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PETERSBURG – This year’s moose hunt is the third highest harvest on record with a total of 85 animals taken from the region. The highest record was in 2009 with 108 moose being harvested and the second was in 2011 with 88 moose taken. Rich Lowell, Area Wildlife Biologist for Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said the majority of moose are taken during the first two weeks of the hunt, which was the case this year as well. Forty-six moose were taken during the first half of the hunt while 39 were taken during the second. “We’re killing more moo...
As expected, Alaska’s 2013 salmon catch is one for the record books. Early tallies by state fishery managers show that fishermen caught 272 million salmon this summer, smashing the previous record of 221 salmon in 2005. The fishery was powered by a whopping catch of 219 million pinks. In terms of money, the preliminary harvest value of $691 million ranks second to the $724 million of 1988, called an “outlier” season by salmon managers. They also predict that once all post season bonuses and price adjustments are determined by salmon proce...
Kodiak’s waterfront is bedecked with hundreds of “7 by’s” as boats stack their pots and gear up for the big crab fisheries in the Bering Sea. The Bristol Bay red king crab season is set to open on October 15, with a harvest of 8.6 million pounds, similar to last year. A reopened Tanner crab fishery will produce a three million pound catch; the numbers for Bering Sea snow crab, Alaska’s largest crab fishery, will be out next week. The fisheries are set to open on schedule, said Heather Fitch, regional manager for ADF&G at Dutch Harbor. However,...
Governor Parnell took to the statewide airwaves last Tuesday to answer questions from Alaskans on APRN’s Talk of Alaska. Of fishing interest: A Cook Inlet set netter asked about his stance on the proposed Chuitna coal mine in Cook Inlet that would set a precedent by removing, among other things, 11 miles of salmon streams. “Didn’t you say you would never trade one resource for another?” she queried? “And I won’t,” Parnell responded. “I’ve seen the written misinformation about Chuitna and the decision that was made on a proposal to basic...
PETERSBURG, Alaska (AP) — Federal marine mammal officials say it’s too soon to determine the cause of death for a female humpback whale found near Kake earlier this month. The whale was first reported around Sept. 1 in Keku Strait near Kake, KFSK reported. Kate Savage, a marine mammal specialist with the NOAA Fisheries protected resources division in Juneau, said the dead whale was later floated to an island outside Kake for a necropsy. The cause of death was immediately evident, but injuries appear similar to those of humpbacks that have col...
News that mining giant Anglo-American plans to withdraw from the Pebble Mine project was greeted with joy by opponents who hailed it as a victory for the people of Bristol Bay and for the region’s resources. Pebble would be the largest gold and copper mine in North America, and its location looms over the world’s biggest sockeye salmon fishery at Bristol Bay. But even though London-based Anglo has pulled out of the Pebble Partnership, Northern Dynasty Minerals of Canada still remains. And they insist the project is still very much alive. “Th...
Alaska’s record salmon season has permit brokers hopping as buyers seek to break into or expand their opportunities in many fisheries. Notably, brokers say there is “a lot of great buzz” at Bristol Bay, despite a lackluster sockeye fishery that saw the bulk of the red run come and go eight days early. “Prior to the season the drift permits went for under $100,000, but we just sold one for $125, 000,” said Doug Bowen of Alaska Boats and Permits in Homer. Most of the bump is due to optimism about the sockeye base price of $1.50/lb, a $.50 incr...
Alaska’s 2013 salmon season has yielded the largest catch ever, and the value of the fishery is also headed for the record books. The statewide catch on Sept. 6 was nearing 265 million fish – the old record was 222 million in 2005. A bumper run of pink salmon is behind the big harvest - the mindboggling catch was approaching 213 million fish. The previous record was 161 million pinks, also in 2005. Some boats are still out on the water, but the big pink catches have gone by, said Geron Bruce, Assistant Director for the state commercial fisherie...
Want to know the average fish prices at the docks over a decade … or where most Alaska fishermen and fishing fleets call home? Or how Alaska’s seafood industry stacks up against other state industries? What is likely the most comprehensive, user friendly report ever done on Alaska’s seafood industry by region was just released by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. Titled “Economic Value of the Alaska Seafood Industry,” the report was compiled by the Juneau-based McDowell Group, and it includes all of the direct and indirect economic...
Alaska salmon continues to get snubbed by ill informed, far away big wigs who believe they are best suited to make the seafood choices for their customers. Last week Sodexo, one of the world’s largest food purveyors - said its policy is to only serve seafood certified by (you guessed it) the London-based Marine Stewardship Council. In this case, the fish is targeted to the US troops. Sodexo, a Fortune 500 company home based in France, has an eight year contract to provide food services to US military mess halls, including $22 million of s...
Want to get onboard observers out of those small fishing boat bunks? The more fishermen who volunteer their vessels to field test new electronic monitoring systems (EMS), the faster the program will replace that extra body onboard. Starting this year and for the first time, fishery observers are required aboard Alaska’s long line fleet of roughly 1,500 boats, most of which are well under 50 feet. Observers have been aboard other types of Alaska fishing vessels for decades to collect data and monitor catches and bycatches; now scientists and man...
Alaska salmon catches are poised to blow past the pre-season forecast of 179 million fish due to a plug of pinks that is coming in stronger than expected. “We are going to be short on sockeyes by five million or so, and we’re probably not going to make the chum salmon numbers either. So we’ll have to go over with pinks, but at the rate things are going that is entirely possible,” said Geron Bruce, deputy director of Fish and Game's Commercial Fisheries division. As of Friday the total pink salmon catch had surged to nearly 114 million (the fo...
