Pacific cod Archives - Page 6 of 8

NPFMC Separates Adak Cod Issue from Broader Cod Allocation issues, Expects Action by Dec 2018

June 18, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Management of Pacific Cod in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands is a study in complexity, founded on the earnest principles of protecting historical deliveries to the village of Adak and balancing the needs of the rationalized fishery with the non-rationalized Aleutian Island cod fishery.

Amendment 113 to the BSAI groundfish plan was intended to navigate this warren of concerns, but in the first year of its implementation a perfect storm of sorts resulted in the North Pacific Council asking certain fishing vessels to ‘stand down’ last February to allow other cod deliveries to Adak, while the body set out to correct the regulations.

At their April meeting, the Council created a Purpose and Need statement acknowleding that “changes in fishery participation patterns and total allowable catches in the BSAI, resulted in the fishery progressing in a manner that may have been counter to the intent of providing community protections in the Aleutian Islands.”

The Council went on to state it “intends to modify Amendment 113 such that the prosecution of the BSAI cod fishery aligns with the council’s original objective of addressing the risk that participants in BSAI rationalized fisheries may diminish the historical share of BSAI cod of other industry participants and communities that depend on shoreplant processing in the region.”

Thus the process began for alternatives to consider, analyses of the options, and public comment periods, with resolution now estimated for the 2020 fishing season.

But part of the perfect storm of complexities was another problem — the emergence of the Amendment 80 fleet (BSAI trawlers that mostly target flatfish and other non-pollock species) acting as motherships and taking deliveries that may otherwise have gone, at least in part, to shorebased plants.

Any reference to an imbalance in deliveries to on-shore and off-shore facilities triggers memories of perhaps the most contentious issue the North Pacific Council has ever addressed, the ‘inshore/offshore’ debate that resulted in the American Fisheries Act, which rationalized the BSAI pollock fleet.

The Council decided to treat each problem as a separate one, but asked that the discussion paper include “tradeoffs and benefits of combining this action with the BSAI [catcher vessel] cod action the Council will address in June.”

Action taken at last week’s meeting confirmed that the Adak cod set-aside issue will continue independently of the AM80 mothership issue.

The schedule for resolving Amendment 113 and fixing the Adak cod set-aside is to review the analysis of four alternatives in October with final action tentatively set for December 2018. With public comment periods and regulatory reviews, the final rule’s earliest publication could be late 2019 with implementation in the 2020 cod season.

June’s discussion paper crystalized the complexity of current regulations in the Aleutian Island fishery. After describing the allocations and limitations for BSAI cod, NPFMC analysts Jon McCracken and Darrell Brannan describe what happened next.

“Participants began to realize that under the current regulations the AI shoreplant would not be able to take deliveries of the entire 5,000 mt AI set-aside after the BSAI trawl CV sector was closed to directed fishing for the A season.

“Prior to that time some participants were under the impression that the AI set-aside essentially guaranteed the shoreplants would be allowed to take delivery of the 5,000 mt AI set-aside if they achieved the 1,000 mt before February 28. However, after February 11 all of the federal Pacific cod CV sectors except jig gear were close for directed fishing in the A season in the BSAI.

“Given that 6,515 mt of Pacific cod was available to trawl CVs to deliver to any processor in the AI, at least two companies made plans to harvest a portion of that allowance and deliver the catch to processors other than the AI shoreplant. One company was using its CV to deliver to one of its C/Ps.

“However, this occurred during the February Council meeting, and when the Council was made aware of the issue it asked this company to not participate in the unrestricted fishery, due to the impacts to the AI shoreplant. This company had already taken a small amount of Pacific cod, but they agreed to stand-down from the fishery at the request of the Council.

“After the 2018 A-season was underway, a second company requested that their CVs be allowed to deliver to the AI shoreplant. In part due to capacity constraints and the timing of the request, the AI shoreplant did not offer a market to those CVs. The company decided later in February to have some of its trawl CVs deliver AI Pacific cod to Dutch Harbor.

“CVs that were delivering to the AI shoreplant are reported to have self-imposed trip limits and a one-day stand-down after a delivery to help reduce wait times at the plant. Trawl CVs set the trip limit at 400,000 lbs. for the larger CVs and 100,000 lbs for smaller CVs. These trip limits were abandoned when NMFS announced the BSAI A season trawl CV closure for March 4, 2018, which resulted in a larger volume of Pacific cod being delivered during a short period of time.

