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Dilution is the solution for pollution sums up the Parnell Administration policy when it comes to cruise ship discharges in Alaska waters. A bill being moved quickly by state lawmakers will repeal a 2006 citizens’ initiative that requires cruise ships to meet Alaska water quality standards at the point of discharge, and instead create mixing zones for dumping sewage, hazardous chemicals and other wastes. Alaskans won’t know where those zones are, as House Republicans rejected amendments to require disclosure of the locations. The measure, intro...
Halibut catches weren’t slashed as badly as people feared, although they still continue on a downward trend – and the outlook is grim. A coast wide catch of 31 million pounds was approved on Friday by the International Pacific Halibut Commission, a decline of 7.5 percent from last year, and far better than the 30% cut that was widely anticipated. Alaska’s share of the Pacific catch is 23 million pounds, down 2.5 million pounds across the board. The IPHC commissioners, three from the US and three from Canada, each said the 2013 annual meeti... Full story
Fishing groups, consumers and health organizations are launching a final push to prevent genetically modified fish from getting the nod for American dinner plates. During the holidays the Food and Drug Administration issued its environmental assessment concluding that the fish, tweaked to grow at least three times faster than normal, will not have any significant impacts on the human environment and is unlikely to harm wild stocks. The FDA’s environmental green light is the last step before AquaBounty, the creators of so called Frankenfish, c...
There’s lots of movement in Alaska’s salmon permit markets, but sales of catch shares are in a stall. Permit values are up and down depending on region, and interest reflects how the salmon runs have been coming in. For example at Bristol Bay, where sockeye runs for two years have been down and another lackluster season is expected this summer, salmon drift permit values have nosedived from a $165,000 high water mark in 2011 to around $90,000 now. “It’s hard to imagine they will go up a lot with a catch forecast of 16 to 17 million salmon...
Alaska’s seafood industry worked hard this year to ramp up its message to policy makers, especially those from rail belt regions who tend to overlook the industry’s economic significance. How important is the seafood industry to Alaska and the nation? At a glance: nearly 60% of all U.S. seafood landings come from Alaska and 96% of all wild- caught salmon. Seafood is by far Alaska’s #1 export, valued $2.4 billion last year. Alaska ranks 9th in the world in terms of global seafood production. The seafood industry is second only to Big Oil in re...
Alaska’s Symphony of Seafood will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year and the call is out for new entries to be introduced in the annual competition. The Symphony, hosted by the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, showcases new Alaska seafood products in three categories: retail, food service and smoked. Top winners in each receive booth space at the international Boston Seafood Show in March. A unique and fun thing about the seafood contest is that it provides a level playing field with entries from major seafood companies and s...
Making some easy changes to a boat’s deck lay out, or simply modifying knives and scrapers can reduce the strains, sprains and pains of fishing. Doing so is applying the science of ergonomics. “Ergonomics is the science of adapting your workplace, your tools, equipment and work methods to be more efficient and comfortable and error free by humans. It’s basically how a human body interacts with their work environment, ”explained Jerry Dzugan, director of the Sitka-based the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association (AMSEA). AMSEA is using a...
Ask an Alaskan what community is home to the most commercial fishermen and they will respond Kodiak or Dutch Harbor, or maybe Petersburg or Bristol Bay. Wrong Anchorage ranks #1 for total fishing participation, with 994 permit holders and another 1,216 crew license holders who fish year round. The Anchorage–based fishermen brought home an estimated $52 million from the fishing grounds last year. The Mat-Su Valley with 396 permit holders and 420 fishing crew also is home to more harvesters than many coastal regions. Those are just a few of t...
Halibut catches could be cut by 33 percent next year if proposed numbers get the nod by the International Pacific Halibut Commission next month. That would mean a coast wide harvest of just 22.7 million pounds for fisheries in California, Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and Alaska. Alaska’s share of the halibut catch would be 17.4 million pounds, down from about 25 million this year. Unlike past years, staff scientists are not making catch limit recommendations by separate areas. Instead, they are providing “assessment and advice framework...
The “graying of the fleet” continues in Alaska as fewer young folks obtain permits for various fisheries. Data from 2011 show that 45 percent of all Alaska permit holders were between the ages 45 and 60, with an average age of 47. That was roughly twice as many permit holders as there were between the ages of 30 and 44. Crew members were much younger, averaging around 21 years old. There also was a higher incidence of crew members in their mid-30s, dropping off in the older age range. This may be due in part to aging crew eventually purchasing...
Alaska’s salmon harvest and value for 2012 came in well below last year, dropping 21 percent and 30 percent, respectively. According to preliminary state tallies, the value of the salmon catch totaled nearly $506 million at the docks this summer on a statewide catch of 124 million fish. That compares to a 2011 take of 177 million salmon valued at just over $641 million. A breakdown shows that the 2012 Chinook harvest of 333,000 was worth $17.6 million; sockeyes came in at 35.2 million valued at nearly $246 million; the coho catch of 3 m...
The results of a six year study on Western salmon will be unveiled this month and the conclusions are not what people of the region had hoped for. Some background: the Western Alaska Salmon Stock Identification Project (WASSIP) was created in 2006 by a group of eleven signers to a memorandum of understanding including Aleut Corporation, Aleutians East Borough, Association of Village Council Presidents, Bering Sea Fishermen’s Association, Bristol Bay Native Association, Concerned Area M Fishermen, Kawerak, Lake and Peninsula Borough, Tanana C...
Alaska salmon sales had lots of ups and downs this summer, but held their own overall in a tough market awash with farmed fish. The wild salmon catch goes to market in many forms such as canned, fresh or frozen, fillets and roe. The state Revenue Department/Tax Division provides quartile reports on first wholesale prices for all of Alaska’s salmon forms by species and region. Its report covering May – August shows lots of wild salmon fillets were tossed on the grill this summer, and people were willing to pay more for them. Alaska pro...
