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SEATTLE (AP) — Fire destroyed an adventure tour boat being prepared for the Alaska cruise season Friday at Fishermen's Terminal, and the operator says the loss likely will total millions of dollars. Two people escaped from the Safari Spirit by climbing down a mooring line to the dock, said Tim Jacox, vice president of InnerSea Discoveries. Company owner Dan Blanchard was sleeping on board and was awakened at about 1 a.m. by popping noises. He called the fire department and got off the boat along with the engineer, Jacox said. The 105-foot yacht...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced Tuesday that the commercial golden (brown) king crab fishery in the Southern Area will close at 12:00 noon Friday, May 11, 2012. Based on an analysis of effort levels and harvest projections, the harvest as of the closure date is expected to reach the 20,000-pound GHL for the Southern Area. The department will continue to monitor golden king crab harvest levels in the remaining four open areas. A vessel may leave gear in a stored condition for five days after the closure of a portion of...
Brainstorming over halibut bycatch is the theme of a two day workshop this week in Seattle. Topping the discussions: the methods used to collect bycatch numbers and the accuracy of the data. Setting a precedent: the IPHC and NPFMC working together to reduce the estimated 10 million pounds of halibut taken as bycatch and discarded in Alaska’s fisheries. “As far as I know, this meeting represents a first ever joint effort by the two bodies to meet together to discuss current "science" and/or research,” said Duncan Fields of Kodiak, a membe...
A resurgence of farmed fish and shifting world currencies could shake up salmon markets this year. “There are two trends going into the current salmon season that we haven’t seen for several years,” said Gunnar Knapp, a fisheries economist at the University of Alaska at Anchorage. “Exchange rates look to be weaker, not stronger, and perhaps more importantly, farmed salmon prices, rather than rising or holding steady, have fallen significantly. So we will be selling into a market where there is a lot more competing product available at a lot c...
On Monday, April 2, the Sitka Sound herring sac roe fishery was opened in the northwest portion of Sitka Sound and brought in an estimated catch of 5,610 tons. The fishery opened at 11:30 a.m. and closed at 4:40 p.m. The preliminary harvest for the first opening on March 31 is 4,730 tons for a total harvest this season of 10,440 tons. This leaves approximately 18,390 tons remaining of this year’s guideline harvest level of 28,829 tons, according to a release from the Alaska Dept. of Fish and G...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — A derelict Japanese ship dislodged by last year's massive tsunami was drifting toward Alaska Monday, the U.S. Coast Guard said. The shrimping vessel was floating slowly northwest in the Gulf of Alaska about 125 miles west of the nearest point of land _ Forrester Island outside the Dixon Entrance, a maritime transportation corridor separating U.S. and Canada jurisdictions. The ship is heading in the direction of the southeast Alaska town of Sitka 170 miles to the north, traveling at about one mile per hour, Coast Guard s...
For the first time ever, seafood industry reps were invited to brief policy makers in Congress on jobs and economic opportunities. Last Thursday the group presented a panel discussion called ‘Seafood Jobs in America’ to the Senate Oceans Caucus and an audience of 80 people. According to Seafood.com, it included representatives of twelve senators and even one from the White House, plus a large contingent from the environmental NGO community. Alaska Senators Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich both made opening remarks at the event. “Nobody else...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game sport fishing regulations for king (Chinook) salmon in Southeast Alaska and Yakutat from 12:01 A.M. Friday, March 30, 2012 through 11:59 P.M. Tuesday, April 30, 2013, are: Alaskan Resident: The resident bag and possession limit is three king salmon 28 inches or greater in length. Nonresident: The nonresident bag and possession limit is one king salmon 28 inches or greater in length; except during May 2012 when the bag and possession limit is two king salmon 28 inches or greater in length; The nonresident...
The USCG Cutter Hickory last week made a brief stop in Petersburg. The multi-mission cutter was docked in the South Harbor in March. During the brief visit, the crew of 43 enlisted men and seven officers got a chance to explore Petersburg before heading back out to sea. The Hickory is currently stationed out of Homer, and spends much of its time in Kachmak Bay, Cook Inlet and along the Aleutian Islands. The Hickory is equipped as a buoy tender and is responsible for maintaining up to 200 buoys....
A large Korean ship, the M/V Jochoh has been docked at Petersburg Fisheries for two weeks. They have been here loading herring from the Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery to ship overseas and are expected to leave town next week....
“High fish volumes and high prices in 2011 made for a very, very good year in Petersburg,” according to comments by Dave Ohmer at Wednesday’s Rotary Club meeting. Despite lower quotas for halibut in Area 2C, higher prices helped to make up for lack of volume. Historically high prices that averaged $6.61/lb. for halibut according to industry data, with accompanying prices for black cod, were good for fishermen. Buyers however, pulled back on purchases leaving over three million pounds of halibut and some inventories of black cod in the freez...
Fishermen in the world’s largest salmon fishery at Bristol Bay are getting good grades for improving the quality of their salmon, and it’s boosting their bottom line. Starting in 2008, two projects have tracked fish quality based on specific handling practices, and given individual fishermen scores on their improvements (or not). “The two studies go hand in glove. First you get a score and understand where you are, and secondly, if you wish to improve, then you can start changing the way you handle your fish out on the water to bring your...
