Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Cook Inlet fisheries to get $9.4M in disaster relief for 2018, 2020

September 26, 2024 — Two Cook Inlet salmon fisheries will receive more than $9.4 million in federal disaster relief that was held up, in part, by technical difficulties. They’re among ten Alaska fisheries getting money, the state’s Congressional delegation announced Friday.

In all, ten fisheries across the state will receive $277 million for disasters dating back to 2018. They include 2020’s Upper Cook Inlet salmon fishery and 2018’s Upper Cook Inlet east side setnet fishery.

Other fisheries that will receive money through the distribution include Bering Sea crab, Kuskokwim River and Norton Sound salmon and Gulf of Alaska pacific cod.

However, Friday’s announcement comes almost six months after U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola called on U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to address payment holdups caused by a software glitch.

Last year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, started using new accounting software, Business Applications Solution. NOAA is one of the agencies responsible for moving relief funds through the federal government. Peltola says problems with that software have held up disaster relief.

Read the full article at KDLL

ALASKA: Commission rejects permanent use of dipnets in Cook Inlet setnet fisheries

July 3, 2024 — Despite granting emergency authorization to dipnets for commercial setnet fisheries in Cook Inlet and even indicating “the commission intends to make the emergency regulation permanent” in that decision, the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission on Tuesday, June 25, decided not to approve dipnets as a permanent gear type for the fisheries.

Despite this move, the emergency approval will remain effective through the current fishing season before expiring in September.

The meeting comes as the conclusion to a regulatory process to add dipnets to the fisheries that began in May. That process, too, followed approval of dipnets for Cook Inlet commercial fisheries by the State Board of Fisheries in March. The board said that dipnets could be a more selective gear for harvest of sockeye salmon without killing king salmon.

Both the board and the commission needed to approve dipnets before they could be used in the fisheries, and the emergency approval allowed their use in the first opening of the season last weekend.

Commissioner Glenn Haight, in voting down the permanent proposal, said that the emergency regulation will remain active. If people try that fishery and want to have dipnets added as a permanent gear type, he said they should petition the commission again next year with more time to “take a good, hard look at it.”

Read the full article at the Homer News

ALASKA: Local meetings this week to familiarize fishers with new Cook Inlet EEZ regs

May 14, 2024 — A series of meetings hosted by the National Marine Fisheries Service intended to familiarize fishers with new commercial fishing regulations in the Cook Inlet Exclusive Economic Zone will be held in Kenai and Homer this week.

In Kenai, the informational meeting will be held on Wednesday, May 15, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Quality Inn.

In Homer, the informational meeting will be held Thursday, May 16, also from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., at Best Western Bidarka Inn.

Read the full article at the Peninsula Clarion

US federal government takes over Cook Inlet salmon management from Alaskan state oversight

May 3, 2024 — NOAA Fisheries will take over management of commercial and recreational salmon fishing in the Cook Inlet from the U.S. state of Alaska in June, the agency announced this week.

The action follows more than a decade of legal maneuvering, beginning with the United Cook Inlet Drift Association (UCIDA) suing NOAA Fisheries for not developing a management plan for the Cook Inlet exclusive economic zone.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

NOAA issues final ruling on Cook Inlet federal fishing waters

May 2, 2024 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has issued a final ruling on a disputed commercial salmon fishing area in Cook Inlet.

The Cook Inlet Exclusive Economic Zone, or EEZ, starts three miles off shore and is where drift gillnet fishermen catch the majority of fish. In 2020, commercial fishermen sued over management of the fishery. Courts and fishermen went back and forth, and a year ago, the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council was tasked with choosing a new management plan. In an unprecedented move, the council took no action, which turned the decision over to NOAA Fisheries.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: In victory for commercial fishermen, court orders Cook Inlet fishery to reopen

July 5, 2022 — Cook Inlet drift fishermen can fish the federal waters of the inlet this summer after all.

That’s after a district court judge shot down a federal rule that would have closed a large part of the inlet to commercial salmon fishing. Fishermen said it would have been a death knell for the fishery, which has 500 drift permit-holders.

One of those permit-holders is Erik Huebsch, of Kasilof. He’s vice president of the United Cook Inlet Drift Association, which filed the suit. And he said he’s pleased.

