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A news release from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) released Nov. 13 outlines an estimated 2015 pink salmon harvest of 58 million fish. “ An actual harvest of 58 million pink salmon would be well above the recent 10-year average of 41 million pink salmon and a harvest of that magnitude would be in the top ten harvests since 1960,” according to the release. The release states that the annual forecast was produce in two steps, “ 1) a forecast of the trend in the harvest, and 2) the forecast trend adjusted using 2014 juvenile pink...
Alaska’s largest employer continues to add more jobs to its roster. Commercial fishing jobs grew last year to a level not seen since the year 2000, according to the state Department of Labor. Driven primarily by an increased salmon harvest, notably from the record run of pinks, fishing jobs grew by nearly 2.5 percent last year. That brought the annual monthly average to 8,400 jobs, just 400 shy of the record over a decade ago. Seafood harvesting and processing jobs are a focus of the November Alaska Economic Trends, which breaks down the n...
Alaska claimed the nation’s top three fishing ports for seafood catches last year, and wild salmon landings – 95 percent from Alaska – topped one billion pounds, an all time record and a 70 percent increase from 2012. That’s according to the annual Fisheries of the US report for 2013, just released by NOAA Fisheries. Dutch Harbor topped the list for landings for the 17th year running with 753 million pounds of fish crossing the docks last year, valued at nearly $200 million. The Aleutian Islands region ranked second for landings, thanks to the...
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...
The Bering Sea crab fleet now stands at 77 vessels, a far cry from the nearly 250 boats before the fishery downsized to catch shares in 2005. Fewer boats means less hands on deck, and as with so many others, the Bering Sea crabbers are ‘graying’ and need to recruit young entrants to sustain the iconic fisheries. To do so, the shareholders have devised a way to give captains and crews a first crack at available crab. “The long term future of the fishery is dependent on bringing young people in. That’s not unique to crab, we are seeing it all ove...
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...
As the third week of this year’s moose hunt came to a close this past Sunday, the current harvest is still slightly ahead of last year’s numbers. According to Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist Rich Lowell, a total of 72 moose were reported killed for the Petersburg-Wrangell area, compared to 71 last year. With a few more reported taken Tuesday, the number stands at 74. Twenty-five have so far been taken on the Stikine River, and another 27 on Kupreanof Island. There were also six harvested on Mitkof Island, five at Thomas Bay, thr...
Crab harvests in southeast Alaska this year won't feature the state's historic cash crops of Red King Crabs, as historically low population levels persist in the region, according to Alaska's Department of Fish and Game, which announced the pre-emptive closure of the 2014/2015 fishing season on Oct. 3. The Southeast Alaska Red King Crab Management Plan directs the department to manage the Southeast Alaska red king crab fishery in accordance with the Alaska Board of Fisheries' "Policy on King and...
I must admit that US Senate candidate Dan Sullivan achieved something I have been trying to accomplish as a fisheries writer for more than a quarter of a century: he gave long legs to media stories about Alaska’s fisheries and, more importantly, it attracted unparalleled recognition of the seafood industry nationwide. How did that come about for a fractious industry that bemoans a la comedian Rodney Dangerfield—’’I don’t get no respect?” When Sullivan’s campaign announced that he would not attend a traditional Kodiak fisheries debate scheduled...
Alaska’s conservative management combined with the grace of Mother Nature are swelling the abundance of two of the state’s largest and most important fisheries. Bering Sea crab scientists and stakeholder met last week to discuss the outlook for Alaska’s biggest crab fisheries that open October 15th. The take away was that the stocks of red king crab, bairdi Tanners and snow crab all showed big increases in mature size classes, based on data from the annual summer surveys. (Only mature male crabs cans be retained in Alaska’s crab fisheries.) Tha...
Fish on! The lure of reaching a statewide audience was too much to pass up for US Senate hopeful Dan Sullivan, who will be at the Oct. 1 fisheries debate at Kodiak after all. Sullivan was able to reshuffle a packed travel schedule to fit in the fisheries event, said Ben Sparks, campaign manager. Sullivan initially was going to be in Bethel on a multi-day swing through Southwest Alaska during the time of the Kodiak event. “Dan recognizes the importance of Alaska’s fisheries, and our campaign has rescheduled our southwest swing to ensure tha...
“Surprised and disappointed” was the reaction by Senator Mark Begich upon learning that his opponent Dan Sullivan has bowed out of an October 1 fisheries debate in Kodiak. It is the second time this year that Sullivan has declined to participate in the Chamber of Commerce event that has been an election year tradition since 1990. “I can’t recall a time that a candidate has not participated in the Kodiak debate,” Begich said as he readied to head back to DC on Friday. “It’s a must do for statewide candidates. It’s not an option. It’s clear he do...
