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A pod of 7 Orca whales, including a juvenile, hunted for salmon along a tide rip near Beacon Point last Sunday afternoon. The group later continued west along the Kupreanof shoreline. Humpback whale sightings also are increasing as the mammals migrate back to Frederick Sound and other parts of Southeast following their winter stay in the waters around Maui, Hawaii. Twelve humpbacks were sighted the same day....
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...
Alaska Department of Health reminds residents that paralytic poisoning, or P-S-P, is an ever present danger in locally harvested shellfish-including clams, mussles, cockles and oysters. PSP can cause a tingling sensation in your lips and fingertips, followed by numbing of your arms and legs, and in some cases can lead to death. Anyone experiencing these symptoms should seek immediate medical care. Remember, PSP cannot be cooked or cleaned out of shellfish, but commercially grown shellfish is tested and considered safe. Lab results from the...
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...
Between 60 and 70 percent of Alaska’s seafood is exported to customers around the globe, and the strength of foreign currencies against the US dollar plays a big role in annual sales. Tracking by the Juneau-based McDowell Group for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute shows mid-year ups and downs for Alaska’s biggest seafood buyers. On the down side: The Japanese yen has taken a 20% drop versus the dollar this year – not good for Alaska seafood exporters. Japan is a leading buyer of salmon roe, pollock roe, surimi, sablefish (black cod),...
Coast Guard Commercial Fishing Vessel Examiners will be conducting voluntary dockside examinations from Noon May 16 – Noon May 19. Anyone interested in a Voluntary Dockside Examination sign-up at the Petersburg Harbormasters Office. Voluntary dockside examinations are free, take about an hour and help foster public awareness of fishing vessel safety, regulations and safety carriage requirements. Any commercial fisherman interested contact Scott Wilwert at (907) 957-0152....
It might still feel like winter but Alaska’s 2013 salmon season will officially get underway on May 16, when the first runs of reds and kings are scheduled to arrive at Copper River. The season’s first fish will attract the usual media hoopla – helicopters whisking salmon from the fishing grounds to awaiting planes, ready to fly them to eager restaurateurs and retailers in Seattle and other regions. New among the salmon groupies will be two Texas chefs who will fish for Copper River salmon themselves, then stop over at the Alaskan Brewing Compa...
NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service will hold a meeting on Mon., May 13, 6-7:30pm in the Petersburg Assembly Chambers about the Alaska Mammal Observer Program for drift gillnet permit holders in Southeast Alaska. Those who cannot attend in person may participate by phone. Call toll-free 855-212-0212. When prompted, dial the access code 956093278 followed by the # sign. The Alaska Marine Mammal Observer Program (AMMOP) will soon begin monitoring the level and nature of interactions between Southeast Alaska drift gillnet fishery and marine m...
Fishing industry stakeholders and federal managers in June will begin crafting a bycatch reduction plan for trawl groundfish fisheries in the Gulf. It will include some form of catch share plan, and as the main delivery port for more than $100 million worth of pollock, cod, flats and other fishes, Kodiak is closely guarding any giveaways. It’s similar to a chess game, said Duncan Fields, a lifelong Kodiak fisherman and a member of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council charged with designing the new plan. “You have multiple moving pie...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Small Game Program is asking upland bird hunters to submit one wing and the tail of each grouse and ptarmigan they harvest in Southeast Alaska this spring. Samples can be placed in wing envelopes available free from local ADF&G offices or the samples can be dropped off in a paper bag. Hunters are asked to include information regarding the date and approximate harvest location along with each wing and tail sample submitted. By submitting a wing and tail from each harvested grouse and ptarmigan, hunters...
Marine boat anglers returning to ports in Petersburg from 12:01 A.M. Monday, April 29 through 11:59 P.M. Sunday, September 1, 2013, will be prohibited from filleting, mutilating, and de-heading sport caught lingcod, non-pelagic rockfish, and king and coho salmon. Marine boat anglers returning to any port on the road system of the community during the designated times may not fillet, mutilate, or de-head these fish until the fish have been brought to shore and offloaded, unless the fish have been consumed or preserved on board. The purpose of...
Chinook salmon research money made it through the Alaska legislature this session but most other fish bills flopped. “The department asked and the legislature funded” said Kevin Brooks, Deputy Commissioner of the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game. “There is a little bit of repackaging, if you will, but there is a lot of money in this budget to do some good work on Chinook, and all species of salmon statewide.” Last November, in response to drastic reductions in king salmon returns and crippling fishing closures, Governor Parnell said his FY2014...
