Sorted by date Results 76 - 100 of 599
Federal and state leaders have appointed 19 experts to a special task force responsible for creating a science plan to better understand Alaska’s salmon, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service announced. Task force members must address sustainable management and a response to the recent crashes in the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers. The group was chosen in accordance with the Alaska Salmon Research Task Force Act that passed and was signed into law late last year. The law calls for most members to be appointed by...
Up until last year, Southeast Alaska's Mitkof Island was home to a creek with some unique salmon: They only turned left. Officially, anyway. There is a fork in Ohmer Creek, on Mitkof Island. On the west side, the state's Anadromous Waters Catalog, or AWC, reported the presence of all five species of wild Alaska salmon, as well as Dolly Varden and cutthroat trout. On the east side of the fork, according to the AWC, there were only steelhead. One afternoon last summer, U.S. Forest Service fish...
More than 100 salmon trollers packed a Sitka meeting on June 7 with sharp questions about the future of their fishery, facing what could be an unprecedented full shutdown of this year’s chinook trolling season. “I’m optimistic, but I’m also scared as heck,” said Eric Jordan, a lifelong fisherman and Sitka resident at the standing room-only meeting with federal National Marine Fisheries Service officials. The closure of the king salmon fishery in Southeast would be economically devastating, according to many in the region who rely on the valua...
The Southeast Alaska summer commercial troll season for coho and chum salmon will open on July 1, but no chinook retention will be allowed, the state Department of Fish and Game announced May 30. The prohibition on troll-caught kings is due to the ongoing lawsuit by the nonprofit Wild Fish Conservancy against the National Marine Fisheries Service. Still, Alaska trollers are holding out hope that king salmon fishing will open as usual on July 1 if the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals grants a stay of last month’s U.S. District Court order t...
May 31, 1923 The first aerial mail ever received through the Wrangell post office came from Lake Bay Wednesday morning, having been brought by the seaplane Northbird piloted by Roy Jones with Glen Day as engineer. Mr. Jones stated that the flight from Ketchikan to Lake Bay was made in 55 minutes. Arriving here, it soon became known that the Northbird had brought mail and there were many visits to the post office with the result that about a dozen persons received letters within 45 minutes from the time they had left Lake Bay. While the...
A federal judge has denied the state of Alaska’s request for a stay of an order that could close down the Southeast king salmon troll fishery this summer and winter. The last option to open the fishery this season is another appeal. After the judge’s ruling last Friday, the state immediately filed a request with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for a stay that would — if granted — allow trollers to work while the National Marine Fisheries Service attempts to better justify the fishery, as required by the judge’s May 2 order. “The stat...
The annual Wrangell King Salmon Derby is tentatively set for June 15 through July 2. Though the chamber of commerce, which is still organizing the event, hasn’t officially set the dates or prizes, the derby typically runs for about two weeks, with prizes for the largest fish and other categories. Entry fees also have not yet been determined. In past years, there has been a kids 12-and-under category, and the adult category encompasses ages 13 and up. Entrants need to have a state sportfishing license and a state king salmon stamp. Alaska r...
Bring a fishing pole and plenty of enthusiasm to Pats Lake for an annual event sure to lure in the whole family. Family Fishing Day on June 24 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., will have something for everyone, from lure making to casting practice and even a free lunch. The U.S. Forest Service Wrangell District is hosting the event along with the Wrangell Cooperative Association’s Indian General Assistance Program and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Special youth fishing regulations will be in place the third and fourth Saturday and Sunday at P...
SEATTLE (AP) — A ruling from a federal judge in Seattle could effectively shut down commercial king salmon trolling in Southeast Alaska — a valuable industry that supports some 1,500 fishermen — after a Washington state-based conservation group challenged the harvest as a threat to endangered killer whales that eat the prized fish. The state and the Alaska Trollers Association filed a notice of appeal on May 3, the day after the judge’s decision. The state is asking for a stay of the ruling, pending the appeal. Wild Fish Conservancy, which b...
Tribal citizens lined up outside the WCA carving shed on the sunny afternoon of May 2 to collect boxes of herring eggs from the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. The Tlingit and Haida Traditional Food Security program purchased over 17,000 pounds from spawn-on-kelp fishery permit holders in the Craig and Klawock area, according to the Ketchikan Daily News. The eggs are being distributed in 21 designated communities, including Wrangell, which received 463 pounds of eggs in about 100 4.5-pound boxes for tribal...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced this month that commercial salmon fishermen across all gear groups caught a total 31.7 million salmon in Southeast Alaska during 2022. Last year's all-species harvest was low, Fish and Game reported. The 2022 catch amounts to 69% of the average harvest over the past 10 years of 46.1 million salmon. The Southeast salmon harvest has been erratic in the past few years. The 2022 catch of 31.7 million was about half of the 2021 catch of 58.9 million and about double the 2020 catch of 14.6 million...
For the seventh year in a row, federal managers have closed the Stikine River chinook subsistence fishery to help preserve weak runs of the returning salmon. The U.S. Forest Service, under authority delegated by the Federal Subsistence Board, last week announced the closure to run May 15 through June 20. “The preseason forecast for the Stikine River is 11,700 large chinook salmon (greater than 28 inches in length), which is below the escapement goal range of 14,000 to 28,000 large chinook,” the Forest Service statement said. Though this yea...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has reduced this year’s non-hatchery chinook catch limit for Southeast commercial trollers by 44,000 fish — about 23% lower than last year’s harvest quota. The catch limit for sportfishing, commercial seine and gillnet fleets also were set about 23% lower than last year. The largest salmon are the main moneymaker for many trollers. This year’s harvest limit, while down substantially from 2022, is about the same as was set for 2021 and 2020. It’s almost 50% higher than 2019, when several runs were not...