The Pacific halibut fishery gets underway on March 17 and if the dynamic of supply and demand holds true, there will be an upward push on prices. The coast wide halibut catch was reduced by more than 18% this year to 33.5 million pounds, following a 19% cut to the catch last year. Alaska’s share of the harvest is 25.5 million pounds. That will be shared by roughly 2,200 Alaska longliners who hold quota shares of the halibut catch. fresh halibut of the season will undoubtedly fetch over $6/lb at major ports. The average price for halibut d...
Alaska Department of Fish and Game has announced the non-pelagic rockfish bag, possession and the mandatory retention for the sport fishery during 2012 in the Southeast Outside Waters and Southeast Inside Waters. Nonresident angler annual limits of yelloweye rockfish have also been established for the 2012 season. The following regulations are effective on March 16, 2012. Southeast Outside Waters: • All non-pelagic rockfish caught must be retained until the daily bag limit is reached. • The resident daily bag limit is two non-pelagic roc...
The U.S. Coast Guard has advised permit holders for the annual Sitka Herring Sac-Roe fishery that they will increase the number of boarding teams in Sitka and will, “conduct immediate on-scene boardings of intentional collisions that occur during the fishery.” The letter was sent to all permit holders in late February by S. W. Bornemann, Captain, U.S. Coast Guard, Captain of the Port in Southeast Alaska. The captain noted the USCG has conducted multiple investigations of collisions, near misses...
Newly installed security cameras at the city harbors have enabled the department to photograph freeloaders attempting to stuff personal trash into harbor dumpsters. While boat owners are entitled to dump reasonable amounts of boat related trash into harbor dumpsters, oven ranges and full-size chest freezers don’t belong in the public trash bins, according to Harbormaster Glo Wollen. On March 5 in the South Harbor near the city crane dock, security cameras clearly captured images of i...
SEATTLE (AP) — A large, Seattle-based diversified seafood company says it has reached a preliminary agreement to acquire Snopac Products. Icicle Seafoods president and CEO Dennis Guhlke said Wednesday his company is excited about the agreement with Snopac, an independently owned and operated seafood processing company with operations in Alaska and Seattle. Terms were not disclosed. Snopac operates a seafood processing plant in Dillingham, Alaska, and a seafood processing vessel. It has a significant presence in the Bristol Bay sockeye salmon f...
On Monday, workers demolished the icemaker at Trident’s Petersburg plant, to make way for a new and improved ice production facility....
Home grown salmon are Alaska’s largest crop – but don’t ever refer to it as farming. Whereas farmed fish are crammed into closed pens or cages until they’re ready for market, Alaska salmon begin their lives in one of 35 hatcheries and are released as fingerlings to the sea. When the fish return home, they make up a huge part of Alaska’s total salmon catch. The state’s annual report on its fisheries enhancement programs show that last year, hatchery returns and harvests were down by more than half from 2010, when a record 77 million hatchery sa...
Trident Seafoods in Petersburg may be the smallest of the three seafood processors, but it has the largest fleet. And that fleet has a high demand for ice, said plant manager Dave Ohmer. This spring, Trident is more than doubling its ice-making capacity by adding a new ice maker and swapping out the current ice storage box for a much larger one. According to Ohmer, the fleet has gradually gotten larger over the years, and with that growth has been an ever-increasing demand for more ice. “Since the beginning of time, there's been a shortage o...
State fishery managers project a lower Alaska salmon harvest this year, due to an expected decrease in those hard to predict pinks. The total catch forecast by the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game is 132 million salmon, down 25% from the 177 million fish taken in 2011. The statewide breakdown is 120,000 Chinook salmon (in areas outside Southeast, where catches are dictated by treaty with Canada); 38.4 million sockeye salmon, a decline of 4%; 4.3 million coho (similar to last year); 19 million chums, 12% higher; and 70.2 million pinks, a 40%...
It’s a mixed bag in America in terms of bankrolling ‘the best available science’ for our nation’s fisheries. Based on the preliminary federal budget released last week, funds for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration went from $4.7 billion to $5.5 billion, an increase of about $750 million. Within the NOAA budget, funding for the National Marine Fisheries Service comes in at $1 billion - a drop of $15 million from its actual budget for the last fiscal year. Out of NMFS’ FY13 budget, $174 million will fund science and managemen...
Over half of all fishing fatalities are due to vessels going down, and most of the boats sink because of flooding. The sinkings of the Alaska Ranger and Katmai in 2008, for example, in which 12 men died, both stemmed from flooding through open hatches. Those and other sinkings highlighted the need for an alert that provides immediate status of all openings aboard fishing boats. To the rescue: a simple electronic monitoring system on doors and hatches that sends signals to the wheelhouse. It’s not new technology, said Chelsea Woodward, an e...
Alaskans were surprised to learn (from the Anchorage Daily News’ Alaska Ear, of all places) that there is a new and very different mission statement posted by the Department of Natural Resources on the State of Alaska website. The old ‘statement of policy’: “To develop, conserve and enhance natural resources for present and future generations.” The new mission statement: “To responsibly develop Alaska‘s resources by making them available for maximum use and benefit consistent with the public interest.” Questions about the mission shift d...
As expected there will be less halibut available for fishermen to catch this year – an 18% drop to 33 million pounds, to be split among fisheries along the west coast, British Columbia and Alaska. That follows a 19% cut to the catch last year. The announcement was made at the International Pacific Halibut Commission’s annual meeting last week in Anchorage. Alaska always gets the lion’s share of the catch, which this year will be 25.5 million pounds. Driving the fishing decreases: Pacific halibut stocks continue a decade long decline, there...
