Saving Seafood

Weekend’s uptick in coronavirus cases linked to seafood plant

August 24, 2021 — Sitka’s recent uptick in COVID cases over the weekend can be attributed, in part, to an outbreak at a local seafood plant.

When the Sitka Unified Command met on Wednesday (8-18-21) Public Health Nurse Denise Ewing said the outbreak occurred at Sitka Sound Seafoods.

“It was several of their employees that became positive. They were very advantageous, and made sure that they quickly worked with me,” Ewing said. “[It] could have been much worse than what it was.”

Ewing said she’s been working with state epidemiologists and the seafood company to mitigate the spread, securing housing for all employees who were exposed to quarantine, and shut down some areas of the plant.

“And we enforced it, and I was able to activate that [mitigation plan] and to keep it from spreading. And that’s exactly what we’ve done. We’ve contained it, it is contained.” she said. Employees are testing every three days and will continue that process for at least two weeks.

Sitka Sound Seafoods is a subsidiary of Seattle-based North Pacific Seafoods. In a written statement, North Pacific Seafoods Vice President of Human Resources Leauri Moore said several employees tested positive in mid-July. The plant discovered a new group of cases over the weekend as a result of regular testing. She said the employees are receiving isolation and quarantine pay.

Read the full story at KCAW

A state government shutdown could also shutter Alaska fisheries

June 24, 2021 — If Alaska state leaders can’t resolve an impasse over the budget, large swaths of state government will shut down in July. That could include Alaska’s lucrative summer salmon fisheries, which is causing concern across coastal communities.

Southeast Alaska’s summer salmon troll fishery opens July 1. That’s the same day nearly 15,000 state workers could be out of work. Among those is Grant Hagerman, a state fisheries biologist managing the fishery from Sitka.

“We’re planning not to be here on July 1 unless we hear differently,” Hagerman says. “And with that, that summer fishery does not commence.”

Many of Alaska’s fisheries are operated by emergency order. That means fisheries open and close based on real-time data and biologists like Hagerman’s professional judgment. But he’s not part of the special class of state employees that would keep their jobs even in the shutdown — public safety or public health workers.

“You would think that we would have had a message, maybe from administration, just saying ‘Here are the exempt or partially exempt or whatever job classes that could remain open,’ but we didn’t get anything like that. I think it’s just pink slips across the board if they don’t pass so just — it’s really scary, you know, not just for us losing our jobs, but I mean, we manage a fishery with 1,000 permit holders and Southeast so it affects a lot of people.” Hagerman adds: “But I have faith that they’ll get something agreed to.”

Read the full story at KSTK

Juneau judge denies Sitka Tribe’s motion on constitutional grounds

April 23, 2021 — The commercial and subsistence herring seasons in Sitka have drawn to a close. But the legal case between Sitka Tribe of Alaska and the state continues, with a Juneau Superior Court judge recently denying Sitka Tribe’s motion for summary judgement on constitutional grounds.

Last fall, the Sitka Tribe of Alaska won two victories against the state in the fight over its management of the Sitka Sound Sac Roe Herring Fishery. And in January the legal team representing STA made its third case, arguing that the state had not met its constitutional duties in its operation of the fishery. Juneau Superior Court Judge Daniel Schally denied STA’s claim in a ruling issued last month.

Read the full decision here

During oral argument in January, attorneys representing STA argued that the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is required under certain clauses of the Alaska State Constitution to use the “best available information” when making management decisions about the fishery. They argued that the state had not used the “best available information” during the 2018-2019 season when it failed to provide a subsistence harvest data report and a scientific study reviewing the state’s model to the Board of Fish.

After the hearing, it took Judge Schally nearly eight weeks to issue a ruling. In his 13 page decision, Schally wrote that the state’s constitution does not require the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to use the “best available information.”

Read the full story at KCAW

ALASKA: Annual blessing remembers Sitkans ‘who go down to the sea in ships’

April 20, 2021 — A spring tradition resumed in Sitka on Friday (4-16-21) — on what felt like the first real day of spring in Southeast: The Annual Blessing of the Fleet.

Southeast Alaska Women in Fisheries organizes the event, in conjunction with the Sitka Lutheran Church and St. Michael’s Orthodox Cathedral. Last year the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the blessing, and this year the traditional large ceremony at Crescent Harbor was replaced with a scaled-back ceremony at the Mariner’s Wall at ANB Harbor.

Read the full story at KCAW

ALASKA: Commercial herring fishery winding down

April 12, 2021 — The Sitka Sound Sac Roe Herring Fishery is winding down, and state biologists expect to close the fishery soon.

In an interview on Thursday (4-8-21), Area Management Biologist Aaron Dupuis said the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is shifting out of “active management” mode.

“We’re still going out there. We’re flying, we’re monitoring the commercial fishery. We’re not leaving it alone to do its thing,” he said. “So we’re definitely on top of this, but it’s for sure winding down. I’d expect it to go another day or two tops.”

