Saving Seafood

Pink salmon disaster relief finally on the way

January 22, 2020 — It’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.

“There 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,” 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 disaster relief payments delayed

November 27, 2019 — Federal relief payments to permit holders who participated in the disastrous 2016 Gulf of Alaska pink salmon fishery have hit another snag, and now won’t be forthcoming until March.

News of the payment delay, which was slated to be within six to eight weeks of the Oct. 31 deadline for skipper applications for relief reached Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, on Nov. 15.

Permit holders can now expect to receive their disbursements six to eight weeks after the Jan. 31 deadline, she said.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is in the process of updating information on the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission website to explain the situation and post a new timeline. Permit holders should keep an eye out on psmfc.org for changes.

According to AD&G, the delay was needed because it became apparent to the agency that there was very consistent underreporting by the skippers of crew in certain fisheries.  Additionally, only 65 percent of permit holder applications were returned to the PSMFC, the interstate compact agency named to administer these disaster funds.

Read the full story at The Cordoba Times

ALASKA: Payments For 2016 Pink Salmon Fishery Disaster Delayed

November 21, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Fishermen who were expecting payments from the 2016 Gulf of Alaska pink salmon fishery disaster relief in December will have to wait until March to receive their checks, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Many Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission permit holder applicants misreported their crew percentages or did not list any crew at all, said Karla Bush, the Fish and Game federal fisheries coordinator.

The Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission will delay payments until after the crew member application deadline on Jan. 31.

“I know participants were expecting checks to come six to eight weeks after the Oct. 31 deadline. That’s now going to be pushed back,” Bush said.

The Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission is an interstate agency that helps resource agencies and the fishing industry manage fisheries resources. Member states include Alaska, California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

After crew members send in their applications, Fish and Game will match crew members to the permit holders they work for. Payments will be sent to permit holders and crew at the same time, Bush said.

Payments to crew will be deducted from the permit holder’s total disaster payment based on the crew shares provided in the permit holder’s application.

The amount each permit holder received was calculated by averaging the value of pink salmon caught in even years from 2006 to 2014, minus the value of fish caught in 2016.

However, fishermen were concerned that the payment calculation did not take into account the unique circumstances in the fishing industry.

For example, some fishermen switched from a lower volume gear type to a higher volume gear type. Others had a partial catch history instead of a full or no catch history, causing their payments to be substantially less than others who fished alongside them, according to a letter written by Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak.

To address such issues and review calculations, an appeal process was put in place. Friday was the deadline to appeal.

These payments are part of the $53.8 million approved by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in July to restore losses caused by a poor 2016 salmon season in the Gulf of Alaska. The areas receiving funds are Kodiak, Prince William Sound, Chignik, Lower Cook Inlet, South Alaska Peninsula, Southeast Alaska and Yakutat.

Fishery permit holders and crew will receive $31 million, fish processors will receive $17.7, municipalities will receive $2.4 million and $3.63 million will go to research.

The payments to municipalities will be based on losses of fish taxes, Bush said.

Calculations for municipality payments are not yet available because NOAA is working the office of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget on the approval process.

Municipalities will use the funds for specific projects related to the pink salmon fishery such as projects that support the pink salmon fishing fleet.

“The people at NOAA grants are trying to work with the office of OMB in the White House to see at what level the projects need to be approved,” Bush said. “OMB wants to approve the list of projects that each municipality will put forward themselves. We know that that will cause some additional delays, so we hope those will be approved by Pacific States or NOAA grants and not have to be forwarded all the way to the highest level.”

Fish and Game is also waiting on fishery tax information from the Alaska Department of Revenue as a basis to calculate the payments, Bush said.

The tax information is vital before calculating the payment amount, because the Department of Revenue does a “split between the cities and boroughs and so I would expect the city of Kodiak and the Kodiak Island Borough would be getting a share of those moneys,” Bush said.

