Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Alaska Fisheries: Separating fact from fiction

November 10, 2023 — The Pacific Marine Expo kicked off its second day with an educational session, “Alaska Fisheries: Separating fact from fiction.” The panel was moderated by Kate Naughten, Director of Communications at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Panelists included Janet Coit, Assistant Administrator at NOAA, Robert Foy, Ph.D., Director of AK Fisheries Science Center (NOAA), and Jon Kurland, Alaska Regional Administrator (NOAA).

Naughten addressed the crowd, “We’re going to start on the present state of Alaska fisheries, the future of the stocks that are in flux, management responses to the changes of climate and markets, how climate change has impacted Alaska’s markets and ecosystems and how that affects fisheries, and the impact of extreme events on stocks that were already in decline and recent increases in recruitment.”

Janet Coit was the first to speak, expressing her sincere appreciation for getting to work with the members of the fishing community who share a love for the ocean. She emphasized NOAA’s national seafood strategy, launched last summer, which is meant to put in one place the administration’s commitment to fisheries and to demonstrate their priorities moving forward. “Events like this are really important to me, and they provide an opportunity for me to hear from and learn from the fishing industry and to talk about our mutual priorities, the challenges, and opportunities before us.” She continued, “The seafood sector supports over 1.2 million jobs, and generates $165 billion in sales in seafood across the broader economy,” Coit said. “Our nation harvests and farms about 10 billion pounds of seafood annually, with a dockside value of over $6 billion.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: Salmon are vanishing from the Yukon River — and so is a way of life

November 9, 2023 — Serena Fitka sat in the cabin of a flat-bottomed aluminum boat as it sped down the Yukon River in western Alaska, recalling how the river once ran thick with salmon. Each summer, in the Yup’ik village of St. Mary’s where Fitka grew up, she and her family fished for days on end. They’d catch enough salmon to last through winter, enough to share with cousins, aunts, uncles, and elders who couldn’t fish for themselves.

“We’d get what we need, and be done,” Fitka said, raising her voice above the whir of the outboard motor and the waves beating against the hull. “But now there’s nothing.”

The boat skirted the river bank as Fitka glanced out the window, her face shielded from the mid-July sun. Gray water, thick with glacial silt, lapped against the land’s muddy edge below a summer palette of green: dark spruce needles, light birch leaves, and willows a shade in between. A bald eagle soared 10 feet above the river, scanning the water.

“I thought this wouldn’t happen in my lifetime,” Fitka said. “I thought there would always be fish in the river.”

Read the full article at the Grist

US Environmental Protection Agency begins investigation of tire chemicals harming salmon

November 8, 2023 — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will investigate 6PPD-quinone, a chemical found in most tires that is toxic to salmon, under the Toxic Substances Control Act.

The action is in response to a petition brought by environmental group Earthjustice on behalf of the Yurok, Port Gamble S’Klallam, and Puyallup Tribes to ban the use of 6PPD in and for tires. While the EPA didn’t outright ban the chemicals, it has granted the tribes’ petition and will issue an advance notice of proposed rulemaking for 6PPD and “initiate additional data gathering activities.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

EPA plans to limit or eliminate salmon-killing tire chemical found in preliminary Alaska sampling

November 6, 2023 — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will begin the process to limit and possibly eliminate a chemical commonly used in car tires, after scientific studies found that the chemical — commonly known as 6PPD — is fatal to salmon.

The EPA announced its regulatory plans Thursday, answering a petition from three Native Tribes in the Pacific Northwest. The states of Washington, Oregon, Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut also supported the petition.

Read the full article at the Alaska Beacon

ALASKA: Alaska seafood harvesting jobs decline as fish crashes, pandemic and other factors take toll

November 3, 2023 — Alaska fish-harvesting employment declined in 2022, a continuing yearslong slide caused by a variety of factors, according to an analysis by the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

Employment for people harvesting seafood dropped by about a quarter from 2015 to 2022, according to the analysis, published in the November issue of Alaska Economic Trends, the department’s monthly research magazine.

