The challenges of climate change, market conditions and politics aside, Alaska’s fisheries resources remain healthy overall, Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang told a legislative task force seeking to evaluate the state’s seafood industry.
“Yes, we have some poorly performing stocks—for example king salmon and Bering Sea crab—but overall, our fishery resources remain healthy,” Vincent-Lang told the joint legislative task force meeting in Juneau on Sept. 19.
The commissioner recounted the status of the state’s commercial fisheries, from groundfish and halibut to salmon, including the impact of changing climate, the markets and political issues for each. He also covered related litigation, particularly a lawsuit aimed at shutting down the Southeast Alaska king salmon troll fishery.
“More and more lawsuits are challenging the prosecution of our fisheries,” Vincent-Lang said.
He spoke in defense of the state’s hatcheries, which he said play a key role in providing stability to harvesters and processors in years of low production. Fish and Game is on schedule to begin producing and reporting final results for the pink salmon portion of the Alaska Hatchery Wild Project in 2025 and chum salmon in early 2026, he said.
Along with litigation over the king salmon troll fishery, the state is facing challenges to state managed personal use and subsistence fisheries and a federal fisheries management plan to reduce halibut bycatch in the Bering Sea, he said.
“We must defend the state’s right to manage our fisheries,” he remarked. “This right was a foundational part of our statehood and ever since, we have been challenged to maintain that right.”
Bristol Bay red king crab abundance is slowly increasing, and the 2024-25 season will open for a second consecutive year on Oct. 15, following a two-year closure, while the Bering Sea Tanner crab fishery will open with an anticipated total allowable catch in the 6-7 million pound range, more than double the 2023-24 TAC, he said.
Current stock size for the Bering Sea snow crab fishery is still near historic low abundance levels, but there is potential for a small fishery in 2024-25 pending conclusion of a federal stock assessment process, a positive sign for Bering Sea snow crab, according to Vincent-Lang.
Despite generally positive abundance trends for Gulf of Alaska Tanner crab, the 2025 harvest levels will likely be slightly below 2024 levels, he said. Dungeness crab stocks across the Gulf of Alaska meanwhile, appear to be benefiting from the 2016 Gulf of Alaska marine heatwave.
Alaska’s salmon fisheries have been troubled by extreme divergence in even and odd year pink salmon abundance, strong sockeye salmon returns and low Chinook salmon abundance statewide. The second, third, fourth and fifth-largest and three of the smallest commercial salmon harvests on record happened in the last decade. This year is likely to be the lowest commercial salmon harvest since the 1970s.
Vincent-Lang said he anticipates continued divergence in even and odd year pink salmon abundance, with odd years producing larger returns than even years. Sockeye salmon returns will continue to be variable.
While there are signs of improving Chinook salmon productivity in Southeast Alaska, most of the state’s Chinook salmon stocks are experiencing poor recruitment due to marine conditions, he told legislators.
Most major herring stocks in the Craig, Sitka sound, Kodiak and Togiak are at or near historic high levels of abundance. Despite that high abundance, they have been hampered by the lack of a market, Vincent-Lang stated.
The cost of doing business, for both for harvesters and processors, remains an issue of concern.
“Fish prices have not kept pace with inflation and increases in operational costs,” he explained.
While global demand has not increased substantially, supply has come from foreign players, notably Asia and Russia, flooding global markets and lowering demand for more costly but sustainable products like Alaska’s seafood, he said.
Alaska fishermen are having to pay to ensure their products are certified as sustainable while other producers, are not held to the same standards, resulting in them having lower operational costs, he said.
Alaska fishermen also are facing high operational costs for fuel and labor and high interest on loans.
Vincent-Lang acknowledged that harvesters are facing challenges with bycatch and intercept issues too.
“The goal is to reduce bycatch and intercept and action needs to be taken at both the federal and state level,” he said.
The commissioner also called for changes in U.S. trade policies that will allow Alaska products to be treated fairly and equitably on global markets.
Since Russian seafood has been banned from U.S. markets, he said, efforts need to be taken to establish Alaska’s market share in the domestic marketplace.
“The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute does a great job marketing Alaskan products worldwide. We need the same effort to cement Alaska seafood into the U.S. markets,” he said. “This will ensure a long-term market for Alaskan fish.”