April 2, 2020 — The Alaska sablefish and halibut season got off to a successful start in terms of volume, but less so in terms of sales price, according to a Homer News report.
The commercial halibut season began on 15 March and the sablefish season in the state got underway the day before.
March 10, 2020 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:
The Pacific Fishery Management Council (Pacific Council) will convene a webinar meeting of its Ad Hoc Sablefish Management and Trawl Allocation Attainment Committee (SaMTAAC). The meeting is open to the public. The webinar meeting will be held Wednesday, April 1, 2020 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time. The scheduled ending time for the SaMTAAC webinar is an estimate, the meeting will adjourn when business for the day is completed.
Please see the SaMTAAC April 1, 2020 webinar notice on the Council’s website for full details.
For further information:
December 12, 2019 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:
The Pacific Fishery Management Council’s ad hoc Sablefish Management and Trawl Allocation Attainment Committee (SaMTAAC) will hold a two-day meeting that is open to the public. The meeting will begin Wednesday, January 22, 2020 at 8 a.m. Pacific Standard Time and recess when business for the day is completed. It will continue at 8 a.m. Thursday, January 23, adjourning when business for the day is completed.
Please see the SaMTAAC January 22-23, 2020 meeting notice on the Council’s website for full details.
For further information:
November 22, 2019 — Sixty-year-old Frank Miles has fished for cod around Kodiak since he was a teenager.
“Started out at the age of 15, in an open skiff, back when salt cod was a staple,” he says. “I think I’ve missed one cod season in 44 years.”
Miles eventually graduated from an open skiff to a 58-foot pot and longline vessel called the Sumner Strait. He’s been around long enough to see fisheries cycle in and out, from the decline of king crab in the 80’s to the rise of groundfish like pollock, sablefish and of course, cod.
“If you look back just 10 years ago,” he says. “I mean, goodness, we used to fish eight months out of the year on just cod — me, personally.”
October 22, 2019 — Trawlers in the Bering Sea have hauled up some 2,500 metric tons of black cod in bycatch circa the end of last month, according to a NOAA fisheries report.
An Alaska Public Media report suggests that small-boat fishermen who have bought black cod (also known as sablefish) fishing rights are frustrated that there will be fewer fish to harvest after the accidental catch of the trawlers.
October 10, 2019 — Fish politics in Alaska usually get serious when there aren’t enough fish to go around. But a new fight is brewing over black cod because there are so many of them – possibly as a result of the ocean’s warming waters.
Record numbers of young black cod, also known as sablefish, are swimming off Alaska’s coast; scientists estimate that this group of fish, which had huge reproductive success in 2014, is twice the size of the next-largest on record, from 1977.
The small-boat fishermen who catch black cod, many of whom live in Southeast Alaska, are eagerly waiting for the young fish to grow larger and commercially valuable. But they’re getting frustrated seeing increasing numbers of black cod caught accidentally, as bycatch, by the Seattle-based trawlers that target lower-value species in the Bering Sea, like the pollock that go into McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwiches.
“This recruitment event is what we’re counting on to keep the fishery going for the next 10 or 15 years,” said Tad Fujioka, a Sitka fisherman who decided to buy black cod fishing rights a few years ago, in part because of the boom in their numbers. “We need to save these fish for years to come.”
October 3, 2019 — The following was released by the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe:
The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe is pleased to announce a joint venture with Cooke Aquaculture Pacific.
The joint venture will initially work to rear sablefish (black cod) and sterile triploid, all-female rainbow trout. The venture will require reinstatement of the farm lease at Port Angeles, in exchange for significant investment by the venture in new infrastructure and local jobs in the area. The two partners will work together to rear these Northwest native species in Port Angeles Harbor.
“Our Council is committed to pursuing our self-reliance goal through diversified economic development and education, and we believe this partnership with Cooke Aquaculture Pacific will contribute to meeting that goal,” says Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe Chairman/CEO W. Ron Allen. “We, along with our sister tribes, are strong stewards of our environment. And we firmly believe we can implement net pen aquaculture consistent with our tribal heritage and cultural values. By working together, combining our history and experience fishing on the Olympic Peninsula with Cooke’s experience and expertise in aquaculture, we are confident that we can raise a sustainable supply of trout and sablefish and contribute to our local economy.”
This partnership with Cooke augments the well-established working relationship between the Tribe, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) Northwest Fisheries Science Center, Manchester Research Laboratory and the University of Washington, who have worked together since 2015 on black cod aquaculture research.
The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe is the second largest employer in Clallam County, providing jobs for over 750 people in its Tribal government and businesses. In addition to the businesses that provide revenues for Tribal programs and services, the Tribe is an active partner in many community projects focusing on protection and restoration of natural resources and habitat, improving health and wellness for the Olympic Peninsula, public safety, and promoting quality education.
“The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe is known for being progressive and forward-thinking in its approach to resource management and economic development,” says Glenn Cooke, CEO of Cooke Aquaculture Pacific. “We look forward to working together to produce top quality seafood for consumers in Washington and across the US.” The partners are expecting to start up the operations in the fall of 2019.
For more information, visit https://jamestowntribe.org or www.cookeseafood.com.
September 26, 2019 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:
The Pacific Fishery Management Council’s ad hoc Sablefish Management and Trawl Allocation Attainment Committee (SaMTAAC) will hold a two-day meeting that is open to the public. The meeting will begin Wednesday, October 9, 2019 at 8 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time and recess when business for the day is completed. It will continue at 8 a.m. Thursday, October 10, adjourning when business for the day is completed.
Please see the SaMTAAC October 9-10, 2019 Meeting Notice on the Council’s website for full details.
For further information:
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
April 30, 2018 — A shuffle in some funding leaves Alaska’s commercial fisheries division in good shape to manage the resources and target important projects across the state.
At first glance, the $69 million operating budget for FY19 appears to be down slightly from last year’s $72.3 million, but that’s not the case.
“Most of that difference is a sort of ‘cleanup’ in authority we no longer had funding for, such as the Alaska Sustainable Salmon Fund, test fishing and some interagency items. The rest is due to (a) $1.1 million shortfall in Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission revenue, which was made up from other department funds,” said Scott Kelley, commercial fisheries division director.
Added to the budget was a nearly $1 million unrestricted increment offered by Rep. Dan Ortiz of Ketchikan, which got the nod from Alaska lawmakers.
The extra money will be distributed among 11 projects in four regions: Southeast, Central, Westward and the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim, or AYK.
“It’s a $300,000 project for a juvenile chinook marine survey in the Bering Sea,” Kelley said. “Almost the first thing I get asked at meetings around the state is what’s going on with king salmon. That project looks at the early marine survival, which is where we think these mortality events are most affecting the species. It’s the only project in the state that really gives us a first look at what’s going on there.”
Other projects back on the funding track include Southeast and Togiak herring research, westward salmon weirs, Southeast sablefish research and Prince William Sound Tanner crab.
Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News