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Fishermen won’t need special permits to hose off their decks thanks to a bill moving through the US Senate. That’s garnered a big sigh of relief from harvesters across the nation and kudos to a rare show of bipartisanship by coastal lawmakers, notably Senators Begich of Alaska and Marco Rubio of Florida. “The Vessel Incidental Discharge Act extends a moratorium that was already granted to the commercial fishing industry from 2008, and it’s been up every couple of years. It would extend this moratorium indefinitely so commercial fishing vessels...
Nowhere in the world do people have more say in shaping fisheries policy than in Alaska. While the outcomes might get mixed rants and reviews, no one is ever denied the chance to state ideas, concerns and gripes to decision makers. Several opportunities are available right now. First off, a revised draft of the Magnuson-Stevens Act was just released for public review and comment. The MSA is the primary federal law that governs all fisheries management in U.S. waters; it is undergoing reauthorization targeted for completion at the end of this...
It came as no surprise when the first price postings last week tanked for Bristol Bay sockeye salmon to $1.20 a pound, with an extra 15 cents for chilled fish. That compares to a base price of $1.50 a pound last year. The Bristol Bay catch topped 28 million reds by Friday, 11 million more than projected, and the fish were still coming. (Alaska’s total sockeye salmon catch as of July 18 was over 37 million and counting.) Demand for the fish is strong by both foreign and U.S. buyers, but the downward press on prices stems from lots of c...
Ocean chemists are calling it “revolutionary technology” as unmanned gliders track how melting glaciers may be intensifying corrosive waters in Prince William Sound. “It’s been hugely successful. We’ve flown these things all over inside and outside of Prince William Sound, we’ve had great control over them, we’ve been able to move them to exactly where we want them to be. They are making thousands of measurements all over,” said Jeremy Mathis, director of the Ocean Environment Research Division at the Pacific Marine Environmental L...
With salmon fisheries going on every summer all across Alaska, you might wonder why so much attention is focused on Bristol Bay. The answer can be summed up in two words: sockeye salmon. Bristol Bay is home to the largest red salmon runs in the world and sockeye is Alaska’s most valuable salmon fishery by far. In most years, well over one-third of Alaska’s total earnings from salmon fishing stem from Bristol Bay. Whereas other fishing regions like Copper River, Cook Inlet, Kodiak, Southeast and the Alaska Peninsula might get sockeye cat...
Salmon takes center stage in Alaska every summer, but many more fisheries also are going on all across the state. The world’s biggest sockeye salmon run is expected to surge into Bristol Bay any day, where a catch of about 17 million reds is projected. Elsewhere, the annual summer troll fishery in Southeast Alaska kicks off on July first with a target of just over 166,000 Chinook salmon. Lots of crab fisheries are underway each summer— Dungeness fishing began on June 15 in Southeast where a harvest of 2.25 million pounds is expected. The reg...
Uncertainty best sums up the mood as fishermen and processors await the world’s biggest sockeye salmon run at Bristol Bay. In fact, it’s being called the riskiest season in recent memory in the 2014 Sockeye Market Analysis, a biannual report done by the McDowell Group for the fishermen-run Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association. As presaged by buyer pushback at seafood trade shows earlier this year at Boston and Brussels, for the first time since 2010 the starting price for the first sockeyes from Copper River took a $0.50/lb dip...
You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again: The seafood industry is Alaska’s largest private employer, putting more people to work than mining, oil/gas, timber and tourism combined. The annual revenue the seafood sector contributes to State coffers is second only to Big Oil. So where does the seafood industry rank for the major candidates running for Alaska Governor and the US Senate? Here’s what a thorough look at each of their campaign websites reveals, starting with the race for Governor (all in alphabetical order)— Byron Mallott (...
If genetically modified salmon gets a green light by the federal government, it will be labeled as such if US Senators on both sides of the aisle have their way. The Senate Appropriations Committee last week passed the bipartisan Murkowski-Begich amendment requiring that consumers be advised of what they are buying. During testimony, Senator Murkowski questioned if the so called Frankenfish can even be called a real salmon. “This takes a transgenic Atlantic salmon egg, which has genes from an ocean pout that is somewhat akin to an eel, and it c...
Salmon season is just getting underway, but seafood companies are still selling last summer’s record catch of 226 million pink salmon - and it has prompted lots of creative thinking. “The challenge is to market all this fish and still maintain the value,” said Tyson Fick, communications director for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI), the state’s lone marketing arm. “It wouldn’t be any problem for the producers just to flood the market, and then we would see a tremendous downward pressure in years to come. More so, we see this as...
The basic laws of supply and demand are resulting in a nice pay day for Alaska halibut and sablefish harvesters. Prices for both fish are up by more than a dollar a pound compared to the same time last year. Fresh halibut has been moving smoothly and demand is steady since the fishery opened in early March, said a major Kodiak buyer, where dock prices were reported at $6 a pound for ten to 20 pounders, $6.25 for halibut weighing 20 to 40 pounds, and $6.50 for “40 ups.” At Homer and in Southeast Alaska, halibut prices have yet to drop below six...
Kodiak’s roe herring fishery began on April 15 with little notice and rumors of fire sale prices. The fleet of 22 seiners was down a bit; they are competing for a harvest of 5,800 short tons, similar to the past five years. No gillnetters had signed up for the herring fishery. Test fishing from the east side of the island were showing nice roe counts, said James Jackson, herring manager at ADF&G in Kodiak. “We are fishing a predominantly older age class of mostly nine year olds and it looks like we are hitting those fish right now. They are...
Alaska salmon permits in many fisheries have tripled in value since 2002 and the upward trend continues. An overview of April listings by four brokers shows that Bristol Bay drift net permits are valued at nearly $134,000 by the State, and listed for sale at $150,000 to $170,000. That compares to $90,000 this past January. At Southeast Alaska, seine permits are the priciest in the state at over $300,000. That’s an increase of fifty grand since January. The asking price for Prince William Sound seine cards exceeds $200,000 compared to the $...
