Saving Seafood

CATHERINE CASSIDY: Is Alaska open for business? Not from where I stand.

December 18, 2020 — A freak storm descended on Cook Inlet this month. The fallout threatens my family business and hundreds of thousands of dollars in capital investment. Over a thousand other similar businesses around Cook Inlet face the same peril. The disaster? Earlier this month, Gov. Mike Dunleavy made the bizarre decision to effectively shut down the commercial salmon fishing industry here.

At the very end of a four-year process intended to bring the Cook Inlet salmon fishery into compliance with the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the state announced that it would refuse to cooperate with the program and basically forced the closure of federal waters in Cook Inlet to commercial fishing.

Before you conclude that this action was some kind of noble defiance to federal overreach, you should know that the state of Alaska already has multiple collaborative agreements with the federal government on managing numerous other fisheries in Alaska, including crab, cod, rockfish and salmon.

Read the full opinion piece at the Anchorage Daily News

Canada announces some salmon farms in British Columbia to be phased out in 18 months

December 18, 2020 — Fisheries and Oceans Canada announced on 17 December it plans to phase out all existing salmon farming facilities in the Discovery Islands – located in British Columbia – with the upcoming 18-month period being the last time the area can be licensed.

The news comes in the wake of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau writing a letter in 2019 to Minister of Fisheries, Oceans, and the Canadian Coast Guard Bernadette Jordan mandating that she “work with the province of British Columbia and Indigenous communities to create a responsible plan to transition from open net-pen salmon farming in coastal British Columbia waters by 2025 and begin work to introduce Canada’s first-ever Aquaculture Act.” The mandate was a reflection of the Canada Liberal Party’s platform, which called for a shift of all net-pen fish farming in British Columbia to land-based, closed-containment systems by 2025.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Canadian Government Invests in Research Assessing Impact of Oil on Pacific Salmon

December 17, 2020 — The Government of Canada announced on Tuesday $349,948 in funding will be provided to the University of Guelph for a “two-year research project to evaluate how Coho salmon, in the early stages of life, are impacted when exposed to diluted bitumen (dilbit) – a crude oil found in natural oil sands deposits that is mixed with a lighter diluent.”

The Honourable Bernadette Jordan, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard announced the funding and explained that the research builds on previous University of Guelph projects looking at impacts dilbit exposure has on salmon.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Homer company evolves into a ‘digital fishmonger’ with expanding subscription seafood service

December 16, 2020 — The Wild Alaskan Company based in Homer has taken “mission based” seafood e-commerce to a whole new level.

While many Alaska fishermen and groups sell boxes of seafood directly to customers and can claim several hundred monthly customers, Wild Alaskan has notched more than 140,000 seafood regulars since 2018 and since COVID hit, the company is adding 100 to 200 customers every day. The average order for their subscription service is $160 per month.

Founder Arron Kallenberg calls it a “three generation overnight success,” referring back to 1926 when his grandfather moved from New Jersey to fish at Bristol Bay.

“My dad grew up fishing with my grandfather, I grew up fishing with my father, but that being said, I was the nerdy kid that took his laptop out to sea in Bristol Bay,” Kallenberg said, adding that his grandfather, Robert, served on the Alaska territorial Board of Fisheries, as an adviser to the International North Pacific Fisheries Commission and wrote his Master’s thesis at Cornell University on conserving Bristol Bay’s red salmon fishery.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Sen. Murkowski “Disappointed” by Cook Inlet Closure, Supports “Long-Term Solution” for CI Fleet

December 14, 2020 — Two days after Monday’s decision to close the federal waters of Cook Inlet to commercial salmon fishermen, Alaska’s senior Senator Lisa Murkowski called for “the need to collaboratively resolve tensions that have long persisted in Cook Inlet.”  The decision came at the beginning of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council’s December meeting.