The industry lost ground compared to other sectors of the Alaska economy, the analysis found. Seafood harvesting accounted for 7.3% of Alaska jobs in July of 2021, but only 5.7% of Alaska jobs were in seafood harvesting in the following July. Fishery work is highly seasonal, and July is the peak month for it.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Alaska Symphony of Seafood: Showcasing the Best of Alaska at Pacific Marine Expo

November 2, 2023 — The Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation (AFDF) is set to take the Main Stage at the Pacific Marine Expo on November 9 from 3:30 to 4:15 p.m. to celebrate the 30th year of the Alaska Symphony of Seafood. This annual competition is for commercial-ready, value-added products made with Alaska seafood. The Symphony presents an exciting platform that supports companies investing in product development that helps to further promote new products and competitively position Alaska seafood in national and global markets.

Peter Pan Seafood was deemed the 2023 Grand Prize Winner by creating a recipe of Wild Caught Alaska Salmon with Ribbon Kelp Chimichurri. Michael De Caro previously shared with National Fisherman about his process of creating the recipe.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Conservationists to sue NOAA Fisheries after killer whale deaths in Alaska

November 2, 2023 — The Center for Biological Diversity is planning to sue NOAA Fisheries following the revelation that nine killer whales have been killed during commercial fishing operations in the Bering Sea so far this year.

In October 2023, NOAA Fisheries announced that ten killer whales had been taken as bycatch by groundfish trawlers operating off the coast of Alaska. Only one of the whales survived the encounters.

Read the fool article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: North Pacific Council’s science committee voices concerns over chum bycatch plan

November 1, 2023 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting held at the Anchorage Hilton in October was not just one meeting – it was three meetings. In addition to the council itself, there was a meeting of industry stakeholders called the Advisory Panel, and a meeting of scientists called the Scientific and Statistical Committee – or SSC.

This fall the council tasked the SSC with reviewing a 120-page preliminary analysis of Bering Sea Chum Salmon Bycatch Management, and providing input on the “relative scientific uncertainty of management options.”

As KCAW’s Robert Woolsey reports, the committee of university, state, and federal scientists found a few things that were relatively uncertain.

At its October meeting the North Pacific Fishery Management Council  examined some potential management measures intended to reduce the amount of chum salmon caught by trawlers fishing for pollock in the Bering Sea. Many of those chum salmon – referred to as “bycatch” – may have been intercepted on their way to the Yukon, Kuskokwim, and other large river systems of Western Alaska, where chum salmon populations have crashed.

The council believes broader forces may be at work in causing chum salmon declines. The preliminary analysis prepared by the council’s scientists states that “declines in chum salmon populations appear to be driven by warmer water temperatures in both the marine and freshwater environments.”

Scientific and Statistical Committee member Dr. Ian Stewart, with the International Pacific Halibut Commission, had reservations about relying too heavily on temperature data.

Read the full at KCAW

ALASKA: Alaska’s snow crabs suddenly vanished. Will history repeat itself as waters warm?

October 31, 2023 — Garrett Kavanaugh grabs a fistful of freshly cooked crab and stuffs it into his mouth, a giant smile on his face, as his feet brace against the rolling sea beneath the deck of his boat.

“Oh yeah,” he says. “That’s what it’s all about.”

As the deck of his 58-foot-long boat rolls on the swells of the Gulf of Alaska, Kavanaugh, 24, cracks another crab leg between his tattooed fingers.

Long months of preparation and anticipation have led to this moment, as Kavanaugh and his three-man crew celebrate the first taste of the Dungeness crabs they’ve hauled up about 50 feet from the sandy ocean bottom off Kodiak Island.

In Alaska, last fall’s shocking collapse of the snow crab fishery shows that conditions for sea life can and are rapidly changing, even in ecosystems that have fed Indigenous people for thousands of years.

So far, this Alaska Dungeness crabbing season is off to a good start. But nothing is certain in these warming waters, where a new study concluded the snow crabs died out because the unusually warm water made their metabolisms run faster, causing them to starve. The study also found that many cod, which traditionally prey on young crabs, had left the area for the colder waters of the northern Bering Sea, “which rarely occurs.”

Read the full article at USA Today