Saving Seafood

Unprecedented salmon declines force fish donations to Alaska’s Yukon River villages

August 3, 2021 — For 47 years, Jack Schultheis has spent fishing season around the mouth of Yukon River.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Schultheis said from Emmonak, where he is general manager of Kwik’Pak Fisheries, a commercial enterprise set up to help the regional economy in the Lower Yukon. In a regular season, the operation would be involved in commercial fishing, buying fish, and processing.

But this year, returns of staple salmon species are abysmal, prompting the state, regional non-profits, and processors to coordinate deliveries of fish from other parts of the state. Kwik’Pak isn’t fishing at all. Which means local residents aren’t earning cash to put towards essential needs, including gas and supplies for their own subsistence activities.

Communities up and down the Yukon are coming to terms with a collapse in key stocks, and now confronting the prospect of a winter without enough food. Tribal groups working in the region say the situation is dire, and are scrambling to find alternative ways to get protein and assistance to some of the most rural households in the state.

Runs of kings and chum salmon on the Yukon have been so low that subsistence fishing for both have remained closed. In the case of kings, the number of fish in the river has been in decline for decades, along with the average size of fish harvested, according to decades of data compiled by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: “It’s the fabric of our culture coming apart”: Yukon River communities face chinook and chum closure

July 26, 2021 — In late June, summer chum salmon numbers in the Yukon River were the lowest on record. The Chinook run is also extremely low, resulting in ongoing closures of salmon fishing on much of the Yukon River.

The loss is causing anxiety for more than 30 riverside communities that depend on chinook and chum as a main source of protein for the winter.

Ben Stevens is the Tanana Chiefs Conference tribal resources manager. Stevens is from Stevens Village on the upper Yukon and said he has never before seen such a total shut down.

Below is a transcript of an interview with Lori Townsend on Alaska News Nightly with minor edits for clarity

Ben Stevens: We’ve seen chinook crashes before in recent history. We were still okay with the idea because we had something else to fall back on. And that was the fall chum.

This year, it’s unprecedented because we don’t have the chinook or the fall chum and that has disturbed our folks to a level I haven’t seen before.

Lori Townsend: Are there other river or tributary opportunities close enough that could help people get fish in other places? Or is it just not possible?

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Fearing dismal salmon runs, Kwik’Pak fisheries pivots to gardening

June 21, 2021 — In recent years, the chum salmon runs on the Yukon River have been low. This year, it is too early to tell how the run will be. But with commercial fishing becoming a less reliable venture, one fishing enterprise is hoping to find stability by turning to veggies.

The goal is to keep the business operating and workers employed, so Kwik’Pak Fisheries in Emmonak is diversifying its business by building greenhouses right next to its fish processing plant.

Traditionally, Kwik’Pak is the only fish buyer in the lower Yukon and one of the region’s main employers during the summer. During good chum and coho salmon runs, Kwik’Pak can employ between 100 and 300 workers on a given day. A number of those employees are teenagers from villages all over the lower Yukon.

“It’s great seeing these kids, ‘cause their self-esteem and well-being, they just glow because they have work,” said Jack Schultheis, who manages Kwik’Pak Fisheries. “They have their own money. And not just menial work, but when they can use the imagination and their intellect.”

Read the full story at KTOO

Community Steps Up to Continue Yukon River Salmon Research During Pandemic

May 20, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

On the Yukon River, Chinook salmon are woven into the fabric of life and culture. They are a resource that indigenous people have harvested for more than 1,000 years. But over the last 20 years or more, the Chinook populations have declined dramatically. Fewer Chinook are returning to the river each year, and those that do are smaller and younger than they have been in the past. This has created hardship for the people who rely on this resource. It is nurturing a strong desire to understand and contribute to solutions to address the dwindling returns.

Ragnar Alstrom, Executive Director of Yukon Delta Fisheries Development Association, explains it this way: “We want to be a part of figuring out why our Chinook aren’t returning. Instead of standing by and waiting for someone else to figure it out, we want to be engaged in the science.”

So began a special partnership between NOAA Fisheries, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and local fishermen from the villages of Emmonak and Alakanuk. Starting in 2014, the Yukon Delta Fisheries Development Association (YDFDA) worked with scientists to identify nine permanent sampling stations on the three main lower Yukon distributaries. Each summer, local fishermen and NOAA Fisheries biologists work together. They set and retrieve salmon sampling nets, identify and count the catch, and measure water temperature and depth. They send salmon samples to the NOAA Fisheries Auke Bay Laboratories where their diet and body condition are analyzed.

Read the full release here

Study: Mercury contained in fish from Alaska’s Yukon River could exceed EPA human health standard by 2050

September 29, 2020 — The amount of mercury contained in fish from Alaska’s Yukon River could exceed the standards for human health set by the Environmental Protection Agency by 2050 if greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed, according to new research financed in part by NASA.

