Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Bristol Bay sockeye run is largest on record

July 22, 2021 — Bristol Bay’s 2021 sockeye run is the largest on record: 63.2 million fish have returned to the bay this year, breaking the 2018 record of 62.9 million.

This is the fourth time since 1952 that the bay’s run has exceeded the 60-million-fish mark.

The latest record shows Bristol Bay’s sockeye management is working, said Tim Sands, an area management biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

“I think it’s a shining beacon of sustainable management,” he said. “We’ve been prosecuting the commercial salmon fishery management since 1884 and we are still able to set records on total runs, and I think that speaks to the escapement-based management that we use, and it’s great.”

Read the full story at KTOO

ALASKA: More of the same a good thing as Bristol Bay gets underway

June 30, 2021 — Early indicators are pointing to yet another strong year in the massive Bristol Bay sockeye fishery, which is contrasted against the continued struggles in many of the state’s other large salmon fisheries.

Just more than 3.2 million sockeye had been harvested through June 27, according to Alaska Department of Fish and Game figures, with the Nushagak District accounting for more than half of the catch so far at nearly 1.7 million fish. The 3.2 million-fish harvest to-date this year is between the comparable totals for recent years; 1.2 million sockeye were harvested through June 27 last year, while more than 4.4 million were caught by the same day in 2019.

With sockeye harvests of more than 40 million fish and total runs greater than 56 million sockeye, both of the last two years have been among the most productive in the history of the Bristol Bay fishery.

Dillingham Area Management Biologist Tim Sands said early June 29 that he’s confident there are a lot of fish still making their way to the head of Bristol Bay based on catches in the Port Moller test fishery.

He noted that returns to the Egegik River down the Alaska Peninsula have been particularly strong, with a harvest of more than 1.2 million fish and a total return estimated at more than 1.7 million sockeye through June 27, several-fold more than last year in each category.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

ALASKA: Big sockeye runs and struggling kings leave Bristol Bay managers with a complicated balancing act

April 2, 2021 — Fifty-one million sockeye are forecast to return to Bristol Bay this summer.

If that holds, commercial fishermen will be able to harvest around 37 million reds. That’s 13% more than the average harvest of the past decade.

But concerns remain about the numbers of chinook salmon in the Nushagak District on the west side of Bristol Bay — which leaves the biologists who manage the fishery with a complicated balancing act.

Faced with another huge sockeye run this summer, managers in the Nushagak District say they will try to allow fishermen to harvest the sockeye and also conserve chinook.

Tim Sands, the district’s area management biologist, describes the job as trying to walk a fine line between “getting as many kings up the river as we can, but still provide opportunity to harvest sockeye salmon.”

For years, biologists around the state have wrestled with declining numbers of chinook, fish that are central to subsistence ways of life across Alaska, and also targeted by sport fishermen. Since 2007, the state’s chinook runs have consistently declined, forcing managers to restrict or close fishing in certain areas.

Read the full story at KTOO

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