December 10, 2024 โ Salmon industry advocacy group SalmonState is calling on the Alaska State Board of Fisheries to limit or eliminate the Prince William Sound pollock pelagic trawl fishery โ the only such fishery managed by the state.
The state board will consider four separate proposals that would either add further restrictions on the state-managed pollock fishery or eliminate it entirely at its annual meeting in Cordova, Alaska, taking place 10 to 16 December.
July 16, 2024 โ For harvesters in Cordova interested in recycling those huge, old commercial fishing nets, there are still two opportunities to do so before the season winds down.
Nicole Baker, of Net Your Problem, came to Cordovaโs Sandy Point and spoke with harvesters about the two final recycling periods: Aug. 2-3 and Sept. 27-28. Net Your Problem has already conducted four prior recycling sessions, the first in May.
Baker said gillnet harvesters are instructed to strip cork lines, weedlines and lead lines and keep hangings out of the net. Leads and corks should be saved in a separate pile for recycling. Seiners must strip off cork lines, purse lines, chafe gear and lead lines. Save the leads and corks, purse line and chafe for recycling in a separate pile.
November 16, 2023 โ Sean Den Adel and his fiance Skye Steritz live in Cordova and are among a handful of small-scale seaweed farmers in Prince William Sound.
Theyโve been harvesting mostly sugar kelp on about five acres of water since 2022. Den Adel said heโs excited about the future of the industry, which he sees as more sustainable โ ecologically and economically โ than the fisheries that have supported Prince William Sound for generations.
โI really do think itโs going to create a lot more jobs in coastal communities, and it already is doing that,โ he said.
But in order to grow the industry, Cordovaโs kelp farmers need a way to process seaweed locally.
Prince William Sound has experienced five fisheries disasters since 2016, in part because of climate change. These disasters put a major economic strain on coastal communities. Growers like Den Adel are hoping seaweed can help bolster and diversify the regionโs economy.
Cale Herschleb, another Cordova-based kelp farmer with Royal Ocean Kelp Company, has commercially fished for salmon in Prince William Sound for the last 15 years. The fisheries disasters have been challenging and the future of salmon fishing feels uncertain, he said, and growing kelp makes sense as an off-season occupation.
December 1, 2021 โ Over 1 million pounds of old fishing nets and lines from Alaska have made it so far to recycling markets where they are remade into plastic pellets and fibers.
The milestone was reached with a recent haul of nets from Dutch Harbor and more are already adding to the total. Shipping vans filled with old gear collected at Haines were offloaded in Seattle last week and another container from Cordova is on its way.
Dutch Harbor was the first to sign on four years ago with Net Your Problem, a small Seattle-based company that jumpstarted fishing gear recycling in Alaska and facilitates its collection and transport, primarily to Europe. The Net Your Problem team has partnered with the city and the regionโs Qawalangin tribe to sort through piles of old nets and lines dumped at the landfill and undertake continuing outreach to boat owners to encourage them to recycle their gear.
Similar partnerships have formed in other Alaska coastal communities to start or sustain a recycling effort.
At Cordova, the Copper River Watershed Project collected and prepped roughly 16,000 pounds of gillnets for recycling so far, said Net Your Problem founder Nicole Baker-Loke, a former Alaska fisheries observer and current research associate at Washington State University.
May 25, 2021 โ Last yearโs weak sockeye salmon run and the global pandemic created a wave of uncertainty and fear here for people in Cordova. This year, with two Copper River commercial openers under their belt, Cordovans are hopeful.
The usually soggy coastal fishing community is delicately positioned on the eastern edge of Prince William Sound and nestled at the bottom of the Chugach Mountains.
On Tuesday, following the first opener of the year, people took turns snatching pieces of freshly caught Copper River king salmon from the grill โ a celebratory first fish tradition thatโs rougher around the edges compared to Seattleโs red carpet fanfare.
โ2020 was miserable,โ third-generation fisherman Matt Honkola said. โTo get back to the way things were, I think all of our spirits, we needed this.โ
Each summer, king, sockeye and coho salmon return to the Copper River โ a roughly 300-mile-long waterway that extends from the Gulf of Alaska east of here north to the Wrangell Mountains.
May 5, 2021 โ Alaskan Salmon has launched a new direct-to-consumer online business that offers a VIP waitlist for Americans who want to be the first to have Copper River king and sockeye salmon delivered directly to their homes.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Cordova, Alaska-based Alaskan Salmon supplied Copper River salmon solely to foodservice buyers.
March 18, 2021 โ For years, Bret Bradford has lived the seasonal rhythm of a commercial fisherman. He spends summers gillnetting salmon out of Cordova, and in the winter, he looks for odd jobs around town.
When a friend asked if wanted to spend the winters growing kelp instead, he saw an opportunity for stable, year-round work.
โI thought, man, how hard could it be to grow kelp?โ he said.
Bradford already has a boat and knowledge of the water. And the timing is perfect: kelp farmers plant seeds in the fall and harvest them in the spring, just before fishing season.
And heโs not the only one jumping on the kelp bandwagon. Interest in kelp farming has been building in Alaska since the stateโs first commercial harvest in 2017. Bradford is one of more than 40 aspiring kelp farmers that have submitted applications to the state since.
August 10, 2020 โ On Wednesday, August 5, the Cordova City Council unanimously passed a resolution encouraging the state and the federal Secretary of Commerce to declare fisheries disasters for two years: the 2018 Copper River Chinook and sockeye salmon runs and the 2020 Copper River and Prince William Sound Chinook, sockeye and chum salmon runs. The resolution also urges state and federal governments to declare a โcondition of economic disaster in Cordova as a result.โ
The fishing town of Cordova, located in South-central Alaska between the Copper River to the east and Prince William sound to the west, is the home port for nearly 800 vessels, most of which are the first to harvest returning salmon in Alaska every spring. The town of 2,500 is now the first, of what will likely be at least one or two others, to ask for a fisheries and economic disaster declaration in 2020.
May 15, 2020 โ An Alaska commercial fishing season unlike any other kicked off in Cordova on Thursday.
Normally, the Copper River gillnet season, the first salmon fishery to open in the state, is known for high-priced fish and celebrity-level fanfare: One of the first fish to be caught is flown to Seattle via Alaska Airlines jet, and greeted with a red carpet photo opportunity.
From there, plump ruby fillets of Copper River salmon typically fetch astronomical prices at fine dining restaurants and markets. Last year, Copper River king salmon sold for $75 per pound, a record, at Seattleโs famed Pike Place Fish Market.
In this pandemic year, things are different all around: The Alaska Airlines first fish photo op will still happen, but the festivities have been tamped down and six-foot distancing and masks are now required. Instead of a cooking contest pitting Seattle chefs against each other, a salmon bake for workers at Swedish Hospital in Ballard is planned.
May 15, 2020 โ The people of Cordova, Alaska, had weathered the coronavirus pandemic with no cases and the comfort of isolation โ a coastal town unreachable by road in a state with some of the fewest infections per capita in the country.
But that seclusion has come to an abrupt end. Over the past two weeks, fishing boat crews from Seattle and elsewhere have started arriving by the hundreds, positioning for the start of Alaskaโs summer seafood rush.
The fishing frenzy begins on Thursday with the season opening for the famed Copper River salmon, whose prized fillets can fetch up to $75 a pound at the market. Before the pandemic, Cordovaโs Copper River catch was flown fresh for swift delivery to some of the countryโs highest-end restaurants.
But the town of about 2,000 people has been consumed in recent weeks by debates over whether to even allow a fishing season and how to handle an influx of fishing crews that usually doubles its population.
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