Saving Seafood

Funding for Alaska’s commercial fisheries division in good shape, with $300K going to chinook project

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.

 The biggest project focuses on research to help determine the causes of declining chinook salmon.

“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

 

Alaska: Cook Inlet bait herring and smelt net big payouts for few participants

April 25, 2018 — Two commercial fisheries open each spring at Upper Cook Inlet that attract little notice and few participants, but each pays big bucks to fishermen.

The first is a food and bait herring fishery that runs from April 20 through the end of May. The 150-ton quota is small compared to most of Alaska’s other herring fisheries, but the payout is far higher than all others.

“They get $1.00 to $1.50 a pound, or $2,000 to $3,000 for a short ton, and the herring goes primarily into the halibut commercial bait fishery or the sport bait fishery,” said Pat Shields, regional manager for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Soldotna.

In contrast, the statewide average price for roe herring at places like Sitka, Kodiak or Togiak is just 12 cents a pound, and fishermen make between $100 to $350 a ton.

The Cook Inlet herring fishery serves a small, local market provided by 10 to 20 fishermen. The fish is captured in gillnets by 10 to 20 salmon setnet fishermen who are trying to get some money to start the season, Shields explained. The herring are frozen and sold throughout the year and the demand far exceeds the supply.

Shields speculates the price is so high because there are so few bait herring fisheries in the state — two in Southeast, one at Kodiak and Dutch Harbor.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Making a better “hot dog of the sea”

April 24, 2018 — When people think of Alaska seafood, salmon and halibut come to mind. But the state also produces a lesser-known fish product sought after all around the world: surimi, the base for imitation crab.

Now the guy who helped establish surimi in America — more than 30 years ago — is on a mission to improve how it’s made.

Tyre Lanier is a food scientist at at North Carolina State University, where he’s been since the 1970s. He has a background in the science of hot dogs.

So, working on seafood initially was a bit of a stretch for him.

“I started off trying to make hot dogs out of fish believe it or not,” Lanier said. “Then I heard about surimi.”

Or as Lanier refers to it, “the hot dog of sea.”

For thousands of years, surimi seafood has been part of Japanese cuisine. Sometimes referred to as kamaboko, it comes in a variety of flavors and shapes.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Radio

 

Washington: 8 months after farmed-fish escape, lively Atlantic salmon caught 40 miles upriver

April 20, 2018 — Upper Skagit tribal fishermen caught a lively Atlantic salmon more than 40 miles up the Skagit River Tuesday, eight months after Cooke Aquaculture’s Atlantic salmon net pen collapsed at Cypress Island and sent more than 300,000 Atlantics into the home waters of Washington’s Pacific salmon.

The Atlantic caught Tuesday had bones in its stomach, indicating it had eaten some kind of fish.

“We are definitely concerned,” said Scott Schuyler, natural resources director for the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe. Schuyler caught the fish while out drift-netting for hatchery chinook intended for a ceremonial feast at the tribe’s upcoming blessing of the fleet.

He caught the Atlantic on the first set.

Read the full story at the Seattle Times

 

Alaska salmon permit values stall amid lackluster catch forecast

April 17, 2018 — Spring is usually the busiest time of year for brokers in the buy/sell/trade business for Alaska salmon permits. But that’s not the case this year.

Values for several salmon permits had ticked upwards after a blockbuster salmon fishery in 2017, but they have remained stagnant since last fall.

“That sort of summarizes the salmon permit market. There is not a lot of excitement about any of them,” said Doug Bowen of Alaska Boats and Permits in Homer.

A lackluster catch forecast for the upcoming salmon season — down 34 percent — has helped dampen enthusiasm.

Even at the one big bright spot at Bristol Bay, where another big sockeye catch of more than 37 million fish is expected, the value of drift net permits has stalled in the $150,000 range.

 “Sometimes before the season we see the price go up and up until the fishing begins. This year it just seems like it’s a calmer market and the price actually slipped,” Bowen said.

Also at play in the bay: Major buyers will no longer purchase salmon from “dry” boats starting this year.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

 

West Coast Salmon Seasons Set After Week of Tensions, Struggles

April 13, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — This week the Pacific Fishery Management Council adopted ocean salmon season recommendations that provide recreational and commercial opportunities for most of the Pacific coast, and achieve conservation goals for the numerous individual salmon stocks on the West Coast.

“It has been another challenging year for the Council, its advisers, fishery stakeholders and the public as we strive to balance fishing opportunities with the conservation needs we are facing on Chinook and coho salmon stocks, both north and south of Cape Falcon,” Council Executive Director Chuck Tracy said in a press release. “The Council has recommended ocean salmon seasons on the West Coast this year that provide important protections for stocks of concern, including Lower Columbia River natural fall Chinook, Puget Sound Chinook, Washington coastal coho, and Sacramento River fall Chinook.”

Fisheries in Washington and northern Oregon, referred to as “North of Falcon” due to Cape Falcon being located near Nehalem in northern Oregon, depend largely on Columbia River Chinook and coho stocks. Overall, Columbia River fall Chinook forecasts are considered low to moderate compared to the recent 10-year average. Hatchery coho stocks originating from the Columbia River together with natural stocks originating from the Queets River and Grays Harbor are expected to return at low levels resulting in very low harvest quotas, as was the case in 2017.

