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Salmon takes center stage each summer but many other fisheries also are in full swing from Ketchikan to Kotzebue. For salmon, total catches by July 8 were nearing 28 million fish, of which 10 million were sockeyes, primarily from Bristol Bay. Last week marked the catch of the two billionth sockeye from the Bay since the fishery began in 1884. Other salmon highlights: Southeast trollers wrapped up their summer Chinook fishery on July 5 taking 158,000 kings in just eight days. The Chinook catch is strictly limited by a U.S. and Canada treaty,...
The United Kingdom’s recent exit from the European Union – dubbed Brexit - has turned seafood trading on its head. For 43 years the UK has been a major part of the 28 country EU, and what the pull out means for longstanding business arrangements is anyone’s guess. Last year the UK imported over $90 million dollars of Alaska seafood. “It’s still speculative, but anything that has a negative effect on currency values relative to the dollar hurts exports. I do expect we will continue to be strong trading partners with both with the UK and the EU,...
Turning crab shells into every day products is becoming a reality for the Tidal Vision team of eco-entrepreneurs from Juneau. The products are derived from chitin in the crab shells, the second most abundant biopolymer on the planet after cellulose. Chitin is found in fungi, plankton and the exoskeletons of insects and crustaceans and adds up to about 100 billion tons every year. The miracle substance can be spun into fabrics, filters, bio-plastics, bandages, stitches, even car coatings with self-healing scratches. Since the 1950s, chitin has...
There’s much more to Alaska herring than roe and bait. To prove that point, nearly 40 of Seattle’s finest restaurants and retailers will celebrate Northwest Herring Week as a way to re-introduce the tasty, health fish to the dining scene. “There’s more herring eaten all over the world than you can imagine. Some years there’s as much as four million tons harvested in the world. You can have a year when the herring fishery is as large as the whole Bering Sea pollock fishery,” said Bruce Schactler of Kodiak, a longtime fisherman and director of...
Boaters from Homer to the Mat-Su valley can help protect salmon and other aquatic creatures and get discounts from popular businesses by doing so. A pilot program launched this spring is an offshoot of Cook Inletkeeper’s Clean Boating program that began in the Valley five years ago. “It all started with oil and gas pollution in Big Lake,” said Heather Leba, director of the group’s Clean Boating Discount program.” The Department of Environmental Conservation was doing water quality testing in 2006 and they determined that Big Lake was an “impai...
Visitors will soon be able to request the last four daily permits for the Anan Wildlife Observatory this summer. Requests will be made by filling out a form at the front desk of the Wrangell Ranger District office. Individuals listed on the form must be physically present at the time of request, with the exception of family members. Weekly requests will be collected by Mondays at 4:30 p.m. and awarded on Tuesdays by noon. If several requests are for the same day, a lottery for awarding reservation space will be held on Tuesdays at 9 a.m. If...
Alaskan fishermen have raised the bar for big fishing boats with the F/V Northern Leader of Kodiak, and Discovery Canada producers of the popular “Mighty Ships” programs have taken notice. Mighty Ships producers search for unique ships around the world and its seven year run has featured a wide range of vessels including cruise ships, aircraft carriers, cargo ships, dredgers and more. The programs focus heavily on operational capabilities and technical aspects of the ships and also make use of computer-generated animation to show und...
The budget impasse with Alaska legislators is wreaking havoc on salmon fisheries across the state, and the industry is bracing for the possibility of a complete shutdown in some regions. If lawmakers can’t agree on a budget by June 1, all state workers will be on notice for layoffs starting July 1. That includes 750 full-time and seasonal workers in the commercial fisheries division, many of whom are the boots on the ground for salmon management. “The word that comes to my mind is catastrophic,” said Scott Kelley, director of the state comme...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced on Tuesday that modified king salmon sport fishing regulations that have been in effect for Wrangell and Petersburg’s District 8 are rescinded. As of this morning, the increased sport fishing opportunity for the district has come to an end, bringing regulations back in line with those of the wider Southeast region. Under the regulations, an Alaska resident permit-holder can bag and possess a limit of three king salmon, of 28 inches or greater in length. Nonresidents are limited to one king s...
Alaska’s salmon season officially got underway on May 16 with the arrival of thousands of sockeye and king salmon at the Copper River near Cordova, and high prices were the talk of the town. The first opener produced a catch of 25,000 sockeye and about 1,500 kings. “It was pretty slow to start. Small fish, not too many of them,” said Kelsey Appleton with Cordova District Fishermen United. Following a trend seen over the past couple of years across Alaska, the salmon were healthy but much smaller. Weights taken on several hundred samples after...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced last week limits for the year’s lingcod sport fishing season, which for Southeast Alaska began on Monday. Running through to Nov. 30, licensed residents will be limited to bagging one lingcod a day, with two in possession, and no size limitation. During the season nonresident anglers will likewise have a bag limit of one per day, though with only one in possession. In addition, nonresidents may only keep lingcod which are between 30 and 45 inches or else are 55 inches or greater in length. N...