The ‘historical tensions” the senator referred to have been between both commercial and recreational fishermen and between all fishermen and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Cook Inlet is home to Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage, the nearby Matenuska-Susitna Borough, and the state’s most popular recreational area, the Kenai Peninsula. About two-thirds of the state’s population lives on or near Cook Inlet, which is accessed by the state’s only road system.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Canada makes commitments to bolstering blue economy

December 14, 2020 — Over the past two weeks, the Canadian government has made multiple funding and administrative commitments to bolstering the country’s blue economy – both in terms of growing ocean and inshore fisheries and in boosting salmon survivability.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and 13 other heads of state or government announced the endorsement of the “Transformations for a Sustainable Ocean Economy: a Vision for Protection, Production, and Proseprity.” The new document is a product of the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, a multi-nation panel committed to sustainably manage all of the ocean under the countries’ respective national jurisdictions by 2025.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Seafood industry execs optimistic for 2021 after troubled pandemic year

December 9, 2020 — A lack of fish in the freezers is an encouraging sign for Alaska salmon as we head into the new year, driven by increasing customer demand. But headwinds from trade disputes and the COVID pandemic also loom large on the 2021 horizon.

Those are some prime takeaways shared by Mark Palmer, president and CEO of OBI Seafoods, and Allen Kimball, vice president of global operations and sales for Trident Seafoods.

“We don’t see entering the 2021 season with any real big carryovers. And that’s always one of the downsides as we head into a new season, if there’s an abundance of two to four (pound) sockeyes or something. We’ve gone into seasons like that and it influences the new season pricing. But as we go into 2021, we should have a pretty clean slate and be ready to buy and ideally put it up in a better product form than we did this last year,” said Palmer, speaking at a webinar hosted by United Fishermen of Alaska.

The COVID pandemic this year forced a shift from workers producing fresh salmon fillets to lower value canned and frozen fish when the labor force was reduced and costly restrictions were imposed on processing lines.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Fisheries council shuts down commercial salmon fishing in Cook Inlet federal waters

December 9, 2020 — The council that controls fishing in most federal waters off Alaska on Monday closed a large chunk of Cook Inlet to commercial salmon fishing.

The decision came despite a wall of opposition from commercial fishermen and community and state leaders who said the move threatens seafood processors on the Kenai Peninsula and hundreds of fishing operations.

The North Pacific Fisheries Management Council accepted the proposal, presented to the council by the Dunleavy administration in October, to close federal waters starting 3 miles offshore.

Stretching from Homer to Ninilchik off the southern Kenai Peninsula, the waters are where some boats fish exclusively, fishermen said, and it’s where the commercial driftnet fleet typically lands about half its salmon.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Commercial fishermen outraged by state of Alaska’s proposal to close much of Cook Inlet

December 7, 2020 — A Dunleavy administration proposal to shut down a large chunk of Cook Inlet to commercial salmon fishing has drawn a tidal wave of opposition from Alaska fishermen.

The state’s proposal, alongside two other viable options, is under consideration by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, as the federal government prepares to assume oversight of the salmon fishery in federal waters.

The state has managed salmon fishing in those waters — west of Homer and Ninilchik off the southern Kenai Peninsula — for decades.

But two Cook Inlet groups representing commercial fishermen filed a lawsuit in 2013 challenging the state’s management. A federal appeals court sided with the groups in 2016. It ordered the council, which oversees fishing in most federal waters off Alaska, to include the inlet’s federal waters in its fishery management plan.

The council is expected to decide the issue on Monday, after taking public testimony at a virtual meeting. The court has given the council until Dec. 31.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

PFMC: Southern Oregon/Northern California Coast Coho Workgroup to host online meeting January 5, 2021

December 7, 2020 — 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 Tuesday, January 5, 2021 from 9 a.m., Pacific Standard Time, until 5 p.m., or until business for the day has been completed.

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

For further information:

  • Please contact Pacific Fishery Management Council staff Mike Burner at 503-820-2414; toll-free 1-866-806-7204.