“The shoreplant operator has indicated during testimony to the Council that the shoreplant has a daily capacity of 1.2 million lbs. to 1.5 million lbs. At 1.2 million lbs. per day, the shoreplant could process the AI set-aside in about 9.2 days. During the 2018 A-season, daily processing of GHL and federal Pacific cod combined never exceeded 1 million lbs. and was typically much lower.

“Once trawl CVs harvested an amount that was projected to be equal to the BSAI trawl CV sector A-season allowance22, they were closed to directed fishing on March 11.

“NMFS In-season Management’s ability to close a fishery exactly on the amount a sector’s TAC is limited by variations in daily landings and the fact that closures are announced ahead of time for 12 noon on a specific day.

“Catch in the AI set-aside and unrestricted fishery resulted in the trawl CV sector AI season being closed in the BSAI prior to the entire 5,000 mt AI set-aside being delivered. That meant the only CV sector that remained open25 to directed fishing was the BSAI jig gear sector.

“The BSAI allocation to the jig sector was insufficient to allow the AI shoreplant to take deliveries of the remaining 5,000 mt AI set-aside.

“NMFS announced that the 5,000 mt AI set-aside had not been landed at the AI shoreplant by March 15th. Because the 5,000 mt AI set-aside was not reached by that date the BS non-CDQ trawl CV A-season sector limitation remained in effect until March 21 and the AI set-aside to not apply for the remainder of the year. The amount of the 5,000 mt AI set-aside that was delivered to the AI shoreplant cannot be reported due to confidentiality restrictions.

“The AI shoreplant could report their Pacific cod deliveries or agreed to waive the confidentiality restrictions associated with NMFS or the Council reporting the Pacific cod deliveries they received.

“The BSAI Pacific cod non-CDQ trawl CV B-season opened to directed fishing on April 1. The 2018 B-season allowance was set at 4,425 mt at the start of the fishing year. Directed fishing was closed on April 3 as a result of the B-season allowance being reached. The AI shoreplant took Pacific cod deliveries during the B-season.”

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

Researchers try to understand why Pacific cod stocks are crashing in Gulf of Alaska

May 31, 2018 — On an island about 4 miles off of Kodiak, marine scientists working with the University of Alaska are trying to figure out why Pacific cod stocks are crashing in the Gulf of Alaska.

And, how climate change may be affecting the fish when they’re young.

Mike Litzow and, his wife, Alisa Abookire, try to pull in a beach seine on a soggy gray day on Long Island. But, they catch more seaweed than fish as they slowly sink deeper into the shore’s mud.

“We have to get some kelp out, Liz,” Litzow said. “Oh no, it’s the freaking motherload. This will be our day right here if we aren’t careful.”

This isn’t a normal fishing trip.

The marine scientists are collaborating on a study for the University of Alaska Fairbanks to figure out why Pacific cod stocks are declining in the Gulf of Alaska and how warming waters may be affecting the species when they’re young.

Read the full story at KTOO

Alaska: Salmon harvests, halibut prices take sharp turn down

April 5, 2018 — Alaska is expecting a reduced salmon harvest this year, setting up a trifecta of falling fish revenues for Alaska fishermen, coastal communities and state coffers.

Coming on the heels of an 80 percent crash of cod stocks in the Gulf of Alaska and a 10 percent decline in halibut catches, state fishery managers are projecting a 2018 salmon harvest at 149 million fish, down 34 percent from last season.

The shortfall stems from lower forecasts for returning pink salmon. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is forecasting a humpie harvest of just 70 million fish, down by more than half from last summer.

For sockeye salmon, a statewide catch of about 52 million is down 1.8 million fish from 2017, which was the fifth-largest red salmon harvest since 1970.

By far, most of the sockeyes will come from Bristol Bay’s nine river systems where a projected harvest of 37.5 million would be down by more than a million, but still well above the 10- and 20-year averages for the Bay.

