May 25, 2016 — Scientists from NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center will embark from Dutch Harbor May 28 on another busy survey season, off Alaska’s coast, collecting data needed for fisheries managers to determine sustainable fishery harvest levels.
NEFSC Science and Research Director Dr. William Karp to Retire in September
WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — May 3, 2016 — Dr. William Karp, the Science and Research Director of NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, announced today in an email that he will be stepping down from the position at the end of September. Dr. Karp, who was appointed to the Director position in 2012, has over 30 years of fisheries research experience, working at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center before coming to the NEFSC.
The text of Dr. Karp’s email is reproduced below.
Dear Colleagues and Friends:
After a 30-year career with NOAA Fisheries, I have decided to retire from Federal service on September 30th, 2016.
When I started work at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in 1986, I was excited by the opportunity to work as a scientist in support of our mission while, at the same time, serving the public. My understanding of the breadth and depth of our mission has increased greatly during my 30 years of service, and my commitment to science-based management of living marine resources has remained strong. The work I have done during these 30 years has always been challenging and rewarding, and I have been honored to work with many skilled scientists and administrators. At the start of my career with NOAA, I joined the midwater assessment team at the Alaska Center, working on acoustic technologies and survey assessment of pollock in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. During my years at AFSC, I changed jobs, and direction, several times, working with different staff at the Center and, increasingly, with partners in academia, the fishing industry, and the international community. My time as Deputy Science and Research Director at AFSC was especially rewarding as I came to understand the incredible depth and breadth of the Center’s work, and the remarkable impact this has had on the science, management, and conservation of living marine resources throughout Alaska. Four years ago, I moved to Cape Cod to take on a new assignment as Director of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center. I was honored to be selected for the position and, as at the Alaska Center, have greatly enjoyed the opportunity to work with a highly dedicated and accomplished staff. The science and management challenges in New England and the Mid Atlantic differ markedly from those in Alaska, and, while this job has been very demanding, I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with staff, stakeholders, and academic and management partners to improve our science and better inform the management process.
My career with NOAA has been exciting, challenging, rewarding, and fulfilling. It has been my privilege and my pleasure to work with all of you.
Bill
Warmer Bering Sea will Reduce Future Pollock Harvests but Raise Prices
April 19, 2016 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Economic losses from a diminished catch will be partially offset by rising prices for the fish species that supports the nation’s single biggest seafood harvest, according to an analysis by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center.
The report, by economist Chang Seung and biologist Jim Ianelli and published in the journal Natural Resource Modeling, estimates that the total Alaska pollock harvest in 2050 will be 22.2 percent smaller than it was in 2004. But the dollar value of the harvest – total revenue from sales of raw pollock – will decline by only 9 percent, according to the report’s projections.
Pollock harvests in waters off Alaska generally range between 1 million and 1.4 million metric tons a year, with nearly all of that pulled out of the eastern Bering Sea. The 2012 catch of pollock from waters off Alaska totaled 1.31 million metric tons and brought in nearly $500 million to the harvesting fishermen, according to the report. The total value of the fishery is much greater than that when multiplier effects are considered; it mounts to billions of dollars as the economic activity expands along each step from the fishing vessel to consumers’ meals.
Future consumers will be willing to pay more for pollock for a variety of reasons, Seung said.
“There is a decrease in supply of pollock. That will increase the price a little bit,” he said.
In addition, the analysis assumes growth in the global population and economy, meaning expanded markets of fish-eaters and a positive shift in the demand curve, he said.
The analysis considers a range of scenarios that are averaged over the long term.
In the short term, Alaska pollock stocks and harvests fluctuate year to year. The gradual warming that is happening and is expected to continue will have effects in coming decades.
Effects of warmer waters on pollock are complicated, according to analysis by the Alaska Fisheries Science Center. Higher summer temperatures tend to spur growth of more young fish, but those conditions leave much less high-oil prey for them to eat. Though they are more abundant than their cold-summer counterparts, the warm-summer young pollock are low on the fat reserves they need to survive the winter. Since juvenile pollock are a major source of food for a variety of fish and marine mammals, winter survival is critical to stock sizes. Pollock populations can be plentiful if warm and cold years alternate, according to NOAA analysis, but there is concern about several sequential warm years causing big stock declines.
