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Alaska’s fishing industry was dismayed last week by the sudden news that Jeff Regnart, Director of the state’s Commercial Fisheries Division, will leave the job on October 2. “I’m resigning due to family reasons, aging parents…I just can’t be in the state full time like this job demands,” Regnart explained. Jeff Regnart started as an Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game field tech in high school, and over 30 years worked his way to management positions at Prince William Sound, Cook Inlet and Bristol Bay. He took over as director of the commercial fi...
Alaska’s pink salmon catch is pushing 180 million fish, making it the second largest harvest ever (219 million pinks was the previous record set in 2013). The humpie haul has been pushed by record production in three regions – over 15 million pinks were taken at the Alaska Peninsula, compared to under one million last year. Kodiak’s record pink catch was nearing 30 million, triple last year’s take; and Prince William Sound’s harvest so far had topped a whopping 97 million pink salmon. All that fish goes into a competitive global market an...
Two hearings this month could change the face of Alaska’s salmon fisheries forever. On August 21, the Department of Natural Resources will hear both sides on competing claims to water rights for salmon streams at Upper Cook Inlet’s Chuitna River or to a proposed coal mine. If DNR opts for the mine, the decision would set a state precedent. “It would be the first time in Alaska’s state history that we would allow an Outside corporation to mine completely through a salmon stream,” said Bob Shavelson, a director at Cook Inlet Keeper. “And the sole...
Shock and dismay were heard from Bristol Bay fishermen when they finally got word last week that major buyers would pay 50 cents a pound for their sockeye salmon. That’s a throwback to the dock prices paid from 2002 through 2004, and compares to $1.20 advanced last year ($1.33 on average after price adjustments). A late surge of reds produced catches of nearly 13 million in its final week, bringing the total by July 23 to 34.5 million fish. The fish were still trickling in, and state managers, who called the season an ‘anomaly,’ said the final...
As Alaska’s salmon season heads into high gear, a few bright spots are surfacing in an otherwise bleak global sales market. Sales and prices for all salmon (especially sockeye) have been in a slump all year. And amidst an overall glut of wild and farmed fish, Alaska is poised for another huge salmon haul, with the largest run of sockeye salmon in 20 years predicted along with a mega-pack of pinks. Meanwhile, the single toughest thing stacked against Alaska’s sales to traditional overseas customers is the strong US dollar. “Overall, the dolla...
Alaska’s salmon industry is ready to get corked by the inability of state lawmakers to pass a budget. More than 20,000 state workers are bracing for 30 day layoff notices, meaning they’ll be off the job when the new fiscal year starts on July 1. The timing couldn’t be worse for Alaska’s salmon managers who are nearing the peak of a season that could set new records. “There is some budget, about 27 percent of our normal amount for us to work in the field, and do our management responsibilities. But how we proceed from July 1 is what we’re wor...
Public and private groups are looking at new ways to enhance the value of Alaska's seafood industry. The multibillion-dollar sector is of significant importance to the state's economy, and Southeast is among its largest harvesters of fish and shellfish. In 2013, Southeast fishermen brought in a record catch of 479 million pounds, worth $375 million. This was a 79-percent increase over the previous year, according to the 2014 By the Numbers report produced by Rain Coast Data for the Southeast Conference. Fishing and seafood processing provide...
Caribou instead of corn dogs…salmon instead of Trout Treasures… seal meat in place of spaghetti – all could soon be available to more Alaskans if traction continues on a new bipartisan bill before the Alaska legislature. The bill - HB 179 - allows schools, senior centers, hospitals, child care centers and other facilities to accept and serve fish, game, plants and eggs that are donated by subsistence and sport users. Currently, well-meaning state laws intended to prevent the commercial sale of wild game make the practice illegal if a progr...
File this fish story under the “can there be too much of a good thing” category. Alaska is expecting another bumper run of salmon this year– state managers announced last Friday a projected total catch of 221 million salmon, 39 percent higher than last year. (The numbers for Chinook salmon are still being calculated,) Regional catch projections for this summer are up across the board, according to http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/FedAidPDFs/SP15-04.pdf. Runs and Harvest Projections for Alaska’s 2015 Salmon Fisheries and Review of the 2014 season...
A nearly $12 million cut in state funds is on tap for the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game if state policy makers have their way. That was one early outcome of legislative House finance subcommittee meetings last week, as they wrapped up the first step in a budget process that will see cuts in agencies and programs almost across the board. According to Juneau Resources Weekly, the ADF&G budget reductions cut across all divisions with sport fishing facing the most personnel losses at 12 seasonal jobs. The Division of Habitat could lose $400,000;...
