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A proposal coming before the Board of Fish in January, if adopted, would make it almost impossible under the current management plan to ever reopen the Southeast Alaska commercial red king crab fishery. Proposal 242 - put forward by Territorial Sportsmen, Inc of Juneau - seeks to allocate 100% of the red king crab available for harvest in Section 11-A to the personal use fishery. Section 11-A accounts for around a quarter of all the mature red king crab biomass available in Southeast Alaska acco...
Next season's Tanner crab biomass numbers in Southeast Alaska are down, but the area's golden king crab numbers continue to climb. The two commercial fisheries open on the same day – Monday, Feb. 17, 2025 – and that is by design. "Tanner seems to fluctuate across the region ... on any given year," Adam Messmer, Regional Shellfish Biologist for Alaska Department of Fish and Game explained the Pilot. "Permit holders with dual permits GKC/Tanner will focus on one species while it is up and provide...
Proposal 243 — which was developed over several BOF cycles through collaboration between ADF&G and permit holders — asks for major changes to the Southeast Alaska Red King Crab Management Plan. The 200,000-pound GHL threshold currently required before the commercial red crab fishery can be opened is an economic threshold, ADF&G Regional Shellfish Biologist Adam Messmer told the Pilot. “Processors said they couldn’t make any money if we fished under that amount,” said Messmer, and the level “was set years ago when red king crab was not worth a...
Two major Alaskan seafood processors have agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging wage violations during the COVID-19 pandemic. OBI Seafoods and Ocean Beauty Seafoods were ordered to pay a total of $2.1 million as part of a settlement approved last week by Judge Marsha J. Pechman in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. The case, brought by former employees Marija and Dusan Paunovic on behalf of processing facility workers, accused the companies of delaying wage payments and underpaying workers during...
The five men lost in the sinking of a commercial fishing boat near Hoonah early Sunday had just delivered a load in Juneau and were making a last run before the fishing season ended. The Sitka-based Wind Walker was transiting out to North Pacific fishing grounds when the boat capsized about 25 miles southwest of Juneau, according to several fishing industry representatives. The National Weather Service had forecast gale-force winds in the area, as well as freezing spray and snow. The Coast...
Deer season in Southeast Alaska is in full swing with hunters reporting high success rates. However, hunters are cautioned about the temptation to be too successful. Hunters should think twice about harvesting more than one deer at a time or caching a deer in the field to continue hunting. This season a Sitka hunter was fatally mauled by a brown bear while retrieving part of a deer he had harvested the previous day. Other hunters this season have reported caching deer so they could continue hunting, only to return and find their harvest...
State and federal fisheries managers predict that Southeast Alaska fishermen will harvest about 29 million pink salmon in 2025, making for an “average” harvest based on catch data going back to 1960. The prediction comes from a joint National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries/Alaska Department of Fish and Game 2025 Southeast Alaska Pink Salmon Harvest Forecast that ADF&G released last Tuesday. NOAA and ADF&G forecast that throughout the 2025 commercial salmon season, seine, gillnet and troll fishermen across Southeast Alaska wil...
State officials and industry leaders trying to rescue the ailing Alaska seafood industry are facing daunting challenges, recently released numbers show. The industry lost $1.8 billion last year, the result of low prices, closed harvests and other problems, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Direct employment of harvesters last year fell by 8% to the lowest level since 2001, when counts of harvesting jobs began, the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development said. The monthly average for... Full story
A variety of market forces combined with fishery collapses occurring in a rapidly changing environment caused Alaska’s seafood industry to lose $1.8 billion from 2022 to 2023, a new federal report said. The array of economic and environmental challenges has devastated one of Alaska’s main industries, said the report, issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And the losses extend beyond economics, casting doubt on prospects for the future, the report said. “For many Alaskans the decline of their seafood industry affec... Full story
Hunters harvested 131 moose this season, which according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game was the third highest harvest on record for this area. According to Fish and Game, 45 of the moose were checked in at the Petersburg ADF&G office, 50 were reported to the Wrangell representative and 22 were reported to the Kake representative. The rest were checked in at other ADF&G offices throughout the region. Among the 131 total moose taken this year, 120 were legal harvests and the remaining 1...
Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI) officials hear that processors have mostly cleared out their overflowing inventories of Alaska salmon from the 2022 and 2023 seasons, but the problem remains that Americans don’t buy enough seafood to sustain consistently profitable sales, particularly in years of strong salmon runs. And while last year’s problem was an oversupplied market, which pushed prices paid to fishermen to as low as 20 cents a pound for pink and chum salmon, this year’s harvest may come up short of a robust supply, Greg Smith...
A two-hour debate on Alaska fisheries issues turned contentious in its final moments as Republican U.S. House candidate Nick Begich criticized incumbent Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola over an ad stating that a Begich victory would mean “our fish are gone.” The exchange was the lone heated issue between the two frontrunners in Alaska’s U.S. House election, which will decide one of only a few tossup races in the 435-seat House of Representatives. With the House closely divided between Republicans and Democrats, the winner of Alaska’s race is like... Full story
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced this month that it finished revamping its scientific documentation for state-managed salmon fisheries in Southeast Alaska after a U.S. District Court judge ruled in May of 2023 that the 2019 authorization that NOAA created for the regional salmon fisheries did not comply with the National Environmental Policy Act process, nor the Endangered Species Act. NOAA’s new documentation responds to a 2020 lawsuit by the Seattle-based nonprofit Wild Fish Conservancy. WFC sued federal f...
