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Giving COVID relief funds to the seafood industry and stepping on the gas for offshore fish farming are two big takeaways from the executive orders and congressional packages coming out of the nation’s capital. Recent news that Alaska would receive $50 million from the $300 million fisheries relief funds in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was well received by industry stakeholders and it’s likely to be followed by more. A May 15 hearing called “COVID 19 impacts to American Fisheries and the Seafood Supply Chain...
Sales of Alaska’s most popular seafoods are being hit hard by markets upended by the coronavirus, but perhaps none is getting battered worse than halibut. Along with the big losses in the lucrative restaurant trade, Pacific halibut also is facing headwinds from increasing foreign imports. Starting three years ago, sales of fresh Pacific halibut to established markets on the east coast were toppled by a flood of less expensive fish flowing in primarily from eastern Canada. Trade data show that for 2019 through February 2020, total Canadian h...
The value of Alaska salmon permits is another casualty of the coronavirus with prices dropping for all fisheries across the state. There are a lot of permits for sale - and the most offers ever to lease permits, especially at Bristol Bay. The virus has changed everything, said Doug Bowen of Alaska Boats and Permits in Homer. “There’s so much uncertainty about if there will even be a salmon season here and there, and if so, what kind of a price can be expected and so on. I can’t think of one salmon permit that is going up in value. And if there...
Strict new rules are now in place for Alaska fishermen and their vessels to protect against and prevent the spread of COVID-19 during the 2020 salmon season. Effective April 24, Governor Dunleavy provided 11 pages of mandates that specifically apply to those who have not “agreed to operate under a fleet-wide plan submitted by a company, association or entity” representing them. Among other things, each independent skipper must sign a “Health Mandate Acknowledgement Form” prior to going fishing. They are required to maintain a written or time...
Alaska’s total salmon catch for 2020 is projected to be down 36 percent from last year’s haul of 207 million fish, the eighth largest on record that was valued at nearly $658 million at the docks. In the Run Forecasts and Harvest Projections and Review of the 2019 Season just released by the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game, managers are calling for a harvest of just under 133 million salmon across Alaska. The decline is driven by a much lower forecast for those hard to predict pink salmon of just over 60 million fish, down nearly 53 percent. Her...
How can fishermen be sure their vessels are clean of coronavirus contamination? Where can they find out about relief funds that are newly available for fishermen? COVID-19 has Alaska’s seafood industry traveling in uncharted waters as more fisheries continue and get underway, and fishermen and processors prepare for a salmon season that’s just a month away. Information in an upside down world changes daily, making it tough to plot a course. United Fishermen of Alaska has crafted a “one stop shop” for the latest fishing-related COVID-19 updates...
The State of Alaska wants input on plans to distribute nearly $24.5 million in federal disaster relief funds for stakeholders and communities hurt by the 2018 Gulf of Alaska cod crash. Better make it quick – the deadline to comment is April 10. Cod is Alaska’s second largest groundfish harvest (after pollock), but the Gulf stock dropped by 80% in 2018 following a three year heatwave that disrupted food webs, fish metabolism and egg survival on the ocean floor. It combined to push down cod catches to just 28.8 million pounds, compared to nea...
The U.S. seafood industry received a $300 million assist from the $2 trillion COVID-19 relief package passed by Congress on March 27, and a wide coalition of industry stakeholders is hoping for more. Fishery recipients in the relief bill include tribes, persons, communities, processors, aquaculture and other related businesses. SeafoodNews.com reports that those eligible for relief must have “revenue losses greater than 35 percent as compared to the prior 5-year average revenue, or any negative impacts to subsistence, cultural, or ceremonial f...
The Pacific halibut fishery opened on March 14 amid little fanfare and flattened markets. The first fish of the eight month season typically attracts the highest prices and is rushed fresh to high-end buyers, especially during the Lenten season. But that’s not the case in this time of coronavirus chaos, when air traffic is stalled and seafood of all kinds is getting backlogged in global freezers. Alaska’s share of the 2020 halibut catch is about 17 million pounds for nearly 2,000 fishermen who own shares of the popular flatfish. A week int...
Genetically tweaked salmon that grows three times faster than normal fish…fillets grown in labs from fish cells…now plant-based seafoods such as “vegan shrimp,” or “Toona” are gaining footholds in the marketplace - and confusing customers. A new study by FoodMinds for the National Fisheries Institute showed that about 40 percent of consumers believed plant-based imitations contain actual seafood. Up to 60 percent thought the products had similar nutritional content as real fish. Still, fake seafood producers are pushing back against mor...
Alaska shellfish farmers and divers fear they won't be 'open for business' much longer if they're forced to pick up the tab for federally required lab tests as outlined in Governor Dunleavy's budget. The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has proposed shifting the state cost to the harvesters which last year totaled almost a half million dollars. Geoduck clam divers in Southeast Alaska, for example, pay about $150,000 each year to collect samples that are sent to the single...
Seafood coming from and going to China is piling up in freezer vans and cold storages indefinitely as the coronavirus continues to cause commerce chaos around the world. About 80% of trade of the world’s goods by volume is carried by sea and China is home to seven of the world’s 10 busiest container ports, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Virus precautions mean that many ships can’t get into Chinese ports, others are stuck at docks waiting for workers to return, and still more are idling in “floating quarant...
Petersburg - The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced the following closures for eulachon smelt (Thaleichthys pacificus) for the 2020 season. These closures will be in effect beginning 12:01 a.m., Thursday, February 27, 2020: District 1: will be closed to commercial, personal use, and subsistence eulachon smelt fishing in all waters. This includes all Revillagigedo Island and mainland drainages; District 7: will be closed to commercial, personal use, and subsistence eulachon smelt...