“Opening the EEZ is vital to the fleet,” Huebsch said. “Without opening the EEZ, the drift fishery is really not viable. That’s where we go to catch fish.”

The EEZ is the inlet’s exclusive economic zone. And it’s the federal waters that start three nautical miles offshore, south of Kalgin Island.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Cook Inlet fishermen are gearing up for weak sockeye and king runs again. They worry about the future of the fishery.

February 14, 2022 — A weak run is again forecasted for Upper Cook Inlet sockeye, continuing a trend of poor runs that has fishermen worried about the future of the fishery.

“It unfortunately may be a harbinger of the future,” said Ken Coleman, a setnetter and vice president of the Kenai Peninsula Fishermen’s Association, which represents eastside setnetters. He’s among the commercial fishermen disappointed with the report released by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game Monday.

The forecast projects a run of 4.97 million sockeye in 2022. About 2.97 million of those fish, the forecast said, will be available for harvest by all users.

The forecasted run is weak by historical standards. The inlet’s 20-year average is about 6 million fish.

But runs over the last few years have been below that. The sockeye run in 2020 was so bad that the U.S. Secretary of Commerce declared it a disaster, along with several other Alaska fisheries.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

 

ALASKA: Aid from fisheries disasters can take years to come through

February 1, 2022 — Earlier this month, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce declared disasters for over a dozen fisheries in Alaska — more than the federal government usually approves at once.

The designation is supposed to unlock funds to help the communities impacted by those fisheries failures, including communities around Cook Inlet. But it can take years for the money to reach fishermen’s pockets.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said the timing is one of the problems with the process.

“If you’ve had a disaster that happened in 2018, we’re sitting here in 2022 and you’re saying, ‘Really? You think that that’s going to help me?’ In the meantime. I’ve got a boat mortgage that I’ve got to be paying. I’ve got a crew that I’ve got to be paying. This doesn’t help me at all,” she said.

The state knows the process can be lengthy and tries to expedite it where possible, said Rachel Baker, Alaska’s deputy Fish and Game commissioner.

Read the full story from KDLL at KTOO

Groups prod feds to act on plan to save Cook Inlet beluga whales

January 24, 2022 — As Cook Inlet beluga whales continue to slide closer to extinction, a coalition of conservation groups petitioned the federal government this week to do more to save them.

The National Marine Fisheries Service has not made much progress in carrying out the recovery plan it created in 2016 to reverse the decline, the groups say.

“It’s been a little bit over five years now. And the population is is not recovering. In fact, it’s worse,” said CT Harry, with the Environmental Investigation Agency, a group behind the petition.

EIA has produced a report on the government’s efforts to help the whales. It’s titled “Five Years of Failure.”

Harry noted that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration continues to grant permits for activities in the inlet that emit noise or otherwise disturb the whales.

“The goal in our petition is to basically tell NOAA to follow their own advice by reevaluating how these harassment authorizations are permitted,” Harry said. “And to not look at each one on an individual basis, but to look at them on a cumulative basis to determine the cumulative stress impact of a multitude of threats.”

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

 

Dunleavy administration enters court fight alongside feds to keep Cook Inlet fishing grounds closed

January 13, 2022 — Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration will be fighting in court to keep much of Cook Inlet closed to commercial salmon fishing after a federal judge approved the state’s request to intervene in a lawsuit over the fishery.

U.S. District Court of Alaska Judge Josh Kindred granted the state’s motion Jan. 6 to join the National Marine Fisheries Service as a defendant in suits filed last fall by the United Cook Inlet Drift Association and individual fishermen in an attempt to force the agency to reopen the federal waters of central Cook Inlet to salmon fishing this coming season.

Often referred to as the EEZ — an abbreviation for its formal name, the exclusive, economic zone — the area currently closed by federal regulations this year covers all of the waters beyond 3 miles offshore in central Cook Inlet. Fishing would still be allowed in state waters up to the 3-mile line.

Intervening in the consolidated lawsuits also puts the state in the odd legal circumstance of arguing alongside the federal government in court to prevent what Dunleavy administration officials insist would be a gross example of federal overreach.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News