Alaska’s chum salmon catch last year of 25 million also was the largest haul since 1970. This year’s statewide catch is expected to produce 21 million chums, down by nearly four million.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Alaska requests disaster relief for struggling Gulf cod fishery

March 22, 2018 — Alaska Governor Bill Walker and other state officials sent a letter earlier in the month to the federal government to request a disaster declaration for the Kodiak-based Pacific cod fishery in the Gulf of Alaska.

The declaration would free up federal funds for people affected by low cod numbers in the gulf, where biologists turned up an 83 percent drop in the population from 2015, prompting the National Marine Fisheries Service to slash the fishery’s quota by 80 percent and making it eligible for disaster relief.

The letter, which was also signed by Lieutenant Governor Byron Mallet and U.S. senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, will go to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross for review.

“Due to poor fishery performance and low catch limits, value of the 2018 Pacific cod harvest is expected to be USD 7 to 8 million [EUR 5.7 million to 6.5 million], or an 81 to 83 percent decline in revenues from the most recent five-year average,” the letter read. “Throughout the Gulf of Alaska, direct impacts will be felt by vessel owners and operators, crew, and fish processors, as well (as) support industries that sell fuel, supplies, and groceries. Local governments will feel the impact to their economic base and the State of Alaska will see a decline in fishery-related tax revenue.”

Biologists believe warmer waters associated with the marine heat wave in the Pacific Ocean have contributed to declining cod stocks. Studies show that warmer water temperatures boost the metabolism of the cod, making it hard for them to reach their energetic demands.

With the warm water mass known as The Blob moving on, some experts are cautiously hopeful that Pacific cod in the Gulf will make a comeback.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Alaska Gov. calls for Pacific cod disaster declaration

March 16, 2018 — Alaska’s Gov. Bill Walker and Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott signed a letter last week asking the federal government to declare the 2018 Pacific cod fishery in the Gulf of Alaska a disaster.

This year’s Pacific cod quota was reduced by 80 percent from 2017 — from 64,442 metric tons in 2017 to 13,096 metric tons — in response to a declining stock.

In October, a NMFS survey reported a 71 percent decline in Pacific cod abundance in the gulf since 2015 and an 83 percent decline since 2013.

According to the letter, that deep cut to the quota is expected to be accompanied by revenue drop of 81 to 83 percent of the most recent five-year average.

“Throughout the Gulf of Alaska, direct impacts will be felt by vessel owners and operators, crew and fish processors, as well as support industries that sell fuel, supplies and groceries. Local governments will feel the impact to their economic base, and the state of Alaska will see a decline in fishery-related tax revenue,” reads the letter. “We believe these impacts are severe enough to warrant this request for fishery disaster declaration for this area.”

Barbara Blake, senior adviser to Walker and Mallott, told Alaska Public Media that crossing that 80 percent threshold makes the fishery eligible for a disaster declaration and that the request will go to the secretary of commerce for a decision.

“How we’ve seen this come about in the past is that request goes in along with other natural disasters, and that’s how we end up getting the appropriations for that, is they roll it into natural disasters like hurricane relief and things of that nature,” said Blake.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Alaska: Gov. Bill Walker calls for federal disaster declaration for Pacific cod fishery

March 13, 2018 — Gov. Bill Walker and Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott signed a letter last week asking the federal government to declare the 2018 Pacific cod fishery in the Gulf of Alaska a disaster.

That could make the fishery eligible for federal relief funds, although who specifically would receive money would be figured out later.

It follows a decline in stock and a deep cut to the 2018 Pacific cod quota in the gulf.

According to the letter, the value of the 2018 Pacific cod harvest is looking at a more than 80 percent drop in revenue from the five-year average. Barbara Blake, senior adviser to Walker and Mallott, said crossing that 80 percent threshold makes the fishery eligible for a disaster declaration.

Blake said the letter will go to the secretary of commerce for a decision.

Read the full story at KTOO

Alaska: Bering Sea Trawl Cod Fishery May Have Been Shortest Ever, as High Prices Attract Effort

February 20, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Bering Sea federal trawl cod fishery closed in what may be record time on Feb. 11, just 22 days after the Jan. 20 opener, according to National Marine Fisheries Service Biologist Krista Milani in Unalaska/Dutch Harbor.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the shortest ever,” and certainly for as long as she’s had the job going back to 2009.

