bering Sea.

Read the full release here

ALASKA: Adak Based Fish Processor Fears for Future Without Restored Cod Allocations in 2020

September 27, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — In 2016, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council enacted amendment 113 as a way to give onshore fish processors in Western Aleutian communities like Adak and Atka a fighting chance. AM113 carves out a portion of 5,000 metric tons of Pacific cod to be delivered to these facilities as part of an effort to prevent fish factory “motherships” from taking in the bulk of the harvest for processing.

In Adak, Golden Harvest Seafood is one of the processors that depends on cod deliveries to maintain is operations. The company currently has an arrangement with Costco, providing fresh Alaska-caught seafood to its stores.

But the amendment designed to protect these smaller processors isn’t without opposition from large processors, such as the Groundfish Forum, a trade organization representing five companies operating 19 trawl catcher-processor vessels in the region.

Initially, the Groundfish Forum and the Katie Ann LLC, United Catcher Boats & B&N Fisheries filed legal complaints over AM113. Washington D.C. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly Judge ruled against amendment 113, citing the Magnuson-Stevens Act, a set of federal rules that are meant to encourage the sustainable and optimal exploitation of U.S. coastal fisheries.

The City of Adak, the Aleut Corporation and several other parties of interest have appealed the ruling. B&N Fisheries has subsequently dropped from the lawsuit.

The judge’s decision has caused some to call the North Pacific Fishery Management Council’s ability to protect Alaska communities into question.

Meanwhile, affected communities are looking for some relief from the federal government over the potential revenues that were lost when AM113 was struck down.

Steve Minor, a spokesman for Golden Harvest Seafood, told KTUU on Monday that the U.S. Secretary of Commerce has denied a petition requesting emergency action regarding the cod allocation at the start of the new year. The petition asked for relief from January 20 through March 15, 2020 on the grounds of recent and unforeseen events and the time needed to process said petition.

According to the petition, the events listed below qualify as “recent and unforeseen” circumstances that form the basis of the request:

“Event 1: On March 21, 2019 the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued an opinion that vacated Amendment 113 to the Bering Sea Aleutian Islands Groundfish FMP, and remanded the Amendment to the Service (NMFS) for reconsideration consistent with the opinion.

Event 2: In January, 2019 the Aleutian Islands CV Trawl Pacific cod fishery nearly closed before the fishery ever began because of the race for fish in the Bering Sea.”

Golden Harvest Seafood has invested millions in the processing operations on Adak, becoming the primary employer in a community that sees anywhere from 50 to 200 residents depending on the time of year. Locals are concerned that the plant’s closure would result in the closing of the local school, which currently serves less than 20 students.

KTUU has reached out to multiple members of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council seeking comment on its stance on AM113, as well as the council’s interest and ability to continue seeking assistance for Western Aleutian fish processors. At the time of this article’s publishing publishing, we are still awaiting an official response.

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

As Bering Sea ice melts, Alaskans, scientists and Seattle’s fishing fleet witness changes ‘on a massive scale’

September 16, 2019 — Derek Akeya hopes for calm waters and a lucrative catch when fishing from a skiff in the Bering Sea that surrounds his island village.

But on this windy late summer day, waves toss about the boat as Akeya stands in the bow, straining to pull up a line of herring-baited hooks from the rocky bottom.

Instead of bringing aboard halibut – worth more than $5 a pound back on shore – this string of gear yields four large but far less valuable Pacific cod, voracious bottom feeders whose numbers in recent years have exploded in these northern reaches.

“There’s a lot more of them now, and it’s more than a little bit irritating,” Akeya says.

The cod have surged here from the south amid climatic changes unfolding with stunning speed.

For two years, the Bering Sea has been largely without winter ice, a development scientists modeling the warming impacts of greenhouse-gas pollution from fossil fuels once forecast would not occur until 2050.

Read the full story at The Seattle Times