Saving Seafood

Bristol Bay salmon fishery is generating big revenue this year, but most of the money will leave Alaska

October 5, 2021 — The preliminary value to fishermen of the nearly 41 million salmon caught this summer at Alaska’s largest fishery at Bristol Bay is nearly $248 million, 64% above the 20-year average. That figure will be much higher when bonuses and other price adjustments are paid out.

But as with the fish bucks tallied from Alaska’s cod, pollock, flounders and other groundfish (a .78 share), the bulk of the Bay’s salmon money won’t be circulating through Alaska’s economy because most of the fishing participants live out of the state.

In 2017, for example, 62% of gross earnings from the Bristol Bay driftnet fishery and 40% from the setnet fishery left Alaska as nonresident earnings.

That’s due to the region experiencing an overall 50% decline in local permit holdings since Alaska began limiting entry into commercial salmon fisheries in 1975. Combined, residents of the Bristol Bay region now hold less than one-quarter of the region’s salmon permits.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Low King Salmon Runs In Western Alaska Trigger Bering Sea Bycatch Caps

September 29, 2021 — Unofficial estimates of this summer’s king salmon run in Western Alaska rivers show a lower than average return, which will trigger stricter limits on the Bering Sea pollock fishery’s bycatch caps for king salmon next year.

State biologists said that about 129,000 king salmon returned to the Kuskokwim River this year. Of those, the state estimates that about 28,000 were harvested, and 101,000 made their way upriver to spawn.

The state’s escapement goal of 65,000 to 120,000 kings was met, but federal and tribal managers’ escapement goal of 110,000 king salmon was not. This year’s king salmon run is slightly higher than last year’s estimated run size of 116,000 king salmon, but much lower than the 2019 run of 233,000.

Read the full story at KYUK

Disease resistance gene pinpointed in farmed salmon, trout

September 24, 2021 — Using a combination of genomics and gene-editing technologies, a team of scientists has identified a gene that has a major role in the resistance of salmonids to Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis Virus (IPNV), a disease that can cause high mortality levels in farmed salmon and trout.

The study, carried out by the Roslin Institute and Hendrix Genetics – together with the University of Stirling; the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science; and Uppsala University – identified the gene Nedd8 Activating Enzyme E1 (Nae1) in Atlantic salmon using CRISPR gene-editing technology.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Salmon Technical Team to hold joint online meeting with Salmon Subcommittee of the Scientific and Statistical Committee and Model Evaluation Workgroup October 20-21, 2021

September 23, 2021 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The Pacific Fishery Management Council’s (Pacific Council) Salmon Technical Team will host a joint online meeting with the Salmon Subcommittee of the Scientific and Statistical Committee and the Model Evaluation Workgroup.  The online meeting will be held Wednesday and Thursday, October 20-21, 2021, from 8:30 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, until 3 p.m. daily, or until business is completed, and will be open to the public.

Please see the meeting notice on the Pacific Council’s website for the purpose of the meeting and participation details.

For further information:

  • Please contact Pacific Fishery Management Council staff Robin Ehlke at 503-820-2410.

‘It’s very emotional’: Chignik residents fear for their communities’ future if abysmal salmon runs persist

September 14, 2021 — Gene Carlson drove the streets of the remote Chignik Bay, between quiet wooden houses and old cannery buildings on an afternoon in July.

“That used to be a restaurant there,” he said. “That’s a web loft over there, which is shut down now. Here’s another one of my cousin’s houses. He’s not living there anymore.”

The Chignik River’s salmon runs have sustained generations in the century-old small fishing communities along the Alaska Peninsula, Chignik Bay included. But, for the fourth year in a row, for reasons no one can definitively pinpoint, the runs came in severely low.

For years, residents have struggled to earn a living fishing and to put up enough fish for the winter, and some worry their villages will disappear if the low runs persist, taking with them a fishing tradition that connects their families to home.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Biden administration moves to protect key Alaska watershed

September 10, 2021 — The Biden administration said on Thursday it will relaunch a process that could permanently protect a vital Alaskan watershed from development of the contentious Pebble Mine project that has been pursued for more than a decade.

The Department of Justice asked in an Alaska federal district court filing that the court vacate a 2019 decision by the Trump-era Environmental Protection Agency to remove protection of the Bristol Bay watershed.