Halfway through the RM038 moose hunt, the harvest numbers show 64 moose harvested in the management area so far, six of them illegally. ADF&G managers describe the number as approximately consistent with this point in the season last year. Last year's total harvest was an all-time high at 141 moose. With 54 of them taken on Kupreanof Island. Managers expect the rate of harvest to tick up somewhat as the rut, or peak mating season, is reportedly beginning. Rutting bulls are noticeably more...
The commercial dive fishery for sea cucumbers will kick off across Southeast Alaska on Monday, Oct. 7, and divers this season can harvest up to 1.76 million pounds of sea cucumbers across the region, up from last season's "guideline harvest level" of 1.67 million pounds, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced on Aug. 28. Commercial sea cucumber fishery openings will be announced on a weekly basis with different fishery areas open during different time windows until each individual area's specific guidelines harvest level has been...
Federal managers shut down a major Alaska fishery Wednesday after two Kodiak-based boats targeting whitefish caught some 2,000 king salmon — an unintentional harvest that drew near-instant condemnation from advocates who want better protections for the struggling species. The Kodiak-based trawl fleet has caught just over one-fourth of its seasonal quota of pollock — a whitefish that’s typically processed into items like fish sticks, fish pies and surimi, the paste used to make fake crab. But about 20 boats will now be forced to end their season...
A handful of Alaska seaweed farmers and oyster growers hung up their bibs this week to mingle with droves of professors, tech industry representatives, state and federal government staff, bankers and consultants who converged in Ketchikan's Ted Ferry Civic Center for the third-ever international Seagriculture USA conference, the first such conference in Alaska. All eyes of the 190-some conference participants were on the promise of developing a profitable seaweed industry in Southeast Alaska, with people traveling to Ketchikan from California,...
One of the original investors in a troubled Alaska seafood company has narrowly outbid competitor Silver Bay Seafoods in an auction for the firm’s assets — including a major processing plant in the Alaska Peninsula village of King Cove. Rodger May, an entrepreneur and fish trader, bid $37.3 million for the assets of Peter Pan Seafood, including two other processing plants — one in the Bristol Bay hub town of Dillingham and another in a remote part of the Alaska Peninsula called Port Moller. May’s bid was $257,000 higher than the bid offered... Full story
Three young humpback whales were found dead off the west coast of Prince of Wales Island in just two weeks at the end of August. One subadult female was found on Aug. 22 in waters south of El Capitan, while a subadult female and a young male were found in waters near Craig on Aug. 30 and Sept. 2, respectively. On Aug. 30, longtime Craig resident whale-watcher Kathy Peavey heard about one of the whales, the subadult female that was found dead in Squam Bay north of Craig, from Michelle Dutro, an Alaska State Sea Grant fellow who helps monitor...
King Salmon King salmon fishing remains prohibited in all Southeast Alaska salt waters. King salmon may not be retained or possessed, any king salmon caught must be released immediately and returned to the water unharmed. These regulations will be in effect through Monday, September 30, 2024. Advisory Announcements with additional details and specific maps are available on our website. Coho Salmon: Coho fishing has been slower this year. They are still being caught in saltwater, but they are more likely to be found in freshwater for the...
King Salmon: Beginning Monday, August 26, retention of king salmon is prohibited in all Southeast Alaska salt waters. King salmon may not be retained or possessed; any king salmon caught must be released immediately and returned to the water unharmed. These regulations will be in effect through Monday, September 30, 2024. Advisory Announcements with additional details and specific maps are available on our website. Coho Salmon: Coho are being caught in the saltwater as well as the streams. The run should continue to build from here into Septemb...
Heavy fishing on chinook salmon by sport fishermen — including nonresident charter customers — is taking fishing opportunity from Southeast Alaska’s commercial troll fishing fleet this summer. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced last Tuesday that trollers in August and September will likely lose out on the remainder of the summer troll fishery allocation for Chinook because sport fishermen across Southeast are on track to exceed their summer 2024 allocation by about 14,000 Chinook, and because of a regulation change that the depar...
The Biden administration has rejected a nominee for a key Alaska fisheries management post who could have tipped decisions toward the interests of tribes and conservation groups and away from the priorities of the large-boat, Seattle-based trawl industry. U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo skipped over the top choice of Washington Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee, conservation advocate Becca Robbins Gisclair, and instead reappointed the last-ranked nominee on a slate of four candidates that Inslee offered: Anne Vanderhoeven, a trawl industry...
A cyanide spill at a major gold mine in the Yukon Territory — high in the Yukon River watershed — has sparked widespread concern in Canada. But Alaska salmon advocates say the mishap isn’t just a problem for Yukoners: The spill happened upstream of a tributary of the Yukon River. The Yukon is Alaska’s biggest transboundary waterway, and residents along its shores who have depended on salmon for generations are already suffering amid crashes of multiple species. Officials on both sides of the border say it’s too early to know the full impact of...
In closely watched oral arguments last Thursday, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals indicated that it is unlikely to grant an environmental group’s petition for an order that could halt — at least temporarily — the valuable Southeast Alaska king salmon commercial troll fishery. In May 2023, a judge in the U.S. District Court covering western Washington issued an order stating that federal officials were allowing Alaska fishermen to harvest king salmon at rates that harmed an endangered population of killer whale...
