January 7, 2021 — Washington’s Department of Ecology has revised four water quality permits to Cooke Aquaculture to farm steelhead in net-pens it formerly used to raise Atlantic salmon.
Cooke had already received approval from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, though conservation groups have sued to block their issuance. The facilities are located near Bainbridge Island and La Conner, and are now permitted for steelhead, also known as rainbow trout.
December 9, 2020 — The state said Tuesday that it submitted a draft plan to federal officials for how to distribute $50 million in federal COVID-19 relief to members of Washington’s commercial seafood, shellfish and charter industries.
The CARES Act provides $300 million to states to distribute to fisheries participants with Washington and Alaska receiving the highest allocation of $50 million each.
“The pandemic had early and dramatic impacts to shellfish and commercial fishing businesses. These activities play an outsized role in our state, especially in our tribal and natural resources dependent economies,” Gov. Jay Inslee said. “I am pleased that we will soon have more assistance available to help these hurting businesses recover.”
“Submitting this plan for federal review brings us one step closer to getting this funding into the hands of commercial fishing and shellfish industry members who need it most,” said Ron Warren, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) fish policy director. “We applaud Washington’s congressional delegation for securing this relief for members of Washington’s commercial seafood, shellfish and charter industries.”
The draft plan goes to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Fisheries for review and approval.
September 16, 2020 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:
The Council has received reports of a cyber attack on the email system at WDFW (Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife).
You should question all emails originating from WDFW, even if you know the sender. WDFW has informed us that they have been infected by a viscous cyber attack that is actively affecting their email. Malicious emails are being sent from known WDFW employees, containing a malicious attachment. The WDFW Cyber Security team is aggressively working to combat this malicious attack and is asking all party’s to be very cautious when opening emails until the all clear is given
October 4, 2019 — Cooke Aquaculture has moved a step closer to ensuring a long-term presence in Washington State after the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) confirmed earlier this week that it plans to issue a five-year marine aquaculture permit to the Canadian aquaculture company to farm all-female rainbow trout at its existing farms in Puget Sound.
Washington lawmakers voted to phase out and ban non-native finfish net-pen farming in the state following the 2017 collapse of a Cooke farm that released at least 250,000 Atlantic salmon into Puget Sound. If Cooke does not repurpose its salmon farms, they will be shut down by 2022.
April 17, 2019 — Most salmon trollers can expect better ocean salmon seasons this year — while also meeting conservation goals, fishery managers said Monday.
The Pacific Fishery Management Council finalized its recommendations for 2019 salmon seasons at its meeting in Rohnert Park, Calif., for seasons beginning in May.
The seasons must still be approved by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, but managers said that is expected.
The adopted regulations for Chinook salmon reflect the improved status of Sacramento River fall Chinook, Oregon managers said in a notice to industry. Rogue River fall Chinook and Klamath River fall Chinook populations both are in good and fair condition, respectively, they added.
Also, most of the north migrating stocks of Chinook (Oregon Coastal Chinook stocks from the Nehalem River south to the Elk River as well as a number of Columbia River Chinook stocks) are in moderate to poor condition. These north migrating stocks of Chinook contribute very little to Oregon’s ocean seasons but are very important to Oregon’s inside estuary and river recreational seasons.
The commercial ocean troll salmon seasons north of Cape Falcon will have very limited Chinook salmon quotas again this year. The ocean fishery will be managed by quotas, season length, and vessel landing week (Thursday-Wednesday) limits. The early Chinook salmon-only season will start on May 6. The season will continue until the overall quota of 13,200 Chinook or the Leadbetter Pt., Washington, to Cape Falcon (in northern Oregon) subarea cap of 1,800 Chinook is taken, or June 28, whichever comes first. Fishermen will be limited to 100 Chinook per vessel for the period of May 6-15 and then shift to a 50 Chinook per vessel per landing week (Thursday-Wednesday), beginning May 16.
The summer all-salmon fishery north of Cape Falcon will open on July 1 and continue through the earlier of the overall Chinook quota of 13,050 Chinook or 30,400 fin clipped coho, managers said in the notice to fishermen. Trollers will also be limited to 150 adipose fin-clipped coho during the landing week (Thurs-Wed) per vessel.
This year’s fisheries were designed to take advantage of a higher number of coho salmon forecast to return to Washington’s waters as compared to recent years, Kyle Adicks, salmon policy lead for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, said in a press release. However, projected low returns of key Chinook stocks in Puget Sound prompted fishery managers to restrict fisheries there.
“We’re able to provide more opportunities to fish for coho in some areas, particularly in the ocean and Columbia River, than we have been able to do for several years,” Adicks said. Coho fisheries generally benefit sport fishermen but can constrain commercial fishermen targeting Chinook if coho is taken incidentally. “But continued poor returns of some Chinook stocks forced us to make difficult decisions for fisheries in Puget Sound this year.”
Again in 2019, fishery managers projected another low return of Stillaguamish, Nooksack and mid-Hood Canal Chinook and took steps to protect those stocks.
WDFW Director Kelly Susewind acknowledged the reductions in Puget Sound salmon fisheries are difficult for both fishermen, primarily sport fishermen, and the local communities that depend on those fisheries.
“Reducing fisheries is not a long-term solution to the declining number of Chinook salmon,” Susewind said. “The department will continue working with the co-managers, our constituents, and others to address habitat loss. Without improved habitat, our chinook populations will likely continue to decline.”
