Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Sockeye salmon continue to surge into Kenai River

July 30, 2019 — Sockeye salmon continue to pour into the Kenai River, where biologists have increased personal use fishing hours and sport bag limits to deal with the flood of fish.

On Friday, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game issued emergency orders allowing personal use fishermen more fishing time at the mouth of the river and increasing the sport limit to six fish per day downstream of Skilak Lake as the river’s escapement approached 1 million sockeye.

Nearly 100,000 fish were counted past the department’s sonar site at river mile 19 on both Saturday and Sunday, capping a week that saw more than half a million sockeye swim upriver.

As of Saturday night, dipnetting is now allowed 24 hours a day in the open area at the mouth of the Kenai River. The personal use fishery is open to Alaska residents only with a valid sportfishing license and personal use permit. The fishery runs through Wednesday.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

In hot water: How warmer years might affect salmon populations

July 29, 2019 — There is a lot of worry and speculation about hot weather affecting sockeye runs on the east side of Bristol Bay this summer. But despite some of the hottest air and water temperatures on record, every district is meeting — or exceeding — expectations, both for escapement and harvest.

As the water temperature trends continue to rise over the years, the question at the fore is how warming water will impact salmon health, and whether it shapes the runs from year to year.

Jerri Bartholomew, Director of the Aquatic Animal Health Laboratory at Oregon State University, set the baseline for a discussion on the long-term effects of heat on salmon.

“When you try and predict what’s going to happen in an ecosystem, things just get complicated,” she said.

Trying to peer into the future of Bristol Bay salmon is a bit of a shot in the dark. Without actual data, it’s a lot of guesswork: trying to find places with ecosystems similar to the bay, then extrapolating conclusions based on what we already know.

Still, there are three pressing questions when it comes to salmon in warmer waters.

The first, basic question, is how temperature affects the fish — in both the short and long term.

Read the full story at KTOO

Study on salmon ear stones cited by EPA in Pebble draft EIS comments

July 9, 2019 — On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency released its formal comment on the draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Pebble Mine.

The 100-page release pointed to a bevy of environmental studies that highlight potential harm to land, water and animals in the Bristol Bay region — consequences that the EPA claims were not fully considered in the draft EIS from the Army Corps of Engineers.

One of those studies focused on the growth and development of young salmon in a region with the largest wild sockeye run in the world.

One of the study’s co-authors, Daniel Schindler, said his findings show that the waters where young sockeye and Chinook salmon grow and develop can shift from year to year. Essentially, even rivers and streams that don’t serve as homes for young fish now, may do just that in the future.

“Certain parts of the habitat do well in some years,” Schindler said. “And other parts of the habitat do better in other years. So it’s really the intact nature of the whole Nushagak watershed that produces such reliable returns to the fishery.”

Read the full story at KTOO

ALASKA: Bristol Bay’s Salmon Flood is Rising — the Greatest Migration on Earth?

July 2, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — As sockeye salmon surge past the Port Moller Test Fishery nets and catch tallies in the Bay rise as escapment numbers in the river systems accelerate even faster (after all, that is what the biologists manage for), the vast size of Bristol Bay’s salmon run is hard to grasp.

The six-week fishery, which reaches a fever pitch for about ten days, is arguably the greatest migration on earth. Because it is invisible until the last few days, it is rarely recognized. Great migrations might bring to mind vast herds of wildebeast crossing the Serengeti in Africa; those number a mere 1.5 million.

Then there’s what many now call the largest mammal migration — fruit bats from the Congo to neighboring Zambia over 90 days each fall. The size? Only 10 million.

This year’s forecasted total run of 40.18 million sockeyes is expected to net a harvest of 26.1 million salmon.

It’s difficult to find, by any measure, a likeness in the natural world of the journey Bristol Bay salmon make from one of the Bay’s five river systems to the ocean, across the Bering Sea and North Pacific Ocean in a vast loop that brings them back to the Bay to reproduce and die.

It is the reproduction part that fisheries managers focus on. Indeed, state law requires them to manage for escapement to maintain sustainability for each species and timing in each salmon river, every year.

Escapement in the Wood and Nushagak rivers of Bristol Bay is tracking well with forecasts made by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game pre-season. As of yesterday, June 30, Wood River escapement was 603,000 sockeye out of a forecasted escapement of 980,000, putting it at the 61 percent mark. In the Nushagak a cumulative escapment of 243,000 sockeye have been counted, 32 percent of the 770,000 expected.

That is good news, but even better news is when compared to last year’s escapement on that date, escapement on the Nushagak this year is higher. And remember that last year the Nushagak District salmon run broke all historic records. On July 1, 2018, ADF&G broke the news that harvest in the Nushagak reached 1.77 million sockeye, a new record. Their escapment at that time was 183,440 sockeye out of a predicted 770,000 salmon (same as this year.)

The Wood River escapement last year at this time was 1.2 million out of a prediction of 1.53 million or 78 percent acheived. The Wood River is part of the Nushagak District, and last year was a huge contributor to the record-breaking district totals.