Washington state and tribal co-managers struggled during the week’s Council meeting to find solutions. Finally, on Tuesday, they agreed to fishing seasons that meets conservation goals for wild fish while providing fishing opportunities on healthy salmon runs.

A variety of unfavorable environmental conditions, including severe flooding in rivers and warm ocean water, have reduced the number of salmon returning to Washington’s rivers in recent years, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife fish program leader Ron Warren said. In addition, the loss of quality rearing and spawning habitat continues to take a toll on salmon populations throughout the region, where some stocks are listed for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act, he said.

The overall non-Indian total allowable catch for the area is 55,000 Chinook coastwide, compared to 90,000 last year, and 47,600 marked hatchery coho, the same as last year. Fisheries are designed to provide harvest opportunity on healthy Chinook returns primarily destined for the Columbia River, while avoiding coho stocks of concern.

Non-Indian ocean commercial fisheries north of Cape Falcon include traditional, but reduced, Chinook seasons in the spring (May-June) and summer season (July through mid-September). Non-Indian ocean commercial fisheries in this area will have access to a total of 27,500 Chinook, compared to 45,000 Chinook last year, and a marked coho quota of 5,600, the same as last year.

Tribal ocean fisheries north of Cape Falcon are similar in structure to past years, with quotas that include 40,000 Chinook and 12,500 coho, the same as last year.

“It’s critical that we ensure fisheries are consistent with ongoing efforts to protect and rebuild wild salmon stocks,” Warren said in a press release. “Unfortunately, the loss of salmon habitat continues to outpace these recovery efforts.”

In California and Oregon south of Cape Falcon, will be limited, as expected, due to Klamath River and Sacramento fall Chinook and also to Oregon Coast natural coho — but some opportunities in Oregon are better this year than last.

“While this won’t be a banner year for ocean salmon fishing, overall it’s an improvement from 2017. This is particularly true for communities on the Southern Oregon coast, which were hit hard by 2017’s salmon closures,” Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Deputy Fish Division Administrator Chris Kern said in a press release.

Commercial fisheries from Cape Falcon to Humbug Mt. in Oregon will open on May 4 and will and continue through Aug. 29 with intermittent closures. This area will also be open continuously in September and October, with weekly limits and a depth restriction in October.

Fisheries from Humbug Mt., Oregon, to Humboldt South Jetty, California, will be open intermittently from May through August. Monthly quotas will be in place for the Oregon portion of the Klamath Management Zone from June through August. In 2017, all Oregon commercial salmon trolling was closed south of Florence.

“I want to thank the many advisors, tribal members, agency staff, and members of the general public, who all worked hard to ensure that conservation goals for salmon stocks are met while providing fishing opportunities for communities up and down the West Coast,” Kern said.

In the California portion of the KMZ, monthly Chinook quotas will be in place from May through August. The quotas all feature landing and possession limits, and the Californian portion of this area will be open five days a week.

Between Horse Mountain and Pigeon Point, the Fort Bragg and San Francisco areas, the area will be open for a week in late July, most of August and all of September. From Pigeon Point to the Mexico border, the Chinook season will be open during the first week in May and the last two weeks of June. There will also be a season from Point Reyes to Point San Pedro (a subset of the San Francisco area), consisting of two five-day periods in October.

After the last week of tensions, Council members, state advisers and tribes did leave the meeting with a bit of positive news: a renewed commitment by Indian and non-Indian fishermen to work together for the future of salmon and salmon fishing, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission chair Lorraine Loomis said.

“No fisherman wants to catch the last salmon. We know that the ongoing loss of habitat, a population explosion of hungry seals and sea lions and the needs of endangered southern resident killer whales are the real challenges facing us today. We must work together if we are going to restore salmon to sustainable levels,” she said.

Council chairman Phil Anderson noted fishermen bear the burden of conserving these fish populations while their demise is largely out of the seafood industry’s control.

“This year’s package includes some very restrictive seasons in both commercial and recreational fisheries along the entire coast,” Anderson said. “Low abundances of Chinook and coho are in part due to the poor ocean conditions the adult fish faced as juveniles when they entered the ocean, and poor in-river habitat and water conditions.”

These recommendations will be forwarded to the National Marine Fisheries Service for approval by May 1, 2018.

This story originally appeared on Seafood News, it is republished with permission.   

 

New model looks to predict economic impacts of fishing closures

April 12, 2018 — Getting ahead of the economic impacts that tend to accompany fisheries’ closures is the basis of a new predictive model put together by a team of scientists from NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NFSC) and the University of Washington.

When fisheries shut down, entire communities suffer, the scientific team recognized, and oftentimes, funds doled out to help fishermen weathering rough patches arrive months after they are needed. The new predictive model, which was published recently in the journal Marine Policy, is designed to help mitigate some of this damage, explained Kate Richerson, a marine ecologist at NFSC and the University of Washington, and the lead author of the model.

