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Comment Federal judge tosses another fisheries management rule

December 9th, 2016 — Federal judges keep smacking down the North Pacific Fishery Management Council’s decisions.

For the second time in the last three months, a federal court has overturned a management decision made by the North Pacific council and enacted by the National Marine Fisheries Service, or NMFS. The United States District Court of Washington overturned a 2011 decision relating to halibut quota shares harvested by hired skippers on Nov. 16.

Federal courts have overturned several council decisions in recent years. In September, a the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the council’s 2011 decision to remove Cook Inlet, Prince William Sound and Alaska Peninsula salmon fisheries from federal oversight.

In this case, the North Pacific council made a decision in 2011 regarding which halibut quota holders can use a hired skipper instead of being required to be on board the vessel. Due to the court’s ruling, NOAA will have to open that group back up after limiting it in 2011.

Julie Speegle, the NMFS Alaska Region spokesperson, said the agency will change the impacted halibut fishermen’s quota shares to reflect the court’s ruling and that the council itself will review the issue.

Read the full story at the Juneau Empire 

ALASKA: SE legislators seek inclusion in pink salmon disaster request

October 26th, 2016 — A pair of Southeast legislators is asking the governor to include Southeast fishermen in Alaska’s request for federal disaster relief under the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

Sitka representative Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and Ketchikan representative Dan Ortiz made the appeal in a letter to Governor Bill Walker on October 21, on behalf of Southeast fishermen affected by this season’s weak pink salmon return.

Under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, fishermen are eligible for automatic disaster relief if the value of a fishery drops more than 80-percent below its five-year average.

Staffers for Kreiss-Tomkins and Ortiz calculated this season’s loss at 55-percent, which qualifies the Southeast pink salmon fishery for “further evaluation” for disaster relief.

Governor Walker in September applied for disaster relief for the pink salmon fisheries in Prince William Sound, Kodiak, Lower Cook Inlet, and in Chignik.

In Southeast, pink salmon are targeted primarily by seiners. In their letter, Kreiss-Tomkins and Ortiz argue that Southeast fishing families are facing huge losses through no fault of their own, and there is no reason to bar them from the same support requested for Southcentral fishermen.

Read the full story at KCAW

Cook Inlet Fishermen Tell N. Pacific Council They Have Lost Faith in Alaska’s Salmon Management

October 18th, 2016 — Concerned fishermen gathered at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council’s October meeting in Anchorage to discuss a recent federal court decision that turns control of salmon fisheries in Cook Inlet, Prince William Sound and the Alaska Peninsula over to state management.

Though stakeholders brought their suggestions, the council did not direct its staff to any action related to the subject of a salmon FMP. Instead, the council reiterated that the decision will be remanded back to the lower court where it could either be appealed or produce a directive for the council to write a salmon FMP.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council governs federal fisheries, which take place from three to 200 miles offshore.

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

Southern fisheries earn win in federal court

September 26th, 2016 — A federal appeals court has ruled in favor of a state commercial fishing organization that challenged a decision to move several southern Alaska salmon fisheries from federal to state management.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday overturned the decision by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. The ruling means the case will go back to U.S. Alaska District Court and that federal fisheries policymakers will have to work with state managers on a new management plan, The Alaska Journal of Commerce reported.

The United Cook Inlet Drift Association sued over the council’s 2011 decision to remove Cook Inlet, Prince William Sound and Alaska Peninsula salmon fisheries from the federal fisheries management plan. The 2013 suit was initially rejected by District Court Judge Timothy Burgess. But the group appealed, arguing that the state’s plan doesn’t adhere to the same high standards as federal rules.

Federal fisheries management plans must be in line with the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which require fisheries managers to consider optimum yield, best available science, equitable allocations and community health among other factors.

The Cook Inlet group called the appeals court ruling a win for Alaska’s fishermen and the health of the resource.

 

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Juneau Empire 

ALASKA: Salmon season is in full swing, and dungeness is going strong

July 11, 2016 — Salmon takes center stage each summer but many other fisheries also are in full swing from Ketchikan to Kotzebue.

For salmon, total catches by Friday were nearing 28 million fish, of which 10 million were sockeyes, primarily from Bristol Bay. Last week marked the catch of the 2 billionth sockeye from the Bay since the fishery began in 1884.

Other salmon highlights: Southeast trollers wrapped up their summer chinook fishery on Tuesday after taking 158,000 kings in just eight days. The chinook catch is strictly limited by a U.S. and Canada treaty, and for only the third summer in 15 years, trollers won’t get another allotment for an August opener.

Sockeye catches at the North Peninsula were so strong, the fleet was put on limits by Peter Pan Seafoods, the lone processor in the region. The harvest there topped 1.3 million reds last week.

It’s been slowing going around Kodiak Island, where the catch was approaching 700,000 fish, mostly sockeyes. The pace was picking up at Cook Inlet with a catch nearing 400,000, primarily reds. At Prince William Sound, the harvest of chums, pinks and sockeyes topped 7.6 million fish.

Read the full story at the Alaska Dispatch News

KARL JOHNSTONE: Federal management of Cook Inlet fisheries would be a step back

May 11, 2016 — Were U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens alive today, he would be shocked to discover Alaska commercial fishermen (see commentary by United Cook Inlet Drift Association President Dave Martin, published by Alaska Dispatch News April 24) want to use the federal legislation he co-authored — the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act — to bring federal overreach to Cook Inlet only miles from the state’s largest city.

The now 40-year-old act booted foreign fishermen out of the 200-mile fisheries zone of the Alaska coast and led to the restoration of depleted fisheries, as detailed in a commentary published by ADN April 12. But the feds continue to struggle with how to manage bycatch in what are now domestic offshore fisheries.

Alaska salmon managers, on the other hand, have been successfully dealing with bycatch problems since statehood. Sometimes facing threats from commercial fishermen, they cleaned up mixed-stock fisheries that had decimated salmon stocks throughout the northern Panhandle.

In Cook Inlet, they wrote the book on best management for mixed-stock, mixed-species management that weighs commercial and noncommercial fishing interests. The reason the feds elected to delegate to the state all authority for salmon management, not only in Cook Inlet but also on the Alaska Peninsula and Prince William Sound, is not what Martin claims, not as some desire to dodge a role in moderating the inevitable fish wars that surround commercial, subsistence, personal use and sport allocations. The reason the feds took themselves out of the picture is they realize the state is already doing a better job than they could do.

Read the full opinion piece at Alaska Dispatch News

Scientists Link Oil Exposure to Reduced Survival of Fish

September 8, 2015 — ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Federal scientists may have found a link between the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill and a decline of herring and pink salmon populations in Prince William Sound.

In a study published Tuesday in the online journal Scientific Reports, researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that embryonic salmon and herring exposed to even very low levels of crude oil can develop heart defects.

Herring and pink salmon juveniles that were exposed to crude oil as embryos grew slower and swam slower, making them vulnerable to predators, said John Incardona, a research toxicologist at NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, in a prepared statement

“These juvenile fish on the outside look completely normal, but their hearts are not functioning properly and that translates directly into reduced swimming ability and reduced survival,” Incardona said. “In terms of impacts to shore-spawning fish, the oil spill likely had a much bigger footprint than anyone realized.”

The 986-foot Exxon Valdez struck a charted Bligh Reef at 12:04 am March 24, 1989, spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil. At the time, it was the largest spill in U.S. history. Oil extensively fouled shoreline spawning habitat of herring and pink salmon, the two most important commercial fish species in Prince William Sound.

Read the full story at The New York Times