While the Bering Sea cod quota is down 20 percent from last year, Milani said other factors are at play. She pointed out that in a previous year, with an almost identical quota, the season remained open for about six weeks, ending the second week of March in 2010.

This year, the A season Bering Sea cod trawl quota is 24,768 metric tons, and in 2010 it was 24,640 mt.

“The bigger thing is the price is good, and there’s a lot of interest in it,” Milani said.

“I think there’s a lot of reasons,” including fishermen feeling a need to build catch histories to qualify for future Pacific cod fishing rights, if a rationalization program is adopted for cod in the Bering Sea, she said.

“I think there’s some fear it could go to limited access,” Milani said.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Program is now considering a plan to restrict the number of boats eligible to fish for cod in the Bering Sea.

The fish council floated ideas to limit catcher vessel participation in the Bering Sea cod fishery, including controversial catch shares or individual fishing quotas, during a December meeting in Anchorage.

IFQs are not among alternatives the council is considering. The purpose and need statement, approved unanimously, includes limiting trawling to vessels actually fishing cod in various years between 2010 and 2017.

This would create a limited entry program within a limited entry program. Bering Sea cod fishing is already limited to boats with licenses. Some of those boats don’t usually participate, but can when prices are high or stocks are low in their usual fisheries.

Brent Paine, the executive director of United Catcher Boats, said something needs to be done to regulate fishing in the congested “Cod Alley.” He accurately predicted a three-week season in 2018 in the area offshore of Unimak Island.

“This is the last unrationalized fishery in the eastern Bering Sea,” Paine said. “If you don’t do anything, we’re all going to be losers.”

While Paine said the NPFMC’s present majority is unsympathetic to rationalization, calling it the “R word,” he said that may change in the future.

Rationalization opponents see IFQs as privatization adding another barrier to entry into the fishing world, while supporters call it a reward for investment with benefits including substantial retirement income.

Milani said Tuesday it was still too early to say how many trawlers participated, as there were vessels still delivering cod to processing companies, and perhaps some trawlers delivering loaded nets to offshore motherships. The last count had 55 in the federal cod fishery, compared to 57 last year, she said, expecting this year’s final count will be higher.

The number of boats is hard to track in-season, as many go back and forth between cod, pollock and other fisheries, although there are some that only fish cod, Milani said.

The depressed cod stocks in the Gulf of Alaska probably also contributed to this year’s fast pace, she said. Gulf cod stocks are way down, far worse than the smaller decline in the Bering Sea, an 80 per percent decline from last year.

Earlier in the season, Milani said the number of Gulf boats coming into the federal Bering Sea cod fishery was smaller than expected.

The Gulf cod crash appears to be having a greater impact in the state cod fishery, with 32 small boats registered on Tuesday, up from 24 last year in the Dutch Harbor Subdistrict. The state waters fishery is limited to boats 58 feet or shorter fishing within three miles of shore and using only pot gear.

The Dutch Harbor Subdistrict total catch on Monday was 11.4 million pounds caught in pots from a total quota of 28.4 million pounds. The pot cod fishery is expected to continue for another 14 to 16 days, according to Alaska Department of Fish and Game Biologist Asia Beder in Unalaska.

In the Aleutian Islands Subdistrict state waters fishery, with a quota of 12.8 million pounds, Beder couldn’t release precise total catch numbers because of confidentiality rules when there’s fewer than three processors. She said the fleet has caught somewhere between 25 and 50 percent. There’s only one processor, in Adak, Golden Harvest — formerly Premier Harvest, she said. And she could also say there were eight small boats fishing cod in the Aleutian subdistrict, all in the Adak section.

In the Aleutians, cod boats are allowed up to 60 feet in with various gear types, although longliners are limited to 58 feet.

In Bering Sea crab fisheries, the 50 boats dropping pots for opilio snow crab had made 134 landings for 10.9 million pounds or 58 percent of the total quota. The cumulative catch per unit of effort for the season is an average of 161 crab per pot, according to shellfish biologist Ethan Nichols of ADF&G in Unalaska.

In the Western Bering Sea Tanner fishery, 28 vessels had made 66 landings for 2.1 million pounds, with the quota nearly wrapped up at 85 percent.

In the Eastern Aleutian District, two small boats harvesting bairdi Tanner had landed over 75 percent of the total quota of 35,000 pounds, Nichols said.

