Saving Seafood

Bristol Bay sockeye catches called ‘unprecedented’ by Alaska fishery managers

July 13, 2021 — “Unprecedented” is how fishery managers are describing sockeye catches at Bristol Bay, which topped 1 million fish for seven days straight at the Nushagak district last week and neared the 2 million mark on several days.

By July 9, Alaska’s statewide sockeye salmon catch was approaching 32 million, of which more than 25 million came from Bristol Bay. The only other region getting good sockeye catches was the Alaska Peninsula, where nearly 4.6 million reds were landed so far.

The Alaska Peninsula also was far ahead of all other regions for pink salmon catches with over 3.3 million taken out of a total statewide tally of just over 5.4 million so far.

Pink salmon run in distinct two year cycles with odd years being stronger, and the preseason forecast calls for a total Alaska harvest of 124.2 million pinks this summer.

The timing for peak pink harvests is still several weeks away; likewise for chums, and most cohos will arrive in mid-August.

Alaska salmon managers are projecting the 2021 statewide salmon catch to top 190 million fish, a 61% increase over last year’s take of about 118 million salmon. By July 9, the statewide catch for all species had topped 41 million fish.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Promising prices, record landings for Bristol Bay sockeye

July 7, 2021 — Alaska’s Bristol Bay salmon season is off to a strong start in what is expected to be another harvest hovering around all-time highs for both catch and value in the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery.

Fish were already pouring in to at least two of Bristol Bay’s four major river systems. As of July 1, the bay had produced 9.02 million commercial sockeye landings — 46 percent above the five-year average — on a preseason prediction of more than 36 million sockeye, according to area biologist Tim Sands with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

By Tuesday, July 6, that total was above 14 million sockeye.

While early returns look good, test fishing indicates the run should sustain for a relatively long period of time, which should help the fishery avoid bottlenecks in fishing and processing.

Last season’s compressed run, coupled with covid-19 complications, strained Bristol Bay’s fishermen and processors. The Bristol Bay fishery also slogged through the pandemic last season with a disappointing base price of just $0.75, but got early, unexpected news that Peter Pan Seafoods will pay a base price of $1.10.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ALASKA: Dungeness catch down from 2020 but price is up

July 6, 2021 — Commercial Dungeness crabbers will have a full two-month summer and two-month fall season in most of the region, based on the first week’s catch.

The 2021 Southeast season isn’t off to as strong a start as last year. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game reports the preliminary catch estimate from the first week is around 711,000 pounds, landed by 163 permit holders. Those numbers are expected to increase as more landings are reported. Nevertheless, that’s under half of the bumper crop harvested in 2020. Last year saw a first-week catch of around 1.5 million pounds and the full season harvest went on to be the second highest on record, 6.7 million pounds.

Based on that first week catch, Fish and Game estimates this year’s total catch will wind up around 3.4 million pounds. That’s well above the threshold to allow a full season. Fishing time’s been shortened only a few times in the past two decades, because of a weak catch or poor quality crab.

Read the full story at KFSK

ALASKA: More of the same a good thing as Bristol Bay gets underway

June 30, 2021 — Early indicators are pointing to yet another strong year in the massive Bristol Bay sockeye fishery, which is contrasted against the continued struggles in many of the state’s other large salmon fisheries.

Just more than 3.2 million sockeye had been harvested through June 27, according to Alaska Department of Fish and Game figures, with the Nushagak District accounting for more than half of the catch so far at nearly 1.7 million fish. The 3.2 million-fish harvest to-date this year is between the comparable totals for recent years; 1.2 million sockeye were harvested through June 27 last year, while more than 4.4 million were caught by the same day in 2019.

With sockeye harvests of more than 40 million fish and total runs greater than 56 million sockeye, both of the last two years have been among the most productive in the history of the Bristol Bay fishery.

Dillingham Area Management Biologist Tim Sands said early June 29 that he’s confident there are a lot of fish still making their way to the head of Bristol Bay based on catches in the Port Moller test fishery.

