Sorted by date Results 351 - 375 of 424
Salmon will always be the heart of Alaska’s fisheries. That’s why many people think of summer as “the fishing season.” But that’s not the case. The deep of winter is when Alaska’s largest fisheries get underway each year. On January first, hundreds of boats with hook and line gear or big pots will begin plying the waters of the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska for Pacific cod, rockfish and other groundfish. Then on January 20th trawlers take to the seas to target Alaska pollock, the world’s largest food fishery with harvests near three billion...
Alaska’s seafood industry worked hard again in 2013 to ramp up its message to policy makers, most of whom still tend to overlook the industry’s economic significance to the state and beyond. What is that message? That “the industry” is made up of thousands of small businesses – the fishing boats that each supports one or several families. That the seafood companies in coastal towns provide one of the state’s biggest tax bases. And together, fishing and processing provide more jobs in Alaska than oil/gas, mining, tourism and timber combined. S...
It’s traditional during the Christmas season to decorate a downtown with lights – for Kodiak and other coastal communities “downtown” means the boat harbor. This month, alongside the local businesses on shore, Kodiak’s floating storefronts will be showcased in the downtown lighting festivities – meaning the 650 or so fishing businesses that each support one or several Kodiak families. Think of it as a mall in a marina! The revamped Harbor Lights Festival is an old theme with a new twist, said Toby Sullivan, director of the Kodiak Maritime Mu...
Will Alaska’s halibut catches be cut again next year? That’s the big question as the industry braces for the International Pacific Halibut Commission’s interim meeting this week in Seattle. By all accounts, there appear to be lots of halibut in Alaska waters, but their unusually slow growth rates have forced a downward press on catches for nearly a decade. The Alaska catch total this year was about 22 million pounds. Also up for review – 22 fishermen from remote communities in the mid-Aleutians (4A) are requesting an increase in their halibut...
More Alaskans are taking to the fishing life, as indicated by upward ticks in harvesting jobs for three years running. That’s according to the November Alaska Economic Trends by the state Labor Department, which provides a look at the numbers of “boots on deck” by region and fishery. A first: economists Jack Cannon and Josh Warren also looked at how much time is put into fishing pre- and post-season prep work and clean up, and what jobs fishermen do during the off times. Some highlights: Each month last year, on average 8,189 fishermen plied...
Americans remained true to their seafood favorites last year with shrimp, canned tuna and salmon topped the list of the 10 most popular seafoods. That’s according to the National Fisheries Institute which compiles the list each year based on data from the government’s US Fisheries Report. Following the top three are tilapia, Alaska pollock, Pangasius, crab, cod, catfish and clams. Looking more closely at the numbers shows that for the first time in five years, crab consumption began to increase again after a steady decline since 2007. Per...
Keeping tabs on how many and what kinds of fish are coming over the rails is a key tool in Alaska’s highly successful fishery management programs. For nearly four decades, that has been the job of fishery observers who track everything that is hauled aboard trawlers, crabbers and most other fishing vessels 50 feet and up. Starting this year and for the first time ever, observers were placed aboard smaller boats as well as Alaska’s hook and line fleet to start getting information about “removals” in that gear group’s fisheries. The primary f...
The Bering Sea crab fleet was ready to head to the fishing grounds over the weekend after the government shutdown and unissued licenses stalled the Oct. 15 start of the crab season. Skippers of the 80 boats estimated the extra time tied up in Dutch Harbor cost them each $1,000 per day. Meanwhile, the situation was even worse for small boat crabbers at Kodiak and the Westward region who learned there would not even be a Tanner fishery come January. “It is not unexpected,” said Mark Stichert, a shellfish biologist at ADF&G in Kodiak. “We...