Holy Oncorhynchus! Any doubts about the brand power of Alaska salmon can be put to rest after the high visibility contretemps over the past few weeks – and the fish story has a happy ending. All of Alaska’s ‘powers that be’ converged on Wal-Mart and the National Park Service (NPS) when both reportedly snubbed Alaska salmon over a labeling issue. Both Governor Parnell and Senator Mark Begich sent letters to Wal-Mart blasting the ill-advised decision, and Senator Lisa Murkowski verbally (and very publicly) spanked the NPS for not followi...
If a picture is worth a thousand words, get ready for millions of undersea images - brought to you by a handmade, high definition undersea camera. “Alaska Cam Sled is a towed imaging system that takes a lot of high resolution pictures of the bottom of the ocean,” said Gregg Rosenkranz, a state scallop biometrician based in Kodiak. Rosenkranz and his colleague Rick Shepherd built the cam sled, which lets them experience a live stream of the sea floor while onboard a research vessel. They hail it as a non-invasive way to observe and collect dat...
It might sound like a whopper of a fish story – but Alaska salmon is not good enough for Wal-Mart or the US National Park Service. The reason? Alaska’s wild caught salmon does not brandish a specific eco-label verifying that it is sustainably managed – as determined by two Outside groups: the London-based Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) or the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. Alaska’s seafood industry recently opted out of high priced eco-endorsements from elsewhere, believing the State’s brand of fisheries oversight can stand on its ow...
The rules that govern our nation’s fisheries are being retooled so it’s reassuring that Congress isn’t traveling in uncharted seas. Over 80 percent of Alaska’s fish landings come from federally managed waters, and the Magnuson-(Ted) Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act is the primary law ruling US fisheries. The Act is undergoing reauthorization for the first time in seven years. First enacted in 1976, the MSA “Americanized” the fisheries by booting out foreign fleets to beyond 200 miles from our shores. It created the nation’s ei...
Jacob Dow won the bike donated by Mike Ottesen, Sr. for biggest fish for ages 10-13. Jake Eastaugh won the bike donated by the American Legion for the biggest fish for ages 6-9. There was also a bike donated by Gary Stevens, Sr. that was drawn at the end of the derby from a jar with all the names of the participants, which was won by Savana Bylow....
Alaska spends more than $20 million on fish feed each year for its 35 salmon hatcheries — feed that comes primarily from anchovies caught in South America. Meanwhile Alaska seafood processing companies produce over 200,000 tons of fishmeal each year — for customers in Asia. Last year 33 million fish - 20% of the total Alaska salmon harvest - originated in hatcheries; in some years the figure has topped 30 percent. At Prince William Sound, for example, 73% of the salmon catch originated in local hatcheries. The most costly part of any hat...
Casey Shilts works dockside on Monday morning as some of the first Dungeness crab of the 2013 commercial fishery arrives in Wrangell....
It’s back to the drawing board for halibut iTags that will soon tell us more about where the fish travels than ever before. The internal tags, which were deployed in 30 halibut two years ago, were the first to test Smart Phone geomagnetic advances to track the migrations of fish. The tags record magnetic field strength on three axes and have accelerometers and pitch and roll detectors, explained Tim Loher, a biologist with the International Pacific Halibut Commission. “Without being able to tell whether or not your tag is horizontal, you can...
Amidst the salmon fisheries starting up all across the state, several Alaska crab seasons also get underway each summer. In mid-June, the summer Dungeness crab fishery opens in the Panhandle, as does red king crab at Norton Sound. Those are followed in August by golden kings along the far flung Aleutian Islands, which might soon take the title as Alaska’s largest king crab fishery. Unlike other Bering Sea crab stocks, surveys on golden kings have been limited due to distance and high costs. The deep water stocks have sustained a fishery for 3...
Salmon set net families were streaming out of Kodiak all week, heading to their summer sites to get ready for the June 9 season opener. Their departure wrapped up a busy week of Memorial Day festivities on “the rock,” including festivals, fleet blessings, a landslide on Cannery Row and visits by both of Alaska’s US Senators. I caught up with Sen. Lisa Murkowski over a beer at Kodiak Island Brewery; she spoke candidly on several hot button fisheries related topics. It’s well known that Murkowski and the rest of Alaska’s congressional delegatio...
It takes quite a crew to get an Alaska salmon from “boat to throat,” and everyone along the line gets a cut of the catch. How that “value chain” has paid out in the past few years shows some nice gains for Alaska fishermen and processors. “We often get asked what share the fisherman retains, and how much each segment of the supply chain gets for salmon. The answer depends on the species, and the product you are talking about, and what gear type,” said Andy Wink, a fisheries economist with the McDowell Group in Juneau who compiled the report...
National Maritime Day on May 22 is a holiday created by Congress in 1933 to honor America’s sea-going industry. It marks the day when the steamship Savannah set sail from Georgia on the first ever transoceanic voyage under steam power. As celebrations are underway, another maritime benchmark will be set as the first full container of 18 tons of fresh salmon from Chile is offloaded from a cargo ship in California after an iceless month at sea. How can that be? By using fuel cell technology in a new way. A fuel cell is an electrochemical e...