Saving Seafood

Working with West Coast Tribes to Protect Endangered Species

April 5, 2022 — In late 2019, the National Science Foundation proposed to fund a high-energy seismic research survey in the Northeast Pacific Ocean. It would take place off the coasts of Oregon, Washington, and Vancouver Island in the summer of 2021. These surveys inform earthquake and tsunami hazards in the highly populated Pacific Northwest. The surveys deploy airguns, which create sound waves that transmit through the water. Any marine life in the area could be affected by the sound, including salmon and Southern resident killer whales, which are culturally important to many Pacific Northwest Tribes.

Through an academic study, the National Science Foundation  proposed a marine geophysical survey to collect geological data from Cascadia Subduction Zone. To collect the survey data, the National Science Foundation Research Vessel Marcus G. Langserh would tow airguns that send out sound waves into the water.

Read the full story at NOAA Fisheries

 

Copper River Seafoods no longer buying Cook Inlet salmon amid declining harvests

March 31, 2022 — Another seafood processor is moving out of Kenai this salmon season. Copper River Seafoods is ending its run in the old Snug Harbor Seafood plant, leaving one major salmon processor in the area but promising the addition of a new company soon.

Processors like Copper River buy catch from commercial fishermen and bring that catch to market. As commercial fishermen have dealt with declining salmon runs and management changes, processors from Kenai to Homer have left, too, leaving fishermen with fewer options.

In a letter, Copper River CEO Scott Blake said those factors were to blame for the company ending its salmon buying on the Kenai Peninsula, as well as increasing production costs.

The letter didn’t call out any particular management changes and a spokesperson for Copper River Seafoods could not be reached before airtime.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Despite PR Aqua lawsuit, Whole Oceans renews site work on Maine RAS salmon farm

March 31, 2022 — Whole Oceans is beginning site work in preparation for construction of a recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) Atlantic salmon farm in Bucksport, Maine, U.S.A.

The company, which is owned by Auburn, Indiana-based Emergent Holdings, first announced a plan to build the farm at the site of a former paper mill site at a cost of USD 250 million (EUR 203 million), with the initial goal of producing 5,000 metric tons (MT) of Atlantic salmon annually, and eventually expanding to produce up to 50,000 MT.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Salmon travel deep into the Pacific. As it warms, many ‘don’t come back.’

March 30, 2022 — During a typical fall, almost a million chum salmon pour into Alaska’s Yukon River, a torrent of wild fish that has sustained the economy and Indigenous culture in the far north for generations. Last year, that run collapsed, with salmon trickling upstream at a 10th of normal levels, forcing the state to airlift frozen fish from other regions to feed the population.

About 400 miles to the south, in Bristol Bay, the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery set a record last year, with more than 66 million salmon returning to the rivers in the watershed. That total is expected to be broken again this year.

Salmon in the Pacific Ocean face dramatically different fates from one river system to the next. As the planet warms, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, scientists say changes in ocean conditions are helping drive these wild swings and collapses of key stocks. These North Pacific fish account for most of the world’s wild-caught salmon, and their survival has implications for economies and cultures around the Pacific Rim.

During her three decades as a government scientist, as climate change has intensified, Laurie Weitkamp has watched these fluctuations in salmon numbers become bigger and the models that predict how many salmon will return from sea become more unreliable.

“Salmon will go out, in what we think is a really good ocean, and then it collapses,” said Weitkamp, a fisheries biologist with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration based in Oregon. “They don’t come back.”

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Board votes to continue conservation measures for weak Southeast Alaska king salmon stocks

March 28, 2022 — Alaska’s Board of Fisheries this week voted to continue with conservation measures for chronically low returns of king salmon in Southeast Alaska. Some stocks are forecast to be at their lowest levels on record this year and others have rebounded a little under fishery closures.

The region has 34 stocks of king salmon and the board has listed seven as stocks of concern. That means for four years or more, those runs have not had enough fish making it back to spawn, or what managers call an escapement goal.

Ed Jones is an Alaska Department of Fish and Game coordinator specializing in king salmon research. He outlined to the board the measures taken to reduce harvest of those fish.

“Through the actions taken beginning in 2018 with the action plans, we have taken good steps towards achieving the escapement goals,” Jones said. “The problem is the production of these stocks has just continued to be low. And so right now we’ve not been able to provide a harvestable yield annually. The hopes are that that production will change, escapement goals will be met and we’ll also be able to identify yield.”

Read the full story at KTOO

Hatcheries produced a third of Alaska’s salmon catch in 2021

March 22, 2022 — Salmon returning home to Alaska hatcheries again accounted for nearly a third of the statewide catch for commercial fishermen with 64 million fish in 2021. It was the eighth largest hatchery homecoming since 1977. And at a payout of $142 million, the salmon produced 25 percent of the overall value at Alaska docks.