Did you know that red king crabs are cannibals and eat their babies, but blue king crabs do not? Or that deep water golden king crabs along the Aleutian Islands are almost indestructible and appear to resist the effects of ocean acidification? Those are just a few of the secrets being revealed at the nation’s top king crab research lab in Kodiak. Scientists at the Near Island center handle the yearly Bering Sea king crab surveys and use samples to study their biology and breeding. They hope to find clues about why king crab stocks are not retur...
Absent from supermarket fliers this spring have been ads featuring the year’s first fresh halibut, reflecting the anticipated push back by buyers to the high priced fish. “No ads in the papers. No excitement this year,” said more than one major buyer. In recent years, dwindling supplies of halibut helped push up dock prices to more than $7/lb at major ports, and halibut fillets topped $20/lb at retail. That’s not the case this year. The fishery opened March 23 and the prices for first deliveries at Kodiak were reported at $5.25 - $5.75/l...
The Sitka Sound Herring fishery total harvest to date is approximately 5,600 tons leaving just under 6,000 tons remaining to be harvested of the season’s 11,549-ton guideline harvest level, according to a news release from the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game. Major spawning in Sitka Sound began on March 28 and peaked on March 31 with 28.2 nm of shoreline with active spawn. On April 2, active spawn included 6.6 nm of shoreline indicating the major spawning event is concluding. The total cumulative shoreline with spawn documented to date is 42 n... Full story
A new plan is being crafted by federal managers for Gulf of Alaska groundfish fisheries that will reduce bycatch by trawlers, and it will very likely result in a catch share plan. Now is the time for fishing residents to make sure the new program protects their access to local resources and sustains, instead of drains, their coastal communities. Currently, the plan includes trawlers in the Central Gulf and both trawl and pot cod gear in the Western Gulf. “Catch share programs certainly can benefit the long term viability of the resource in a f...
It was unusually quiet along the waterfront as the halibut fishery got underway on Saturday. Most of the first fish landed goes to Homer, Kodiak and Petersburg and processors there said there wasn’t “the usual chatter” and none said they had a feel for what’s going to happen yet with prices. Lots of halibut remains in the freezers and some major processors had reportedly unloaded the high priced fish at a loss. In short, no one appeared very excited – catch limits have been slashed again thi...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game will conduct commercial troll public meetings to be held in towns around Southeast Alaska and Yakutat. The Petersburg meeting will be held at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 3 in the assembly chambers. The Wrangell meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 3 in the Wrangell Fire Hall. Meeting topics will include, but are not limited to, plans for the 2013 spring and summer troll fisheries, the 2013 Pacific Salmon Treaty Chinook salmon abundance index and quota, a review of the 2012 troll season, and...
Halibut scientists plan to expand the yearly Pacific stock assessments by 30% next summer, adding 390 survey stations to the existing 1,300 already in use from Oregon to the Bering Sea. Since 1998 the halibut surveys, which occur from June through October, have been conducted in a depth range of 20 to 275 fathoms where most of the fishing was taking place. But that’s been changing in recent years, said Claude Dykstra, Survey Manager for the International Pacific Halibut Commission. “We’re seeing the catch coming out of the deeper areas, parti...
The just released “Fisheries Economics of the US” by NOAA Fisheries covers the commercial and recreational fishing industries from 2002-2011 and is loaded with descriptive seafood industry stats by region. The report, sixth in a series, tracks the economic impacts, price trends; payroll and annual receipt information for fishing-related businesses, from the dock to dinner plates. The impacts also are reported in terms of employment, sales and value-added impacts. Some highlights: Commercial fishermen in the U.S. harvested 9.9 billion pou...
More wild salmon from Alaska will make its way to world markets this year if forecasts hold true for the 2013 season. State salmon managers are projecting a total catch of nearly 179 million fish this year, 30 percent higher than the 2012 harvest of 127 million salmon. Pushing the higher catch is a robust return of pink salmon that could yield a harvest of 118 million fish, 73% higher than last summer’s harvest of 68 million humpies. The catch breakdown for other salmon species is 110,000 Chinook in areas outside Southeast Alaska; for s...
In a word, the outlook for Alaska salmon markets this year is favorable. That’s the conclusion of Gunnar Knapp, fisheries economist at the University of Alaska/Anchorage in an overview of world markets to Alaska legislators. Knapp cited three key factors for the short term outlook: lower sockeye harvests, strong canned salmon markets with low inventories, and strengthening prices for farmed salmon. Lower harvests can boost prices, and Alaska wild salmon tends to follow the price trend for farmed salmon, which dominates global markets. A...
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...