If the court grants the request, it would automatically reinstate the EPA’s Clean Water Act Section 404 review process. The agency could then resume an effort to protect certain waters in the Bristol Bay watershed, whose streams, wetlands, lakes and ponds are home to North America’s most productive salmon fisheries of five types of salmon: coho, Chinook, sockeye, chum and pink.

Read the full story at Reuters

Alaska governor nominates Pebble Mine opponent to state Board of Fisheries

September 8, 2021 — It took freedom of information requests, weeks of queries to administrators and more than three months past a legal deadline for Gov. Mike Dunleavy to finally release his choice for a Board of Fisheries seat.

Dunleavy announced last Friday his appointment of Indy Walton of Soldotna to fill the vacant seat on the seven-member Board that directs management of subsistence, personal use, sport and commercial fisheries in state waters out to three miles. The vacancy came 115 days after the Alaska Legislature on May 11 rejected his choice of Abe Williams, a regional affairs director for the Pebble Mine.

Alaska law states that the governor must submit a new name to the Legislature within 30 days for confirmation, but Dunleavy moves to his own legal drummer and 15 candidates remained under wraps from the public although all applied for the BOF seat in June.

In a statement, the governor said Walton has 37 years of commercial salmon fishing experience at both Kodiak and Bristol Bay. He is a partner at Last Cast Lodge in Igiugik and has worked as a financial adviser with Edward Jones Investments for 19 years.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Maine groups receive $900K to help restore Atlantic salmon populations

September 8, 2021 — Continuing efforts to help restore Atlantic salmon populations in Maine are receiving a boost thanks to $900,000 in funding awarded through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King announced Tuesday that four organizations in Maine have been selected to receive money from the distribution to assist their efforts.

“Atlantic salmon are a critical part of our state’s marine ecosystem, but they are endangered and at risk of extinction,” Collins and King said in a joint statement. “These fish help to ensure the health of our rivers and oceans that Mainers and wildlife depend on. We welcome this funding, which will help to conserve and restore wild Atlantic salmon and their ecosystems across the state.”

The Atlantic salmon, specifically the Gulf of Maine distinct population that has been protected since 2000 under the Endangered Species Act, is one of the most at-risk endangered species, NOAA reported. Only approximately 1,200 fish return each year, although as of Aug. 30 only 522 salmon have been counted so far this year at the Milford and Orono dams.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

 

Amid an unprecedented collapse in Alaska Yukon River salmon, no one can say for certain why there are so few fish

September 7, 2021 — A single slick silver salmon lay flat in the center of a floating dock.

The lone coho was the only fish that turned up in the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s test net that mid-August evening. A technician stooped low in her orange rubber gloves and sandals for measurements.

Test nets are one of the tools that fisheries managers use to understand what’s happening with the salmon runs on the Lower Yukon River. Any of the fish caught, once sampled, are given to local residents for food. In normal times, when big pulses of chum surge into the river, managers sometimes have 50 or a hundred fish at a time to donate. But this year, test nets sometimes went as long as three days without a single salmon. People stopped bothering to even check the bins set down the road from the AC store.

So it was a big deal that hours earlier during the morning run, the test nets yielded a catch.

“Word traveled fast that we got three fish,” said biologist Courtney Berry.

“Fishing for water all summer has been … boring,” Berry said.

The salmon situation this year on the Yukon is bad. Kings have been in decline for years, here and almost everywhere else in the state. This summer was the fourth lowest count of kings in the Yukon since 1995.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

 

MAINE: Dozens of boaters protest proposed salmon farm near Acadia National Park

September 1, 2021 — Choosing Frenchman Bay makes American Aquafarms’ plans more controversial than they might otherwise be, a University of New England professor of ocean systems said.

The proposal, currently in a state-level permitting process with both the Maine Department of Marine Resources and Maine Department of Environmental Protection, would allow American Aquafarms, a Norwegian-backed company, to place large commercial salmon-raising operation in Frenchman Bay, which borders the park and nearby towns like Bar Harbor.

The farm will be 120 acres in size, according to Maine Public.

American Aquafarms says the salmon would be in closed pens and would represent a $250 million investment in the region that creates 100 jobs and includes a redevelopment of an industrial waterfront area in nearby Gouldsboro.

But opponents of the project, like those who were part of the protest, say they’re concerned about light pollution, noise pollution, environmental risks and tourists finding the farm unsightly.

Read the full story at News Center Maine