As expected, Alaska’s 2013 salmon catch is one for the record books. Early tallies by state fishery managers show that fishermen caught 272 million salmon this summer, smashing the previous record of 221 salmon in 2005. The fishery was powered by a whopping catch of 219 million pinks. In terms of money, the preliminary harvest value of $691 million ranks second to the $724 million of 1988, called an “outlier” season by salmon managers. They also predict that once all post season bonuses and price adjustments are determined by salmon proce...
Governor Parnell took to the statewide airwaves last Tuesday to answer questions from Alaskans on APRN’s Talk of Alaska. Of fishing interest: A Cook Inlet set netter asked about his stance on the proposed Chuitna coal mine in Cook Inlet that would set a precedent by removing, among other things, 11 miles of salmon streams. “Didn’t you say you would never trade one resource for another?” she queried? “And I won’t,” Parnell responded. “I’ve seen the written misinformation about Chuitna and the decision that was made on a proposal to basic...
News that mining giant Anglo-American plans to withdraw from the Pebble Mine project was greeted with joy by opponents who hailed it as a victory for the people of Bristol Bay and for the region’s resources. Pebble would be the largest gold and copper mine in North America, and its location looms over the world’s biggest sockeye salmon fishery at Bristol Bay. But even though London-based Anglo has pulled out of the Pebble Partnership, Northern Dynasty Minerals of Canada still remains. And they insist the project is still very much alive. “Th...
Alaska’s record salmon season has permit brokers hopping as buyers seek to break into or expand their opportunities in many fisheries. Notably, brokers say there is “a lot of great buzz” at Bristol Bay, despite a lackluster sockeye fishery that saw the bulk of the red run come and go eight days early. “Prior to the season the drift permits went for under $100,000, but we just sold one for $125, 000,” said Doug Bowen of Alaska Boats and Permits in Homer. Most of the bump is due to optimism about the sockeye base price of $1.50/lb, a $.50 incr...
Alaska’s 2013 salmon season has yielded the largest catch ever, and the value of the fishery is also headed for the record books. The statewide catch on Sept. 6 was nearing 265 million fish – the old record was 222 million in 2005. A bumper run of pink salmon is behind the big harvest - the mindboggling catch was approaching 213 million fish. The previous record was 161 million pinks, also in 2005. Some boats are still out on the water, but the big pink catches have gone by, said Geron Bruce, Assistant Director for the state commercial fisherie...
Want to know the average fish prices at the docks over a decade … or where most Alaska fishermen and fishing fleets call home? Or how Alaska’s seafood industry stacks up against other state industries? What is likely the most comprehensive, user friendly report ever done on Alaska’s seafood industry by region was just released by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. Titled “Economic Value of the Alaska Seafood Industry,” the report was compiled by the Juneau-based McDowell Group, and it includes all of the direct and indirect economic...
Alaska salmon continues to get snubbed by ill informed, far away big wigs who believe they are best suited to make the seafood choices for their customers. Last week Sodexo, one of the world’s largest food purveyors - said its policy is to only serve seafood certified by (you guessed it) the London-based Marine Stewardship Council. In this case, the fish is targeted to the US troops. Sodexo, a Fortune 500 company home based in France, has an eight year contract to provide food services to US military mess halls, including $22 million of s...
Want to get onboard observers out of those small fishing boat bunks? The more fishermen who volunteer their vessels to field test new electronic monitoring systems (EMS), the faster the program will replace that extra body onboard. Starting this year and for the first time, fishery observers are required aboard Alaska’s long line fleet of roughly 1,500 boats, most of which are well under 50 feet. Observers have been aboard other types of Alaska fishing vessels for decades to collect data and monitor catches and bycatches; now scientists and man...
Holy Oncorhynchus! Any doubts about the brand power of Alaska salmon can be put to rest after the high visibility contretemps over the past few weeks – and the fish story has a happy ending. All of Alaska’s ‘powers that be’ converged on Wal-Mart and the National Park Service (NPS) when both reportedly snubbed Alaska salmon over a labeling issue. Both Governor Parnell and Senator Mark Begich sent letters to Wal-Mart blasting the ill-advised decision, and Senator Lisa Murkowski verbally (and very publicly) spanked the NPS for not followi...
