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The popular January Tanner crab fishery has been called off for the third year running throughout the Westward Region (Kodiak, Chignik and the South Peninsula), leaving fishermen and managers wondering where all the crab has gone. State managers for several years have been tracking a huge plug of crab that appeared poised to enter the 2016 Tanner fishery, but based on this summer’s surveys, the crab have failed to materialize. “In 2013 saw a very large cohort of juveniles in the survey estimated at over 200 million crab, which was one of the...
Alaska claimed the top three fishing ports for landings again last year, and led all U.S. states in terms of seafood landings and values. “The Alaska port of Dutch Harbor continued to lead the nation with the highest amount of seafood landings – 761.8 million pounds, 87 percent of which was walleye pollock,” said Dr. Richard Merrick in announcing the national rankings last week from the annual Fisheries of the U.S. report for 2014. It’s the 18th year in a row that Dutch Harbor has claimed the top spot for fish landings. Kodiak ranked second...
Alaska’s 2015 salmon season produced the second largest harvest ever, but rock bottom prices yielded the lowest pay out to fishermen since 2006. That will cut into the tax base of coastal communities and state coffers, which collect fully half of all fish landing taxes. Preliminary tallies from the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game show that the statewide salmon catch topped 263 million fish (the record is 273 million in 2013) with an ex-vessel (dockside) value at $414 million, a 28 percent decrease from last year. (http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index...
Fish pirates are coming under fire as more countries band together to stop them from pilfering the world’s oceans. So called Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing accounts for one-fifth of global catches, according to the Global Ocean Commission, valued at $10 to $25 billion each year. Last month, at its annual Intergovernmental Consultative Committee meeting held in Portland, Oregon, and after years in the making, the U.S. and Russia signed a bilateral agreement to combat IUU fishing. The pact, which has strong support from the P...
PETERSBURG, Alaska (AP) – Scientists are investigating the death of an orca whale found on the shore of Kupreanof Island north of Petersburg. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration responded to the sighting on Friday. Fisheries Spokeswoman Julie Speegle said a team of marine mammal experts went to the area to secure the killer whale and take samples, KFSK-FM reported. “We are going forward with plans to do a necropsy in the next few days,’’ she said, noting that the cause of death was unknown and that people should keep a safe di...
When is Alaska pollock not really Alaska pollock? When it is listed as such by the Food and Drug Administration, which governs what every seafood product will be called in U.S. commerce. For pollock, one of the most widely eaten seafoods in the U.S., the FDA applies the “Alaska” moniker to all fish of that species on its market list, regardless of where it is caught. “So if the fish is caught in Korea or Japan or Russia, it still can be sold as Alaska pollock in the United States. And that’s not the case with Alaska salmon or halibut or Alas...
“Unsettled” best describes the mood among brokers in the business of buying, selling and trading Alaska salmon permits and quota shares of various catches. For salmon permits, “the dust hasn’t really settled” since the season ended, said Doug Bowen of Alaska Boats and Permits in Homer, but at the moment, prices are tanking across the board. “There were a few bright spots but several areas in the state did not do well, either because of production or price or both. That’s put a downward press on permit prices,” he added. Bristol Bay drift gilln...
Bering Sea crabbers are again facing the possibility of a delayed fishery as Congressional Republicans threaten to shut down the government, this time over federal funding of Planned Parenthood. A shutdown two years ago stalled the crab opener by two days, costing the fleet more than $5 million in food, fuel and other fees as the boats stood idly by for a week or more awaiting an outcome. “It was a huge mess last time,” said Mark Gleason, executive director of the trade group, Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers. “We have a very tight time frame – whe...
Catches for Alaska’s premier crab fisheries in the Bering Sea could take a dip this year based on results from the annual summer surveys. The annual report by NOAA Fisheries called “The Eastern Bering Sea Continental Shelf Bottom Trawl Survey: Results from Commercial Crab Species” (long dubbed the ‘crab map’) shows tables reflecting big drops over the past year in abundance of legal sized males for both snow crab and red king crab at Bristol Bay. (Only legal males are allowed to be retained for sale.) But there is a bright side — both stocks...
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...
