Saving Seafood

2020’s Southeast salmon harvest among worst on record, according to Alaska Fish & Game data

April 1, 2021 —  Last year’s salmon harvest across all species in Southeast Alaska was one of the worst in 50 years. Here’s what Southeast’s regional commercial fishery supervisor had to say about the terrible season, and about his hopes for the coming year.

A special report released in March paints a stark picture of 2020’s salmon harvest in Southeast Alaska.

“Overall, it was one of the lowest harvests we’d seen, I think since the ’70s,” says Lowell Fair. He’s the Southeast regional supervisor for the commercial fisheries division of Alaska Department of Fish and Game. It was already clear from preliminary reports that last year’s salmon season was a rough one. But just how rough?

For sockeye, the harvest was the second lowest since 1962 — that’s just a couple of years after the Department of Fish & Game was formed and started collecting data.

King harvest was in the bottom five harvests since the early 1960s as well.

Coho and pink harvests came in stronger than kings and sockeye, but were still among the lowest years in recent memory, ranking 48th and 53rd since 1962, respectively.

Read the full story at KNBA

ALASKA: ADF&G Commissioner Addresses Disaster Relief, Cook Inlet Closure, Large Salmon Forecast for 2021

April 1, 2021 — Alaska’s Governor Mike Dunleavy has received 11 requests for fisheries disaster declarations, said Doug Vincent-Lange, Alaska’s Commissioner of Fish and Game, in an update at the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce’s ComFish Expo.

Noting the good news of over half of Alaska’s population now vaccinated, and shots now available for anyone over 16, Vincent-Lange said, “I don’t see why you wouldn’t all be able to fish this year.”

Read the full story at Seafood News

PFMC: Southern Oregon/Northern California Coast Coho Workgroup to hold online meeting May 12, 2021

March 31, 2021 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The Pacific Fishery Management Council’s Southern Oregon/Northern California Coast (SONCC) Coho Workgroup will host an online meeting that is open to the public.  The meeting will be held Wednesday, May 12, 2021 from 9 a.m., Pacific Daylight Time, until 5 p.m., or until business for the day has been completed.

Please see the SONCC Coho Workgroup online meeting notice on the Council’s website for purpose and participation details.

For further information:

  • Please contact Pacific Fishery Management Council staff Robin Ehlke at 503-820-2410; toll free 1-866-806-7204, extension 410

Warm Water Important for Cold-water Fish Like Salmon and Trout, Study Finds

March 26, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Warm river habitats appear to play a larger-than-expected role in supporting the survival of cold-water fish, such as salmon and trout. This information was published today in a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The research has important implications for fish conservation strategies. A common goal among scientists and policymakers is to identify and prioritize habitat for cold-water fish that remain suitably cool during the summer. This is especially important as the climate warms.

Potential Blind Spot

“Prioritizing cold-water habitat devalues seasonally warm areas, even if they are suitable for fish most of the year,” said Jonny Armstrong, lead author of the paper and an ecologist at Oregon State University. He called this a “potentially severe blind spot for climate change adaptation.”

A huge challenge for conservation is to figure out how to help these fish survive a warmer future. Typically, efforts focus on saving the coldest places, such as high mountain streams, which are already the most pristine parts of basins. This approach often neglects the places that are warm in summer, forgetting that these places are optimal for much of the year.

“We’re talking about a subtle shift in how we think about these thermal habitats,” said Aimee Fullerton, a fisheries biologist at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center and a study co-author. “Of course, we want to protect the high-quality cold-water habitats. But we need to expand our definition of high-quality habitat to include some warmer waters.”

Read the full release here

That Salmon on Your Plate Might Have Been a Vegetarian

March 25, 2021 — Twenty years ago, as farmed salmon and shrimp started spreading in supermarket freezers, came an influential scientific paper that warned of an environmental mess: Fish farms were gobbling up wild fish stocks, spreading disease and causing marine pollution.