If Russia won't buy seafood from the US, we won't buy seafood from them. That's the gauntlet being thrown down by Alaska's Congressional Delegation to retaliate against Russia's yearlong ban on food products from the US and several nations. In a letter to President Obama spurred on by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the Delegation wrote: "Our purpose here is to ask that your Administration respond to the Russian action with a two-step process. First, we ask that you use all diplomatic means available to...
More than 100 researchers and three dozen projects are underway to find clues as to why Alaska’s Chinook salmon production has declined since 2007. The ambitious effort marks the start of a state-backed five year, $30 million Chinook Salmon Research Initiative that includes 12 major river systems from Southeast Alaska to the Yukon. And while it will be years before the project yields definitive data, the scientists have pinned down some early findings. “It’s not the fresh water production of the juvenile Chinook that is the reason this decli...
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...
PETERSBURG – There has been an ebb and flow of boats in the harbor as the summer salmon season presses on. The Southeast drift gillnet fishery opened on July 6 with the challenge of overcoming a landslide on the Tahltan River in late May that caused a barrier to salmon passage. The Tahltan is a tributary of the Stikine and a major contributor to the Southeast gillnet fishery for sockeye, and the landslide there was thought to have caused a complete blockage to salmon passage, said Troy Thynes, Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) b...
Breached mine tailings dams be damned! As millions of Fraser River sockeye salmon head for spawning beds polluted by a brew of metal toxins oozing from the Mount Polley gold/copper mine disaster in British Columbia, Republican candidates vying for US Senate want environmental regulators to butt out of Alaska’s mining development decisions. The three men hoping to unseat Mark Begich faced off last week for a Rural Alaska Republican Candidates forum hosted by KYUK/Bethel. To questions posed by moderator Ben Matheson, candidates Joe Miller, M...
Fishermen won’t need special permits to hose off their decks thanks to a bill moving through the US Senate. That’s garnered a big sigh of relief from harvesters across the nation and kudos to a rare show of bipartisanship by coastal lawmakers, notably Senators Begich of Alaska and Marco Rubio of Florida. “The Vessel Incidental Discharge Act extends a moratorium that was already granted to the commercial fishing industry from 2008, and it’s been up every couple of years. It would extend this moratorium indefinitely so commercial fishing vessels...
Nowhere in the world do people have more say in shaping fisheries policy than in Alaska. While the outcomes might get mixed rants and reviews, no one is ever denied the chance to state ideas, concerns and gripes to decision makers. Several opportunities are available right now. First off, a revised draft of the Magnuson-Stevens Act was just released for public review and comment. The MSA is the primary federal law that governs all fisheries management in U.S. waters; it is undergoing reauthorization targeted for completion at the end of this...
It came as no surprise when the first price postings last week tanked for Bristol Bay sockeye salmon to $1.20 a pound, with an extra 15 cents for chilled fish. That compares to a base price of $1.50 a pound last year. The Bristol Bay catch topped 28 million reds by Friday, 11 million more than projected, and the fish were still coming. (Alaska’s total sockeye salmon catch as of July 18 was over 37 million and counting.) Demand for the fish is strong by both foreign and U.S. buyers, but the downward press on prices stems from lots of c...
Ocean chemists are calling it “revolutionary technology” as unmanned gliders track how melting glaciers may be intensifying corrosive waters in Prince William Sound. “It’s been hugely successful. We’ve flown these things all over inside and outside of Prince William Sound, we’ve had great control over them, we’ve been able to move them to exactly where we want them to be. They are making thousands of measurements all over,” said Jeremy Mathis, director of the Ocean Environment Research Division at the Pacific Marine Environmental L...
The Southeast Seine fishery is performing as expected despite a closure last week, said Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) biologist Dan Gray. “As expected, we have a fairly low pink salmon forecast and it’s early yet in the development of that run, but it looks like what we thought,” Gray said. In the Hidden Falls terminal harvest area, the Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association needs 180,000 chum salmon for brood stock. As of July 8, only 5,000 passed the barrier net and into a containment area. “Without that in place i...
With salmon fisheries going on every summer all across Alaska, you might wonder why so much attention is focused on Bristol Bay. The answer can be summed up in two words: sockeye salmon. Bristol Bay is home to the largest red salmon runs in the world and sockeye is Alaska’s most valuable salmon fishery by far. In most years, well over one-third of Alaska’s total earnings from salmon fishing stem from Bristol Bay. Whereas other fishing regions like Copper River, Cook Inlet, Kodiak, Southeast and the Alaska Peninsula might get sockeye cat...
Salmon takes center stage in Alaska every summer, but many more fisheries also are going on all across the state. The world’s biggest sockeye salmon run is expected to surge into Bristol Bay any day, where a catch of about 17 million reds is projected. Elsewhere, the annual summer troll fishery in Southeast Alaska kicks off on July first with a target of just over 166,000 Chinook salmon. Lots of crab fisheries are underway each summer— Dungeness fishing began on June 15 in Southeast where a harvest of 2.25 million pounds is expected. The reg...