The need for a clear “fish first” policy in Alaska tops the list of priorities compiled by the Fisheries Transition Team for Governor Walker. The group also stated that “fish and fishermen in Alaska are viewed as barriers to development,” and that there is “irreplaceable optimism” that fish can coexist with development at any scale. Fisheries was just one of the topics that 250 Alaskans brainstormed about in 17 teams that newly elected Walker convened in late November. Their task was to identify the top five priorities in diverse categories,...
Alaska seafood marketers are ramping up promotions and bankrolling a $1 global million media blitz to counteract a tough sockeye salmon market. Sockeyes are by far the most valuable salmon catch, often worth two-thirds of the value of Alaska’s entire salmon fishery, but last summer’s unexpected surge of reds left lots of inventory in freezers, and record US imports of competing farmed salmon from Chile and Norway combined with the prospect of another big run at Bristol Bay make for a sockeye sales squeeze. Alaska’s approach will be patte...
Alaska seafood marketers are facing some strong headwinds heading into 2015, notably, for sockeye salmon and crab. Snow crab is Alaska’s largest crab fishery, underway now in the Bering Sea. The fleet has a slightly increased 61 million pound catch quota; boats also are tapping on a hefty bairdi Tanner crab catch, the larger cousin of snow crab. A 25% increase in snow crab, the unexpected 15 million pound Tanner fishery, a weak Japanese yen, plus several million pounds of Russian snow crab from a new fishery in the Barents Sea, (not to mention...
7 Fish Picks and Pans Biggest fish wait and see: Senator-elect Dan Sullivan. Trickiest fishing conundrum: Sea otters vs. fisheries in Southeast Alaska. Best fishing career builder: University of Alaska/Southeast for its hydraulics and vessel electronics courses, fish tech training – all available on-line. Best Fish Givers: SeaShare, which has provided close to 200 million fish meals to food bank networks since 1994. Biggest fishing industry critic using questionable “facts:” Craig Medred, Alaska Dispatch News. Best fish reality show: Kodia...
Wrangell seems to be in a fine position to prosper as attention in Alaska turns toward strengthening the region's various maritime industries. The Fishing, Seafood and Maritime Initiative (FSMI) has been developed by the University of Alaska and other public and private partners with the intention of supporting a strong and sustainable maritime workforce in the state. With over 500 firms and 70,000 employees, the maritime industry represents Alaska's largest employment sector, and its various "b...
Throughout history, arguments over land and water usages have run the gamut from tussles over fences with next door neighbors to shoot outs over inter-state grazing rights in the old west. But when land and water rights pit one country against another, that’s when things really gets tricky. That is the situation in Southeast Alaska, where residents find themselves downstream from several massive open pit gold/copper mines being developed in bordering British Columbia. The mines are located in the headwaters of some of Southeast’s largest and...
A ballot measure to protect salmon in Southwest hasn’t grabbed as many headlines as pot and campaign politics. Ballot Measure 4, sponsored by the group Bristol Bay Forever, asks voters to give the Alaska legislature final say on any large oil, gas and mining projects in the 36,000 square miles of the Bristol Bay Fisheries Reserve. The initiative does three significant things to the existing reserve, said Dick Mylius, a former state director for the Division of Mining, Land, and Water. “It adds large scale metallic mines to things requiring legi...
Seafood is by far Alaska’s top export and as it heads overseas, global politics play a big role in making sales sink or swim. That dynamic took center stage last week when Russia banned imports of foods for one year from the US, Canada, Europe, Norway and Australia in retaliation for sanctions imposed due to its aggressive actions in Ukraine. It is a direct hit to Alaska, which last year exported nearly 20 million pounds of seafood to Russia, valued at more than $60 million. The primary product it hurts is pink and chum salmon roe; Russia is a...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – Gov. Sean Parnell has asked a federal agency to buy about 1 million cases of canned pink salmon to ease a glut that has weighed down prices for Alaska fishermen this year. Parnell made the request in a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack this week. He wants the USDA to purchase $37 million worth of canned pink salmon under a federal law that allows for buying surplus food from farmers and donating it to food banks or other programs. USDA purchased $20 million worth of salmon earlier this year, which Parnell 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...
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...
Alaska seafood is free of radiation stemming from Japan’s 2011 tsunami and Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster. That was the take home message from the Alaska Dept. of Conservation to the state Senate Resources Committee at a recent hearing. Citing information from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Pacific states including Hawaii, California, Oregon and Washington, as well as Health Canada, “all have demonstrated there are no levels of radiation that are of a pub...
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...
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...