He noted that returns to the Egegik River down the Alaska Peninsula have been particularly strong, with a harvest of more than 1.2 million fish and a total return estimated at more than 1.7 million sockeye through June 27, several-fold more than last year in each category.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

With help from a new app, fishermen can track changing ocean conditions in real time

June 25, 2021 — A new smartphone app hit the market last week (6-18-21), with the potential to transform the debate over Alaska’s ocean resources.

“Skipper Science” will allow users along Alaska’s entire coastline to contribute observations about changes in fish and animal populations, which can then be collected and quantified as data for Alaska’s science-based resource management.

Anywhere the Alaska Board of Fisheries meets, there is always a certain amount of frustration among some of those who testify, because their years of experience — sometimes over many generations — doesn’t seem to carry much weight in management decisions, which tend to be driven by data.

In Sitka this is particularly acute around herring season, where subsistence harvesters have noted drastic declines in the abundance of the species over many decades, while 40-odd years of data collection by the Alaska Department of Fish & Game suggests everything is okay.

Skipper Science was created for exactly this purpose. Developed by the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island, it’s a way for Alaska’s harvesters and managers to at least speak the same language.

“How do we take what has historically been called anecdotal and create some structure around it that is rigorous, has scientific repeatability?” asks Lauren Divine. She’s the Director of Ecosystem Conservation for the Aleut Community of St. Paul, the tribal government of St. Paul Island in the Bering Sea.

Read the full story at KCAW

A state government shutdown could also shutter Alaska fisheries

June 24, 2021 — If Alaska state leaders can’t resolve an impasse over the budget, large swaths of state government will shut down in July. That could include Alaska’s lucrative summer salmon fisheries, which is causing concern across coastal communities.

Southeast Alaska’s summer salmon troll fishery opens July 1. That’s the same day nearly 15,000 state workers could be out of work. Among those is Grant Hagerman, a state fisheries biologist managing the fishery from Sitka.

“We’re planning not to be here on July 1 unless we hear differently,” Hagerman says. “And with that, that summer fishery does not commence.”

Many of Alaska’s fisheries are operated by emergency order. That means fisheries open and close based on real-time data and biologists like Hagerman’s professional judgment. But he’s not part of the special class of state employees that would keep their jobs even in the shutdown — public safety or public health workers.

“You would think that we would have had a message, maybe from administration, just saying ‘Here are the exempt or partially exempt or whatever job classes that could remain open,’ but we didn’t get anything like that. I think it’s just pink slips across the board if they don’t pass so just — it’s really scary, you know, not just for us losing our jobs, but I mean, we manage a fishery with 1,000 permit holders and Southeast so it affects a lot of people.” Hagerman adds: “But I have faith that they’ll get something agreed to.”

Read the full story at KSTK

Crab prices explode along with rising demand

June 24, 2021 — Crab has been one of the hottest commodities since the COVID-19 pandemic forced people in 2020 to buy and cook seafood at home, and demand is even higher this year.

Crab is now perceived as being more affordable when compared to the cost to enjoy it at restaurants, said global seafood supplier Tradex, and prices continue to soar.

That’s how it’s playing out for Dungeness crab at Kodiak and hopefully, at Southeast Alaska where the summer fishery got underway on June 15.

Kodiak’s fishery opened on May 1 and 76,499 pounds have been landed so far by just eight boats, compared to 29 last year. The Kodiak price this season was reported as high as $4.25 per pound for the crab that weigh just more than two pounds on average. That compares to a 2020 price of $1.85 for a catch of nearly 3 million pounds, the highest in 30 years, with a fishery value of nearly $5.3 million.

The pulls are skimpy though, averaging just two crab per pot. Kodiak’s Dungeness stocks are very cyclical and the fishery could be tapping out the tail end of a peak. Managers say this summer should tell the tale.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

MATT ALWARD: Sustaining Alaska’s fisheries through nonprofit hatcheries

June 17, 2021 — You don’t need me to tell you that fishing is central to Alaskan life — as an economic driver, cultural touchstone, and recreational centerpiece. From commercial businesses to subsistence harvest to sport charters, fisheries have always played a significant role in the lives of Alaskans across the state, and we hope to continue that tradition for generations to come. Alaska’s fish stocks are a renewable resource that can support sustained fisheries well into the future—but only if properly managed. Hatcheries are vital to ensuring long-term sustainable harvests for all user groups, in years of both abundance and low returns, in Alaska.

