Saving Seafood

Alaska salmon: Bristol Bay opens with Pebble Mine decision pending

June 30, 2020 — The biggest red salmon run in the world is building at Bristol Bay.

Up to 50 million fish could surge into its eight river systems in coming weeks, on par with past seasons. When it’s all done, the fishery will provide nearly half the global supply of wild sockeye salmon.

But this summer is different.

Beyond the restrictions and fears and economic chaos caused by covid-19, fishermen are waiting to learn if the development of a massive gold and copper mine that’s been hanging over their heads for two decades will get a greenlight from the federal government. The news is expected to come at the height of the summer season.

In mid-July, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is expected to unveil its federal record of decision on the permit application by Northern Dynasty of Vancouver, Canada, to build the Pebble Mine at the sprawling mosaic of headwaters that provide the spawning and rearing grounds for the region’s salmon.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Project to study pandemic impacts on Alaskan salmon season

June 29, 2020 — The following was released by Penn State:

Bristol Bay, Alaska is home to the world’s largest commercial sockeye salmon fishery, attracting thousands of fishermen, crews, and seasonal workers and tripling the region’s population. Running from early June to late July, the short salmon season is facing a new challenge this year, the coronavirus pandemic.

Penn State is part of a research team conducting surveys with fishery participants and residents to better understand the costs and benefits of varied mitigation policies and is developing pandemic preparedness scenarios. This collaborative project is being funded by a $200,000 National Science Foundation RAPID Response grant.

The concern for this year’s fishing season stems from the 13,000 commercial fishers, crew, and fish processor workers who are descending upon the Bristol Bay region. The largest hospital in the region only has 16 beds and two ventilators and, as of May 2020, was not prepared for an outbreak of coronavirus.

Because the overall economic value of the fishing season is estimated to be around $1.5 billion dollars and the region is dependent on the fishing industry, canceling the season is not economically feasible.

Read the full release here

ALASKA: Bristol Bay Bracing for a Season Like None Other

June 4, 2020 — For millions of wild sockeye salmon returning to Bristol Bay in 2020 it will be the traditional journey, but for thousands of people coming to harvest and process the world’s largest run of red salmon it will be a fishing season like none other.

Veteran harvesters like Robert Heyano of Dillingham, said he plans to fish the Nushagak area of Bristol Bay, just as he has since he was a boy on board his dad’s drift gillnetter. “I’m not looking forward to it this year, not with this virus,” he said. “I’d like to see the fishery conducted in a safe manner.”

Heyano said he had not heard fishermen say outright that they would not fish this year because of COVID-19. “It all depends how safe they feel,” he said. “If we could focus our energy on the safest practices that would go a long way,” he said.

Read the full story at Fishermen’s News

Alaska’s Controversial Pebble Mine Was Dead. Not Anymore.

May 28, 2020 — The Bristol Bay region in southwest Alaska is home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon run, a resource that brings in $1.5 billion annually and provides a vital food source for thousands of Alaska Native residents who live there.

It’s also home to a vast copper and gold deposit worth an estimated $500 billion, known as the Pebble Deposit. A plan to extract that wealth by building a massive open pit mine at the heart of the environmentally sensitive Bristol Bay watershed has become the environmental fight of the century for Alaska.

FRONTLINE told that story in Alaska Gold, broadcast in 2012, when the mine’s opponents seemed to have won the day.

But the Pebble mine got a new lease on life under the Trump administration, and in late 2017, the Pebble Partnership, the company behind the mine, filed for a permit with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Read the full story at Frontline

ALASKA: Copper River salmon fishery nears without travel restrictions from Cordova City Council

April 15, 2020 — While coastal communities across Alaska grapple with the questions of if and how they should allow commercial fishing and processing operations in their communities this summer, the time table for deciding how to move forward is running short in Cordova.

As of Monday, commercial salmon fishing operations in Cordova are moving forward with few protections in place for residents beyond statewide health mandates.

“We live in a bubble, and I very much think our bubble is about to burst,” lifelong Cordova resident Sylvia Lange said. “While we are pretty much first, we are not alone, and I feel for every single community that has to go through this.”

The Copper River’s sockeye and Chinook salmon are the state’s first commercial salmon fishery, and the demand from chefs in Seattle, Anchorage and other urban restaurants for the season’s first salmon has traditionally driven strong prices.

