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West Coast Salmon, Sardine Fisheries to Receive $18 million in NMFS Disaster Funding

May 4, 2020 โ€” At long last, some disaster relief funding is headed to the West Coast for state and tribal salmon industries and the commercial sardine industry.

NMFS notified Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., this week of a more than $18 million award, which was appropriated in 2018. It is now up to the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission to distribute the funds according to state spending plans and in accordance with NMFS guidance and terms of the awards, NMFS said when notifying congressional staff.

Read the full story at Seafood News

NOAA grants Alaskan Fisheries $24.4 million in disaster relief funding

February 28, 2020 โ€” Thursday the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), approved a $24.4 million dollar disaster relief package to help restore the loss of fisheries impacted by the 2018 pacific cod fishery disaster and sockeye salmon failure in Chignik.

The money will be administered by the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission who will distribute the relief payments to fishermen and their deckhands, processors, and fishery research in the affected regions.

Read the full story at KTUU

Pink salmon disaster relief finally on the way

January 22, 2020 โ€” Itโ€™s been a long time coming, but payments should soon be in hand for Alaska fishermen, processors and coastal communities hurt by the 2016 pink salmon run failure, the worst in 40 years. The funds are earmarked for Kodiak, Prince William Sound, Chignik, Lower Cook Inlet, South Alaska Peninsula, Southeast Alaska and Yakutat.

Congress okayed more than $56 million in federal relief in 2017, but the authorization to cut the money loose languished on NOAA desks in Washington, D.C., for more than two years.

The payouts got delayed again last October when salmon permit holders, who share the biggest chunk at nearly $32 million, were finally able to apply to the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission for their checks.

But when it was discovered that the way in which the payouts were calculated was badly flawed, the commission put on the brakes.

โ€œThere was a big snafu because a lot of the crew was under-reported by the skippers. So Pacific States said that until everything gets squared away, no one is going to get any checks,โ€ said Rep. Louise Stutes (R-Kodiak) who has been watchdogging the payouts since the pink fishery was declared a disaster.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

ALASKA: Pink salmon payout

August 28, 2019 โ€” Applications should now be in the hands of Alaska salmon fishermen and processors hurt by the 2016 pink salmon fishery failure.

NOAA Fisheries last month approved $56.3 million in relief funds at Kodiak, Prince William Sound, Chignik, Lower Cook Inlet, South Alaska Peninsula, Southeast Alaska, and Yakutat.

Funds are being distributed by the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission (PSMFC).

Salmon permit holders who show losses from the pink bust will split $31.8 million based on average dockside values over even years from 2006 to 2014.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

ALASKA: Disaster declarations, relief in limbo for multiple fisheries

January 16, 2019 โ€” The last few years of commercial fishing for Alaska have turned up poor for various regions of the state, resulting in disaster declarations and potential federal assistance.

The 2018 season proved no different, with at least two disaster requests in the works at the state level. A third is in process at the federal level, and yet another is finally distributing money to affected fishermen from the 2016 season.

The three in process still have to be approved before going to Congress, where funds can be appropriated to assist fishermen. The process is affected by the federal government shutdown, as most of the National Marine Fisheries Service employees are furloughed until a resolution is reached.

The pink salmon disaster, which was requested in 2016 after catches across the Gulf of Alaska came in dismally below expectations, is awaiting a finalized plan for distributing $56 million in relief funds.

The plan is currently being reviewed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration before the fund distribution is coordinated by the Pacific State Marine Fisheries Commission, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

 

Industry, agencies working to avoid whale entanglements

November 14, 2018 โ€” LONG BEACH, Calif. โ€” Whale entanglements off the West Coast and potential solutions to the escalating problem are the focus of a new report including the presentations and observations of fishermen, biologists and fisheries managers who gathered at an August workshop.

In recent years, growing populations of humpback and gray whales, changing ocean conditions and prey locations, and later crab season openings have led to more whales getting entangled in fishing gear, such as the ropes and floats that mark the location of crab pots. In 2017 there were 31 confirmed entanglements off the West Coast, including two humpbacks and a gray whale off the Washington coast, according to a press release from NOAA Fisheries. While NOAA concedes these entanglements are still proportionally rare, they sometimes lead to the deaths of entangled whales, so both fishermen and fisheries managers are seeking solutions.

To understand how and where rope and other gear entangles whales and to find ways to address the problem, the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission (PSMFC) and NOAA Fisheriesโ€™ West Coast Region convened a two-day workshop in Long Beach, California, in August. This โ€œforensic workshopโ€ was also supported by The Marine Mammal Commission, Oregon Sea Grant, and the Aquarium of the Pacific. The report from the workshop is now available at tinyurl.com/whale-entanglement-report.

The report provides the notes and presentations from the 31 California, Oregon, and Washington experts who attended. Participating were Dungeness crab fishermen; gear specialists; marine mammal biologists and disentanglement specialists; conservation groups; and federal, tribal and state agency representatives.

Read the full story at the Chinook Observer

 

ALASKA: Relief funds for 2016 pink season slowly moving forward

September 20, 2018 โ€” The distribution of federal fund for fishermen who got walloped by the disastrous 2016 pink salmon season inched another step forward yesterday.

Tuesday was the final day to comment on the proposed distribution plan.  Once the funds are finally released they will be administered by the Pacific States Marine Commission, which is based out of Portland. The relief funds will be distributed according to the plan being finalized now.

As it sits now, Kodiak pink salmon fishermen would receive nearly $7 million to help offset the losses sustained when pink salmon stocks crashed in the summer of 2016.