An additional 220,000 salmon that got their start in a hatchery also were caught in Alaska sport, personal use and subsistence fisheries.

Nearly 70 million adult hatchery salmon returned last year, according to the annual salmon enhancement report by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Pinks comprised the bulk of the pack, topping 57 million, followed by chum salmon at 9.4 million.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Opinion: What lessons can Alaska learn – and share – on Arctic fisheries?

March 15, 2022 — Although focus is increasingly placed on sustainability policies and blue economy models among Arctic nations, the systematization of structured transnational collaboration in the circumpolar north has been underdeveloped. Over the past three years, as one of its objectives, the AlaskaNor project has aimed to identify the economic and social effects of the fisheries and aquaculture sectors in Alaska and North Norway in a comparative context and make this knowledge available for relevant stakeholders and decision-makers.

Through a comprehensive quantitative assessment of the status quo, challenges and opportunities of the fisheries and aquaculture sectors in both Arctic regions, the project demonstrated that both Alaska and North Norway are strong frontiers in fisheries and aquaculture production, with outstanding economic performance on the global market. The project’s assessment aimed at helping both regions to develop platforms and networks for further interaction while achieving sustainable and diversified economies.

Knowledge exchange

With salmon production being an invaluable source of income and employment in both regions, there is potential for Alaska and North Norway to learn from each other’s practices, despite salmon industries being carried out in a fundamentally different manner. While finfish farming is forbidden by Alaska law, Alaska’s successful development of hatcheries and the management of salmon stocks could offer sustainability lessons to Norwegian businesses. In turn, North Norway’s highly profitable aquaculture could offer successful strategies for reaching and maintaining new markets. Groundfish fisheries management could also benefit from knowledge and best practice exchange, given that both regions are currently exposed to the impacts of climate change, including diminishing Arctic sea ice, ocean acidification and higher sea surface temperatures, all of which affect groundfish habitation, nutrition and migration patterns.

Read the full opinion piece at the Anchorage Daily News

A Russian seafood ban will drive up prices, but it’s too soon to say if Alaska fishermen will benefit

March 14, 2022 — President Joe Biden on Friday ordered a national ban on some imports from Russia, including seafood. It’s a move intended to punish that country for its invasion of Ukraine, but the ban has ripple effects that could wash ashore in Alaska.

Russian seafood competes with Alaska products for shelf space and consumer attention, particularly pollock and crab. Officials here said Friday’s announcement could benefit the Alaska fishing industry.

But the effects may be limited to a few key sectors — the major Seattle-based trawlers that haul up millions of pounds of pollock, largely for export, and hard-hit Bering Sea crab fishermen. There will be some effect on salmon fishermen, experts say, but the embargo’s impact is less clear in that industry.

“It’s a big deal for crab,” said Jamie Goen, executive director of Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers. The group represents about 350 members, including 60 boats in Alaska’s crab fleet.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Feds say pesticide won’t destroy species

March 9, 2022 — The Fish and Wildlife Service has concluded that the pesticide malathion does not jeopardize threatened and endangered species or their habitat.

In a much-awaited study that’s drawing sharp criticism from environmentalists, the federal agency backed off its most recent draft conclusion that the registration of malathion for use was likely to threaten 78 species and destroy or adversely modify 23 critical habitats (Greenwire, April 21, 2021).

“The Biden administration has squandered a historic opportunity to rein in the dangerous use of one of the world’s worst neurotoxic pesticides,” Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement today.

Burd noted that NOAA Fisheries recently released its own updated biological opinion that determined malathion and two other organophosphate pesticides jeopardize endangered U.S. salmon, sturgeon and steelhead species, as well as Puget Sound orcas.

Read the full story at E&E News

CALIFORNIA: Prolonged drought muddies outlook for salmon season in North Bay

March 7, 2022 — On the surface, the outlook is relatively bright for this year’s chinook salmon season, a popular time for sport anglers up and down the North Coast, and a potentially profitable one for the commercial fleet.

State and federal scientists issued their annual forecast this week and estimated more than 396,000 adult salmon were waiting to return to the Sacramento River system, known as the Sacramento fall run, to spawn this year and would be ready to catch.

That’s higher than all but one of the last seven years and would be the highest, except experts admittedly overshot with their 2015 forecast.

Those who fish in the ocean from Monterey to Eureka have some reason to feel optimistic after a strong season last year.

Salmon is the second most lucrative type of fishing in Bodega Bay, behind Dungeness crab. It has brought in half a million pounds in each of the last three years, with earnings in the $4 million ballpark.

Read the full story at The Press Democrat