Fish deaths, drought in California, tropical creatures appearing in cold waters – those freakish happenings and more are being blamed on a giant splotch of warm water that for two years has been pushing against coastlines on the West Coast, Canada and into Alaska. “They call it the Blob because of its original circular shape on the sea surface,” explained Dr. Carol Janzen, an oceanographer and Operations Director at the Alaska Ocean Observing System in Anchorage. “However, this feature is not static, it’s constantly reshaping itself in circul...
One of the casualties of this year’s budget cuts was funds for a program aimed at discovering why Alaska’s Chinook salmon stocks have been declining since 2007. A five year, $30 million Chinook Salmon Research Initiative launched in 2013 included more than 100 researchers focused on three dozen projects in 12 major river systems from Southeast to the Yukon. Now the ambitious effort has been cut to just over one dozen projects. “When we saw we weren’t going to get a third appropriation this fiscal year, we had to step back and narrow the focus,...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is seeking feedback from the public on a document that will guide the agency’s conservation work over the next 10 years. The draft 2015 revision of Alaska’s Wildlife Action Plan is available now for public and agency review. The plan’s purpose is to identify the state’s species of greatest conservation need, describe distribution and habitat use, and recognize key threats and conservation actions that might be used to ensure healthy populations into the future. The preliminary draft plan is availab...
Whatever one might say about the year’s fishing harvests, it wouldn’t be fair to say the Southeast purse seining fleet is in the pink. The state forecast for 2015 anticipated a 58 million pink salmon harvest for Southeast, but so far harvests have not been living up to the expectation. “We are not even coming close,” explained Dan Gray, Alaska Department of Fish and Game management coordinator for Southeast fisheries in Sitka. With the season already in its ninth week, only 22 million pink salmon have been reported harvested by seiners so far,...
Alaska’s salmon season so far has been characterized by ups and downs, and it will be a stretch for the total catch to make the forecasted 221 million fish. “It just depends on how these late returning pink salmon at Prince William Sound performs, and whether or not pinks pick up at Southeast. It’s possible, but we would still have to harvest around 30 million more salmon,” mused Forrest Bowers, Deputy Director of the state’s Commercial Fisheries Division. One of the biggest fish stories of the season, of course, was the surprising double ru...
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...
The first seagoing electric powered passenger vessel in the U.S. is set to launch next summer in Juneau. The E/V Tongass Rain is a 50 foot, 47 passenger catamaran designed for eco-education and whale watching tours. Its primary fuel source will be rain, delivered to the boat via Juneau’s hydroelectric power grid and stored in a bank of lithium batteries. The more modern batteries are less than half the weight of a traditional lead acid battery, and they provide three times the power and charge three times as fast, said Bob Varness, president a...
A humpback whale that was first sighted in Lynn Canal in 1972 was re-sighted by researchers earlier this month feeding off Cape Fanshaw in Frederick Sound. The 44-year span between the two sightings of the whale, dubbed "Old Timer" by researchers, is the longest re-sighting span of an individual humpback in the world. Dr. Adam Pack, a marine mammal researcher at the University of Hawaii (UH) at Hilo, and photographer Jim Nahmens spotted the whale on July 12 while doing research aboard the M/V...
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...
The world’s biggest sockeye salmon run at Bristol Bay went from “bust” to “unbelievable” in one week. Landings last week broke records every day for five days for that time frame, bringing the total sockeye catch to nearly 28 million fish on an unusually long-tailed run - and the reds were still coming on strong. That had overloaded processors scurrying to replace workers they’d sent home the previous week when the big forecasted run was deemed a no show. The late surge of sockeyes also left many fishermen frustrated with limits to their catch...
Kodiak volunteers were scrambling with front end loaders and dump trucks to ready 200,000 pounds of super sacks for the first pick up of a massive marine debris removal project that begins in Alaska this week. The month long cleanup, which is backed by a who’s who of state and federal agencies, non-profits and private businesses, will deploy a 300 foot barge and helicopters to remove thousands of tons of marine debris from some of the world’s harshest and most remote coastlines. “This is a really big deal for Alaska. We have one of the world...
“Upcycling” seafood byproducts is the business model for Tidal Vision, a Juneau-based company of five entrepreneurs who are making waves with their line of aquatic leather and performance textiles. The start-up is making wallets, belts and other products from sheets of salmon skins using an all-natural, proprietary tanning formula from vegetable oils and other eco-friendly ingredients. “We can produce the same quality and durability products with no formaldehyde, no chrome based tanning chemicals or EPA regulated chemicals to dispose of. And we...
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...
