Saving Seafood

Study shows connection between recent marine heatwaves and Western Alaska chum salmon declines

December 6, 2023 — For newly hatched Western Alaska chum salmon, there is no time to waste when it comes to making their way to the open ocean. The tiny fry begin their journey from their natal streams just days or weeks after being born. When they finally reach the Bering Sea, sometime from mid-June to mid-July, their priority becomes consuming marine prey and building the energy reserves that will carry them through their first winter. Throughout their years in the ocean, the Western Alaska chum will travel extensively between the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska.

Unfortunately, simultaneous warming trends in the Bering Sea and the gulf appear to have come as a double whammy for Western Alaska’s juvenile chum salmon. A new study by scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game shows a possible link between a period of exceptionally warm ocean temperatures and chum crashes seen across Western Alaska.

“Loss of sea ice is having an impact on various ecosystems. And so with warming we’re seeing a change in the food web,” said Ed Farley, lead author of the study and head of NOAA Fisheries Ecosystem Monitoring and Assessment Program. “That food web is less energetic. It’s poorer-quality prey. And it’s impacting juvenile salmon, especially juvenile chum salmon in the northern Bering Sea. It’s impacting their fitness prior to winter.”

By “poorer-quality prey,” Farley primarily means jellyfish, also known as cnidaria. Jellyfish have been shown to proliferate when ocean temperatures warm.

“There are more cnidaria in the ecosystem of the Northern Bering Sea during warm years, but there was significantly more during this most recent anomalously warm period,” Farley said.

Read the full story at KYUK

 

Biden-Harris Administration makes $106 million available for Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund as part of Investing in America Agenda

December 5, 2023 — The following was released by NOAA:

Today, the Department of Commerce and NOAA are announcing the availability of up to $106 million in funding through the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund (PCSRF) for Pacific salmon and steelhead recovery and conservation projects. This funding — which includes funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) — will support state and tribal salmon restoration projects and activities to protect, conserve and restore these fish populations and their habitats.

“Restoring Pacific salmon populations and their habitats is vital for communities on the West Coast and in Alaska,” said Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “This funding — supported  by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, a key pillar of Bidenomics — will power transformational, high-impact projects and support efforts by states and tribes to protect and conserve salmon populations.”

Read the full release from NOAA

Study points to concurrent marine heat waves as culprit in Western Alaska chum declines

December 5, 2023 — Successive marine heat waves appear to have doomed much of the chum salmon swimming in the ocean waters off Alaska in the past year and probably account for the scarcities that have strained communities along Western Alaska rivers in recent years, a newly published study found.

In the much-higher water temperatures that lingered in the 2014-19 period, juvenile chum salmon metabolism was super-charged, meaning they needed more food, said the study, by scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. But the food that was available was of low quality — things like jellyfish instead of the fat-packed krill and other prey they normally eat, the study said.

That means for the juvenile salmon trying to survive their first year at sea, “there’s not much gas in the tank,” said the study’s lead author, Ed Farley, manager of NOAA Fisheries’ Alaska Ecosystem Monitoring and Assessment Program.

Juvenile chum salmon that swam from spawning areas in the rivers suffered what was essentially a double hit, said Farley, who works in the NOAA Fisheries Auke Bay Laboratories in Juneau. They encountered one extreme heat wave in their critical first summer when they were in the northern Bering Sea and then, when they entered their wintering grounds in the Gulf of Alaska, swam into the tail end of another extreme heat wave, he said.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Federal manager for Yukon River highlights resiliency in the face of salmon crashes

September 27, 2023 — When federal fisheries managers rescinded control of the Yukon River on Sept. 2, it marked the close of another season of alarmingly poor salmon runs and few opportunities to harvest them. Nets went unused and smokehouses went unfilled, yet subsistence remains a necessity and a way of life for many living along the nearly 2,000-mile river that extends deep into Canada.

Fortunately, in an attempt to understand what is happening to Yukon River salmon, traditional knowledge and Western science have been increasingly intersecting.

“I love the coordination we have with the stakeholder groups, with the tribes,” said Holly Carroll, the Yukon River federal subsistence fisheries manager for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “The more of that coordination you have, the more buy-in you have to the data that is collected.”

Carroll said that she values keeping lines of communication open.

Read the full article at KYUK

Millions pegged for salmon, steelhead recovery

September 25, 2023 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is recommending sending $106 million to 16 salmon and steelhead recovery efforts in five Western states.

NOAA and the Department of Commerce recommended grants to state agencies with salmon protection missions, tribes and tribal partnerships in Idaho, Alaska, Oregon, Washington and California.

