Saving Seafood

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

 

Alaska: Kodiak fishermen find extra work through halibut research amid stock concern

January 10, 2018 — The Pacific halibut fishery may see a drop in stock over the next few years and the International Pacific Halibut Commission, which regulates the fishery, uses surveys in Kodiak waters to collect data.

The surveys also give local fishermen another job to tackle during the winter season, especially with the recent announcement of the 80 percent cut to Pacific cod quota in 2018.

Dock workers throw frozen fish through the hatch and into a large bin, and deckhands help transfer the headed and gutted bait into containers.

Longtime Kodiak fisherman Terry Haines and his son are deckhands on the trip. They set gear and bring in the fish so scientists on board can focus on the research.

“They can see how we harvest the resource and then we can see how they assess the stock and it’s kinda great to have that interaction between, I think, the harvester and the scientist,” Haines said.

It’s also a good way to make some extra cash.

“With the cod stock the way it is, this is a pretty good job right now this winter, and it’s not during the regular longline season when I would  be doing regular halibut and black cod,” Haines said.

This particular research trip focuses on the halibut reproductive cycle.

Read the full story at KTOO Public Media

 

North Pacific Council Issues Alert to Gulf of Alaska Cod Fishermen

January 4, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — In big red letters, a one-page alert warns the Gulf of Alaska cod fleets:  “Attention Cod Fishermen! 80% Decrease in Catch Limit for 2018” before describing what the massive cut in landings will mean to all gear types in federal and state waters of the Gulf.

At its December 2017 meeting, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council approved a Gulf-wide catch limit for Pacific cod at 18,000 mt, or about 39.7 million pounds for the 2018 season that starts January 20. Last year’s quota for P-cod in the Gulf for both the federal and state waters was about 82,000 mt.

“Recognizing that cod fishermen in the Central and Western Gulf of Alaska need to quickly get this information to adjust their fishing plans for 2018, the Council is providing the following tables that compare the 2018 catch limits to the 2017 limits by area, fishery, and season,” reads the one-page flyer.

The biggest producers are trawl vessels in the Western Gulf, a fleet that landed 6,861 mt in the A season last year and 2,650 mt in the 2017 B season. Those totals will be 1,543 mt in the A season and 596 in the B season this year.

Central Gulf trawlers are suffering a similar fate: catch limits for the A season are 1,275 mt in 2018 compared to 6,933 mt last year. That fleet is allowed 1,233 mt for this year’s B season, compared to 6,708 mt last year.

The flyer covers jig, hook and line, and pot gear throughout the Gulf and includes the breakdown for state catch limits by area. The two most productive areas historically in state waters are the South Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak. Last year’s catch limit for the South Peninsula (jig and pot gear combined) was 10,887 mt and for Kodiak was 5,523 mt.  This year, it is 2,425 mt and 1,015 mt respectively.

The smallest fishery is the Central Gulf jig fleet, which got 331 mt last year. This year, the combined total for A and B season will be 61 mt.

The flyer can be found here.

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

 

Alaska: Bering Sea cod conflict brewing between on and offshore buyers

December 21, 2017 — “Cod Alley” is getting crowded, and some fishermen want to limit the boats in the narrow congested fishing area in the Bering Sea.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is looking at changes, including restricting flatfish factory trawlers from buying cod offshore.

The Pacific Seafood Processors Association is pushing for restrictions on factory trawlers to protect its members’ shore plants in Unalaska, Akutan, King Cove and Sand Point.

According to the PSPA’s Nicole Kimball, seven factory trawlers bought cod from 17 catcher boats in 2017, up from just one factory trawler that traditionally participated in prior years. The Amendment 80 factory trawlers act as motherships, processing but not catching the Pacific cod.

“The share delivered to motherships increased from 3.3 percent in 2016 to 12.7 percent in 2017, while shoreside processors had a reciprocal decline. This is a meaningful shift. At this point it is open-ended, and there is nothing to prevent future growth in this activity,” Kimball testified at the council’s December meeting in Anchorage.

Local government representatives shared the shoreplants’ concerns, citing a loss of tax revenues needed for schools and other services. On a smaller scale, it’s reminiscent of the inshore-offshore battle in the pollock fishery about 20 years ago.

“This is a big deal,” said Unalaska Mayor Frank Kelty. “It looks like we’ve got trouble coming down the road again.”

Cod is Unalaska’s second-most important product, behind pollock, he said.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

 

ALASKA: Bering Sea Pollock and Cod in Good Shape But Could Be Moving North

November 17, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The North Pacific Fisheries Management Council’s Groundfish Plan Team recommended an allowable biological catch (ABC) for 2018 of Pacific cod in the Eastern Bering Sea of 172,000 mt down from this year’s ABC of 239,000 mt.

The actual catch limits will be determined by the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council in early December.

Reasons for the downturn in ABC were:

* a 46% drop from 2016 to 2017 in the EBS shelf trawl survey abundance, or numbers of fish — the biggest drop in history.

* A 37% drop in EBS biomass (weight) from 2016 to 2017 — also the biggest in history.

