Saving Seafood

MAINE: Authorities Investigating Mass Salmon Die-Off At Down East Aquaculture Operation

August 30, 2021 — An investigation is underway into what caused a mass die-off of salmon at a Cooke Aquaculture operation Down East.

In a statement, Cooke Aquaculture spokesperson Joel Richardson writes that “uncommonly low oxygen levels in the cages” are being blamed for the fish die-off, and that the company is “completing the safe removal of mortalities that have occurred” at salmon farm sites off Black Island, near Frenchboro.

New Brunswick-based Cooke Aquaculture was cited in 2019 by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection after multiple violations were found at net pen sites in Hancock and Washington counties. The company agreed to pay more than $150,000 as part of the case resolution.

The violations included overcrowding of fish pens. The company was also cited for failing to conduct environmental sampling or submit reports on schedule.

Read the full story at Maine Public

MAINE: Penobscot River is on track to see fewest Atlantic salmon in recent years

August 30, 2021 — As the species continues to struggle to reproduce and re-establish historic populations, there have been considerably fewer Atlantic salmon in the Penobscot River this year.

As of the latest trap count report provided Aug. 23 by the Maine Department of Marine Resources, only 520 salmon have passed through the Milford and Orono dams this year.

That is fewer fish than were counted, as of the same date, in each of the previous four years and represents the fourth lowest total since 2000.

But one down year doesn’t spell disaster for the species.

Last year, 1,458 Atlantic salmon made their way through the Penobscot River dams, according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources. It was the highest return since 2011.

“There are many factors that might contribute to the lower run this year, the most significant likely being low survival at sea and poor freshwater survival and passage at dams for juveniles in prior years,” said Sean Ledwin, the sea run fisheries and habitat division director for the Department of Marine Resources.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

MAINE: More than 125 boats participate in protest on Frenchman Bay

August 30, 2021 — More than 125 boats chugged across Frenchman Bay on Sunday to protest plans by American Aquafarms to place an industrial salmon farm in the bay off the coast of Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park.

Organizers of the “Save the Bay” flotilla said it demonstrates the depth of opposition to the proposed salmon farm. The parade of boats included working lobster boats as well as pleasure craft.

The flotilla passed by the Bar Harbor town pier, where people stood holding signs in opposition to the fish farm.

Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation helped organize Sunday’s protest. The foundation and other parties are concerned that the fish farm will have negative environmental implications on the bay and its users.

American Aquafarms describes itself on its website as an American company that is in the process of establishing a hatchery, fish farm facilities – for both Atlantic salmon and cod – and a state-of-the art processing plant in coastal Maine.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

ALASKA: Kenai River sockeye run over-escaped by 1 million fish

August 27, 2021 — Nearly 2.5 million late-run sockeye are projected to pass through the Kenai River by the end of the month, over-escaping the river by over 1 million fish.

Those numbers concern fishermen like Joe Dragseth, a drift-netter in Kenai. He said he worries about the health of the river. And, he said, it’s unfair commercial fishermen have been restricted while so many fish have made it up the river.

“Basically, they’re taking the living away from us,” he said.

Alaska Department of Fish and Game sets both in-river and sustainable escapement goals for the run each season. The philosophy is returns will be best if the run falls between those goalposts.

This season, and the last several seasons, the sockeye run has surpassed the upper limit of those goals.

This year, the department set an in-river escapement goal of 1 million to 1.2 million for the run. Now, it’s projecting 2.4 million fish will pass through the sonar at mile 19 of the Kenai River by the end of the month.

For Kenai Peninsula set-netters, who’ve had abbreviated fishing seasons due to “paired restrictions” with the Kenai River king run, it’s been particularly hard to watch.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Court case is final hope for Inlet drifters

August 27, 2021 — A late-season bumper run of sockeye salmon has pushed the Kenai River to its highest escapement in more than a decade.

Unfortunately for the commercial fishermen in Upper Cook Inlet, they have had to watch many of them go by.

Over the course of the season, Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologists upgraded the estimate for the run’s escapement multiple times, upping the in-river bag limits for the sportfishery and opening some additional time for the drift gillnet fleet.

With the setnet fleet out of the water after July 20 because of poor king salmon returns to the Kenai, controlling sockeye escapements to the Kenai and Kasilof fell on the drift fleet and on the in-river dipnet and sportfisheries. Both rivers are ending their seasons significantly greater than the upper end of their escapement goals.

ADFG is projecting a final escapement in the Kasilof of 519,000 sockeye compared to the top end of the escapement goal of 320,000; the sustainable escapement goal for the Kenai River has a top end of 1.3 million and ADFG is projecting an in-river run of about 2.4 million sockeye.

Unless something changes, the drift fleet is likely to lose a major chunk of their fishing area at the end of this year, too.

