Article Category: News

The International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC) has adopted reduced catch limits totaling 38.34 million pounds coastwide, a reduction of 10.3% or 4.25 million pounds of the popular white fish. The action came at this past week’s annual meeting of the IPHC in Vancouver, B.C. and included new restrictions on the charter halibut fishery quotas in Southeast and Southcentral Alaska. Kurt Iverson, a fishery management specialist with NOAA Fisheries in Juneau, said surveys showed 18% fewer fish coastwide, with the catch-per-unit effort (CPUE) declining by 15%. Area 3A in the Central Gulf of Alaska, historically the largest area in terms of biomass, was the hardest hit, with its allowable catch dropping by 17%, or 2.47 million pounds. Last year’s total constant exploitation yield (TCEY) or ...

Legislation introduced in Congress by two California Democrats in late January would permanently ban oil and gas drilling in federal waters off the coasts of California, Oregon and Washington. The West Coast Ocean Protection Act of 2023, introduced by Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, (D-Calif.), would amend the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to permanently prohibit offshore drilling off the coasts of all three states for the protection of marine ecosystems. Huffman and Feinstein said according to recent polling by the Public Policy Institute of California, nearly 70% of Californians oppose offshore drilling. “Offshore drilling poses unacceptable risks, and the science and public opinion are clear: we should not put our oceans and fisheries, coastal comm...

A final determination released in late January by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding plans for a proposed mine adjacent to the Bristol Bay watershed in Southwest Alaska favors protections for the huge run of wild sockeye salmon and a multi-million-dollar fisheries economy. The EPA said its determination would protect waters important to sustaining the area’s salmon resources from disposal of dredged or fill materials associated with the copper, gold and molybdenum Pebble deposit that a Canadian mining firm wants to develop. The battle over the proposed development has been ongoing for two decades. “EPA has determined that specific discharges associated with developing the Pebble deposit will have unacceptable and adverse effects on certain salmon fishery areas in the ...

Washington State’s Department of Ecology has fined Trident Seafoods Corp. $25,000 for a February 2021 hydraulic oil spill into Tacoma’s Commencement Bay following a fire onboard Trident’s fish processor Aleutian Falcon. Trident is being fined for spilling oil, water negligence and not properly reporting a vessel emergency. According to a Department of Ecology report issued in mid-January, the Aleutian Falcon caught fire while docked for maintenance. Repair work ignited a wooden bulkhead and other materials. As the fire spread, hydraulic hoses on a crane were damaged, causing an estimated 20 to 30 gallons of hydraulic oil, mixed with firefighting water, to spill to the Hylebos Waterway. The spill was contained by a boom surrounding the vessel. The state report said other hazardous mate...

A new international research study has tracked 35,000 commercial fishing and support vessels, identifying their changing of country registration as well as hotspots of potential unauthorized fishing and activity of foreign-owned vessels.  Changing the country of origin is a practice also known as “reflagging.” The study, “Tracking Elusive and Shifting Identities of the Global Fishing Fleet,” was published Jan. 18 in Science Advances, the open-access, multidisciplinary journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Participants in the project were researchers from Global Fishing Watch, the Maine Geospatial Ecology lab at Duke University and the Stockholm Resilience Centre. The study found that close to 20% of high seas fishing is done by vessels that are either in...

Two research scientists with extensive backgrounds in crab fisheries said in January that they’re bent on unlocking new information in the coming months to help better track the future for Alaska king crab and snow crab fisheries currently foundering in a multi-million-dollar collapse. Research plans for 2023 call for a range of activities from satellite tagging at density centers to pot lifts and more collaboration with the crab industry, said Scott Goodman, executive director of the Bering Sea Fisheries Research Foundation (BSFRF), and president of Natural Resources Consultants in Seattle. The volatile Bering Sea crab fisheries, with a history of highs and lows, are currently for the most part in collapse. They peaked with a 130-million-pound red king crab harvest in 1980, then closed...

A large section of the Taku River watershed in northwest British Columbia has been established as an indigenous protected and conserved area (IPCA) by the Taku River Tlingit First Nation, in response to concerns over adverse impact from mineral extraction and climate change. The salmon-rich watershed, which covers 6,949 square miles or 1.8 million hectares, is the largest watershed on the Pacific Coast of North America inaccessible by road. The Taku River Tlingit First Nation, in Atlin, BC said its intent is to protect fisheries and wildlife vital to their health and cultural wellbeing. They invited those interested in mineral extraction to work with them on any plans for mineral exploration and development within the managed areas of the IPCA. The Taku River Tlingit have historically ...

Financial support from local governments, nonprofits and the seafood industry is pouring in to help Southeast Alaska salmon trollers, a small boat hook and line fishery, battle litigation that would bring their summer and winter commercial troll fisheries to a halt. The fishery, which provides a substantial number of harvesting and processing jobs, contributes significantly to the economy of Southeast Alaska. The litigation was brought by the Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC) in Seattle, which contends that an end to the trollers summer and winter fisheries would benefit Chinook salmon and Southern Resident killer whales, for whom these salmon are a diet staple. According to the WFC, the government has failed to address the impact of Alaska’s Chinook harvests on these killer whales. The WFC...

Mounds of plastic waste polluting the ocean and washing up on Alaska’s coastal shores will see new life as plastic construction materials in a plan Patrick Simpson has devised, right down to conversion into plastic lumber and bricks in rural fishing communities. For nearly 30 years, Simpson has used knowledge honed from an education in computer science at the University of California, San Diego to tackle needs of the commercial fishing industry, from sonar systems for fisheries stock assessment and monitoring marine mammals to producing food grade wild Alaskan salmon oil. Then in 2005, Simpson, who grew up in a fishing family in Cordova, Alaska, became focused on the prospect of turning vast quantities of myriad plastics polluting the ocean and washing up on rural Alaska shores into co...

Commercial fisheries harvesters are praising a Biden administration decision reinstating the Roadless Rule for the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska as an important move to protect wild salmon habitat, while Alaska’s governor criticized the decision. “Our fisheries depend on healthy habitat and with climate change driving ocean warming, protecting habitat is increasingly important to the fish, the fisheries and the coastal fishing communities,” said Linda Behnken, executive director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association in Sitka. “This is welcome news.” The governor called the move by the White House bad for the state’s economy. “This decision is a huge loss for Alaskans, and it’s yet another way the Biden administration is singling out Alaska,” Gov. Mike Dunleavy s...