If a picture is worth a thousand words, get ready for millions of undersea images - brought to you by a handmade, high definition undersea camera. “Alaska Cam Sled is a towed imaging system that takes a lot of high resolution pictures of the bottom of the ocean,” said Gregg Rosenkranz, a state scallop biometrician based in Kodiak. Rosenkranz and his colleague Rick Shepherd built the cam sled, which lets them experience a live stream of the sea floor while onboard a research vessel. They hail it as a non-invasive way to observe and collect dat...
It might sound like a whopper of a fish story – but Alaska salmon is not good enough for Wal-Mart or the US National Park Service. The reason? Alaska’s wild caught salmon does not brandish a specific eco-label verifying that it is sustainably managed – as determined by two Outside groups: the London-based Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) or the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. Alaska’s seafood industry recently opted out of high priced eco-endorsements from elsewhere, believing the State’s brand of fisheries oversight can stand on its ow...
The rules that govern our nation’s fisheries are being retooled so it’s reassuring that Congress isn’t traveling in uncharted seas. Over 80 percent of Alaska’s fish landings come from federally managed waters, and the Magnuson-(Ted) Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act is the primary law ruling US fisheries. The Act is undergoing reauthorization for the first time in seven years. First enacted in 1976, the MSA “Americanized” the fisheries by booting out foreign fleets to beyond 200 miles from our shores. It created the nation’s ei...
Alaska spends more than $20 million on fish feed each year for its 35 salmon hatcheries — feed that comes primarily from anchovies caught in South America. Meanwhile Alaska seafood processing companies produce over 200,000 tons of fishmeal each year — for customers in Asia. Last year 33 million fish - 20% of the total Alaska salmon harvest - originated in hatcheries; in some years the figure has topped 30 percent. At Prince William Sound, for example, 73% of the salmon catch originated in local hatcheries. The most costly part of any hat...
It’s back to the drawing board for halibut iTags that will soon tell us more about where the fish travels than ever before. The internal tags, which were deployed in 30 halibut two years ago, were the first to test Smart Phone geomagnetic advances to track the migrations of fish. The tags record magnetic field strength on three axes and have accelerometers and pitch and roll detectors, explained Tim Loher, a biologist with the International Pacific Halibut Commission. “Without being able to tell whether or not your tag is horizontal, you can...
Amidst the salmon fisheries starting up all across the state, several Alaska crab seasons also get underway each summer. In mid-June, the summer Dungeness crab fishery opens in the Panhandle, as does red king crab at Norton Sound. Those are followed in August by golden kings along the far flung Aleutian Islands, which might soon take the title as Alaska’s largest king crab fishery. Unlike other Bering Sea crab stocks, surveys on golden kings have been limited due to distance and high costs. The deep water stocks have sustained a fishery for 3...
Salmon set net families were streaming out of Kodiak all week, heading to their summer sites to get ready for the June 9 season opener. Their departure wrapped up a busy week of Memorial Day festivities on “the rock,” including festivals, fleet blessings, a landslide on Cannery Row and visits by both of Alaska’s US Senators. I caught up with Sen. Lisa Murkowski over a beer at Kodiak Island Brewery; she spoke candidly on several hot button fisheries related topics. It’s well known that Murkowski and the rest of Alaska’s congressional delegatio...
It takes quite a crew to get an Alaska salmon from “boat to throat,” and everyone along the line gets a cut of the catch. How that “value chain” has paid out in the past few years shows some nice gains for Alaska fishermen and processors. “We often get asked what share the fisherman retains, and how much each segment of the supply chain gets for salmon. The answer depends on the species, and the product you are talking about, and what gear type,” said Andy Wink, a fisheries economist with the McDowell Group in Juneau who compiled the report...
