Alaska Salmon Archives - Page 2 of 2

Peltola introduces bills to address salmon bycatch battle

May 29, 2024 — Alaska Native groups and others hope two new bills by Rep. Mary Peltola, D, will go where present fishery management plans haven’t gone before and cut down on salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea. The announcements of “The Bottom Trawl Clarity Act” and the “Bycatch Reduction and Mitigation Act” will reduce the incidental harvest of chinooks, chums, and other salmon destined for western Alaska watersheds.

The region has experienced abysmal salmon returns in recent years and wants trawlers to improve their bycatch reduction efforts.

“Subsistence and commercial fisheries throughout Western Alaska have been shuttered in recent years,” said Kevin Whitworth, executive director of the Kuskokwim Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, in a press release put out by SalmonState. “With record-low escapements and few (if any) opportunities for Indigenous and rural fishing families to harvest salmon, there is nothing more that our communities can sacrifice to protect salmon.”

The Bottom Trawl Clarity Act strives to define how trawl gear touches the ocean floor. Though pollock trawls have been hallowed as midwater nets, some studies show that they are towed along the bottom-most of the time. This act would distinguish “substantial” and “limited” times that the trawls hug bottom, then designate “Bottom Trawl Zones” where it would be allowed.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

ALASKA: Peltola sponsors a bill to limit salmon bycatch. The pollock industry calls it ‘unworkable.’

May 23, 2024 — Alaska Congresswoman Mary Peltola introduced two bills Wednesday that aim to deliver on one of her campaign themes: Reducing the number of salmon that the Bering Sea fishing fleet catches by accident.

One of the bills would curtail the use of fishing nets that scrape sensitive parts of the sea floor. It would require regional fisheries management councils to designate bottom trawl zones and limit that kind of fishing to those areas.

It also attempts to crack down on fishing gear that hits the sea floor but goes by a different name. Peltola said areas that are closed to bottom trawling off Alaska’s coast are too often open to pelagic trawling, which in theory means the nets are in the mid-water.

“I think 40 to 80% of the time, that ‘pelagic’ gear is actually on the bottom,” she said. “So I think that defining these terms and having a more accurate definition of what bottom trawl is, and the percentage of time that those nets are on the bottom, is really important.”

A second bill would increase the money available for a grant program that funds research and equipment to help fishing fleets reduce bycatch. That program would get up to $10 million per year, $7 million more than its current cap.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Feds approve disaster declaration for 2022 Kuskokwim salmon fisheries

April 30, 2024 — U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo has approved a federal disaster declaration for the Kuskokwim River because of the failure of multiple salmon fisheries in 2022.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy requested a disaster declaration from federal authorities for 2022 chinook, chum, and coho fisheries on the Kuskokwim after the fisheries experienced a 100 percent loss in commercial revenue and significant economic and cultural losses due to a depressed subsistence fishery.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Alaska groups testify about declining salmon populations

April 15, 2024 — Tribes, fisheries, and individual fishing companies shared their concerns and ideas about the declining salmon population in an April 6 meeting in Anchorage, Alaska. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) has been gathering feedback to help shape a possible federally-backed bycatch rule for the future.

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) reviewed the preliminary Draft Environmental Impact Statement (Draft EIS) for the proposed management measures to reduce chum salmon Prohibited Species Catch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery. A letter issued by the United States Department of Commerce to NPFMC states that NMFS advises the council to broaden the range of alternatives by including a lower overall chum salmon limit to provide additional contrast and ensure compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act.

The Department of Commerce stated that the EIS process evaluates a wide range of alternatives, disclosing the advantages and disadvantages to help decision-makers and the public weigh the costs against the potential benefits.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: Alaska tribes, fishing companies and fisheries testify about declining salmon populations

April 8, 2024 — Representatives from more than 100 Alaska Native tribes and villages, along with representatives of commercial fishing and fisheries, shared their concerns and ideas Saturday in downtown Anchorage over what many consider a crisis of declining salmon populations.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is gathering testimony to help shape possible federally-backed bycatch rules in the future. The U.S. Department of Commerce issued a letter to the NPFMC on March 29 about proposed management measures to reduce chum salmon Prohibited Species Catch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery, as well as possible limits to the chum salmon bycatch.

Read the full article at Alaska News Source

What four decades of canned salmon reveal about marine food webs

April 8, 2024 — Alaskan waters are a critical fishery for salmon. Complex marine food webs underlie and sustain this fishery, and scientists want to know how climate change is reshaping them. But finding samples from the past isn’t easy.

“We have to really open our minds and get creative about what can act as an ecological data source,” said Natalie Mastick, currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University.

Read the full article at the University of Washington

Environmental DNA offers scientists a look at salmon’s past and future

March 26, 2024 — Scientists have many ways to track fish populations – but they usually require seeing the fish. Now, researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are refining a method to collect data about what fish were present in an area – up to two days after those fish have moved on.

Diana Baetscher is a research geneticist at NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Juneau. She said that when fish swim, they shed scales, slime, and other tiny fragments into the water. Those fragments contain DNA – and they can provide a breadcrumb trail for scientists looking to learn about fish populations.

“eDNA is environmental DNA,” Baetscher said. ” It’s sort of a really simple concept. At its heart, it’s the fact that all organisms shed DNA or genetic material into the environment, and that can be water or air or soil.”

Read the full article at KCAW

Federal legislation would provide necessary funding to protect Alaska salmon, other wildlife

February 22, 2024 — Unlike their relatives in the Lower 48, the five types of Alaska salmon (king, chum, pink, sockeye and silver) are not officially endangered. However, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski told the Legislature in her annual address that kings are edging closer and the Yukon and Kuskokwim chum run declines are concerning. To keep our salmon off the endangered species list we must take action. Recovering America’s Wildlife Act (RAWA) will provide important funding for Alaska’s wildlife action plan.

Under ice in lakes and creeks, salmon hatchlings will emerge soon. The egg sac the alevin emerges from will still be a bulge on the tiny fish’s belly and will nourish its growth in its first few weeks. Staying close to the rocky creek bottom, the hatchling grows into its fry phase as the ice melts. Plentiful plankton and larvae in the water provide the nutrients needed to grow rapidly. Submerged logs and rocks offer shelter from predators including fish, bald eagles and migratory birds. Pink and chum heed the primal signal to enter the ocean almost right away. Kings reside in freshwater for about a year before migrating. Sockeye and silver stay in freshwater longest, a couple years, before smolting and departing on their epic migration.

Read the full article at the Alaska Beacon

ALASKA: Agriculture Department commits to big purchase of Alaska salmon and pollock for food programs

February 22, 2024 — The U.S. Department of Agriculture will purchase about 50 million pounds of Alaska seafood to use in national food and nutrition-assistance programs, state officials said on Tuesday.

The seafood purchase is to benefit needy children and adults and school lunches, said the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, which announced the department’s plans. The purchases are authorized through a portion of federal law called Section 32, which allows the department to buy surplus food products, and through the department’s Commodity Credit Corp., a government entity created to help stabilize agricultural income and prices.

In all, the Department of Agriculture has put bids on 1.4 million cases of pink salmon, 300,000 cases of sockeye salmon and 15 million pounds of pollock fish sticks and fillets, the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute said. Each case of salmon holds 24 cans, with most cans holding 14.75 ounces but some holding 7.5 ounces.

Read the full article at Alaska Beacon