Limiting fisheries to meet conservation objectives for wild salmon indirectly benefits southern resident killer whales. The fishery adjustments will aid in minimizing boat presence and noise, and decrease competition for Chinook and other salmon in these areas critical to the declining whales, WDFW said in a press release.
In the rest of Oregon, from Cape Falcon to Humbug Mountain near Port Orford in southern Oregon, the Chinook salmon season will be open April 20-30, May 6-30, June 1-Aug. 29, and Sept. 1 through Oct. 31. Beginning Sept. 1, a 75 Chinook salmon per vessel weekly limit (Thursday through Wednesday) will be in place.
From Humbug Mt. to the Oregon/California border, the commercial troll fishery will be open April 20-30 and May 6-30. Beginning June 1, landing week (Thurs-Wed) limits of 50 Chinook per vessel will go into effect along with monthly quotas of 3,200 Chinook in June; 2,500 in July; and 1,200 in August (8/1-29).
“I really appreciate everybody’s work this week,” Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Fish Division Deputy Administrator Chris Kern said on the Council floor. “[It was] a lot of hard work, but I feel pretty good about where we landed.”
Similarly, California trollers should expect more time on the water this year.
Brett Kormos, with the Marine Region of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, noted the two primary rivers, Sacramento and Klamath River, that contribute fall Chinook to ocean salmon fisheries are still in a rebuilding phase or overfished status. Still, “we are also looking at increased harvest opportunities in both commercial and recreational sectors in 2019 compared to 2018,” Kormos said.
Fishery managers modeled the seasons and limits to allow for a Sacramento River fall Chinook spawning escapement of 160,129 hatchery and natural area adults.
This story has been republished here with the permission of SeafoodNews.com.
December 27, 2018 — Windstorms on Dec. 14 caused the power outage at the Gig Harbor state-run hatchery. A backup generator that would have powered a pump that supplies water to the incubators failed, and 6.2 million chinook salmon fry destined for release in Deschutes, Minter Creek and White River died.
Now, up to 2.75 million excess chinook fry — which accounts for less than half of the fry that were lost — will be transferred to the Minter Creek Hatchery to replace those salmon, the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a Monday news release.
“This won’t fully replace the salmon lost last week, but it will allow us to put a significant number of fish into these waters next year,” WDFW Director Kelly Susewind said in the release. “I want to thank our tribal co-managers and federal partners for helping to make this happen.”
The replacement fry came from six other hatcheries. The move was approved by NOAA Fisheries on Friday, and the fish are set to be released in May and June of 2019.
Before the power outage on Dec. 14, 507,000 salmon were set to be released in White River, intended to provide food for Southern Resident orcas. The remaining 5.7 million salmon fry were part of ongoing operations to support state fisheries.
“Losing those fish was a painful setback for state and tribal fishers, for the communities that depend on fishing, and for Southern Resident orcas that feed on chinook,” Susewind said.
December 19, 2018 — Millions of salmon fry were killed during last week’s power outages.
The fry were in incubators at the Minter Creek Hatchery in Gig Harbor. The pump that supplies water to the incubators lost power, and the backup generator failed. As many as 6.2 million chinook salmon fry died, according to a news release from the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW).
“This is a devastating loss,” Eric Kinne, WDFW hatchery division manager, said in the release. “The department is conducting an analysis to determine the root cause of what went wrong so that we can improve procedures at Minter Creek and our other hatcheries to help ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
December 18, 2018 — Last week’s windstorm cut the power to the Minter Creek Hatchery in Pierce County, in turn causing 6.2 million Chinook Salmon fry to die. The back up generator failed which caused the pumps that brought water into the tanks to fail.
The fish were kept in incubators at the hatchery. According to a press release from the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), the inventory of fish lost are 4.2 million Deshutes fall Chinook fry, 1.5 million Minter Creek fall Chinook fry and 507,000 White River spring Chinook fry.
“It’s a severe loss. It’s a challenge to try to recover from something like this. This particular species is not as age-class sensitive as other salmon species. But this is going to have a significant impact on adult returns,” said Jim Jenkins, WDFW South Puget Sound Hatchery Operations Manager.
November 21, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Washington and northern California also will delay their commercial crab seasons until at least Dec. 16 and let the Dungeness crab populations fill out with meat a bit more.
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife officials decided last week [link] to delay the state season until Dec. 16 at the earliest and, after a Tri-State conference call, all three states agreed to delay the season until the same date.
In California, the delay applies only to the area from Point Arena to the Oregon/California border. The central California fishery has been open since Nov. 15.
“This decision was based on crab condition tests conducted by WDFW, [Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife] and [California Department of Fish and Wildlife] which shows that all test areas do not currently meet the minimum meat recovery criteria,” the WDFW notice to industry said.
The Tri-State Dungeness Crab Pre-Season Testing Protocols specify that after the first round of testing, if any area does not meet the minimum meat recovery criteria (23 percent north of Cascade Head and 25 percent south of Cascade Head) a delay is required and additional testing is required before a season opening date can be confirmed, WDFW said.
Some news media have reported the delay also is due to concerns of domoic acid. However, tests from Washington show results below the action level of 30 ppm for crab viscera. Portions of the Oregon coast have had crab with levels higher than 30 ppm and ODFW has closed part of the coast to recreational crabbing.
A second round of both meat recovery and domoic acid testing is scheduled to be conducted after Thanksgiving, the WDFW said in the statement. Oregon and California also are continuing testing.
The latest round of domoic acid results in California show areas near Point St. George Reef, near Crescent City, having one of six crab with a level of 65 ppm and also one crab from the Usal area near Fort Bragg with a level of 150 ppm.
This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.