Saving Seafood

Southeast Alaska squid fishery shot down

January 18, 2018 — Declining king salmon stocks are playing a role in the Alaska Board of Fisheries decisions for other commercial fisheries.

On Sunday, the board voted down a proposal for a new fishery in Southeast Alaska for market squid.

The proposal sought to allow purse seining for the squid, a species that can grow to 7-and-a-half-inches long and ranges from Mexico to Alaska.

Salmon seiner Justin Peeler of Petersburg told the board he’s also fished for squid in California.

“As somebody that had a background in fishing squid I got reports from other fishermen during various times of the year of seeing squid, biomass is showing up, water temperature is warming a little bit and we’re seeing changes of that in our other fisheries and after seeing it grow and kind of more and more sightings and the density of the schools and the sightings growing I decided well I should put this proposal in,” Peeler said.

Peeler thought the fishery could be opened to other gear types as well. He saw squid as an opportunity for fishermen but also a potential threat to other species.

“They’re eaters,” Peeler said. “In a short period of time they have to eat grow and spawn and that’s the fear I have is that these could move in in a very rapid rate and we could see a huge change in some of our other fisheries due to us not realizing that this is somewhat of an invasive species as oceans warm. Our local inside waters may stay cool enough that they might hold ‘em off a little bit but if it’s warm out in the deep they’re gonna come up and they’re going to spawn and they’re going to be in our waters as their population booms.”

Alaska Department of Fish and Game issued what are called “commissioners permits” in 2014 and 2017 to Peeler and others interested in testing whether they could catch squid.

Read the full story at KTOO Public Media

 

Alaska: Board of Fisheries votes down change in Southeast Dungeness crab season

January 17, 2018 — On Saturday, Alaska Board of Fisheries voted down a proposal to change commercial Dungeness crab seasons in Southeast Alaska.

Crabbers were seeking set season lengths and no option for shortened fishing time like they experienced in 2017.

Crabber Max Worhatch proposed the change and successfully got the board to add the proposal to the meeting after missing the deadline for regulation changes.

“I would like to seriously consider this,” Worhatch told the board. “I put a proposal in, just like this three years ago, didn’t get anywhere. The department felt like they had to have something to manage the fishery when it got to the low end. But in my experience and just from what I’ve seen in Oregon, California and Washington, size sex and season for Dungeness crab works and it works extremely well. It’s kind of an autopilot thing, doesn’t take a lot of work.”

Size, sex and season are a management tool for regulating the catch of crab, with a minimum size, allowing crabbers to only keep male crab and only during a set season.

While that’s part of the management in Southeast Alaska, since 2000 the Alaska Department of Fish and Game also has set the season length based on the catch from the first week of the season.

In 2017, a low commercial catch in that first week led to shortened summer and fall seasons in most of the region.

The board considered an amended proposal for set seasons, with the same starting and ending dates already used around region but deleting the language in the management plan that allows for early closure with low catches.

Crabbers said they needed the assurance of scheduled fishing time, especially with the fleet fishing in smaller areas with competition from sea otters.

Part of the Southeast Alaska summer commercial crab fishing season overlaps with the time when male Dungeness molt, or shed their shell and grow a new one.

Read the full story at KTOO Public Media