Under a high emissions scenario, the mercury content in the Yukon River could double by 2100.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ALASKA: Yukon River Communities Ask Governor To Declare Fishery Disaster

September 28, 2020 — Organizations representing Yukon River communities are drafting a letter to Gov. Mike Dunleavy seeking a fishery disaster declaration for this summer’s salmon season.

Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association Executive Director Serena Fitka says that it’s been an especially tough year, with high water impeding fishing for much of the summer and runs coming in weak, particularly the fall chums many were counting on to save the season.

“The numbers are so low after the mixed stock analysis at the Pilot Station sonar,” Fitka said. “The numbers are below 200,000. So that’s a record low number of return fall chum.”

Read the full story at KYUK

ALASKA: Opponents pack Anchorage hearing on salmon habitat ballot measure

September 21, 2018 — A ballot initiative aimed at protecting salmon habitat is facing stiff opposition from industry groups, unions and Native corporations in Alaska. That opposition was on full display at an Anchorage hearing on the measure held this week.

As required by law, the state is holding a series of public hearings on the initiative.

Before the hearing, about a dozen demonstrators gathered to chant and wave signs saying “Vote No on 1” on a nearby street corner. The demonstration was organized by Stand for Alaska, a group formed to oppose the measure. Supporters of the ballot measure, which would toughen the state’s permitting requirements for projects built in salmon habitat, also showed up to demonstrate ahead of the hearing.

Inside, the hearing room was packed, with attendees lining the walls and spilling out into the hallway. Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott, who oversees the Alaska Division of Elections, presided over the hearing.

“Time will be very tight,” Mallott said in his opening remarks. “With the number of folks that have signed up, it looks like we will be hard-pressed to hear everyone.”

The first speaker was Stephanie Quinn-Davidson, one of the measure’s sponsors and head of the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. She argued that as companies pursue more large mines and oil developments in Alaska, the state needs to protect salmon runs from impacts seen in the Lower 48.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Alaska Board of Fish Finds for Salmon Emergencies in Chignik and the Yukon

July 19, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Alaska Board of Fisheries declared the low Chignik sockeye return an emergency yesterday, as well as a situation in the Native villages of Grayling, Anvik, Shageluk, and Holy Cross on the Yukon River triggered by years of low chinook salmon returns.

The petition brought to the Board by the Kenai River Sportfishing Association to reverse the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s decision to allow increased production of pink salmon at the Valdez Fisheries Development Association’s hatchery in Prince William Sound was voted down 3-4. KRSA was concerned with straying into Cook Inlet and ocean capacity issues.

Their concerns will be addressed in the regularly scheduled cycle of meetings later this year. Yesterday’s meeting was whether several petitions — including one that was submitted the evening before the Board meeting — met the standard of an emergency.

Three petitions asked the Board to issue a “finding for an emergency” on the Chignik sockeye run, two concerned about the early run and one on the late run to Chignik. All asked for additional conservation measures in waters outside of the Chignik Area L management district to protect those sockeye heading to Chignik Lake.

In a 5-2 vote, the Board found for an emergency on all three petitions. ADF&G has already executed conservation measures in the adjacent Area M management district to protect sockeye in transit to Area L. Yesterday’s decision extends the restricted measures in a subsection of the Dolgoi Islands, an outer area that traveling sockeye move through on their way to Chignik, until August 8 or “unless and until escapements for the late run to Chignik improve.”

Board Chair John Jensen and Robert Ruffner voted against the finding.

“I’m happy to take this up in the regular cycle rather than create regulations now,” Jensen said during the discussion. The management of Area L and Area M are among others the Board will discuss during their meetings later this year.

With the finding, additional conservation measures will be taken, but already the department is managing the South Peninsula salmon runs with “outside the box” protections for traveling Chignik salmon.

ADF&G Commercial Fisheries Director Scott Kelley noted “For Chignik and for the South Peninsula fisheries, we are keeping a close eye on the Chignik weir counts, we have daily communications on that, the WASSIP (Western Alaska Salmon Stock Identification Program) data for traveling Chignik salmon, we are literally going hour to hour, day after day. It’s a balancing act, but we are using the best biological data to base our decisions on and taken some ‘outside the box’ management actions at Chignik.”

The Board also found for an emergency in the four Native Villages on the Yukon, referred to as GASH: Grayling, Anvik, Shageluk, and Holy Cross.

The Board agreed in a 7-0 vote to amend regulations for the lower portion of Subdistrict 4A on the Yukon River to allow for drift gillnet subsistence fishing after August 2.

Low king salmon returns on the Yukon River in the past 5 years have forced fishermen to supplement subsistence harvests of kings with chum salmon. The change allows fishermen to use gillnets to harvest a biologically allowable surplus of fall chum salmon moving through the district.

Two other petitions, one from the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe and Yakutat Fish and Game Advisory Committee of Yakutat to close all areas of the Situk River, and one from the Upper Cook Inlet setnet group, were not acted upon. Those petitions were not denied, but rather failed for lack of a motion.

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