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Last Wednesday marked the start of Lent, a time of fasting, soul searching and repentance for hundreds of millions of Christians around the world. And what the burst in the holiday sales season from Thanksgiving to Christmas means to retailers, Lent means the same to the seafood industry. The 40-day Lenten season, which this year runs from March 5th to Easter Sunday on April 20th, dates back to the 4th century, and it has been customary to forego meat ever since. While nearly all seafood enjoys a surge of interest during Lent, the most...
JUNEAU (AP) – 2013 was a year for the record books, with Alaska seeing the largest salmon harvest ever with more than 272 million fish caught in total. The huge harvest was powered by an incredible number of pink salmon, Alaska’s smallest and most abundant salmon species. The 219 million pink salmon comprised more than 80% of the total harvest and surpassed the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) pre-season forecast for all five salmon species combined. This landmark season is valued at $691.1 million, second only to the 1988 harvest wor...
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...
Bait is always a big expenditure for many fishing businesses and pollock could help cut costs for Alaska halibut longliners who fish in the Gulf. Researchers have tested pollock in two projects to see if it might replace pricier chum salmon as halibut bait. Fish biologists use over 300,000 pounds of chums in their stock surveys each year, costing nearly half a million dollars. The baits are used at more than 1,200 testing stations from Oregon to the Bering Sea. A pilot study three years ago in the central Gulf and off of British Columbia...
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...
Eleven new seafood products from seven companies are set to be showcased at the upcoming Symphony of Seafood galas in Seattle and Anchorage. In its 21 years the event has introduced and promoted hundreds of new Alaska seafood items to the marketplace. “Developing new products is really hard,” said Julie Decker, new executive director of the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation which hosts the event. (Decker replaces Jim Browning who retired,) “It costs a lot of money, takes a lot of time and attention, and sometimes the products are wonde...
A measure aimed at banning salmon setnetting is being held afloat by backers. The ban includes the Anchorage area, much of the Kenai Peninsula, Valdez and Juneau. It would completely eliminate Cook Inlet setnetters and affect roughly 500 fishing families in all. Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell decided two weeks ago to not allow the question to go before Alaska voters as a ballot initiative in 2016. The newly formed Kenai-based Alaska Fisheries Conservation Alliance followed up with an appeal filed in Alaska Superior Court. “In a measure based on co...
Good science should drive all fisheries decisions, and Lite Guv Mead Treadwell says he has the chops to maintain a true course. Treadwell, a Republican who hopes to unseat Democratic US Senator Mark Begich in November’s election, paid a recent visit to Kodiak and “talked fish” in a brief interview. Few can claim Treadwell’s experience and understanding of the Arctic, where he has represented Alaska on U.S. Delegations in three circumpolar government groups, and been a director of the Institute of the North. He said he “doesn’t expect any...
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...
KODIAK, Alaska (AP) — A federal agency is planning to measure the economic impact of fishing businesses. Notices posted in the Federal Register show the National Marine Fisheries Service plans to survey U.S. seafood processors and bait-and-tackle shops during 2014. Survey data will be incorporated into impact statements produced by the federal government before an action is taken. Tackle business owners will be asked to characterize and quantify their operational costs and sales revenue and describe their clientele. Seafood processors will b...
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...
Want to know at a glance how many fishing boats call the Kenai Peninsula Borough home? It’s 1,089. Or what percentage of Wrangellites fish for a living? Just over 15 percent. Or how many skippers plus crew fish out of Juneau? That number is 705. To help policy makers and the public become better informed about how the seafood industry fits into the state’s economy, the United Fishermen of Alaska has compiled Fishing Fact sheets for 26 communities, plus statewide tallies for Alaska and Washington. A big misconception the well documented UFA dat...
It’s traditional during the Christmas season to decorate a downtown with lights – for Kodiak and other coastal communities “downtown” means the boat harbor. This month, alongside the local businesses on shore, Kodiak’s floating storefronts will be showcased in the downtown lighting festivities – meaning the 650 or so fishing businesses that each support one or several Kodiak families. Think of it as a mall in a marina! The revamped Harbor Lights Festival is an old theme with a new twist, said Toby Sullivan, director of the Kodiak Maritime Mu...