Alaska's total salmon catch for 2014 is projected to be down by almost half of last year's record haul. State fishery managers are calling for an all species harvest of just under 133 million salmon, a 47% drop from last year's whopping 283 million fish. A pink catch of 95 million pushed the record last year and it is pinks that will bring the numbers down this summer. Pink salmon run in on/off year cycles and this year the catch is pegged at about 75 million, a 67% decrease from last summer's 2...
Kodiak seiners will be scooping up pollock in their nets starting this week. You heard right. Seiners have a chance to test the waters to determine if a directed pollock fishery makes sense for that type of gear in the Gulf. Except for a small jig fishery, the only pollock fishery operating in state waters (out to three miles) is at Prince William Sound where trawlers this year have an 8.5 million pound catch. “The initial seine opportunity will just run from April 11 through June 8 so we don’t overlap with salmon season. And during that tim...
Nine names are vying for three seats on the state Board of Fisheries, including six newcomers. That gives Governor Parnell the unique opportunity to replace a majority of the seven-member Fish Board, should he choose to do so, and should the Alaska legislature go along with it - an unlikely scenario. It took filing a Freedom of Information request and a 10 day wait to get the names of the Fish Board hopefuls, said veteran legislative watch dog Bob Tkacz in his weekly Laws for the Sea. They include the three incumbents - John Jensen of...
Alaska’s salmon catch of 273 million salmon set a record last year– and so did the number of salmon returning home to state hatcheries. The 2013 Fisheries Enhancement Report by the AK Dept. of Fish and Game shows that a return of 112 million hatchery reared salmon contributed 36 percent to the state’s total salmon harvest. The breakdown by species was 63% for chum salmon, 38% for pinks, 23% for Chinook salmon, 22% for cohos and 5% of Alaska’s sockeye salmon catch can be credited to hatchery returns. Unlike farmed fish, which are crammed into ne...
Co-products is the big new buzz word in the seafood industry as more companies move towards ‘head to tails’ usages for fish. “For instance, the oils we are producing now from pollock livers has become so valuable in capsules and other human nutraceutical products, it makes no sense to call the livers a “byproduct” of the fillets or surimi. All of it is important in the puzzle of how to maximize the value of each fish caught,” said Alex Oliveira, a food specialist at the Kodiak Seafood and Marine Science Center, a satellite campus of the UAF...
Last Wednesday marked the start of Lent, a time of fasting, soul searching and repentance for hundreds of millions of Christians around the world. And what the burst in the holiday sales season from Thanksgiving to Christmas means to retailers, Lent means the same to the seafood industry. The 40-day Lenten season, which this year runs from March 5th to Easter Sunday on April 20th, dates back to the 4th century, and it has been customary to forego meat ever since. While nearly all seafood enjoys a surge of interest during Lent, the most...
Just as Nero fiddled while Rome burned, US policy makers are quibbling over climate issues as bivalves dissolve in an increasingly corrosive Pacific Ocean. Any kid’s chemistry set will show that big changes are occurring in seawater throughout the world. As the oceans absorb more carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning outputs (primarily coal), it increases acidity to a point where shellfish can’t survive. It is referred to as ocean acidification (OA) and results in sea creatures’ inability to grow skeletons and protective shells. The proce...
Bait is always a big expenditure for many fishing businesses and pollock could help cut costs for Alaska halibut longliners who fish in the Gulf. Researchers have tested pollock in two projects to see if it might replace pricier chum salmon as halibut bait. Fish biologists use over 300,000 pounds of chums in their stock surveys each year, costing nearly half a million dollars. The baits are used at more than 1,200 testing stations from Oregon to the Bering Sea. A pilot study three years ago in the central Gulf and off of British Columbia...
Eleven new seafood products from seven companies are set to be showcased at the upcoming Symphony of Seafood galas in Seattle and Anchorage. In its 21 years the event has introduced and promoted hundreds of new Alaska seafood items to the marketplace. “Developing new products is really hard,” said Julie Decker, new executive director of the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation which hosts the event. (Decker replaces Jim Browning who retired,) “It costs a lot of money, takes a lot of time and attention, and sometimes the products are wonde...
A measure aimed at banning salmon setnetting is being held afloat by backers. The ban includes the Anchorage area, much of the Kenai Peninsula, Valdez and Juneau. It would completely eliminate Cook Inlet setnetters and affect roughly 500 fishing families in all. Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell decided two weeks ago to not allow the question to go before Alaska voters as a ballot initiative in 2016. The newly formed Kenai-based Alaska Fisheries Conservation Alliance followed up with an appeal filed in Alaska Superior Court. “In a measure based on co...
Good science should drive all fisheries decisions, and Lite Guv Mead Treadwell says he has the chops to maintain a true course. Treadwell, a Republican who hopes to unseat Democratic US Senator Mark Begich in November’s election, paid a recent visit to Kodiak and “talked fish” in a brief interview. Few can claim Treadwell’s experience and understanding of the Arctic, where he has represented Alaska on U.S. Delegations in three circumpolar government groups, and been a director of the Institute of the North. He said he “doesn’t expect any...
Walmart reps were in Juneau last week to learn more about Alaska’s salmon fisheries, and to make sure management is up to snuff with the company’s sustainability criteria. Alaska’s salmon industry opted out of the high priced certifying program that Walmart uses as its seafood purchasing standard (London-based Marine Stewardship Council). Alaska instead adopted the UN sanctioned Responsible Fisheries Management (RFM) program for ‘well managed’ certification, a label that has become practically a requirement in most seafood buying and selling to...