Do the future supply and demand changes mean the lowly pollock might become a more premium whitefish? Could pollock be the new cod?
Don’t count on it, advises Gunnar Knapp, a University of Alaska Anchorage economist with fisheries expertise.
“I don’t see it happening any time soon,” said Knapp, director of UAA’s Institute of Social and Economic Research.
Though groundfish is not his specialty, he said, his “gut instinct” is that pollock faces too many obstacles to become a prized fish like halibut, now considered a delicacy, or even cod, which has niche appeal as food with centuries-old traditions.
Those include competition from other whitefish, like farmed catfish and tilapia, along with the emerging farmed species from Vietnam, Pangasius hypophthalmus, which goes by the newly coined name “swai,” Knapp said. Swai was not even eaten in the United States until about 10 years ago but it is now a strong contender in the whitefish market, he said.
Future marketing of pollock could make a pitch for the product as wild and sustainably managed, Knapp added. Pollock also feeds spinoff markets for roe – generally a Japanese market subject to the changing value of the yen – and the paste known as surimi, making pollock economics a bit more complex than those applicable to other fish, he said.
This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.
The West Coast Challenge
March 9, 2016 — Fisheries on the West Coast of America have come under intense pressure after closures and a dramatic fall in stock levels. Adrian Tatum looks at the challenges over the last few years.
Sometimes when something is broken it seems almost impossible to fix. Commercial fishing on the West Coast of America is far from broken but parts of it do need fixing.
Nearly a year ago its commercial sardine fishery was closed after the population of Pacific sardines had fallen to alarming levels. In April last year, scientists made a recommendation for full closure after the population was estimated to be below 150,000 tonnes. It has been a dramatic decline, as in 2007 there were 1.4 million tonnes.
The sardine fishery has not only been a major revenue source for West Coast fishermen, but many other species of fish such as tuna also rely on a plentiful supply for food. Scientists believed that by closing it last year it would give the population a chance to recover. But just last month, it was revealed that the sardine population has not recovered, and is in fact still declining at a fast rate. Scientists from the National Marine Fisheries Service say that by the summer, the population is likely to be 33% lower than in 2015.
Bycatch reduction
Like most fisheries around the world, West Coast fishermen are facing up to a bycatch reduction plan. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is considering a plan which would allocate individual bycatch caps to groundfish vessels in the Gulf of Alaska rather than targeting specific large species. Back in 2011, the council passed a series of salmon and halibut bycatch reductions which angered fleet owners and fishermen. Now many Gulf of Alaska fishermen feel the recent changes will have a ‘crippling’ affect on its groundfish fleet.
Approximately 85% of the North Pacific groundfish fisheries are rationalised. This means fish quotas are assigned to individual vessels or fishing cooperatives. It is widely believed by some experts that this is the best way to ensure minimal bycatch, meaning vessels can fish without a time limit and are therefore more likely to avoid some of the endangered species such as salmon and halibut. But this process can also have a negative effect on the industry. Recent years have seen rationalisation being applied to the Bering Sea crab fishery where the number of boats fishing for crab fell by two thirds in just one year, with the loss of over 1,000 jobs.
Read the full story at World Fishing & Aquaculture
Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers Announce Updated Seafood Watch Recommendations for King and Snow Crab in Alaska
March 2, 2016 — The following was released by the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers:
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch® program has just released new and updated assessments on King and Snow crab from Alaska. Bristol Bay Red King (Paralithoides camtschaticus) crab from the Eastern Bering Sea has been elevated to a “Best Choice” by Seafood Watch. With this updated recommendation, all of the major crab fisheries in the Eastern Bering Sea, including two species of Snow crab (Chionoecetes opilio and C. bairdi) and Blue King crab from St. Matthews Island (P. platypus) meet Seafood Watch’s “Best Choice” standard.
The updated Seafood Watch recommendations maintain the “Avoid” status for all crab fisheries in the Russian portion of the Bering Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the Northern Sea of Japan. These “Avoid” listings reflect the fact that stocks are at critically low levels as a result of rampant illegal fishing and highly ineffective management.