The EAD is open this year only in the Makushin and Skan Bay area, and that’s where the Tanners are from that sell for $10 each by local fisherman Roger Rowland at the Carl E. Moses Boat Harbor in Unalaska.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Alaska cod quotas light up a loophole

February 16, 2018 — The fallout of shifts in Alaska cod quotas has sparked another scramble among the region’s cod fishermen. Overall P-cod quota is down, but the Aleutian Islands saw a small uptick, which led more boats to target the area in the A-season this year. The allocations, however, have had some unintended consequences.

For some background, in the wild and harsh fishing environments of the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska, a 60-footer qualifies as a small boat. A fleet of these smaller pot-cod boats typically fishes inshore waters and relies on deliveries to the remote Bering Sea island of Adak to run their Aleutian operations.

The remoteness of the region, however, has historically made running a processing plant there logistically implausible without guarantees of landings. This led the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to set aside 5,000 tons of cod quota that must be processed in the remote Aleutian Island community of Adak rather than off-loaded to offshore factory processors, as the larger catcher vessels — sometimes referred to as the Amendment 80 fleet after the legislation that put them into operations — do in the offshore fishery.

“This harvest set-aside provides the opportunity for vessels, [Aleutian Islands] shoreplants, and the communities where AI shoreplants are [located]to receive benefits from a portion of the AI Pacific cod fishery,” according to the council.

Read the full story at National Fishermen

A new study looks at why Pacific Cod stocks are crashing in the Gulf of Alaska

February 14, 2018 — A new study in Kodiak will hopefully shed some light on what Pacific cod go through when they’re young.

“We don’t know how they do in the winter. Where they are. What they are eating. What their energetic requirements are.”

One of the leaders of the project, Mike Litzow is a researcher for the University of Alaska Fairbanks based in Kodiak.

He said the recent crash in the Pacific cod population in the Gulf of Alaska was a wake-up call that there’s a lot to be learned about the early life stages of Pacific cod.

A few years ago a body of warm water settled in the gulf and it may have made it difficult for juvenile cod to survive.

“The operating hypothesis right now is that you can warm the temperatures up and they’ll survive if there’s enough food, but there wasn’t enough food to meet those requirements.”

The National Marine Fisheries Service, according to Litzow, recently found that the Pacific cod population had dropped by about 60 percent since 2015.

The North Pacific Fisheries Pacific Council reduced the amount of Pacific cod that can be caught by commercial fishermen in the Gulf of Alaska by about 80 percent because of the crash.

The decrease in cod will be hard for Kodiak fisherman because Pacific Cod is one of the bigger fisheries in the region.

Litzow thinks Kodiak will have to face the possibility that more fishery disasters could be in its future because of climate change.

Read the full story at KTOO

Why are Pacific Cod Stocks Crashing?

February 13, 2018 — “The status of Pacific cod is probably the biggest fishery issue facing Kodiak right now, with the quota cut 80 percent for 2018,” said Mike Litzow, a University of Alaska Fairbanks associate professor at the Kodiak Seafood and Marine Science Center.

Pacific cod stocks have collapsed, possibly because recruitment (production of young fish to enter the population) has been very low during a recent string of incredibly warm years in the Gulf of Alaska, he said.

Scientists don’t know why cod stocks are shrinking. The leading hypothesis is that warmer temperatures increase the metabolic rates of young cod, and their food sources don’t supply enough energy.

There’s a sticking point—there’s not enough data to test the theory. Studies of fish ecology and population dynamics in Alaska are overwhelmingly conducted in the summer. Almost nothing is known about wintertime ecology of juvenile Pacific cod.

To help provide answers, Litzow and fisheries oceanographer Alisa Abookire embarked on a pilot study this month to collect information about habitat use, diet and energetics of juvenile cod.

They are sampling the fish with a beach seine and taking ocean water data aboard a semi-enclosed 22 foot skiff. To stay warm they wear insulated paddling suits.

Litzow and Abookire are collaborating with scientists at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Ore., who have been studying juvenile cod in Kodiak over the last 12 years. The pilot study is funded by the Ocean Phoenix Fund through the University of Alaska Foundation.

Read the full story at Alaska Native News