There is good news for P-cod elsewhere near the Bering Sea, though. In the Aleutians, which supports a much smaller P-cod fishery, survey biomass is on a general upward trend — 15% each year since 2012.

There, the recommended ABC for this year increased to 22,700 mt from last year’s 21,500 mt.

And in the northern Bering Sea — there is serious consideration that stocks of P-cod and pollock that would normally be in the EBS may be spending more time during the summer in the northern areas.

The Northern Bering Sea survey indices show the relative change in biomass there from 2010 to 2017 as an increase of 907%. Relative change in abundance (numbers of fish) during that time is up 1421%. NBS biomass in 2017 is equal to 83% of the biomass change in the Eastern Bering Sea.

The Plan Team posed a question at the end of the presentation: “Given that the cause of the decline in EBS survey biomass is unknown, but that one plausible hypothesis is that a substantial portion of the biomass simply moved to the NBS survey area while remaining part of the same spawning population as the fish in the EBS survey area, does the given model impose drastic reductions in ABC that have a significant probability of later being shown to have been unnecessary?”

As of November 4 the catch of PCod in BSAI was 186,800 mt.

Pollock changes ahead

Pollock stocks look healthy enough for the Plan Team to recommend an ABC at 2.592 million mt in 2018 and 2.467 million mt in 2019. This reflects slight decrease in biomass from the ABC previously set for 2017 of 2.8 million mt, with a forecasted 2.9 million mt for 2018.

The current TAC for pollock in BSAI is 1.345 million mt. a slight increase over 2016’s TAC of 1.34 million mt.

The key factors scientists are looking at for Bering Sea pollock are:

* A potential decline described as being “expected, quite quickly”

* Is there a shift in distribution? The ecosystem survey in the northern Bering Sea this summer found increases in pollock.

* There are relatively few one-year-old pollock in the 2017 trawl survey.

* Future catches near current levels will require more effort.

The presentation noted “..the ability to catch the same amount as in 2017 through to 2020 will require about 35% more effort with a decline in spawning biomass of about 28% compared to the current level (based on expected average recruitment).”

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

Cod numbers in the Gulf of Alaska fall dramatically

November 7, 2017 — JUNEAU, Alaska — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which regulates groundfish in Alaska and other federal fisheries, received some shocking news last month.

Pacific cod stocks in the Gulf of Alaska may have declined as much as 70 percent over the past two years.

The estimate is a preliminary figure, but it leaves plenty of questions about the future of cod fishing in Gulf of Alaska.

The first question that comes to mind when you hear the number of Pacific cod in the Gulf dropped by about two-thirds is what happened?

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fisheries division’s Steven Barbeaux has been trying to answer that question. Barbeaux said the issue likely started with warmer water moving into the Gulf in 2014 and sticking around for the next three years.

“We had what the oceanographers and the news media have been calling the blob, which is this warm water that was sitting in the Gulf for those three years,” Barbeaux said. “It was different from other years in that it went really deep, but it also lasted throughout the winter.”

Read the full story at KTOO

Survey shows GOA cod biomass down 71 percent

October 16, 2017 — CORDOVA, Alaska — Surveys and preliminary modeling for the 2018 Pacific cod stock assessment show that Pacific cod biomass is down substantially in the Gulf of Alaska, a NOAA Fisheries research biologist told the North Pacific Fishery Management Council during its fall meeting in Anchorage.

The data for the report by Steve Barbeaux of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle only became available several days before the council meeting and the council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee expressed its appreciation of the rapid and extensive investigation that Barbeaux and others made, the SSC said.

The most salient survey result was a 71 percent reduction in the Gulf of Alaska bottom trawl survey Pacific cod biomass estimate from 2015 to 2017, a drop observed across the Gulf and particularly pronounced in the Central Gulf, Barbeaux told the SSC.

Barbeaux also presented additional data sets to the SSC that appeared to corroborate the trawl survey results, including a 53 percent drop in the National Martine Fisheries Service 2017 longline survey, and low estimates in recent years by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game large mesh trawl survey. Barbeaux said Pacific cod fishery data from 2017 indicated slower rates of catch accumulation and lower catch per unit effort over the season, at least in the central Gulf, compared to other recent years, and a change in depth distribution toward deeper waters.

Read the full story at The Cordova Times

ALASKA: Strong harvests, more oversight marked 2016 groundfish fisheries

January 23, 2017 — Last year was a good year overall for groundfish fisheries in the region.

With a few standout harvests and favorable proposals with the Board of Fisheries, managers are feeling optimistic heading into the new year.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game oversees several groundfish fisheries within the Cook Inlet Management Area, which extends outside of Kachemak Bay to the north Gulf coast.

“These fisheries include Pacific cod, sablefish, a directed pelagic shelf rockfish fishery, lingcod, and a small commissioner’s permit Pollock fishery,” said Jan Rumble, Fish and Game area groundfish management biologist.

Pacific cod stood out in 2016 as it was open all year long for pot and jig gear in either a parallel or state waters fishery, Rumble said.

Despite the extended opening, the state waters fishery only reached 83 percent of its guideline harvest level, or GHL.

Read the full story at KTOO