Dutch Harbor remained the top fishing port in the USA for the 22nd year in a row with 763 million pounds crossing the docks in 2018 valued at $182 million. And Naknek ranked as the nation’s second most valuable port for fishermen with landings worth $195 million. (Naknek also ranked #8 for landings at $191 million.) Empire-Venice, Louisiana held the second spot for fish volume (569 million). The “Aleutians” was close behind (539 million), thanks to Trident’s plant at Akutan, the largest processing facility in North America. Kodiak fell to four...
Lost in the headlines about the hits to seafood sales from the Trump Administration’s trade war with China is another international barrier with Russia that’s been going on far longer. In August of 2014 Russia placed an embargo on all U.S. food products to retaliate for sanctions the U.S and other Western countries imposed over the invasion of Ukraine. The ban included Alaska seafood, which at the time accounted for more than $61 million in annual sales to Russia, primarily from pink salmon roe. But here’s the bigger hurt: For the nearly six y...
Alaska lawmakers are making fast work of several fish bills that have wide support from Alaska’s fishermen. “I was anticipating a somewhat slow start, but they’re organized and they’re diving right into these issues and taking these bills up. And so there’s lots of opportunities to participate,” said Frances Leach, executive director of United Fishermen of Alaska. The bill (HB 35) that would resolve a conflict of interest fix at the state Board of Fisheries has been moving through committee hearings in Juneau and could finally be settled aft...
The Sitka black-tailed deer hunting season is closed in Alaska. All hunters who obtained deer harvest tickets, even those who did not hunt or harvest a deer, must return completed hunt reports to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. If you haven’t submitted your hunt report, do so immediately. Hunt reports may be submitted by mail, in person at a Fish and Game office, or online at http://hunt.alaska.gov....
Alaska gets a good return on investment from its commercial fisheries. And surprise! Commercial fisheries expertise also sustains Alaska’s subsistence and most of the personal use fisheries. “This is probably not well-known,” said Sam Rabung, director of the commercial fisheries division for the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game, at a presentation last week to the House Fisheries Committee. “Data collected by our division is shared across all divisions within the department as much as possible,” he explained to lawmakers. “We also share the cost of...
Which Alaska region is home to the most fishing boats and where do most of Alaska's fishermen live? Answers to those questions and many others can be found in the annual report Economic Value of Alaska's Seafood Industry 2020 by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI). The colorful, easy to read report, prepared by the McDowell Group, gives a fishing snapshot by Alaska region, including employment rates and tax revenues, and breaks down the industry's impacts to the nation and the world....
It’s been a long time coming but payments should soon be in hand for Alaska fishermen, processors and coastal communities hurt by the 2016 pink salmon run failure, the worst in 40 years. The funds are earmarked for Kodiak, Prince William Sound, Chignik, Lower Cook Inlet, South Alaska Peninsula, Southeast Alaska and Yakutat. Congress ok’d over $56 million in federal relief in 2017, but the authorization to cut the money loose languished on NOAA desks in DC for over two years. The payouts got delayed again last October when salmon permit hol...
Alaskans saw salmon die offs last summer across the state when water temperatures soared into the mid-70s to above 80 degrees in some regions. But what about threats to salmon from the accompanying global gorilla - increased acidity? It’s a shock to learn that while extensive studies for years have been underway by Alaska scientists on impacts to major fish and shellfish stocks, there’s been none done in Alaska for salmon. In fact, only two lab studies have been done on Alaska salmon, both out of state, which showed acidity impairs coho sal...
Every year since 1991 Fish Factor has selected “picks and pans” for Alaska’s seafood industry - a no-holds-barred look back at some of the year’s best and worst fishing highlights, and my choice for the biggest fish story of the year. Here are the 2019 picks and pans, in no particular order - Best fish scientist – Dr. Bob Foy, director of science and research at NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center/Juneau – No one explains science better or with more passion. Biggest new business potential: Mariculture. Alaska is acting on plans to grow a $10...
Alaska’s seafood industry will be “open for business” starting January 1 when some of the biggest fisheries get underway long before the start of the first salmon runs in mid-May. Cod will begin it all in the Bering Sea, which has a 305.5 million pound catch quota, down about a million pounds from 2019. Less than 6 million pounds of codfish will come out of the Gulf. A 400,000 Tanner crab fishery at Kodiak starting on January 15 will be helpful to a town whose economic bottom line will be badly battered by the Gulf cod crash. But it will be th...
They say good things come in small packages and that’s the case for Alaska cod fishermen heading into the new year. A small cod fishery will occur in Gulf state waters (out to three miles) for 2020, putting to rest speculation that no cod would be coming out of the Gulf next year. A catch quota of about 5.6 million pounds, down from 10.2 million pounds, will be split among five regions: Prince William Sound, Cook Inlet, Kodiak, Chignik and the South Alaska Peninsula, with limitations on gear and staggered openers. That will be a relief to thous...
Go Fish! A deck of clever playing cards is teaching people about one of Alaska's most popular yet fragile fishing favorites: rockfish. During games players can learn how to identify the 48 different kinds of rockfish found in Alaska waters and how some, like rougheye, can live beyond 200 years. "Shortraker, the 10 of diamonds, can live 157 years. Yelloweye live 118 years and are sexually mature at around 22 years. Black rockfish mature at six or seven years and can live to be 50 years," said...