Sitka – The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced Dec. 6 the preliminary guideline harvest level (GHL) for the 2014 Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery is 17,592 tons based on a 20% harvest rate of a forecast biomass of 87,958 tons. The department uses an age structured analysis (ASA) model which uses a long time series of abundance and age composition data from department surveys conducted during and following the spring fishery. Herring abundance is estimated using aerial surveys designed to map the length of shoreline receiving sp...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced a preseason run size for Stikine River king salmon at 26,000 fish. Because the size of the forecast is small there will be no directed fisheries in early May. Tom Kowalske, ADFG assistant area management biologist in Wrangell, said estimated run sizes have recently been reduced by nearly half. “For the past seven years the run size was overestimated by an average of 45 percent or so,” Kowalske said. The Stikine River king salmon forecast model initially produced an estimated run size of 37,...
It comes as no surprise that the recommendations for next year’s halibut catches are down again for all regions except Southeast Alaska. Fishery scientists with the International Pacific Halibut Commission have recommended a 2014 coast wide commercial catch total of 24.45 million pounds, a 21% decrease from the 31 million pounds allowed for this year. That includes catches in Alaska, British Columbia and the Pacific Coast states. In a summation at a meeting in Seattle last week, the IPHC said: “The results of the 2013 stock assessment ind...
Will Alaska’s halibut catches be cut again next year? That’s the big question as the industry braces for the International Pacific Halibut Commission’s interim meeting this week in Seattle. By all accounts, there appear to be lots of halibut in Alaska waters, but their unusually slow growth rates have forced a downward press on catches for nearly a decade. The Alaska catch total this year was about 22 million pounds. Also up for review – 22 fishermen from remote communities in the mid-Aleutians (4A) are requesting an increase in their halibut...
More Alaskans are taking to the fishing life, as indicated by upward ticks in harvesting jobs for three years running. That’s according to the November Alaska Economic Trends by the state Labor Department, which provides a look at the numbers of “boots on deck” by region and fishery. A first: economists Jack Cannon and Josh Warren also looked at how much time is put into fishing pre- and post-season prep work and clean up, and what jobs fishermen do during the off times. Some highlights: Each month last year, on average 8,189 fishermen plied...
Americans remained true to their seafood favorites last year with shrimp, canned tuna and salmon topped the list of the 10 most popular seafoods. That’s according to the National Fisheries Institute which compiles the list each year based on data from the government’s US Fisheries Report. Following the top three are tilapia, Alaska pollock, Pangasius, crab, cod, catfish and clams. Looking more closely at the numbers shows that for the first time in five years, crab consumption began to increase again after a steady decline since 2007. Per...
Keeping tabs on how many and what kinds of fish are coming over the rails is a key tool in Alaska’s highly successful fishery management programs. For nearly four decades, that has been the job of fishery observers who track everything that is hauled aboard trawlers, crabbers and most other fishing vessels 50 feet and up. Starting this year and for the first time ever, observers were placed aboard smaller boats as well as Alaska’s hook and line fleet to start getting information about “removals” in that gear group’s fisheries. The primary f...
For the 16th year in a row, Dutch Harbor ranked as the nation’s top fishing port with 752 million pounds crossing those docks last year, valued at $214 million. The number two port for landings again was Empire-Venice, Louisiana. The “Aleutian Islands” jumped to third place with 456 million pounds led by deliveries to Akutan, and bumped Kodiak to number four with 393 million pounds landed in 2012. In all, 13 Alaska ports made the Top 50 list for poundage, according to the annual Fisheries of the United States report by NOAA Fisheries. For v...
The Subsistence Division of Alaska Department of Fish and Game is looking to interview local residents about their experiences on the Stikine River as it attempts to better understand Chinook salmon declines. The Chinook Salmon Research Initiative, a state-funded research project aimed at better understanding statewide salmon stocks, is funding the local project. In 2001, fishermen harvested more than 70,000 Chinooks from the Stikine. By 2009, those numbers dipped below 20,000 harvested fish. Rosalie Grant, Subsistence Research Specialist for...
The Bering Sea crab fleet was ready to head to the fishing grounds over the weekend after the government shutdown and unissued licenses stalled the Oct. 15 start of the crab season. Skippers of the 80 boats estimated the extra time tied up in Dutch Harbor cost them each $1,000 per day. Meanwhile, the situation was even worse for small boat crabbers at Kodiak and the Westward region who learned there would not even be a Tanner fishery come January. “It is not unexpected,” said Mark Stichert, a shellfish biologist at ADF&G in Kodiak. “We...