Alaska’s salmon season has gotten underway with lots of optimism, a far cry from the bleak feelings of a year ago. Last year’s fishery was blown asunder by a perfect storm of depressed currencies, salmon backlogs and global markets awash with farmed fish. Prices to fishermen fell by nearly 41 percent between 2013 and 2015, years which produced the two largest Alaska salmon harvest volumes on record. But in the past six months, those trends have turned around. “Based on current market conditions and harvest expectations, it appears proba...
Alaska salmon fishermen can get rebates on pingers aimed at keeping baleen whales away from their gear. The six inch, battery operated tubes are tied into fishing nets and transmit animal-specific signals every five seconds to alert the animals to keep their distance. “Pingers can be really helpful to alert the whales to something in front of them so you have less entanglements,” said Kathy Hansen, director of the Southeast Alaska Fisheries Alliance. SEAFA received a $25,000 Hollings Grant from the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation to fund t...
The Coast Guard commercial fishing vessel examiner will be conducting free dockside examinations for commercial fishing vessels May 24 – 27. Check out our new specific checklist generator located at www.fishsafewest.info to allow safety requirements to be printed for an exam. Mandatory exams are required on all commercial fishing vessels that operate more than three miles off shore. Contact Jim Paul at (907) 617-2523 to schedule an exam....
AMSEA will offer its “Upright & Watertight: Vessel Stability Awareness” workshop in Petersburg Tuesday, May 24 from 8:00 am – 2:00 pm at the Tides Inn. Register online at www.amsea.org or call (907) 747-3287....
AMSEA will offer a 10-hour Fishing Vessel Drill Conductor Refresher workshop in Petersburg Monday, May 23, from 8:00 am – 7:00 pm at the Tides Inn. This is for commercial fishermen that have previously completed a Fishing Vessel Drill Conductor workshop and want to update their skills. Register online at www.amsea.org or call (907) 747-3287....
In the face of Alaska’s multi-billion dollar budget shortfalls, state policy makers are putting the onus on fishermen to cover the costs of going fishing. “One of the sources we have to offset general fund decreases is increased test fishing. We don’t like to catch fish or crab or anything just to raise money, but in this climate we’re having to look at that long and hard,” said Scott Kelley, director of the Commercial Fisheries for the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game. Test fishing is typically done by department chartered vessels to assess st...
In a news brief released April 28, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced additional sport fishing opportunities for king salmon would be available to Wrangell and Petersburg’s District 8. Sport fishing for king salmon in the district may be conducted with the use of two rods per angler, with no more than six lines fished from a vessel. Resident anglers have a bag limit of three king salmon 28 inches or greater in length, with a limit of six in possession. Nonresidents have a bag and possession limit of two, up to six for the year. Ch...
Cuts affecting Alaska’s fisheries will be spread across all regions and species, depending on the final budget that is approved by state legislators. As it stands now, the total commercial fisheries budget for FY 2017 from all state and federal funding sources is about $64 million, a drop of $10 million over two years. “With cuts of that magnitude, everything is on the table,” said Scott Kelley, director of the Commercial Fisheries Division at the Dept. of Fish and Game. Last year 109 fishery projects were axed, and another 65 are on the cut l...
Marine boat anglers returning to ports where and when on-site ADF&G creel surveys are conducted will be prohibited from filleting, mutilating, and de-heading sport caught lingcod, nonpelagic rockfish, and king and coho salmon at-sea. Marine boat anglers returning to any port on the road system of the communities listed below, during the times designated, may not fillet, mutilate, or de-head these fish until the fish have been brought to shore and offloaded, unless the fish have been consumed or preserved on board: Petersburg: 12:01 a.m....
Increasingly corrosive oceans are raising more red flags for Bering Sea crab stocks. Results from a first ever, two year project on baby Tanner crabs show that higher ocean acidity (pH) affects both their shell production and the immune systems. Bairdi Tanner crab, the larger cousins of snow crab, are growing into one of Alaska’s largest crab fisheries with a nearly 20 million pound harvest this season. “We put mom crabs from the Bering Sea in a tank, and allowed her embryos to grow and hatch in an acidified treatment,” explained project leade...