Although it is not business as usual for fishermen preparing for the mid-May opening, some people in the community fear that not nearly enough has changed to protect the town from a coronavirus outbreak.

Cordova is home to just over 2,000 people, and the population swells in the summer during fishing season.

Read the full story at KTUU

ALASKA: What if there’s no salmon fishery? How covid-19 could affect salmon populations

April 15, 2020 — The covid-19 public health crisis spreading across the globe is causing economic turmoil in most industries, including fisheries. For Alaska salmon fisheries, covid-19 presents unique challenges that are an immediate threat to the 2020 season.

The seasonal influx of thousands of harvesters and workers from around the world, starting in May, represents a substantial risk for introducing covid-19 to remote communities — where it has yet to be detected, and where people are particularly vulnerable and medical resources are distinctly limited. Further risks are associated with the often crowded conditions aboard fishing vessels and in fish processing facilities that create perfect conditions for the rapid spread of covid-19.

Concern that the Bristol Bay sockeye salmon fishery represents a substantial public health risk has prompted requests for severe restrictions or even complete closure of the fishery until the threat of covid-19 has passed. In addition to the immediate economic impacts of such a policy, these discussions have generated widespread concern about “over-escapement” — that severely restricted fishing would result in spawner abundances (escapements) beyond what watersheds can withstand, thereby severely depressing future salmon production.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Alaska community asks for fishery shutdown because of virus

April 9, 2020 — An Alaska tribe and city asked have the governor to shut down a prosperous fishery this year in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Curyung Tribal Council and the city of Dillingham requested the closure of the Bristol Bay fishery in a letter to Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy Tuesday, Indian County Today reported.

The Bristol Bay fishery typically opens in June and harvests more Sockeye salmon than anywhere else globally. Fish harvesters there caught 56.5 million salmon in 2019.

The fishery brings about 14,000 people to the region for work with fish processing plant companies while drawing about 1,800 fishermen who have been named essential workers by the state.

“Our community does not have the capability to control the movement of this group,” the letter to Dunleavy said. “This is unacceptable and places us in an impossible situation.”

Read the full story at the Associated Press

Alaska fishing community takes precautions as it prepares for salmon season

April 3, 2020 — As Alaska’s top doctor put it, “We know the fish are coming regardless of COVID-19 or not and we can’t ask them to stay home.”

As a result, government officials and fishing stakeholders statewide are working to ensure Alaska can still have a strong summer salmon season even amidst a potentially prolonged COVID-19 winter.

Alaska Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anne Zink made the comment during a March 30 press briefing, adding that the state has a specific fisheries work group trying to figure out ways small communities can handle an influx of fishermen and processing workers while also adhering to important health guidelines that run counter to the realities of a traditional fishing season.

While Alaska’s diverse fisheries continue year-round, the famed Copper River sockeye and king fishery that unofficially kicks off the salmon harvest in mid-May each year will be one of the first testing grounds for trying to find that balance.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Coronavirus strains preparations for 2020 sockeye season in Bristol Bay, Alaska

March 27, 2020 — Alaska issued a mandate late on Monday, 24 March, qualifying the state’s commercial fishing industry as “critical infrastructure,” a move that frees up the Bristol Bay fishery to move forward with preparations for the 2020 season.

But uncertainty looms as the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery discusses how it might bring nearly 12,000 non-resident workers into remote western Alaska amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Pebble pulse: Bristol Bay leaders testify in federal court, say EPA went rogue

March 4, 2020 — Bristol Bay fishermen, tribal leaders and fisheries advocates once again offered their testimony on the value of protections for the world’s most productive sockeye salmon habitat.

On Monday, March 2, members of the Bristol Bay Defense Alliance testified in federal district court in support of a lawsuit the group filed against the Environmental Protection Agency in October.

The suit asserts the EPA’s withdrawal of proposed Clean Water Act protections was arbitrary and unlawful, and runs counter to the scientific and public record. The plaintiffs now await a ruling from Judge Sharon Gleason on whether the suit will move forward.

“Although we are now waiting for the judge’s ruling in this case, our primary goal is unchanged: protecting and promoting the Bristol Bay fishery,” said Andy Wink, executive director of the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association. “The science still supports 404 protections in Bristol Bay, and we will continue working to secure them.”

In 2010, six Bristol Bay Tribes requested the protections and soon were supported in the effort by commercial and sport fishing groups.

Read the full story at National Fisherman