“With these updated recommendations the Seafood Watch program is just confirming what we have known for years. King and Snow crab from Alaska is clearly the ‘Best Choice’ if you care about the health of the oceans and wish to support sustainable fisheries. We hope that consumers, retailers, and those in the food service industry will use these recommendations to make informed purchasing decisions and demand King and Snow crab from Alaska,” said Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers Science & Policy Analyst Ruth Christiansen.
Fisheries scientists plan for a changing Bering Sea
February 21, 2016 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council heard a draft plan for addressing climate change in the eastern Bering Sea earlier this month.
The plan was put together by scientists at the Seattle-based Alaska Fisheries Science Center, which is part of the National Marine Fisheries Service. Mike Sigler, program leader for the habitat and ecological processes research program at the science center, said the plan pulls together work that scientists there are already doing, and research they’d like to undertake.
“We have a clear understanding of species like walleye pollock, northern rock sole, red king crab, what will happen to them, and we can make quantitative forecasts of where they’re going. They’re not completely certain, but we have some good ideas of ecological processes,” Sigler said. “But then, we don’t have such good understanding for other species, like yellowfin sole, and we’re making a qualitative assessment of their vulnerability to climate.”
Eventually, the group wants to provide fisheries managers, like the North Pacific council, with a better look at what might be coming in 10 years — or even further down the road. One of the first parts of the plan is just putting together that qualitative assessment for more than a dozen species, which he expects to happen this year.
Read the full story from Alaska Dispatch News
ALASKA: Scientists draft fish management plan as Bering Sea changes
February 17, 2016 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council heard a draft plan for addressing climate change in the eastern Bering Sea earlier this month.
The plan was put together by scientists at the Seattle-based Alaska Fisheries Science Center, which is part of the National Marine Fisheries Service. Mike Sigler, program leader for the habitat and ecological processes research program at the science center, said the plan pulls together work scientists there are already doing, and research they’d like to undertake.
“We have a clear understanding of species like walleye Pollock, northern rock sole, red king crab, what will happen to them, and we can make quantitative forecasts of where they’re going. They’re not completely certain, but we have some good ideas of ecological processes,” Sigler said. “But then, we don’t have such good understanding for other species, like yellowfin sole, and we’re making a qualitative assessment of their vulnerability to climate.”
Eventually, the group wants to provide fisheries managers, like the North Pacific council, with a better look at what might be coming in 10 years – or even farther down the road. One of the first parts of the plan is just putting together that qualitative assessment for more than a dozen species, which he expects to happen this year.
Secretary of Commerce approves measure to reduce Bering Sea halibut bycatch
January 20, 2016 — The following was released by the NOOA Alaska Regional Office:
The Secretary of Commerce has approved a fishery management plan amendment to reduce halibut bycatch in four sectors of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands groundfish fisheries. NOAA Fisheries anticipates the amendment will reduce the actual amount of halibut bycatch in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands by approximately 361 metric tons compared to 2014. It may also provide additional harvest opportunities in the directed commercial, personal use, sport, and subsistence halibut fisheries.
In recent years, the International Pacific Halibut Commission – the joint U.S.-Canadian body charged with management of Pacific halibut – has determined that the exploitable biomass of halibut has declined, particularly in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands. This decline has resulted in reductions to the catch limits for the directed commercial halibut fishery in Area 4, in particular Area 4 CDE in the eastern and northern Bering Sea.
Groundfish fisheries–which seek to catch species like pollock and yellowfin sole–regularly encounter halibut as bycatch during their fishing operations.
In response to declining commercial catch limits for the directed commercial halibut fishery, in June 2015, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council recommended reducing halibut prohibited species catch (PSC) limits for the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands groundfish fisheries. The council’s recommendation was Amendment 111 to the Fishery Management Plan for Groundfish in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands.
Amendment 111 reduces the overall Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area halibut prohibited species catch (PSC) limit by 21% to 3,515 metric tons (mt). The PSC limits are reduced by specific amounts for the following groundfish sectors:
- Amendment 80 sector by 25% to 1,745 mt;
- BSAI trawl limited access sector by 15% to 745 mt;
- BSAI non-trawl sector by 15% to 710 mt; and
- Community Development Quota (CDQ) Program (CDQ sector) by 20% to 315 mt.
The Secretary approved Amendment 111 after determining that it is consistent with the national standards in the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.
NOAA Fisheries will publish a final rule for the measure this spring, which will go into effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register. For more information, visit NOAA Fisheries Alaska Regional website.