Historically, Bristol Bay’s peak is coming at the end of this week. The latest analysis from the Port Moller Test Fishery notes “The substantial uptick in the daily index today [June 29, 2019] indicates the run will continue to build at least through July 4, and possibly beyond.

“We will need to know what the remainder of the test fishing indices look like to see how big the run may be beyond July 4 (we only predict the catch plus escapment that is between Port Moller and the inshore districts). The daily C+E will likely bounce around our current projection but should total around 8 million fish for the period June 29-July 4.”

The Port Moller team also notes that there is no indication that the run is early.

“If the run is on time, the index should begin to fall tomorrow [Sunday, June 30] and continue to do so. Sustained catch indices over the next several days would indicate a later run that is larger than the pre-season forecast.”

Egegik and Nushagak Districts have dominated the test fishery at Port Moller so far, underscoring that the run has not reach its peak at Port Moller, about 5-6 days of swim time for a salmon to the Bay.

Harvest totals in the Nushagak District, as of yesterday, were 4.1 million sockeye out of a pre-season catch forecast of 7.97 million.

On the east side of the Bay, the Egegik to date harvest of 2.1 million compares to the pre-season forecast of 7.04 million.

Bristol Bay’s total catch is 6.8 million sockeye, already more than any other area in the state. Total sockeye catches are 9.6 million fish, with 1.4 million coming from the PWS/Copper River, 1.2 million from the South Peninsula.

Total salmon landings of all species in Alaska are at 22.84 million, with chums making up 3.6 million and pinks, to date, at 9.6 million.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Alaska Fish and Game forecasts a 2019 salmon catch of 213.2 million fish

April 10, 2019 — Alaska fishermen could catch 85 percent more salmon this year (nearly a hundred million more) if state forecasts hold true.

That’s good news for fishermen in many Gulf of Alaska regions who in 2018 suffered some of the worst catches in 50 years.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is predicting a total salmon catch of 213.2 million fish for 2019, compared to about 116 million salmon last year. The increase comes from expectations of another big haul of sockeyes, increases in pinks and a possible record catch of chum salmon.

The harvest breakdown calls for 112,000 chinook salmon in areas outside of Southeast Alaska. The catch for the Southeast troll fleet, which is determined by a treaty with Canada, will be 101,300 kings, a 5,600-fish increase.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

 

Fight renewed over Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay, Alaska

April 5, 2019 — Opposition is growing to a renewed effort to launch a massive mining project near Bristol Bay, Alaska, home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon run.

Mining conglomerate Pebble Limited Partnership applied for a permit in December 2017 for an open pit copper, gold, and molybdenum mine that would sit near critical headwaters that feed the Bristol Bay fishery. Opponents say the Pebble Mine would undermine the area’s pristine habitat – a calling card of the Bristol Bay brand – and that a tailings dam failure could prove catastrophic to the fishery. The most recent public opinion poll by the BBNC shows 58 percent of Alaskans oppose the mine, with 33 percent supporting it.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on 20 February, 2019, but the wide-ranging opposition in Alaska and beyond has lambasted the document.

“People around here understand on a very visceral level the importance of fisheries in general and Bristol Bay in particular. Commercial fishermen, sport fishermen, tribal entities that are interested in subsistence, biologists; we’re not always aligned, but we’re certainly aligned on this particular issue,” said Daniel Cheyenne, the vice president of lands and natural resources for the Bristol Bay Native Corporation (BBNC).

Norm Van Vactor, the CEO of the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation, said the EIS is incomplete.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Alaska’s Salmon Forecasts for 2019 are Up By 85% Over Last Year as Pinks, Chums Rebound

April 3, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s salmon harvest forecast for the season is 213.2 million fish, some 97.5 million more than last year’s landings of 116 million salmon. The forecast was released late last week.

The increase is mostly due to larger harvests of pink and chum salmon compared to 2018. Harvest levels include:

112,000 Chinook salmon outside Southeast Alaska, 41.7 million sockeye, 4.6 million coho, 137.8 million pink, and 29.0 million chum salmon.

Odd-year returns of pink salmon have traditionally been higher than even-year returns, and this year is no exception. What is different, though, is the high uncertainty attached to this pink forecast, which is almost 100 million more pinks than 2018.

“We note that—except for Southeast Alaska—pink salmon forecasts are generally based on average returns from previous brood years,” notes management biologists who produced the report released last week. “The pink salmon run forecast for 2019 is partly an artifact of this method; there is a great deal of uncertainty in predicting pink salmon returns,” they wrote.

Compared to last year, there will be 8.9 million fewer sockeye or red salmon; 900,000 more coho salmon, and 8.7 million more chum salmon.

If realized, the projected commercial chum salmon harvest would be the largest on record for Alaska.

The phenomenal success in recent years of chum salmon returns in Southeast, Prince William Sound, Norton Sound, and Southcentral Alaska appears now to be a trend.

Very low expected harvests of pink salmon in Southeast Alaska may be offset by higher projected harvests in Prince William Sound. The point estimate for landings of pink salmon in SE Alaska is 18 million. In Prince William Sound nearly 11 million wild pinks and 22 million hatchery pinks are expected to be harvested with another several million coming from the Valdez Fisheries Development Assn.