This week, some of the same scientists who published that report issued a new paper concluding that fish farming, in many parts of the world, at least, is a whole lot better. The most significant improvement, they said, was that farmed fish were not being fed as much wild fish. They were being fed more plants, like soy.

In short, the paper found, farmed fish like salmon and trout had become mostly vegetarians.

Synthesizing hundreds of research papers carried out over the last 20 years across the global aquaculture industry, the latest study was published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Read the full story at The New York Times

Atlantic Sapphire suffers mass salmon mortality at its Florida RAS farm

March 24, 2021 — On Tuesday, 23 March, Atlantic Sapphire suffered a mass mortality event at its recirculating aquaculture system salmon farm in Miami, Florida, U.S.A.

In a press release issued via the Euronext Market, where the company’s stock is listed, Atlantic Sapphire said it expected a loss of 500 metric tons (MT), or around 1.1 million pounds, of head-on, gutted salmon. The company said the average weight of the deceased fish was one kilogram, or 2.2 pounds, meaning an estimated 500,000 individual salmon died due to the accident. The total represents around 5 percent of its phase-one harvest volumes.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

AMERICAN AQUAFARMS CEO: Aquaculture can play a big role in Maine’s economy and climate change response

March 23, 2021 — Maine is setting the stage with its response to climate change, the need for greater sustainability and environmental stewardship.

Aquaculture plays an important role in all three.

The United States imports about 90 percent of the fish eaten in the country. Those imports ship consumer dollars out of the country, while also having a direct impact on the environment from the transportation required to deliver the food.

With wild fisheries under pressure from overfishing and warming oceans, aquaculture provides an opportunity to produce food closer to the people who will eat it and in a controlled and sustainable way.

That’s why American Aquafarms has proposed a new aquaculture facility along the working waterfront in Gouldsboro with pens located in Frenchman Bay.

We believe that this project will produce salmon safely and sustainably, while helping to fight climate change and creating good jobs for Maine people.

Read the full opinion piece at the Bangor Daily News

Scientists push for joint effort to better understand Pacific salmon trends

March 23, 2021 — Forecasting models used to determine stocks and expected landings of Pacific salmon have been rendered obsolete by climate change, and a global effort is needed to update them, a conference of leading marine scientists has concluded.

The conference, “Abundance Dynamics, Stock Status, and Artificial Reproduction of Pacific Salmon in the Northern Pacific,” took place in late February and was initiated by the Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries. Held in both online and offline formats at the Sakhalin branch of the Russian Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography (VNIRO), in the Russian city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the event was attended by 500 participants from Russia, the United States, Canada, South Korea, and Japan.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

PFMC: Notice of availability: Salmon Preseason Report II (March 22, 2021)

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

The following document has been posted to the Council’s website:

Public hearings on the proposed management alternatives

Hearings held on-line only

  • Washington
    Tuesday, March 23, 2021, 7:00 p.m.
  • California
    Tuesday, March 23, 2021, 7:00 p.m.
  • Oregon
    Wednesday, March 24, 2021, 7:00 p.m.

Written public comment on the Alternatives may also be submitted to the PFMC’s Public Comment Electronic Portal  (E-Portal).  The public comment deadline is 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time, Monday, April 5, 2021.

Public comment on the Alternatives will also be accepted during the April Council meeting (held via webinar) on Thursday, April 8, during the public comment period for Agenda Item D.1.

For further information

New Economic Study: 2.2 Billion Reasons to Protect Bristol Bay

March 22, 2021 — A report titled “The Economic Benefits of the Bristol Bay Salmon Fishery” shows the fishery’s economic benefits exceeded $2.2 billion in 2019, generating more than 15,000 jobs while feeding hundreds of thousands of people. Produced by McKinley Research Group and released by the Bristol Bay Defense Fund, the recently gathered data will help quantify the importance of protecting Bristol Bay from the proposed Pebble Mine.

Bristol Bay produces 57% of the world’s sockeye salmon catch and is a $990 million economic engine in Alaska alone. Economists estimate the induced impacts for the Pacific Northwest at $800 million.

Read the full story at Seafood News