Bans on commercial fishing in U.S. and international Arctic waters have been lauded as admirable preemptive actions that protect vulnerable resources before they are damaged by exploitation. But now the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is preparing for a time when the 14-year-old moratorium on commercial fishing in federal Arctic waters is lifted. The department is seeking $1 million in state general funds and $2 million in federal funds to work on research to better understand those Arctic waters in the event that commercial fisheries are co...
The federal subsistence management program aims to protect rural Alaskans’ subsistence lifestyle while maintaining healthy fish and wildlife populations on federal lands. However, this multi-agency governmental apparatus can be daunting for rural residents to navigate. Representatives of the Wrangell Cooperative Association, U.S. Forest Service and Sitka Conservation Society are partnering to bring a workshop to the community, intended to empower residents to engage with the complexities of the Federal Subsistence Board process. Attendees w...
March 1, 1923 The annual convention of the Grand Pioneers of Alaska will be held at Nenana the latter part of this month. At the meeting of the Wrangell Pioneers Igloo Monday night, a resolution was adopted calling upon the Grand Igloo to ask the territorial legislature to enact a law granting an old-age pension of $25 a month to Alaska pioneers, whether men or women, which could be accepted in lieu of going to the Pioneers Home. The Nome Igloo is asking that such a pension be granted, and that the Pioneers receive the same regardless of...
The state is shutting down most summer king salmon sportfishing around Cook Inlet amid continued declines in the strong, hard-running fish that not that long ago filled freezers and fueled tourism in the state’s most populated region. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game last Thursday announced an unprecedented array of restrictions and closures on sport and personal-use fishing from the Kenai Peninsula to the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, a sweeping series of emergency regulations that illustrates the severity of king salmon population c...
March 1, 1923 As a means of stimulating interest and learning the sentiment of the community in regard to the proposed new playground for the school, the PTA is offering four worthwhile prizes to pupils for essays on the subject, “Will the proposed new playground benefit the school and how can it be improved?” Two prizes will be awarded for essays by high school pupils and two for grade school students. The essays will be read at the next PTA meeting. Feb. 28, 1948 Superintendent of Schools Geo. Fabricius, speaking to members of the Wrangell Ch...
No invasive green crabs have been found outside the area on Annette Island where they were discovered last summer, though experts are working against a potential population explosion in Southeast Alaska. Barb Lake, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Juneau, gave a presentation in Ketchikan last Friday about the invasive crab species that a team of scientists with the Metlakatla Indian Community first identified on Annette Island in July. It’s the only place that the crab has been captured in Alaska waters. Lake said t...
Communities throughout Southeast have signed a petition to oppose listing the Alexander Archipelago wolf as an endangered species, due largely to the additional restrictions a listing could impose on wolf hunters and the potential risk to the deer population. Though members of the Wrangell borough assembly expressed widespread support for the petition, they took issue with details in its wording at the Feb. 14 assembly meeting and preferred to draft a statement of their own. The assembly instructed Borough Manager Jeff Good to prepare a resolut...
One of the biggest sea stars in the world has been devastated by a malady likened to an underwater "zombie apocalypse" and could soon be granted Endangered Species Act protection. Sunflower sea stars, fast-swimming creatures that can have up to 24 arms and grow to three feet in diameter, have largely vanished from their habitat, which stretches from the western tip of Alaska's Aleutian Islands to the waters off Mexico's Baja California. The culprit is sea star wasting syndrome, a body-mangling...
Wolves are social, territorial animals that educate their young, care for their injured and stick with their close-knit family groups - most of the time, that is. In the past few months, a wolf from Petersburg has struck out on its own and taken up swimming, behaviors that are unusual - though not unheard of - for a wolf. The swimming wolf traveled from Petersburg to Wrangell Island to Etolin Island, and its movements could help area scientists learn more about the animals' lifestyle . The...
Organizers are creating programs to start using a $49 million federal grant and $15 million in matching funds to grow Alaska’s shellfish and seaweed farming industry. The money will go toward a statewide effort, though more permit applications were filed for new or expanded farms in Southeast than in any other region 2016 through 2022, according to state statistics. Southeast set a record last year with seven applications for seaweed and shellfish farms, Rachel Baker, deputy commissioner at the Alaska Department of Fish Game, said at last w...
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has rejected a petition from crab fishers to bar all commercial fishing for six months in an area of the Bering Sea designated as a special protective zone for red king crab, which have suffered a population crash. The decision announced on Jan. 20 by NOAA Fisheries confirms action in December by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. The council rejected the emergency request, which was made by the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, a harvester group. In a statement, NOAA Fisheries said the...
The 2023 commercial pot shrimp fishery in Southeast Alaska will open May 15. Fishermen targeting pot shrimp missed out on their usual October opener last year following a season change set by the Alaska Board of Fish. Fishermen expressed frustration over the season change during a preseason meeting held Feb. 1 by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. About 70 people from across Southeast attended the Zoom meeting to review the department’s shrimp surveys and catch-limit estimates. In previous years, the pot shrimp season ran from Oct. 1 u...