Dupuis said the bulk of the fishing fleet has left Sitka. Fewer than three processors and three permit-holders are still participating, but due to confidentiality rules, Dupuis could not disclose the exact number. As of April 6, the commercial fishing fleet had harvested around 15,700 tons of herring.

Read the full story at KCAW

Slow start, higher prices for Alaska halibut season

March 24, 2021 — Halibut prices for Alaska fishermen for 2021 started out significantly higher than last year, despite sluggish demand and transportation logjams in some regions.

The Pacific halibut fishery opened on March 6 and two weeks later only 80 deliveries were made, 46 at Southeast ports and 34 from the Central Gulf totaling 355,524 pounds. Most landings appeared to be small lots that were purchased on consignment.

The first fish typically fetches higher prices and then drops off as the season progresses. No Alaska ports reported paying under $5 per pound, whereas the 2020 price to Alaska fishermen averaged $4.

Early prices at Sitka and Juneau, where there is daily air service, were reported at $5.50-$5.75 a pound, up by $1 from last year, and deliveries at Petersburg paid out at $5.75 straight. No ferry service and high costs for airfreight bit into buying at nearly all Southeast ports, where major processors said they aren’t purchasing halibut until April or May.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Alaska herring stocks on the rise, but fleet is not finding the right-sized fish

February 16, 2021 — Just two seiners and one gillnetter participated in the 2020 herring season in Togiak, Alaska. With a guideline harvest of 38,749 metric tons (MT), it is believed those that participated did well, though exact harvest data will remain confidential due to rules allowing the participants not to report catch data with fewer than five vessels partaking in the harvest.

Elsewhere in Alaska, the Sitka sac roe fishery struck out last year after managers and the industry decided the fishery should remain closed for its second year in a row. The predominance of herring recruiting into the fishery have been three-year-olds. With weights of about 90 grams per fish, buyers aren’t interested in the tiny egg skeins for salted roe markets in Japan.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

In a down market, Alaska fishermen avert disaster by feeding families in need

October 2, 2020 — It’s been a hard season for small fishermen in many parts of Alaska because of economic losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. But a seafood donation program started by a Sitka organization is helping bring some stability to fishermen and consumers during an uncertain time.

“I very quickly heard about people who were struggling here in town and that catalyzed us to start talking to local fishermen, local processors, about how we as commercial fishermen could help meet that local need,” Behnken said.

Normally, ALFA is a membership organization that advocates for sustainable fisheries and small fishermen. They also run Alaskans Own, a community supported fishery that sells seafood boxes to people around the country.

But Behnken and her partners decided to branch out to meet the local need brought on by the pandemic. They used grant funds from Catch Together to supplement the price of lingcod, so Sitka fishermen like Foss and her husband could start their season with some security. Then, they created a market for the seafood by delivering it to families who were struggling to make ends meet because of the pandemic.

“The pandemic really created a lot of need around Alaska and around the country from loss of jobs,” she said. “It’s just a particularly difficult time for people and then to be able to have really good quality food coming from Alaska’s healthy oceans. It’s just a really special to be able to provide that and make those connections.”

Soon, Behnken started getting calls from other communities asking her to expand. With the help of outside funders and organizations, they delivered seafood to military families in Alaska and to Tribal communities in the Pacific Northwest. Justin Zuelner is the head of The Wave, the foundation that helped distribute the seafood in the Pacific Northwest.

Read the full story at Raven Radio

The David And Goliath Story Playing Out In Alaska’s Fisheries

September 14, 2020 — One day in April 1991, a large fishing boat sliced through the cobalt waters of the North Pacific, not far from Sitka, Alaska, on its way to the Bering Sea. For some reason, perhaps to make sure its gear was in order, the boat dropped its weighted trawling net, dragging it across the ocean floor. As the boat drifted by, thousands of pounds of rockfish got scooped up in the mesh. Just like that, the local rockfish season was over.

“Outraged.” That is how Linda Behnken, a Sitka-based fisherman and director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, described her reaction to news of the trawler’s nets rising from the ocean full of strangled or struggling fish, leaving the area’s fishing territory depleted. “It was a major catalyzing event.”

Facing the loss of a resource that had supported generations of fishing families, Behnken and the local community set out to protect the pristine waters of Southeast Alaska from the ravages of industrial fishing and banish trawling boats that drag wide nets to indiscriminately collect fish. A David to industrial fishing’s Goliath, Behnken was told to give up, that the cards were stacked against her. It took years of lobbying and rallying local support, but with the passage of the Southeast Alaska Trawl Closure in 1998, she had helped enact what at that time was the world’s largest ban on trawling, protecting 70,000 square miles of ocean habitat.

“The trawling ban is the reason we still have healthy small-scale fisheries in Southeast Alaska,” she said.

In the decades since, as the global fishing industry has consolidated into fewer, larger corporate fleets and environmental changes have threatened the ocean’s resources, Alaska’s Southeastern panhandle has emerged as a bastion for sustainable, small-scale fishing.

Read the full story at the Huffington Post