Thatโ€™s roughly 22 percent of the total amount assigned to fisheries participants under the current distribution proposal for the 2016 Gulf of Alaska pink salmon disaster funds.

The bulk of the $32 million being set aside for fishermen would go to compensate those who participated in the Prince William Sound pink salmon fishery.

In all more than $56 million was appropriated by Congress to address the 2016 disaster. The money would be divvied up into four broad categories which include research, participants, municipalities and processors.

Funds for participants are based on a formula which considers ex-vessel value of losses and five-year even-year average ex-vessel value in each of seven management areas.

Read the full story at KMXT

Permit holders, processing workers included in pink salmon disaster money draft plan

September 10, 2018 โ€” Under a draft plan released this summer, commercial fishermen in Southeast Alaska would get only a small portion of the $56.3 million appropriated by Congress to address a pink salmon disaster in 2016.

However, those who worked at seafood processing plants that year could be in line for some of the money as well.

A year and a half ago, the U.S. Commerce Secretary declared the 2016 pink season across the Gulf of Alaska a fishery failure due to unusual ocean and climate conditions. The state of Alaska and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have come up with a draft spending plan for how to allocate the money to fishermen, processors, municipalities and researchers.

The money will be paid out by an agency called the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission.

Sebastian Oโ€™Kelly is a lobbyist in the nationโ€™s capital. His clients include the Petersburg borough and that commission. Oโ€™Kelly briefed the Petersburg borough assembly on the spending plan Monday.

โ€œI wanna talk a little bit about the allocation and the break out and the criteria that will be used in distributing the relief because you will have fishermen, processors and the borough itself as active participants and recipients of this funding,โ€ Oโ€™Kelly said.

Read the full story at KTOO

Alaska: Management impact on fishing families studied

May 9, 2018 โ€” In a series of workshops in five Alaska communities, National Marine Fisheries Service hopes to learn more about the impact of fisheries management on Alaskaโ€™s fishing families.

Perspectives on fishing family dynamics that emerge from the workshops will inform the next phase of this research, according to Marysia Szymkowiak, a social scientist with the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Juneau, and Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission.

Workshops have already been held in Juneau, Homer, Sitka and Anchorage, and a fifth workshop is slated for June 4 at Kodiak.

During the Anchorage workshop on May 7, several participants spoke about the value of family fisheries as a source of nutritional food, income and family dynamics, particularly in a multi-generational setting, for teaching the next generation a strong work ethic.

Read the full story at the Cordova Times

 

LED Lights Show Promise for Decreasing Salmon Bycatch in West Coast Whiting Fishery

November 10, 2017 โ€” SEAFOOD NEWS โ€” Light-emitting diodes โ€“ LEDs โ€“ are proving effective for lowering bycatch in fisheries besides West Coast pink shrimp.

A study by the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission and the Northwest Fisheries Science Center shows that LEDs are very effective in directing Chinook salmon to escape windows in Pacific hake trawl nets, according to a statement from the National Marine Fisheries Service. Chinook salmon bycatch in the hake fishery, the largest groundfish fishery on the West Coast, can be an issue; if too many Chinook salmon are caught, management measures may be implemented to conserve salmon stocks.

NMFS requested an Endangered Species Act Section 7 re-consultation on the take of salmon species in the West Coast groundfish fishery in 2013. Now, four years later, the biological opinion or โ€œBiOpโ€ and accompanying incidental take statement is scheduled to be completed in December.

However, avoiding salmon bycatch is an ongoing issue for the whiting fishery and the midwater rockfish fishery. The use of LEDs on the nets, similar to how they are used in the pink shrimp fishery to channel eulachon smelt out escape holes, may prove useful in the future. The LEDs researchers and fishermen used for this project were developed for use on longlines, designed for rugged use in the ocean environment.

The development of efficient, cost-effective LED technology has led to a growing list of innovative residential and industrial applications, according to the statement from NMFS. With NOAA Fisheriesโ€™ Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program funding, researchers found LEDs can play an important role in productive and sustainable fisheries as well.

Data show that Chinook salmon are much more likely to exit the nets where lights are placedโ€”86 percent of escaped salmon used the well-lit, LED-framed openings. While further research is underway, the data suggest the LEDs can increase the salmonโ€™s escapement overall, NMFS said.

Mark Lomeli, a researcher at the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, said the challenge was to develop a salmon excluder design to lower incidental salmon bycatch. He and other researchers worked with fishermen to use two sets of large, open escape windows that allowed salmon to swim out.

โ€œOur data and video observations indicate that at deeper, darker depths where trawl nets go, light from the LEDs are enhancing the salmonโ€™s ability to perceive the escape areas and the areas outside the nets,โ€ Lomeli said in the NMFS report.

The key to keeping hake in and guide Chinook out is fish behavior. Salmon are stronger swimmers and can escape. By the time the whiting get to part of the net where the excluders are positioned, they are too fatigued to swim out.

Researchers said the technology could also be adapted for other fisheries, such as for reducing salmon bycatch in the Alaska pollock fishery.

โ€œMany fishermen are aware of this technology now and use it if they think Chinook bycatch will be an issue,โ€ Lomeli was quoted as saying in the statement. โ€œItโ€™s easy to use, relatively cheap, and widely available. You can easily clip the lights to the webbing of the net around the escape openings. With these research results in hand, the lights are on the shelf for them when they need them. We think these LEDs are low-hanging fruit for contributing to the recovery of this species, and can also play an important role in the stability of this fishery.โ€

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

 

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