To develop their predictive standard, Richerson and her team focused on the 2017 closure of the U.S. West Coast’s salmon troll fishery, collating fish ticket data as a starting point.

“We looked at a pretty broad cohort of vessels and found that some of these vessels are almost entirely dependent on salmon, while others are almost entirely dependent on other fisheries,” Richerson said. “Then we looked at their predicted behavior and revenue under the conditions of a closure and under the conditions of an average year. And we used that in combination with this economic input-output model, which links fishing revenue to jobs and sales, to make a sort of back-of-the-envelope prediction of what the impacts of the 2017 closure might have been.”

They estimated the closure, leveled to protect struggling Chinook runs on the Klamath River, would cost trollers anywhere from USD 5.8 million (EUR 4.6 million) to USD 8.9 million (EUR 7.2 million), along with 200 to 330 jobs and USD 12.8 million (EUR 10.3 million) to USD 19.6 million (EUR 15.8 million) in sales. The numbers were confined to trollers, and would have likely been far higher with the inclusion of other fisheries, such as gillnetting and recreational fishing.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

PFMC: West Coast Salmon Season Dates Set

April 11, 2018 — PORTLAND, Ore. — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

This week the Pacific Fishery Management Council adopted ocean salmon season recommendations that provide recreational and commercial opportunities for most of the Pacific coast, and achieve conservation goals for the numerous individual salmon stocks on the West Coast.

The recommendation will be forwarded to the National Marine Fisheries Service for approval by May 1, 2018.

“It has been another challenging year for the Council, its advisors, fishery stakeholders and the public as we strive to balance fishing opportunities with the conservation needs we are facing on Chinook and coho salmon stocks, both north and south of Cape Falcon,” said Council Executive Director Chuck Tracy. “The Council has recommended ocean salmon seasons on the west coast this year that provide important protections for stocks of concern, including Lower Columbia River natural fall Chinook, Puget Sound Chinook, Washington coastal coho, and Sacramento River fall Chinook.”

“This year’s package includes some very restrictive seasons in both commercial and recreational fisheries along the entire coast. Low abundances of Chinook and coho are in part due to the poor ocean conditions the adult fish faced as juveniles when they entered the ocean, and poor in-river habitat and water conditions. Tribal, commercial, and recreational fishers continue to bear a large part of the burden of conservation,” said Council Chair Phil Anderson.

Washington and Northern Oregon (North of Cape Falcon)

Fisheries north of Cape Falcon (near Nehalem in northern Oregon) depend largely on Columbia River Chinook and coho stocks. Overall, Columbia River fall Chinook forecasts are considered low to moderate compared to the recent 10-year average.  Hatchery coho stocks originating from the Columbia River together with natural stocks originating from the Queets River and Grays Harbor are expected to return at low levels resulting in very low harvest quotas as was the case in 2017.

North of Cape Falcon, the overall non-Indian total allowable catch is 55,000 Chinook coastwide (compared to 90,000 last year) and 47,600 marked hatchery coho (the same as last year). Fisheries are designed to provide harvest opportunity on healthy Chinook returns primarily destined for the Columbia River, while avoiding coho stocks of concern.

Commercial Fisheries

Non-Indian ocean commercial fisheries north of Cape Falcon include traditional, but reduced, Chinook seasons in the spring (May-June) and summer season (July through mid-September). Non-Indian ocean commercial fisheries in this area will have access to a total of 27,500 Chinook (compared to 45,000 Chinook last year), and a marked coho quota of 5,600 (the same as last year).

Tribal ocean fisheries north of Cape Falcon are similar in structure to past years, with quotas that include 40,000 Chinook and 12,500 coho (the same as last year).

View the release in its entirety here.

 

Alaska: Trifecta of falling fish revenues anticipated

April 9, 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 5th 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, still well above the 10- and 20-year averages for the Bay.

Read the full story at the Cordova Times

 

Salmon survival: ‘We need more lethal removal of sea lions. Hazing is not the answer’

April 6, 2018 — Ted Walsey’s shotgun cracked like thunder, lobbing a cracker shell into the Columbia River and sending the big brown sea lion beneath the surface in search of friendlier waters. But the boat and the noises emanating from it weren’t far behind.

Just as crews from the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission have for a number of years, Walsey, Bobby Begay and Reggie Sargeant patrolled the river just below Bonneville Dam on Wednesday afternoon, harassing but not killing sea lions with cracker shotgun shells and so-called seal bombs — both essentially big firecrackers, the former shot from a shotgun, the latter dropped by hand — downstream and away from the fish ladders, where endangered migratory salmon congregate.

For the salmon, it’s the first chokepoint on a long journey to their spawning grounds. For hungry sea lions, it’s like a quick trip to an all-you-can-eat buffet.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries division estimates about 45 percent of spring chinook salmon are lost between the mouth of the Columbia and Bonneville Dam, with sea lions being primarily responsible.

Sea lions — as well as whales, dolphins and porpoises — are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. For the last 15 years or so, states and tribes have been able to kill some sea lions, but they have to go through a long and laborious permitting process to do so on an animal-by-animal basis.

Read the full story at TDN