Features – Page 10 – Fishermens News

Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star at Work in Antarctic Breaking Ice at McMurdo Station

U.S. Coast Guard cutters over the past four months completed two lengthy journeys, one in support of the U.S. Antarctic stations and a second to counter drug operations in the East Pacific Ocean. The first began in November with the departure of the Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star from its homeport in Seattle; the second began in mid-December at Port Angeles, California, concluding in early February. Crew aboard the Polar Star, on its 25th journey to Antarctica in support of Operation Deep Freeze, were to spend January and February breaking ice at McMurdo Station for fuel and supply ships, then return to the U.S. west coast in March. Upon return, the 46-year-old Polar Star, the nation’s solar provider of these crucial icebreaking services, was headed to drydock for maintenance and repai...

Northern Enterprises Boat Yard Undergoes Major Expansion

As a thriving boat repair and maintenance facility with a 40-year history, Homer, Alaska-based Northern Enterprises Boat Yard has periodically undergone expansion and infrastructure improvements. But the 35-acre boatyard, which is located about 220 miles south of the state’s capital and biggest city, Anchorage, has never faced as massive a project as the one completed in the past few months. “We added an extension to our present dock,” explained Ken Moore, who co-owns the facility with his wife, Roseleen “Snooks” Moore. “We extended the (existing) dock 50 feet. Along with that, we added a new dock for a 200-metric-ton (boat hoist) machine —all of our lifts are travel lifts, this will be the fifth lift we’ve bought. And the 200-metric-ton (travel lift) will pick (up) 240,000 pounds. So,...

Regional Update: Pacific Northwest Fisheries

Recent studies by Pacific Northwest fisheries officials note mixed conditions faced by fisheries in Washington state and Oregon, but also report an overall improved and positive outlook. NOAA Fisheries reported declines in the U.S. fishing and seafood industry as a result of COVID-19, and some flexible regulation changes were required in 2021 in an effort to stay nimble in uncertain times. NOAA also reported specific conditions generally associated with higher productivity for certain fisheries, resulting in a number of positive ocean indicators off the Oregon coast. These conditions have led to some favorable 2022 fishery forecasts. BROAD OVERVIEW There is some encouraging recent data, said Michael Milstein, spokesman for the NOAA Fisheries Pacific Northwest Regional Office, in a De...

Becoming Resilient

Gulf of Alaska seafood harvesters have lots of ideas about how to make themselves and their fisheries more resilient as climate continues to change, and NOAA Fisheries research scientist Marysia Szymkowiak is working with them to prioritize and mobilize plans for the rapidly emerging future. Harvesters’ ideas cut across science and communication, fisheries management, national and local policies and broader sociocultural issues, says Szymkowiak, who has spent a decade conducting research on the human dimensions of Alaska fisheries. “The folks I have talked to across the Gulf have put ideas forward like reducing carbon emissions from diesel engines through hybrid models, building networks between scientists and fishermen for exchanging knowledge, expediting policymaking within fisheries...

COVID-19 Created Huge Challenges, Losses for Alaska, West Coast Fisheries

A global pandemic raising havoc in health care and the nation’s economy, prompting cost-of-living increases and supply-chain disruptions, has cost the seafood industry in Alaska and Western states millions of dollars since the spring of 2020. If there’s a silver lining in those challenges, along with climate-change issues facing fisheries, it is that consumer demand for seafood is up, and so is the market price. When the novel coronavirus, aka COVID-19, began spreading rapidly two years ago, thousands of restaurants shut down, and customers of the food-service industry, ranging from universities to the tourism industry, also substantially decreased or halted their orders. With millions of people sick and many dying of COVID-19, seafood processors operating in Alaska and the U.S. West...

Vessel Profile: F/V Kiska Sea

The 125-foot crab vessel F/V Kiska Sea has returned to the snow crab grounds along the Russian border after a successful haul out at the Port of Toledo, Oregon. The haul out was the first of its kind for the Kiska Sea at the location. “The Port of Toledo was very accommodating,” vessel Capt. Mike Wilson from the helm via satellite phone. “They were good people.” Wilson has skippered the Kiska Sea since it launched in 1990 and was involved with design of the vessel when it was built, namely the functional elements of the deck layout. He began his fishing career when he was 17 in a Kodiak cannery. “Then I got a deck job and slowly worked my way to the wheelhouse,” he told Fishermen’s News. I’ve been skippering for close to 40 years now.” Owned by Seattle-based Aleutian Spray Fisheries,...

BC Takes Drastic Steps to Rebuild Pacific Salmon Stocks

With Pacific salmon stocks in long-term decline and many of those runs on the verge of collapse, the Canadian government is taking drastic steps in a multi-year program to reduce pressure on exiting stocks and to stabilize and rebuild abundance. “What cannot be debated is that most wild Pacific salmon stocks continue to decline at unprecedented rates—we are pulling the emergency brake to give these salmon populations the best chance at survival,” Bernadette Jordan, the then-Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, said before leaving office. She announced in mid-2021 long term closures of specific commercial fisheries and the launch of the Pacific Salmon Commercial Transition Program, which provides harvesters with the option to retire their licenses for fair-market v...

Boat Prep: Getting Your Vessel Ready for the Upcoming Season

For every profession there are tools of the trade—equipment that’s vital to success. Chefs have their knives; hairstylists have their scissors. For commercial fishermen, it’s what’s beneath their feet – their boat. It’s the one entity that separates them and their crew from the ocean’s murky depths. And before they head out to sea for weeks or months, their vessel needs to be prepared. “Their boat is their life,” explained Blaise Holly, lead shipwright at Haven Boatworks in Port Townsend, Wash. “All the conditions have to exist to ensure that boat brings you back and all the supply systems (are ready) for your fishing operation. When you’re heading out you want to do everything in your power to make sure your boat’s going to float, it’s not going to burst into flames , and it’s going to...

Aquaculture – Possible Big Moves in 2022

Over the last four decades in the U.S., interest in farmed seafood, aka aquaculture—at least at the federal level —has rolled in and out like the tide. However, interest alone has yet to result in the kind of projects that deliver large scale, national impacts. In the last two years alone, numerous aquaculture initiatives had high-level federal attention, including: October 2020, in response to a Presidential Executive Order, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a request for information on the development of Aquaculture Opportunity Areas (AOAs), with an initial focus on sites in the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. In August 2021, NOAA and the Department of Agriculture moved to update the National Aquaculture Development Plan. There should be more to co...

Looking Ahead at 2022: COVID-19 Plods On

While the ripple effects of the coronavirus continued to be felt throughout 2021, officials have told Fishermen’s News that the direct impact on the fishing industry in the year to come will be difficult to ascertain. Numerous offices were closed in 2021 and personnel continued to work out of their homes, as many West Coast fishermen continued to ply their trade in order to feed their region’s burgeoning human population. “Fishermen are hardy people,” said Michael Milstein, spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Portland. “They kept fishing.” Nonetheless, the pandemic’s reach was felt in the industry, slowing operations on various levels. “Tracking down exact reasons becomes a bit difficult,” said NOAA Affiliate, Jim Seger. “For the commercial fi...