The funding “provides an important opportunity to bolster salmon and steelhead recovery and invest in the communities that rely on them,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in a statement.

Read the full article at The Challis Messenger

Environmental law group threatens to sue tire manufacturers over pollutants

August 22, 2023 — On Aug. 15, environmental litigation group, Earthjustice, notified more than a dozen American tire manufacturers of their intent to sue them over violations of the Endangered Species Act if they do nothing to stop their alleged chemical pollution.

In the letter to the tire manufacturers, Earthjustice acknowledges that the suit is being made on behalf of the Institute for Fisheries Resources and Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, because chemicals used in the production of tires has had adverse impacts on coho, steelhead and Chinook salmon species.

Read the full story at Seattle Weekly

The scales of justice: Salmon fisheries in federal court, fighting to keep their lines in the water

August 21, 2023 — More than 90% of wild salmon are caught in Alaskan waters, where the fish travel from the coasts of California, the Pacific Northwest, and British Columbia. As the total number of fish have declined, limits of a catch have naturally decreased. The Wild Fish Conservancy, based in Washington, sued over technicalities in the Endangered Species Act. The salmon have been deeply compromised by dams and pollution, says third-generation Alaskan and journalist Julia O’Malley. Because the fish swimming up from the Lower 48 may be potentially endangered, Alaskan fisheries must come up with a mitigation plan. A judge was compelled by the Conservancy’s complaint of how to enact such a plan. Alaskan fisheries recently won a last minute reprieve in a lawsuit that would have kept lines out of the water this fishing season.

A pod of 73 endangered orcas in the region near Puget Sound feed on Chinook, also known as king salmon — the largest of the species, and whose populations are at historic lows. The orcas are in turn under threat of starvation,  not only because the salmon are less abundant, but because they are considerably smaller, dropping from a typical size of 60-100 pounds down to 30 pounds. As a result, the whales need to catch more of them to get the same amount of protein. Noise pollution and industrial runoff further compound the problem, interfering with the echolocation orcas use to locate salmon.

Alaska has a 100-year-old fishing tradition, according to O’Malley. For better or worse, communities around the state operate on an extraction economy, whether it’s oil, timber, or fishing.

Read the full story at KCRW

Appeals court allows Southeast Alaska king salmon fishery to open 1 July

June 22, 2023 — The king salmon troll fishery in Southeast Alaska will be allowed to open in just over a week after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit paused a district court ruling that threatened to keep the fishery closed this summer and winter.

“This has been an extremely challenging time for all of us,” Alaska Trollers Association (ATA) Executive Director Amy Daugherty said. “But thankfully, with the state’s help and the tribes recent declarations and our delegation, we have alerted the court to the disastrous consequences of a summer in [Southeast Alaska] without trolling.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Gearing up for season’s start, Alaska’s pollock fishery faces salmon bycatch questions

February 22, 2023 — A vigorous debate over bycatch and calls for marine habitat protections is underway in advance of the beginning of Alaska’s lucrative pollock fishery in March.

The pollock fishery hit a wholesale value of USD 1.329 billion (EUR 1.358 billion) in 2022; However, that coincided with a devastating collapse in the state’s crab stocks and deteriorating returns in chinook and chum salmon fisheries. All of those fisheries are interconnected.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Some hope the EPA will veto Pebble Mine, a project that has long divided SW Alaska

January 27, 2022 — ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

What would be one of the largest copper and gold mines in the world might never break ground. The EPA is expected to issue its final decision at the end of the month on the Pebble Mine in southwest Alaska. From member station KDLG, Izzy Ross reports.

ROSS: The EPA is exercising a rarely-used authority under the Clean Water Act, commonly called its veto authority. Agency officials declined to be interviewed for this story, but in a statement said the mine could harm fish spawning and breeding areas and that this action would protect the commercial and sport fisheries and a traditional way of life based on wild salmon. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied Pebble’s mining permit two years ago, but the company appealed that decision. Pebble spokesperson Mike Heatwole says the EPA is not following normal protocol by using this Clean Water Act authority before the appeal has even been processed.

MIKE HEATWOLE: We continue to say that it is largely unlawful and unprecedented, what the EPA is attempting to do regarding this project.

ROSS: And Heatwole says the company may sue. But the EPA’s use of this authority reflects its serious concerns about the mine’s impact on the region, says Joel Reynolds with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

JOEL REYNOLDS: It’s about as much opposition as one will ever see to a development project anywhere really but in particular, in a development-friendly state like Alaska.

Listen to the full story at KUNC