The National Marine Fisheries Service is currently working its way through the regulations review process for a new fishery management plan amendment that will close the federal waters of Cook Inlet to salmon fishing. That section, known as the Exclusive Economic Zone or EEZ, covers the section of Cook Inlet that’s three nautical miles and farther offshore; drifters typically harvest half or more of their salmon from there during the season.

“For most of the fleet, the EEZ is the preferred area for fishing,” said Erik Huebsch, a drifter and vice president of the United Cook Inlet Drift Association. “Without access to the EEZ, the drift fleet cannot harvest enough salmon to meet expenses and cannot afford to operate.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

ALASKA: As local streams warm, cold water inputs could be crucial for salmon

August 26, 2021 — This particular pocket of Beaver Creek is not far from the road, just a short and muddy tromp away from a gravel parking lot between Kenai and Soldotna. But it’s home to several cold water inputs that could be crucially important for young salmon as they swim from the Kenai River to Cook Inlet.

Cook Inletkeeper Executive Director Sue Mauger said the inputs are like cold water faucets.

“They’re a little place where there’s a constant pump of colder water,” she said. “And that really can help buffer when we have those really warm, sunny days to actually have some cold water coming into the creek.”

Inletkeeper is working with the Kenai Watershed Forum and the Kachemak Heritage Land Trust to diagram those cold water spots in four peninsula creeks. The goal is to keep those creeks, and the salmon that use them, protected.

Here’s the catch — the inputs fall over a mosaic of private and city land. The nonprofits are reaching out to landowners to let them know they have something special in their backyards.

“Everyone who owns riverfront property knows they have really special habitat,” Mauger said. “Like, they know that that’s important; that’s why they bought the property, probably, is to be on the river. But to then be told, ‘You have extra special property. You have something really unique on your property’ is very exciting for someone.”

Read the full story at KDLL

Loki Fish recalls salmon lox over listeria concerns

August 25, 2021 — Loki Fish Company is recalling four-ounce packages of its Keta Salmon Lox due to the potential it is contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.

The Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.-based supplier is recalling the lox after the possibility of contamination was discovered during a U.S Food and Drug Administration inspection at its co-packer, Felix Custom Smoking in Monroe, Washington, Loki said in a press release.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

How low chum runs changed the lives of these Western Alaska fisheries workers

August 25, 2021 — For decades, Kwik’Pak Fisheries in the Western Alaska village of Emmonak has provided reliable summer employment in one of the state’s most unemployed regions. The company is the only fish processor on the Yukon River.

But with salmon runs low and commercial fishing closed, it’s offering few jobs this summer. Commercial fishermen and women are feeling the economic stress, and those who are still working at the plant have had to transition to new roles.

Every day at half past noon, Paul Andrews walks to the river bank in Emmonak, stopping at a small metal marker nestled on a dune. He takes out a surveyor’s measuring tape, hooks it on to the marker and walks it to the water line. Then he phones the National Weather Service.

“Make that 79 feet at 12:30,” Andrews said.

Read the full story at KTOO

ALASKA: Sockeye run overescaped by 1 million fish

August 25, 2021 — Nearly 2.5 million late-run sockeye are projected to pass through the Kenai River by the end of the month, overescaping the river by over one million fish.

Those numbers concern fishermen like Joe Dragseth, a drift-netter in Kenai. He said he worries about the health of the river. And he said it’s unfair commercial fishermen have been restricted while so many fish have made it up the river.

“Basically, they’re taking the living away from us,” he said.

Alaska Department of Fish and Game sets both in-river and sustainable escapement goals for the run each season. The philosophy is returns will be best if the run falls between those goalposts.

Read the full story at KDLL

Declining Salmon Population Threatens Fishing Tourism in Pacific Northwest

August 24, 2021 — Beneath the vacancy sign at the Salmon River Motel, a black and white placard reads “Salmon Lives Matter, Give a Dam.” For years the motel has been a profitable business in this canyon town of 400 three hours north of Boise, with a mile-long Main Street that swells each summer with visiting sport fishermen.

Now the motel and other businesses here are at risk, as the fish that drive the local economy shrink in both number and size.

This year, regional fish and wildlife agencies recorded one of the smallest counts of adult spring Chinook salmon in a generation in the Snake and Columbia river basin. Last year was worse. A wide body of research connects their decline to rising temperatures and climate change, which have compounded the damage done to fish populations by hydroelectric dams.

The impact of this decline ripples along this species’ entire migratory route, from the tourist economies and tribal communities of the inland Northwest to the $2 billion commercial fishing industry in ocean waters as far as Alaska, where state fisheries report total harvest weight has dropped by half since the 1960s.

Across the inland Pacific Northwest, dwindling salmon runs have emptied motel rooms, tackle shops and restaurants. Business in Riggins this summer beat expectations as pandemic fears eased, but the continuing decline of the sought-after Chinook—the largest of all Pacific salmon—threatens to devastate economies and tribes throughout the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.

Read the full story at the Wall Street Journal