State fishery managers are asking for input from Alaskans to help solve the case of disappearing king salmon. A letter went out last week from Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Cora Campbell inviting stakeholders to a two day symposium in Anchorage later this month titled ‘Understanding Abundance and Productivity Trends of Chinook salmon in Alaska.’ The stated goal is ‘to increase understanding and develop the most complete research plan possible.’ A draft analysis by a newly appointed fisheries research team represents initial...
October is National Seafood Month – and it also marks the start of one of the busiest months for Alaska’s fishing industry. The state’s biggest crab fisheries get underway in the Bering Sea on October 15 – the Bristol Bay red king crab catch will hold steady at 7.8 million pounds, while the snow crab harvest has taken a dip to 66.3 million pounds, down from about 80 million pounds last season. The St. Matthew Island blue king crab fishery is also down a bit to 1.6 million pounds. Hundreds of divers in Southeast Alaska are plying the depths...
At least 1.5 million tons of debris from Japan’s 2011 tsunami is still afloat, and at least half of it is expected to hit Alaska’s coastline. The region from Yakutat to Gore Point off the Kenai Peninsula will likely see the heaviest debris piles, but Southeast Alaska and other areas will see chunks of junk as well. Those are conclusions of a fascinating new report by Washington Sea Grant titled Debris Accumulation Scenarios in Washington State from the March 2011 Tohoku Tsunami. The Sea Grant report, authored by Ian Miller and Jim Brennan, says...
Dutch Harbor-Unalaska held onto the title of the nation’s top fishing port for the 15th year in a row, with over 700 million pounds of fish and crab crossing the docks there last year, a 36% increase from 2010. New Bedford, Massachusetts remained as the priciest port with landings, mostly scallops, worth nearly $370 million at the docks. Dutch Harbor ranked second again for seafood value at $207 million, an increase of $44 million The numbers come from the annual Fisheries of the United States Report just released by NOAA Fisheries. Overall, t...
Alaska fishermen are feeling the squeeze of lower prices at the same time that their operating costs continue to spiral upwards. For halibut, in a reversal of trend and fortune, prices have dropped by 70 cents a pound in recent weeks. Dock prices usually peak from September until the halibut fishery closes in November, but that is not the case this year -- overstocked freezers and resistance from buyers have put a downward press on fish prices. “Buyers simply aren’t buying,” said several Alaska fish processors. Prior to the start of the seaso...
As Alaska’s salmon season winds down, selling the bulk of the harvest gears up for seafood companies that purchased the pack. “This is the season for negotiations, you might say,” said salmon guru Gunnar Knapp, longtime fisheries economist at the University of Alaska/Anchorage. “You never know the price until the product is actually sold.” The salmon season runs on different tracks starting with sockeye, and fish sales have varying schedules and market patterns throughout the year. Plus, salmon markets depend on the species and how they are...
Salmon season is winding down and it’s still a guess if the statewide catch will reach the 132 million fish forecast. Achieving that all comes down to those hard to predict pinks, whose catch makes up more than half of the total harvest. “I think it’s going to be close. It all depends on what happens with the pink salmon runs in the three major producing areas: Prince William Sound, Kodiak and Southeast,” said Geron Bruce, assistant director of the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game’s commercial fisheries division. This summer a catch of 70.2 mill...
Water ways - With 82% of Alaska’s communities unreachable by roads, water is the way to go. Businesses that serve the marine industry, including ports and harbors, are a lifeline for coastal communities. State economic specialists want to highlight the importance of the marine trade sector, and the jobs it provides, which are often overlooked. In March they launched an online Business Retention and Expansion questionnaire hoping to get feedback from coastal residents on how their marine businesses are faring. “Ship building and repair bus...
Marine debris trackers are taking to the air any day to get a better idea of where and what is washing ashore from last year’s devastating tsunami in Japan. Best ‘guesstimates’ claim at least 1.5 million tons of debris are afloat on and under the current driven waters that routinely cover Alaska coastlines. The State has funded a $200,000 systematic aerial survey by Airborne Technologies, Inc. of Virginia that will span waters and beaches from Cold Bay to Ketchikan to get a more complete view of the debris problem. “That should give a good pi...
A first ever accounting of bycatch in US fisheries has been achieved by federal scientists in a user friendly report that aims to set a baseline for the accidental takes of fish, marine mammals, seabirds, and other creatures by fishing gear. The National Bycatch Report, based primarily on 2005 data, shows fish landings and estimated bycatch ratios of nearly 400 types of sea creatures by gear type and region. It is part of an effort to track changes in bycatch over time, according to NOAA Fisheries, and to help managers meet mandates to...
If you had your life to live over again, would you choose a career in commercial fishing? That is one question in a survey circulating around Kodiak that aims to reveal a more social view of the fishing life, and how the occupation and lifestyle have changed over two decades. The survey, being sent to a random sample of 700 permit holders and 400 crewmen in all fisheries, is part of a two year project by Dr. Courtney Carothers, an assistant professor at UAF’s School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. Carothers said the project came about d...
Sea otters are expanding throughout Southeast Alaska and dining on crab, sea cucumbers, geoduck clams and more as they go. An ongoing study aims to track the otters, what they’re eating and where they are going – and researchers hope to get ‘grounds truth’ from Southeast residents. For the past two years, Sea Grant marine advisory agents have spearheaded a project to learn more about the region’s sea otter diets and behaviors. The US Fish & Wildlife Service has provided aerial surveys and otter tagging to track their movements around Kupreono...
