Saving Seafood

Inquiry into the fatal Scandies Rose sinking begins in Seattle

February 23, 2021 — A two-week federal inquiry into the fatal sinking of the F/V Scandies Rose — lost on New Year’s Eve 2019 west of Kodiak Island — opens today in Seattle.

The U.S. Coast Guard and partner agencies will hold a virtual formal hearing to consider evidence related to the sinking of the Dutch Harbor-based fishing vessel until March 5.

The 130-foot crab boat sank near Sutwik Island, Alaska around 10 p.m. on Dec. 31, 2019 with seven crew members aboard. Two fishermen were rescued wearing gumby survival suits in a life raft, but five others were never found.

The search spanned over 20 hours, 1,400 square miles, and included four MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crews, two HC-130 Hercules airplane crews and crew aboard the Coast Guard cutter Mellon.

The hearing will focus on the conditions before and at the time of the sinking, the Coast Guard said in a statement. This will include weather, icing, fisheries, the boat’s condition, owner and operator dynamics, the regulatory compliance record of the vessel and testimony from the survivors and others.

Read the full story at KTOO

Alaska salmon hatchery critics call for decreased caps

October 5, 2018 — Salmon that begin their lives in Alaska hatcheries often save the day for thousands of fishermen when returns of wild stocks are a bust. This year was a prime example, when pinks and chums that originated in hatcheries made up for record shortfalls for fishing towns in the Gulf of Alaska.

“This year Kodiak hatchery fish added more than $6 million for fishermen, and also for sport fish, subsistence and personal use fisheries,” said Tina Fairbanks, director of the Kodiak Regional Aquaculture Association, in testimony to the Kodiak Island Borough after one of the Island’s poorest salmon seasons.

But Alaska’s hatchery program, which has operated since the early 1970s, is under assault by critics who claim the fish are jeopardizing survival of wild stocks.

A Kenai sportfishing group said in statements to the state Board of Fisheries that “massive releases of pinks from Prince William Sound hatcheries threaten wild sockeye and Chinook salmon” bound for their region. An individual from Fairbanks is calling for a decreased cap on how many pink salmon some hatcheries are allowed to release to the ocean each year.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Alaska: Pink salmon harvest below forecast, slightly up from 2016

August 31, 2018 — Though pink salmon harvests are ahead of what they were in 2016, the last comparable run-size year, they are still significantly below the forecast level.

As of Aug. 28, Alaska’s commercial pink salmon harvest was 38.2 million fish, about 4 percent ahead of the harvest in 2016. Pink salmon have a two-year life cycle, with large runs in even years and smaller runs on odd-numbered years, so the harvests are compared on every other year as compared to year-over-year like other species. Two years ago, the pink salmon runs returned so small that the U.S. Secretary of Commerce declared a fishery disaster on the Gulf of Alaska pink salmon fisheries.

The total harvest so far is slightly more than half of the forecasted 69.7 million fish for this season. Cook Inlet’s fishermen have harvested about 965,000 pinks, significantly more than the 465,000 in 2016. The vast majority of those — about 838,815 pinks — have been harvested in Lower Cook Inlet, largely the southern district bays around the lower edge of the Kenai Peninsula south of Kachemak Bay. The Port Graham Section alone has harvested 345,648 and the Tutka Bay Special Harvest Area has harvested 269,165, both of which have pink salmon hatcheries nearby.

Pink salmon harvest varies in other areas of the state. Kodiak’s harvest of pinks so far is behind the forecast but significantly better than in the 2016 disaster year. The Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Islands and Bristol Bay are both behind both their forecasts and the 2016 harvest. Southeast’s pink salmon is about 67 percent below its normal even-year harvest, with about 7.3 million pinks harvested so far compared to the 18.4 million harvested in 2016.

Read the full story at the Peninsula Clarion    

 

Prehistoric stone fish trap discovered on Alaska island

June 29, 2017 — Archaeologists have discovered a prehistoric fish trap constructed of rock walls near the mouth of a salmon stream on Alaska’s Kodiak Island.

The trap is in a lower intertidal zone that’s covered by ocean water at high tide and exposed at low tide, the Kodiak Daily Mirror reported (http://bit.ly/2t0of5f) Tuesday.

Archaeologists at the Alutiiq Museum in the city of Kodiak identified the trap. Salmon at high tide could swim into the stream, and when the tide receded, fish would be stranded in one of two corrals, said Patrick Saltonstall, the museum’s curator of archaeology.

Prehistoric fish traps previously have been found in streams on Kodiak, the second largest island in the United States, Saltonstall said. The V-shape devices faced upstream and channeled salmon to a spot where fishermen could spear fish. Saltonstall had not seen an ocean trap on Kodiak before.

“These are the first ones we’ve found in the intertidal zone, and that’s kind of exciting,” he said.

The trap reminded Saltonstall of stone walls of a New England farm.

“They’re pretty big piles. They’re like four or five feet across. They’re stacked,” he said. Wood or netting may have helped capture fish.

One corral was roughly rectangular. Farther from shore was a U-shape corral. Together they stretched about 165 yards (150 meters).

The trap is not in shape to catch fish now.

“The walls have gotten too low and they’re too many gaps,” Saltonstall said, likely from tides knocking down rocks over centuries or silt covering the base. Large rocks anchor the trap but most rocks, weighing around 80 pounds (36 kilograms), would have been carried and stacked by hand.

Read the full story at ABC News

Coast Guard calls off search for 6 fishermen on crab boat

February 14, 2017 — The search has been called off for the six veteran fishermen aboard a crabbing boat missing in the icy, turbulent Bering Sea.

The fishing vessel Destination went missing early Saturday after an emergency signal from a radio beacon registered to the ship. The signal originated from 2 miles off St. George, an island about 650 miles west of Kodiak Island.

The Coast Guard released a statement Monday night saying the search has been suspended.

“We extend our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the six crewmembers during this extremely difficult time,” said Rear Adm. Michael McAllister, commander of the Coast Guard 17th District. “The decision to suspend a search is always difficult and is made with great care and consideration.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at KTTC

Researchers developing cheaper, faster monitoring method for paralytic shellfish poisoning

August 22, 2016 — Researchers are developing a field test kit that would make it easier to monitor for paralytic shellfish poisoning.

Project partners include NOAA researchers from the Lower 48 as well as community testers based on Kodiak Island and in the Alaska Peninsula.

Despite the high level of toxicity found in shellfish in the Kodiak Archipelago, people still harvest them.

Julie Matweyou, who works in the Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program and has been a long-term researcher of PSP, said a person becomes sick when they eat shellfish that have consumed toxic plankton.

She explains paralytic shellfish poisoning is exactly what it sounds like.

“The PSP toxins can cause tingling of the mouth, paralysis, tingling of the extremities, nausea, headache, people describe a floating sensation,” she said. “And in a severe toxin event, the person would experience paralysis of the limbs, which would progress into paralysis of your diagram, which would cause respiratory paralysis.”

A faster, cheaper way to monitor for PSP could prevent sickness in harvesters and even save lives. The testing also would be helpful in collecting more data about when toxicity peaks and when it declines.

Read the full story at KTOO