The United Fishermen of Alaska strongly opposes fish farming — but hatcheries are not fish farms. In Alaska’s hatcheries, fish eggs are fertilized, reared to grow into juveniles, and then released as fry to the ocean to grow into adulthood. Most fundamentally, hatcheries serve to improve egg-to-juvenile survival. In nature, egg-to-fry survival rates among fish average less than 10%; in hatcheries, that rate is over 90%. With a mission to supplement wild stocks, most critically during years of low returns, hatcheries have allowed Alaska’s fish populations to thrive without reducing harvest opportunities for the user groups that rely on salmon. The development of Alaska’s hatchery program in the 1970s coincided with an incredible rebound of wild salmon populations across the state. It has led to some of the highest harvests in recorded history. As much of the world struggles to avoid overfishing, or depletion of natural fish populations, Alaska’s fish stock remains abundant, with three of the four highest wild stock returns in Alaska’s history occurring within the last ten years.

Nearly 50 years after establishing the hatchery associations, all commercial salmon fishermen in Southeast Alaska, Prince William Sound, Kodiak and Cook Inlet harvest hatchery-produced salmon as a part of their overall harvests. Beyond commercial fisheries, hatcheries contribute to salmon harvests for both sport fishing by residents and tourists, and personal and subsistence fishing. A recent 2020 report found that Alaska’s sport, personal use and subsistence fisheries roughly harvested hatchery salmon of 10,000 chinook, 5,000 chum, 100,000 coho, 19,000 pinks, and 138,000 sockeye between 2012-2016 annually. When it came to sport fishing alone, 17% of coho, 5% of sockeye, and 8% of chinook harvests were hatchery stock.

Read the full opinion piece at the Juneau Empire

Shellfish and seaweed mariculture is focus of new Alaska industry alliance

June 15, 2021 — Alaskans who are engaged in or interested in mariculture are invited to become founding members in a group that will advance the growing industry across the state.

The newly formed Alaska Mariculture Alliance (AMA) is a private, nonprofit successor to a five-year task force formed in 2016 by Gov. Bill Walker and re-authorized in 2018 by Gov. Mike Dunleavy. The task force will sunset on June 30.

“One of the priority recommendations was to create a long-term entity that would coordinate and support development of a robust and sustainable mariculture industry to produce shellfish and aquatic plants for the long-term benefit of Alaska’s economy, environment and communities,” said Julie Decker, executive director of the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, which administrated the task force and will do so for the AMA.

Decker clarified that Alaska mariculture encompasses farming of shellfish and aquatic plants and also includes enhancement and restoration projects.

There are 76 active aquatic farm and nursery permits in Alaska that when combined with 35 pending new applications, comprise 1,631 acres, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Some growers also are interested in sea cucumbers, geoduck clams and abalone.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

How to track salmon catches and market trends for every region of Alaska

June 8, 2021 — Buyers are awaiting Alaska salmon from fisheries that are opening almost daily across the state, and it’s easy to track catches and market trends for every region.

Fishery managers forecast a statewide catch topping 190 million salmon this year, 61% higher than the 2020 take of just over 118 million. But globally, the supply of wild salmon is expected to be down amid increased demand.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Run Forecasts and Harvest Projections for 2021 Alaska Salmon Fisheries and Review of the 2020 Season provides breakdowns for all species by region.

And salmon catches are updated daily at Fish and Game’s Blue Sheet, found at its commercial fisheries web page. They also post weekly summaries of harvests broken out by every region along with comparisons to past years.

Predictions for the 2021 mix of fish call for a catch of 269,000 Chinook salmon, up slightly from 2020 but 25% below the 10-year average.

The projected sockeye harvest of 46.6 million will help replenish low inventories that saw strong export prices in early 2021 and “a continued promising market,” said Dan Lesh, a fisheries economist with the McKinley Research Group who compiles weekly updates during the season for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News