To expedite future fisheries disaster funding, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., chairman of the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, sponsored legislation that would reform NOAA’s Fishery Resource Disaster Relief program of the National Marine Fisheries Service to expedite relief for fishermen during fishery disasters.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Alaska’s 2019 salmon season by the numbers

November 13, 2019 — Alaska’s 2019 salmon season was worth $657.6 million to fishermen, a 10% increase from the 2018 fishery.

Sockeye salmon accounted for nearly 64% of the total value, topping $421 million, and 27% of the harvest at 55.2 million fish.

Those are the lead takeaways in a summary from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game that reveals preliminary estimates of salmon harvests and values by region. The final values will be determined in 2020 after processors, buyers, and direct marketers submit their totals paid to fishermen.

Pink salmon were the second most valuable species, representing 20% of the total dockside value at $128.6 million and 62% of the harvest at just over 129 million fish.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Pink salmon payout

August 28, 2019 — 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

The water is so hot in Alaska it’s killing large numbers of salmon

August 20, 2019 — Alaska has been in the throes of an unprecedented heat wave this summer, and the heat stress is killing salmon in large numbers.

Scientists have observed die-offs of several varieties of Alaskan salmon, including sockeye, chum and pink salmon.
Stephanie Quinn-Davidson, director of the Yukon Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, told CNN she took a group of scientists on an expedition along Alaska’s Koyokuk River at the end of July, after locals alerted her to salmon die-offs on the stream.

She and the other scientists counted 850 dead unspawned salmon on that expedition, although they estimated the total was likely four to 10 times larger.

They looked for signs of lesions, parasites and infections, but came up empty. Nearly all the salmon they found had “beautiful eggs still inside them,” she said. Because the die-off coincided with the heat wave, they concluded that heat stress was the cause of the mass deaths.

Read the full story at CNN

Study: Hatchery-raised Alaskan pinks compete with sockeye for food

August 13, 2019 — Some scientists who study the food web in North Pacific Ocean waters off the US state of Alaska are beginning to fear that hatchery-raised pink salmon are posing overly stiff competition to sockeye when it comes to their common food source, zooplankton, the Associated Press reported.

The news service quoted biological oceanographer Sonia Batten who has studied zooplankton abundance and found it to wax and wane, which she attributed to the odd- and even-year cycle of pink salmon.

“The only thing that we have in this whole area with an up and down, alternating-year pattern is pink salmon,” Batten, who works for Canada’s Marine Biological Association, said.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

ALASKA: Feds still working on plan for $56M in disaster relief funds

June 12, 2019 — Alaska fishermen are still awaiting disaster relief funds for the 2016 pink salmon run failure that was the worst in 40 years.

Congress approved $56 million that year for Alaska fishermen, processors and communities hurt by the fishery flop in three Alaska regions: Kodiak, Prince William Sound and Lower Cook Inlet.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game and National Marine Fisheries Service finalized plans and procedures for payouts last August. Since then, the paper push has stalled on various federal agency desks.

NMFS missed a promised June 1 sign off deadline and now says the funds will be released on the first of July, according to Rep. Louise Stutes of Kodiak, who has been tracking the progress.

“It affects all the cannery workers all the processors, all the businesses in the community,” she said. “This has a big trickle-down effect.”

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Alaska Fish and Game forecasts a 2019 salmon catch of 213.2 million fish

April 10, 2019 — Alaska fishermen could catch 85 percent more salmon this year (nearly a hundred million more) if state forecasts hold true.

That’s good news for fishermen in many Gulf of Alaska regions who in 2018 suffered some of the worst catches in 50 years.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is predicting a total salmon catch of 213.2 million fish for 2019, compared to about 116 million salmon last year. The increase comes from expectations of another big haul of sockeyes, increases in pinks and a possible record catch of chum salmon.

The harvest breakdown calls for 112,000 chinook salmon in areas outside of Southeast Alaska. The catch for the Southeast troll fleet, which is determined by a treaty with Canada, will be 101,300 kings, a 5,600-fish increase.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News