Sockeye harvest in the Copper River, scheduled to begin in May, are expected to be just under 1 million fish, at 955,000 sockeye. Those red salmon will be augmented by a bumper year at the Coghill River weir of nearly half a million sockeyes, much larger than historical averages.

A modest 3 million sockeyes are expected to be harvested this year in the Upper Cook Inlet.

Kitoi Bay pink harvest is projected at 6.6 million fish.

A total of 40.18 million sockeye salmon are expected to return to Bristol Bay in 2019. This is 10% smaller than the most recent 10-year average of Bristol Bay total runs (44.4 million), and 16% greater than the long-term (1963–2018) average of 34.2 million.

The run forecast for each district and landings prediction is as follows:

Run: 16.12 million to Naknek-Kvichak District (6.95 million to the Kvichak river, 3.97 million to the Alagnak river, and 5.21 million to the Naknek river) for a projected harvest of 7.84 million sockeyes;
9.07 million to the Egegik District with harvest projections up to 7.04 million reds;
3.46 million to the Ugashik District or harvest prediction of 2.38 million;
10.38 million to the Nushagak District (4.62 million to the Wood river, 4.18 million to the Nushagak river, and 1.58 million to the Igushik river) and a total harvest prediction of 7.97 million reds; and
1.15 million to the Togiak District which translates to 870,000 reds.

This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

ALASKA: Pushing back on Pebble: Scientific community and Bristol Bay leaders offer testimony

April 3, 2019 — Nobody was fooling at the Alaska State House Resources Committee hearing on Monday, April 1, to address concerns about the proposed plan for Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay.

“If Pebble goes in, the Bristol Bay Sockeye brand and the entire Alaska Seafood brand will be tarnished,” said Norm Van Vactor, CEO of the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation. “The state of Alaska has invested millions into building these brands and establishing Alaska as a premium brand in the marketplace. That brand is based on pristine habitat, sustainability, and high quality, not open-pit mining districts and acid mine drainage.”

Bristol Bay residents, fisheries leaders and scientific experts offered testimony about a range of inadequacies in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers draft Environmental Impact Statement, as well as the economic, social and environmental value of Bristol Bay’s salmon watersheds that would be at risk under the proposed plan.

“They did not assess the risk appropriately. The draft Environmental Impact Statement is misleading about the probability of a [catastrophic tailings dam]failure,” said Dr. Cameron Wobus, a senior scientist at Lynker Technologies who authored a report on tailings dam failure scenarios.

The draft’s 20-year time line, scientists say, is too short to evaluate the long-term risks. A 100-year analysis would have been more transparent, because the tailings dam has a 1 in 5 chance of failing over a century.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

ALASKA: Bristol Bay: Back to the Pebble grind

February 28, 2019 — Alaska’s Bristol Bay salmon fishermen are once again rallying the troops to help check a juggernaut that threatens the world’s single-most productive salmon fishery.

Mining the copper and gold deposit at the headwaters of Bristol Bay’s natal sockeye streams might not be an inherently risky proposition were it not for the toxic byproduct. Based on our current best technology, toxic runoff from the mining process would be diverted to tailings ponds, which are essentially pools with dams built around them. Historically, these containment fields leak eventually.

The geography and topography of Bristol Bay complicates this plan. Any Anchorage area resident will tell you that Southwest Alaska is part of the ring of fire. After the 7.0 earthquake on Nov. 30, Anchorage area residents felt more than 6,000 aftershocks in just 30 days. That’s an average of 200 per day, or about 8 aftershocks per hour. And now, three months later, the aftershocks have not stopped.

What might the outcome be if a similar scenario hit Bristol Bay, about 250 miles from Anchorage, and thousands of aftershocks rippled through the water-laden soil containing manmade ponds of toxic sludge? Would they remain intact? Or would they twist and crumble like so many of the paved roads around Anchorage?

As long as Pebble Mine’s tailings ponds are to be built into Bristol Bay’s permeable soil in an earthquake zone, the plan may as well include a ticking clock on the health of the region’s renewable salmon resource.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Early signs show strong wild Alaska salmon market for 2019

February 19, 2019 — A lot can change in a few months, fisheries economists are quick to say, but early indications point to very favorable conditions for wild Alaska salmon prices in 2019, especially for sockeye, the state’s top-dollar species.

Andy Wink, a fisheries economist who also heads the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association (BBRSDA), is happy with how the market is looking for the upcoming season.

“I think we’re at a pretty good place, and have been for the last few years in salmon markets. We’ve seen growing demand and the farmed salmon supply hasn’t grown as fast as it did in different points in the past,” Wink said. “It’s left producers in a good position.”

Leading farmed fish producers Norway and Chile, regulated by their respective governments, are bumping up against a threshold for the maximum number of salmon they can produce, and both are fighting blight. Norway, the world’s top farmed salmon producer, has had persistent problems with sea lice, while second-place producer Chile has been struggling with disease, primarily piscirickettsiosis, prompting environmental groups and health organizations to raise concerns over Chile’s overuse of antibiotics.

Read the full story at Seafood Source