Largest US fishery (Alaska Pollock) proves it’s sustainable, again
January 14, 2016 — The following was released by the Marine Stewardship Council:
Seattle, WA – The largest fishery in the U.S. and the largest certified sustainable fishery in the world1, Alaska Pollock has again achieved re-certification to the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) Fisheries Standard. This science-based standard is the world’s most credible and recognized standard for environmentally sustainable wild-caught seafood. The Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska Pollock fisheries have been certified to this standard since 2005.
Alaska Pollock is among the top five most consumed fish per capita in the U.S2. Its mild flavor and flaky texture make it popular for consumers around the world. Primary markets for Alaska Pollock products are the U.S., Europe (where it is Germany’s most consumed fish) and Japan. The U.S. and Europe are the main markets for fillet-type products, which are used for fish and chips, fish tacos, fish sandwiches and fish sticks. Japan is the principal market for Alaska pollock surimi, which is used as the primary ingredient in a wide range of surimi seafood products (kamaboko).
Jim Gilmore, At-sea Processors Association, the fishery client for the Alaska Pollock reassessment emphasizes, “We are proud to be one of the 10 fisheries globally to be certified as meeting the MSC’s rigorous sustainability standard three times. Alaska Pollock continues to earn among the highest certification scores of any fishery in the MSC program. This re-certification reaffirms the Alaska Pollock industry’s continued leadership in responsible fishing.”
The 2016 Alaska Pollock season will begin on January 20. A federal fishery advisory body, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, recommended to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce a precautionary 1.34 million metric ton annual quota for the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands, which is several hundred thousand tons less than federal fishery scientists determined can be sustainably harvested. The Gulf of Alaska Pollock fishery is set at 257,872 metric tons, a 30% increase from the 2015 quota and within the safe harvest level determined by federal fishery scientists.
Pat Shanahan, Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers, the marketing trade association for Alaska Pollock said: “The fishery management system is known for its conservative management practices, so these quota increases indicate an exceptionally healthy Alaska Pollock fishery in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. Seafood buyers and consumers can rest assured that Alaska Pollock is one of the world’s largest and most sustainable fisheries.”
The internationally recognized blue MSC ecolabel will continue to assure consumers that Alaska Pollock products can be traced back to a certified sustainable source.
Brian Perkins, MSC regional director – Americas, said: “The MSC’s vision is for oceans to be teeming with life for future generations. Alaska Pollock has successfully created and maintained new markets, especially in the U.S. and Europe, over the past decade. We are extremely pleased to see this fishery succeed in the MSC process yet again.”
The independent assessment of the Alaska Pollock fisheries was conducted by MRAG Americas, an accredited third-party conformity assessment body. MRAG Americas assembled a team of fishery science and policy experts to evaluate the fishery according to the three principles of the MSC Fisheries Standard: the health of the stock; the impact of fishing on the marine environment; and the management of the fishery. The MSC process is open to stakeholders and all results are peer reviewed.
Factory trawlers praised for halibut conservation
December 26, 2015 — What a difference a year makes for the halibut bycatch controversy in the Bering Sea at the December meetings of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council in Anchorage. The flatfish factory trawlers, vilified for much of this year, reported vigorous and voluntary efforts at halibut conservation, and even received praise from the Pribilofs. Their zeal was prompted by what might be termed resolution number two-by-four of the fish council last summer, which slashed halibut bycatch by 25 percent.
“It was a huge hit to our sector,” said Chris Woodley, executive director of the Groundfish Forum said last week.
But voluntary efforts by the flatfish fleet have already saved 265 metric tons of halibut this year, he said, exceeding the goal of 217 metric tons.
He cited the benefits of a special federal permit allowing deck sorting that gets the halibut back into the water faster and with greater chances of survival. With the halibut removed from the net and returned to the water from the top deck of the boat, only about half the halibut die, down from the 83 percent that perish when kept inside the huge trawl net for up to two hours while below decks in the factory area, he said.
At last week’s NPFMC meeting, representatives of the factory trawlers in the Amendment 80 fleet said that they were already taking measures to limit halibut bycatch, getting out ahead of the 25 percent cut that takes effect next year.
Read the full story at The Bristol Bay Times